I recently ran into Bill Russell, who writes musicals, and he told me he’s knee-deep in revising “Side Show,” the cult Broadway musical he created with composer Henry Krieger in 1997.
Talk about a heartbreaker!
“Side Show,” which told the story of Siamese twins Daisy and Violet Hilton, seemed to have everything going for it. Broadway buzzed with praise for Krieger and Russell’s score, which burst with full-throttle melodies, the kind Krieger wrote for “Dreamgirls” (most famously, “And I Am Telling You, I’m Not Going”) back in 1981.
Emily Skinner and Alice Ripley, two relative unknowns, were poised to become overnight Broadway sensations as the sisters literally joined at the hip. Preview audiences were knocked out by their first-act duet, “I Will Never Leave You.”
It is indeed a powerful song, though every time I hear it, I think of Michael Musto’s response in the Village Voice: “Duh!”
Robert Longbottom, the director, was being talked up all over town as the next Michael Bennett. Even Frank Rich, who had left his position as the Times drama critic, was enamored. Rich caught several previews, often standing at the back of the house, visibly moved by the show.
There were a few warning signs, however. This was a dark, serious musical about carnival freaks. It would not be to everyone’s taste. The producers became concerned one night when a cellphone went off (this may have been the first cellphone incident in a Broadway theater). A middle-aged woman picked up the phone, which was probably as big as her handbag. “I can’t talk now! I’m at a play!” she said. There was a pause. “Meh,” she shrugged.
The Times was certainly behind the show, cranking out several positive pre-opening-night stories. But then the paper’s newly minted chief critic, Ben Brantley, delivered a respectful but decidedly lukewarm review that flattened the box office.
“Subtract half of its two central characters, and its basic plot groans with familiarity,” he wrote, adding that Longbottom’s staging was “impeccably synchronized” but lacked the wit of Bennett and Bob Fosse.
(That was a killer line. Longbottom, like the equally overhyped Rob Ashford, of the deadly revival of “Cat on a Hot Tin Roof,” never lived up to his billing.)
The Post’s Clive Barnes said the story had “poignancy and power” yet he doubted the show would catch on with the typical Broadway theatergoer.
He was right. “Side Show” sputtered at the box office, closing in January 1998 after just 91 performances. But it developed a loyal following, and the final performance was jammed with fanatics who wept at the curtain call. There was talk of reopening the show. The producers, one of whom sold his vacation home to get the production up, couldn’t accept the fact that audiences weren’t responding to their masterpiece.
“Side Show” was nominated for four Tony Awards, and Ripley and Skinner — who were nominated jointly — delivered a knockout rendition of “I Will Never Leave You” on the telecast.
After that, though, “Side Show” lived on only through its cast album, which has become a favorite of musical theater lovers.
One of them is Bill Condon, who wrote the script for the movie version of “Chicago” and directed the movie version of “Dreamgirls.” He thinks the show deserves a second chance and asked Krieger and Russell to retool it. He’ll direct the “reimagined” version this fall at the La Jolla Playhouse in California. After that, “Side Show” will open at the Kennedy Center in spring 2014. And then — well, nobody’s saying it yet, but Broadway is definitely a possibility.
The “reimagined” musical features a new cast of characters, including Harry Houdini and a gossip columnist modeled on Hedda Hopper. Krieger and Russell have written several new songs, though the show-stoppers — “I Will Never Leave You” and “Who Will Love Me As I Am?” — are still in place.
I wasn’t a fan of the original “Side Show.” It was too creepy for my tastes. But over the years I’ve come to like the score a lot. So I’ll be on the Acela to Washington to give “Side Show” a second chance.