CURTAINS: THE MUSICAL

This is an overdue review because I saw this show end of June. I saw this show without any expectations and came out really liking the show! It's one of the more enjoyable shows I've seen this summer.

It's a combination of a murder mystery whodunit and a musical within a musical. It starts with a musical Robin Hood of the West having an out of town tryout in Boston and on opening night the leading lady is murdered. David Hyde Pierce of Fraser fame is Lt. Frank Cioffi is called on to investigate the murder. The twist in this musical is that the Leutenant is a huge musical theatre fan too!

Some delicious moments of this show were:
> David Hyde Pierce's comedy as his character digresses from the murder investigation and being more involved in the musical itself
> Debra Monk and her brassy performance of the show's producer....and her one liners!
> Karen Ziemba's voice
> the lovely song I Miss the Music sung by Jason Daniely....which echos as an ode to Fred Eb by his writing partner composer John Kander
> amazing amazing dancing courtesy of Noah Racey and Megan Sikora and the ensemble

Curtains has been labeled as an old fashioned musical. I've heard people say that....like it's a bad thing but I will say that Curtains is indeed a straight forward musical....songs and dances. It doesn't try to succumb to providing spectacles such as turntables, falling chandeliers, flying bubble machines or songs that are belted to the stratosphere; nor does it have a gimmick like breaking the 4th wall, actors playing instruments onstage or having cuss words on the songs lyrics. In our world today...with plasma tv, jumbotrons, imax films it's so easy to fall into all the spectacle and gimmick....but that's just what it is....all fluff. This show, is down to bare bones good singing and dancing which we rarely get these days. I love the Tough Act to Follow sequence where David Hyde Pierce and Jill Paice dances in a Fred Astaire-Ginger Rogers kind of way....you don't get that kind of dancing and footwork anymore on stage. I love the overture where you get to hear the orchestra....the brass section, woodwinds, strings and the rhythm section and not a pop sound coming from a synthesizer. But I think the best part is seeing a cast that enjoys and relishes being onstage together performing this show....it's very palpable!