While everybody was off watching the live production of South Pacific last Wednesday night, I Tivo'd it and went to see Sean Hayes and Kristin Chenoweth in what was apparently a musical that was revived for the following excellent reasons:
1) Mad Men is popular.
So.
1) Mad Men is popular.
So.
PROMISES, PROMISES ABRIDGED
OR
BORING PEOPLE DOING BORING THINGS THE MUSICAL
A "Broadway Abridged" Script
By Gil Varod
SCENE: UNNECESSARY DANCING DURING OVERTURE.
SEAN HAYES
Hi, I'm Sean Hayes, from Will and Grace. Go ahead, say it.
Argue it. Disagree about whether or not I'm convincing at
acting a straight character. Continue to debate how straight
I am, because it successfully pulls attention away from
whether or not I'm doing a decent job acting this role and--
(pauses, looks up from desk
confused)
Sorry, did the overture just segue into "Say a Little
Prayer"?
UNSEEN OFFSTAGE FEMALE
CHORUS
(harmonizes for the first of
~40 times this play)
SEAN HAYES
No matter. Let me explain. I'm playing a character who is
constantly "looked over". I'm not playing it nebbishy, or
making use of many humorous quirks or bits or
characterizations, like you would think I'm capable of doing
because, well, I *am* Sean Hayes. No, you'll find it out
because people will say it about me, and I'll say it about
me, and that's what makes Quality Theatre.
FOUR EXECUTIVE MEN WHERE
SEAN HAYES WORKS
Sean Hayes, we would like to borrow your apartment now and
then so we can fuck women who aren't our wives back home.
SEAN HAYES
Ah, musical comedy!
Twenty minutes of this.
THAT HILARIOUS SCENE FROM SOURCE FILM
"THE APARTMENT" WHERE HE HAS TO
RESCHEDULE HIS ENTIRE SOCIAL CALENDAR
TO FIT IN ALL THE APPOINTMENTS PEOPLE
HAVE MADE TO USE HIS APARTMENT
(doesn't exist in the musical)
THE BOSS
Sean, I'd also like to borrow your apartment.
Also for fucking.
SEAN HAYES
HILARIOUS!
THE BOSS
Let's sing about this being our little secret.
SEAN HAYES AND THE BOSS
(singing)
OUR LITTLE SECRET
OUR LITTLE SECRET
THIS WILL BE OUR LITTLE SECRET
OUR LITTLE SECRET IS WHAT THIS WILL BE
THIS WILL BE OUR LITTLE SECRET
THIS WILL BE OUR LITTLE
THIS WILL BE
THIS WILL
THIS
SECRET
THIS SECRET BE OUR WILL
SECRET
SECRET SECRET SECRET SECRET SECRET SECRET SECRET SECRET
SECRET SECRET SECRET SECRET SECRET SECRET SECRET SECRET
AUDIENCE'S EYES
(glaze over)
THE PLOT
Wake me if I need to move.
SCENE: HALFWAY THROUGH ACT 1...
...which is exactly the point in the
show when you want your ROMANTIC FEMALE
LEAD to enter.
KRISTIN CHENOWETH
Hi everybody, I'm Kristin Chenoweth.
AUDIENCE
We know you! From every Broadway show ever, where you were
fantastic in every role you ever played, particularly the
comedic roles! What do you play in this one?
KRISTIN CHENOWETH
I play a poor, beautiful and fragile girl who is sympathetic
for her fragileness regardless of the fact that she's making
stupid decisions. You know, the kind of girl who would have
sang "I'm Still Hurting" if Jason Robert Brown had written
this musical. My character is incredibly young, very very
impressionable, and intensely vulnerable to be able to fall
for the crap that my character falls for while still being
relateable.
Just like any 19 year old girl.
AUDIENCE
Uh... same Kristin Chenoweth? As in, modern day Kristin
Chenoweth, not one that time travelled here from fifteen
years ago?
KRISTIN CHENOWETH
Now to sing a song that's not originally from this show, I'm
going to blatantly switch my voice to suddenly sound like
it's also not from this show.
(singing)
I SAY A LITTLE PRAYER FOR YOU
FOREVER, AND EVER,
THIS SONG SEEMS OUT OF CONTEXT
AND I LOVE YOU
FOREVER, AND EVER,
BUT NOT MORE THAN MOST OTHER SONGS IN THIS SHOW
AND I LOVE YOU
SEAN HAYES
Oh Kristin Chenoweth, I'm a dork and a loser and everything
else that falls under nerdy characters.
Or so at least I and everybody else keep saying, instead of
me having to "act" it. Or even being the type to always carry
around a thermometer and nose spray (like JACK LEMMON in the
film, who could have used the props less than I).
