Oh, you’re going places, Alice. You’re going — straight to Broadway!
Though it sounds like one of Ralph Kramden’s cockamamie schemes to get out of Brooklyn, there is, in fact, an invitation-only reading today of a new musical based on the classic TV series “The Honeymooners,” directed by Jerry Mitchell, who staged “Legally Blonde” and choreographed “Hairspray.”
Jim Belushi, funny and menacing in the revival of “Born Yesterday,” is Ralph, Peter Scolari is Norton, Rachel York is Alice and newcomer Helene Yorke is Trixie.
The actors were forced this week to sign nondisclosure agreements because there are a few plot twists in the script, written by Dusty Kay and Bill Nuss. I’ve never heard of them — Rick Elice and Marshall Brickman, they’re not — but Kay’s written for “Entourage.”
The score is by Stephen Weiner and Peter Mills, up-and-comers whose musical “Iron Curtain” got pretty good reviews this year in Seattle.
These nondisclosure forms, which are becoming more prevalent, are pretty silly. Says a production source, “What’s the big secret? That Ralph Kramden drives a bus and Ed Norton works in the sewer?”
I didn’t sign one, so I’m at liberty to reveal what I know. And since I have the script sitting right in front of me, I know all.
The musical is a cute, extended version of a traditional “Honeymooners” episode. It opens on the streets of New York a few weeks before Christmas in 1950. Happy shoppers and carolers rush about, singing a peppy holiday song.
A booming voice breaks in: “Will you knock it off?!”
That’s our Ralph.
He’s angry because he’s got no money for the holiday. He sings a comically bitter song called “A Kramden Christmas” — I detest this time of year/I haul my bus/through all this fuss/I could choke on all the cheer!
Then he sees an ad for a jingle-writing contest. The winners get $500.
And so he and Norton rent a piano — much to Alice’s dismay — and crank out a song for a cheese company. They win the contest and end up at a fancy Madison Avenue ad agency.
This is when “The Honeymooners” becomes “Mad Men,” whose midcentury ethos is being felt on Broadway right now in “How To Succeed in Business Without Really Trying.”
“The Honeymooners,” in fact, reminds me of “How To Succeed,” with Machiavellian ad execs scheming to undermine Norton and Ralph. The show invokes other classic musical comedies as well. Ralph and Norton’s friendship faces challenges the way Bialystock and Bloom’s does in “The Producers.”
Trixie works as an El Morocco singer, and her big number, “Keepin’ It Warm,” is a nod to “Adelaide’s Lament” from “Guys and Dolls.”
I won’t reveal any surprises — somebody might send me to nondisclosure jail — but the real Jackie Gleason, played at the reading by John Treacy Egan (“Sister Act”) makes an appearance.
If Egan gets another gig, the creators should keep Rob Bartlett in mind. He moves with Gleason-like smoothness in “Brotherhood of Man,” the big “How To Succeed” showstopper.
Today’s “Honeymooners” reading is “just to get it on its feet so that Jerry Mitchell can see what he has,” says a production source. “No one is committed to anything more than a reading.”
CBS controls the underlying rights to the show, and you can bet that the company will be all over the reading. Ralph, Norton, Alice and Trixie are far too iconic and valuable to be squandered on a bad Broadway show.
Far better for the critics to say “Baby, you’re the greatest!” than “Pow, right in the kisser!”