My Musical Theater Voyage of Discovery; The Kander and Ebb Files -- Steel Pier

Now let’s talk about STEEL PIER. It is considered a flop and, indeed, closed after 76 performances (this info comes by way of http://www.ibdb.com/ ). THE RINK, a score I have, previously, critiqued as being less than perfect, ran for204 performances. In spite of these stats, I am here to tell you that I LOVED and LOVE Steel Pier. Pat and I were at the gypsy run through (for those not in the know – that is the final dress rehearsal with invited audience) and we ate that show right up. We were sure it would be an enormous hit. Surprise. The critics didn’t like it, people didn’t get it and the show folded right after the Tony awards, where it failed to score one medallion. In spite of the show’s history, I get out my Steel Pier cd or I turn to the show in my Ipod, hit play and don’t stop listening until the final notes.

Much has been said about Steel Pier over the years – so much, in fact, that I have no idea what is fact and what is myth. I hear that the creators were working on a musical version of THEY SHOOT HORSE DON’T THEY and then the rights became unavailable, so they monkeyed up the storyline to make it a little different and ta da! Steel Pier was born. I can see the parallels in several characters and the storyline, so that fact may or may not be true – who can say? I don’t really care what the origin of the play is – what matters is that it was an exciting night in the theater with a rich a beautiful score.

When we saw the show, I was in love with Tony Walton’s sets (always am, though) and Susan Stroman’s choreography demanded Herculean tasks of the dancers. The stars of show put forth gargantuan effort to entertain us and, for my money, succeeded. Debra Monk gave up her usual exciting performance, Daniel McDonald charmed everyone with a working pair of eyes and ears, Gregory Harrison was gorgeous, sounded great and oozed slime as the villain, a youngster named Kristin Chenoweth captured everyone’s attention and heart,

Now I want to talk a moment about Karen Ziemba. I remember a lot of people saying “they’re trying to make her into Donna McKechnie” and that kind of twaddle. Well. She’s NOT Donna McKechnie. And they don’t need to MAKE her into Donna McKechnie. She’s Karen Freakin’ Ziemba and that’s enough. It’s more than enough. That comment was just because she had this uber dramatic song with a dance solo that made everyone think of The Music and The Mirror. This woman is one of the American Theater’s most frequently working and most beloved actresses. I hate when people don’t give her her due and allow her to be precisely who and what she is – which is a great gal and a great actor. To me, she is also a great star and anyone who wants to argue with me can come at me with pursed lips cause they will end up kissing my tan, waxed ass. Karen Ziemba was so thrilling, so wistful, so completely and utterly heartbreaking in this show that, now, when I listen to my cd of Steel Pier, I still cry a little.

This score is truly magnificent – even the instrumental dance tracks (I usually cut instrumental music from my Ipod). I can’t think of a single track that I would delete (the way I did with The Rink). There are the Kander and Ebb standard devices like the belty comedy show stopper Everybody’s Girl and that (aforementioned in The Rink entry) early-in-act-two ballad Somebody’s Older. There are the life affirming ballad (First You Dream) and the optimistic dreamer’s tune (Willing To Ride). There are the pastiche laden Leave the World Behind and Two Little Words and the character driven A Powerful Thing (which was not in the show when we saw it – it replaced another track – one that I liked better, in fact); and there is that dramatic and driven Running In Place (which I listen to when I am in an angry, defiant mood). And the title song – Steel Pier – so wonderful, so classically Kander and Ebb. Note the opening lyric “life’s a party, why don’t you come to the steel pier”. It’s right up there with “life is what you do til the moment you die” and “life is a cabaret old chum”. If there is anything Fred Ebb knew and wanted to tell the world, it is that life is meant to be lived. When I listen to the Kander and Ebb scores, I enjoy being alive a little more than usual.

I’m going to tell you why I think Steel Pier flopped. It’s because they didn’t trust their audiences. When we saw that gypsy run through – at the end of the first act, they were running The Sprints and something strange happened and the cast froze, only to start up again, in slow motion, moving backwards. Then, moments later, they started up again, going forwards, with a different outcome than what we had seen, moments before. The curtain fell. Pat and I said “what the fuck was THAT?!” WHAT? HAPPENED? We could not WAIT to come back from the intermission and find out what was going to come next. In Act Two we discover (and this is no spoiler – it’s on the cd) that Daniel McDonald’s character is dead, having returned to earth to help Karen Ziemba’s character get a hold of herself and her life. It was beautiful, truly. And we, the audience, find out he is dead at the EXACT same moment that Karen Ziemba’s character finds out. It was very effective and extremely moving.

By the time the show opened, the creative team had changed it so that the audience knows he is a ghost, or angel, or whatEVER, from the start of the show. Then what follows is a series of magical bullshits involving a pigeon and the reversal in The Sprints and him talking to God (or whomever) about these three weeks that he has before he has to go back up to heaven. Duh and Dull. It was a horrible mistake that I (personally) feel cost the show a longer run. I think that if they had trusted their audience and let them do the work for themselves, it would have been the musical theater revelation so many people experienced when watching the film The Sixth Sense.

So Steel Pier flopped and a beautiful musical and beautiful score is forever labeled a flop.

When it deserves so, so, very much more.