So, obviously it goes to reason that I LOVE BASKETBALL.
KRISTIN CHENOWETH
I also love basketball!
SEAN HAYES
Do you also like to sing songs where 75% of the lyrics are
just "I love basketball" and "She loves basketball"?
KRISTIN CHENOWETH
Um. No.
SEAN HAYES
(sung in shaky, shaky
vibrato)
WELL I DO!
This happens.
It is an actual song in an actual show.
Making up such a thing would be a
cruel, horrible trick.
DIRECTOR/CHOREOGRAPHER
ROB ASHFORD
Male chorus, now's where you sing and dance in suits!
Although creating a basketball-playing dream fantasy in
basketball *uniforms* might actually be fun, WE ARE NOT DOING
IT BECAUSE THERE ARE NO BASKETBALL UNIFORMS IN MAD MEN,
AND THAT WAS OUR ONLY DRAMATURGICAL RESEARCH.
SCENE: SEAN HAYES WAITS.
SEAN HAYES
Here I am, waiting outside what looks like a very modern
looking Madison Square Garden set regardless of the line of
dialogue about the new one not being built yet. I wonder
what's going on in a Chinese restaurant on the other side of
a stage.
SCENE: A CHINESE RESTAURANT ON THE OTHER SIDE OF THE STAGE.
THE BOSS
Come on, Kristin Chenoweth, even though I keep telling you
that I'm going to leave my wife for you, and not coming
through on that promise, I want to fuck you in Sean Hayes's
apartment right now.
KRISTIN CHENOWETH
Well, even though I just sang a jubilant song about how much
I'm deeply deeply in love with you, I'm going to act very
very blase and indifferent to you.
DIRECTOR/CHOREOGRAPHER
ROB ASHFORD
And boring!
KRISTIN CHENOWETH
And...
(sigh)
And boring.
THE BOSS
(to Ashford)
Wow, you actually made Kristin Chenoweth suck. That takes a
certain kind of talent.
SCENE: THE BOSS'S OFFICE.
THE BOSS
(singing)
WHY DO I WANT THE THINGS I CAN'T HAVE
THINGS I CAN'T HAVE
LIKE FUCKING WOMEN
WHO AREN'T MY WIFE
WHILE SINGING ABOUT IT
LIKE IT'S A SWEET BALLAD!
SEAN HAYES
Boss, here is Kristin Chenoweth's mirror, in pieces, that I
am returning to you. I have it neatly and OCD-ly placed in a
plastic bag.
THE BOSS
That can be funny... are you going to take them out neatly
one at a time, like the sort of character who would be
obsessed with Purell if this were a modern play?
SEAN HAYES
No, Imma just gonna dump it on your desk. Then I'll say a
funny line to end the scene for the dozenth time, and we'll
cut it with music so the audience wouldn't even laugh if the
joke was funny.
THE BOSS
Jesus Sean. I saw you in Damn Yankees at Encores. You were
good in that. Great even! How the hell are you missing 4
out of 5 jokes like this?
DIRECTOR/CHOREOGRAPHER
ROB ASHFORD
Sorry, did somebody just call for a choreographer who thinks
he's a director?
THE BOSS
Ah.
AUDIENCE
PLEASE DEAR GOD MAKE SOMETHING *HAPPEN*.
SCENE: AN OFFICE CHRISTMAS PARTY THAT TAKES PLACE ENTIRELY ON
THE STAIRS, JUST LIKE THE ONES YOUR OFFICE THROWS.
THE BOSS
It's the 1960s, which means this is a musical where, as part
of the plot, some characters have to put on a musical number
within a musical.
TURKEY LURKEY TIME
(is sung)
(exists)
(too much turkey, not enough
lurkey)
SCENE: THE ONE WITH KATIE FINNERAN
SEAN HAYES
I'm drinking my troubles away. I'm kind of okay at being
drunk. BUT LOOK HOW GOOD I CAN BE AT BEING STRAIGHT!
KATIE FINNERAN
I'm the girl you meet while drunk at the bar. My jokes are
rendered funny. My character is entertaining. My lines come
off better than they're written. I'm doing this little thing
called MY JOB.
SCENE: IS THIS SERIOUSLY THE FIRST TIME WE'RE SEEING SEAN
HAYES' APARTMENT (INSIDE WHICH EVERYBODY IN THE MUSICAL KEEPS
GETTING THEIR JOLLIES)?
THE BOSS
Kristin?
KRISTIN CHENOWETH
Yes, sorry, I was just busy having a nice post-sex cry.
THE BOSS
I enjoyed watching you cry during this night together, but
I'm going to have to leave you alone for tomorrow.
