Broadway musicals don’t bring me joy.
In fact, the very sound of “five, six, seven, eight,” makes me physically ill, and dance numbers that include top hats or flying witches can send me into a clinical depression.
Because of my predisposition to musicals (although I loved “Glee” that first year), it was only fair to bring in friends — for whom no hip thrust or show tune is ever enough — to watch NBC’s new series “Smash” with me.
Guess what? They all loved it.
“Smash” is the story of the making of a Broadway musical — and the wannabe stars who just gotta sing! Gotta dance! Or as one of my guest watchers gushed, “This is where Rachel [from ‘Glee’] would go next!”
“Smash” is about two Broadway hopefuls, Ivy Lynn (Megan Hilty) and Karen Cartwright (Katharine McPhee).
Both are competing for the lead role in a Broadway, song-and-dance version of the life of Marilyn Monroe.
The musical-in-progress is the baby of hit songwriting partners Julia Houston (Debra Messing) and Tom Levitt (Christian Borle).
Speaking of a baby, Julia and her science teacher husband (Brian D’Arcy James), who already have a teenage son, have quit their jobs to adopt a baby from China. Why you have to quit to fill out forms, I can’t say, but it’s a plot line that stops the music cold.
However, when Tom writes a song about Marilyn Monroe from an idea suggested by his Eve Harrington-like assistant (Jamie Cepero), Julia knows she must return to work.
But they’re worried. Isn’t Marilyn so been-there-done-that?
No! How can a show with singing, dancing Joe DiMaggios be a failure? I’m there, baby.
One producer who falls for the concept immediately is Eileen Rand (Anjelica Huston, who is inexplicably done up to look like she escaped from “The Addams Family” musical.)
Eileen is in the middle of a nasty divorce from her producer-husband, who insults her at Sardi’s by saying, “All this nonsense [that] theater is art! You deluded yourself — and then fell in love with the delusion!”
Want more ham with that cheese?
Into the mix comes requisite sleazy-but-brilliant director Derek Wills (Jack Davenport), a Brit who hits on the two finalists. (“Black Swan,” anyone?)
But there’s no one to really pull for here. Where are the tragic back stories to keep the viewers riveted?
Ivy is a chorus girl who is in a hugely successful musical already, while Karen is a waitress with a boyfriend who works as the mayor’s deputy press secretary (Raza Jaffrey). Lame and very tame.
The cover songs are great and McPhee does a fine job with them, but the original tunes are very much of the overdone show-tune variety.
If it sounds like an old story, it is. “Smash” is an old novel by Garson Kanin, a fact listed way down in the credits.
Verdict: My musical-loving friends loved every second of it. So, I’ll go with the majority vote because, really, “No One Mourns the Wicked.”