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Michael Bennett: "A Chorus Line"

As a creator, Michael Bennett was drawn to the sadism in the entertainment industry. You see this theme in both "A Chorus Line" and "Dreamgirls."

"A Chorus Line": A chilly, male director torments his ex-girlfriend. Uncomfortable with whatever emotions he is feeling, Zach chooses to hound Cassie: A kick is too high, a shoulder "pops" too soon. There's subtext: Zach is hiding behind the guise of a demanding casting director, but really he is playing mind games with Cassie. There's a "MeToo" aura in the scene, especially notable because the real harassment is just under the surface.

The sadism in "Dreamgirls" is equally unnerving. I'm thinking of Effie's big breakdown. You don't get a chance to scrape Effie off the pavement; she's still convulsing downstage when the other girls re-appropriate her collapse; they take her words and turn them into a slick pop tune. The heartlessness of the music industry: It's an unforgettable move. (Something similar happens with "Got Me a Cadillac." It's soulful in the hands of black singers; when a white singer gets his hands on the song, it loses its juiciness, and of course it also becomes a Number One hit. And the real artist is never thanked.)

Well, that's one way to look at Bennett's work--and now I want to point out a few more things about "A Chorus Line," in preparation for its (brief) return to NYC in November.

-My favorite moment is "I Can Do That." It makes me think of Patti Smith's "Just Kids"--when Smith watches a rockstar and discovers she is feeling contempt, because she knows she can match or surpass what she is seeing onstage. The detail I particularly love is when the speaker grabs his sister's dance garb: "One morning Sis won't go to dance class. I grabbed her shoes and tights and all--but my foot's too small. So I stuffed the shoes with extra socks. Ran seven blocks. In nothing. Flat...."

The scrappiness of the artist: Not only has he mastered his sister's routine, but he also has a costumer's eyes. He can whip up appropriate footwear with just a little improvisational grit and a few extra seconds. I think of little Kristin Chenoweth onstage, playing a rabbit, when a piece of the set fell down. What would a rabbit do? She would grab the sticks in her mouth, for her den...

-Several of the songs in "A Chorus Line" teeter on the edge of cliche, but they are saved by lived experience. Someone actually did the things in the songs, so there's a sense of authenticity. I notice that in "At the Ballet," when Maggie imagines the "Indian Chief." ("Do you wanna dance? I said, Daddy, I would love to.") I sense lived experience in "Hello Twelve": "Robert Goulet! Robert Goulet! Omigod, it's Robert Goulet!!!" And there's lived experience, also, in the anguished monologue at the climax: Estranged from his father, gay Paul becomes a drag queen. His father comes to a show and sees Paul in full dress-up. And he makes this ambiguous, ambivalent, tortured remark to another drag queen: "Take care of my son." Priceless.

I don't see any lived experience in "What I Did for Love," and I would happily cut that song. But no one asked me.

-"A Chorus Line" has one of the great "I Want" numbers of all time. You almost don't recognize it, because you're used to one speaker stepping up and giving a soliloquy ("The Wizard and I"). In "A Chorus Line," the "I Want" number is "I Hope I Get It." It's a squad of faceless dancers singing, "How many people does he need???" Their angst fuels the actual dance routines they're auditioning with--a commentary on life, informing art, informing life. Bennett also wants to remind us that there are actual people in this line of pretty "boys" and "girls": The writers dazzle you with an unexpected solo, a cry of existential angst, amidst all the sweat: "Who am I, anyway? Am I my resume? Is that a picture of a person I don't know...?"

-Lastly, I enjoy Bennett's (additional) attention to subtext. (I'm saying Bennett, but really many people were involved here.) You see this in women's complaints about their bodies. "Mother always said I was different. Different, she said, with a special something, and a very, very personal flair. And though I was eight or nine.....I hated her...." A perpetually unemployed dancer finds her buried adjudication-comments, and it's as if she has peeled back a rock to expose the scurrying pill bugs. No more polite bromides. "Dance: Ten. Looks: Three." A riddle is solved.

-And that's all for today. I'm not fully in love with "A Chorus Line"; I think it could have been smarter and better. But maybe I'm harsh simply because I have so much admiration and wonder. I want the world from these people! See you at City Center in a few weeks.

*P.S. I see more of the sadism theme in the song "Nothing"--with the icy and domineering Mr. Karp. I don't go wild over this song. The ending seems too facile: "When you find one, you'll be an actress. And I assure you that's what finally came to pass." Really? I'm skeptical. Give me some details. Then the forced, pseudo-pithy button: "Mr. Karp had died. And I dug....and cried...cuz I felt nothing." I don't buy it. There's more to say about that moment. (And is it really smart to end on Mr. Karp's death? Might the song be fresher, more thoughtful, if it focused on the war the speaker is having with herself? This three-minute festival of platitudes has some strong moments, but it is overburdened, and overrated.)

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