KRISTIN CHENOWETH
What? But tomorrow's Christmas Day!
THE BOSS
I have to spend it with my wife and family.
KRISTIN CHENOWETH
But you just spent Christmas *Eve* with m--
THE BOSS
(exiting)
Shh. Since I didn't give you a Christmas Gift but still had
sex with you, here, here's $100.00 cash.
SASSY BLACK WOMEN THAT
BOOKWRITER NEIL SIMON
APPARENTLY ASSUMED WOULD BE
IN THE AUDIENCE OR ELSE HE
WOULDN'T HAVE WRITTEN A LINE
LIKE THAT
Oh no she di-n't!
KRISTIN CHENOWETH
Now I'm conflicted. Not in the way where I'm weighing
choices, more in the way that when I sing I love you, but
when I talk I sound like a terribly grumpy unhappy downer of
a person that you'd figure nobody would want to date.
She sings "Say A Little Prayer For You"
over and over.
This drives her crazy, so she takes
enough sleeping pills to kill herself.
SEAN HAYES
(entering)
Oh no, Kristin Chenoweth is in my bed! It's a good thing that
I'm suddenly entirely uninterested in her, not in the slightest,
and so this turn of events doesn't hurt my feelings at all.
KATIE FINNERAN
It's because you're drunk.
SEAN HAYES
Oh, did I forget to continue to act drunk from the last scene
into this one?
Katie Finneran exits, and gets her
damned applause, thank you very much.
The Jewishly-toned-down Doctor from
next door enters.
OLD DOCTOR GUY
Sean Hayes, I think you should stop having sex with so many
women. I will say this in thirty configurations over the
course of act two.
SEAN HAYES
And I will do my duty to not make any attempts to defend
myself nor correct your opinion of me. Not even by
unsuccessfully stammering. That would be dorky/nebbishy/
nerdy/pathetic!
Doctor and Sean Hayes nurse Kristin
Chenoweth back to health from her
SUICIDE ATTEMPT.
SUICIDE AND
ROMANTIC MUSICAL COMEDY
(go great together!)
SEAN HAYES
(sings)
A CHAIR IS STILL A CHAIR
EVEN WHEN THERE'S NO ONE SITTING THERE
A HOUSE IS NOT A HOME
WHEN THERE'S NO ONE THERE TO HOLD YOU TIGHT
A PLOT IS NOT A PLOT
WHEN IT DOESN'T MOVE BECAUSE WE'RE JUST HANGING OUT ON THE
COUCH FOR FIFTEEN MINUTES.
More time passes.
OLD DOCTOR GUY
Hey, can I sing a song?
SEAN HAYES
Sure! Choose from anything Burt Bacharach wrote--
OLD DOCTOR GUY
That's great! He has written LOTS of good songs over the--
SEAN HAYES
--that's already in this play, that isn't one of the ~2
good ones. We can't interpolate anything new for you.
OLD DOCTOR GUY
Man do I miss being in Hairspray.
SCENE: CHINESE RESTAURANT.
SEAN HAYES
Boss, I've come to tell you a statement I worked very hard at
over and over on the way here, which is this: you don't have
to worry about Kristin Chenoweth interfering with your
marriage, she'll date me now.
THE BOSS
Nah, Imma gonna date her now.
SEAN HAYES
In that case, I would like to casually mention that I quit.
ACTUALLY TRUE: A pause for audience to
clap because everybody loves a good
quitting story!
AUDIENCE
(ACTUALLY TRUE: doesn't clap!)
SEAN HAYES
Oh man, that's not a good sign.
Scene soon ends.
AUDIENCE
(ACTUALLY TRUE: claps)
SEAN HAYES
Jesus.
SCENE: BACK IN THE APARTMENT.
SEAN HAYES
(to audience)
Our story is winding down. You've been very patient.
(pauses)
Shit, is that a real line in the play? "You've been very
patient"? Do I actually say that to the audience in the
actual play?
KRISTIN CHENOWETH
Oh Sean Hayes, whom I will defend to the death about being
very, very straight when acting, I left The Boss character,
and decided to come to you instead!
SEAN HAYES
Hooray, I have no job but I got the girl and we'll be happy
forever after!
KRISTIN CHENOWETH
Well, until you realize that I just got out of a horrible
four-year I-was-the-mistress relationship which made me
suicidal.
SEAN HAYES
What?
KRISTIN CHENOWETH
Come on, if anybody thinks you're anything but a rebound
relationship for me, they must be a tourist.
TOURISTS THAT WERE HAPPILY
CATERED TO TONIGHT
YAY! Now somebody produce M. Butterfly with Tim Allen and
Frankie Muniz! Theater is amazing!
BLACKOUT.
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