Category Archives: treasure hunting

Broadway’s Lost Treasures

A history of the American musical theater with compilation of archival material featuring performanaces by original cast members.
Genre: Musicals
Rating: NR
Release Date: 28-OCT-2003
Media Type: DVDBroadway’s Lost Treasures delivers what the title promises: 21 historic performances of great moments in American musical theater televised on the Tony Awards between 1967 and 1986. (Five were not included when the program was broadcast on PBS in 2003.) Unlike some other arts, theater has rarely been well-documented, so it’s a treat to see these numbers performed by the original artists rather than experience them through audio recordings or tepid movie adaptations. Sure, sound and picture quality are only adequate, some of the numbers are minimally staged and some appear to be lip-synched, and some of the performances that do have excellent film counterparts (Yul Brynner in The King and I, Robert Preston in The Music Man, Joel Grey in Cabaret) seem rather lackluster here. But those are minor drawbacks compared to the chance to see Gwen Verdon and Chita Rivera perform “All That Jazz” and “Nowadays” from Chicago, or John Raitt, a stage legend who’s woefully underrepresented on film, singing The Pajama Game‘s “Hey There.” The most electrifying excerpt is from Evita, anchored by the powerhouse trio of Patti LuPone, Mandy Patinkin, and Bob Gunton, the most surprising is Julie Andrews singing “Send in the Clowns” (she wasn’t in the cast of A Little Night Music), and the most touching is a 12-year-old Andrea McArdle breaking hearts in Annie‘s “Tomorrow.” An indispensable record of a quintessential American art form. –David Horiuchi

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