Caught the first preview of a new book musical that uses forgotten songs from the Kurt Weill canon to tell the tale of his tormented love with singer and actress Lotte Lenya. Harold Prince's new project clocks in at three hours. If those three hours weren't so damned entertaining, I would be complaining instead of writing a loose leaf love note to a Germanic musical drama. But in the end, it will need to be cut, as some of those neglected numbers stop the show cold with no clear relation to the the story, as if to say: and while Kurt was suffering attacks from Brecht in Los Angeles in 1944, this song of his was perfomed in (ENTER NAME OF UNKNOWN WEILL MUSICAL HERE) that played Broadway for -10 performances. The orchestrations by Jonathan Tunick are sublime. His overture is a shiny gem of a compliation, and I've never heard "Speak Low" sound so haunting and heartbreaking. Cerveris is exceptional and Donna Murphy is an actress who sings and she knows how to sell each of her big numbers, including Surabaya Johnny and September Song. But she doesn't sound anything like the real Lenya, especially the later Lenya who is preserved on record. But where's Donna's "Pirate Jenny"? After three hours, don't we at least deserve that?
