STAIRWAY TO PARADISE. As I watched Stairway to Paradise--the Encores! revue of numbers and routines curated from decades of Follies, Scandals, Blackbirds, Gaieties, and other variety shows that were Broadway staples during the first half of the past century--I felt that it was getting better and better. And that feeling continued after the show, when I finally got around to looking at the program--the third and last for Encores! this season--and learned more about the selections and the talent behind them.

I was already familiar with a number of the show's highlights. My favorites tended to fall into two categories: the ones featuring cleverly crafted lyrics and the ones with the transcendently haunting melodies. In the former category I put Irving Berlin's Oh! How I Hate to Get Up in the Morning by Irving Berlin and Manhattan by Richard Rodgers and Lorenz Hart. In the latter category goes Ev'ry Time We Say Goodbye by Cole Porter as well as Dancing in the Dark by Howard Dietz and Arthur Schwartz, who come out as the songwriting stars of the show, represented in five selections that also include the witty and wonderfully melodic Triplets and Rhode Island is Famous for You.

As I mentioned, my appreciation of the production grew once I scrutinized the program and noticed other names represented in the show: P.G. Wodehouse and Walter and Jean Kerr as well as Eubie Blake, Victor Herbert, Jerome Kern, Jule Styne, and Betty Comden and Adolph Green. The material isn't going to please all of the people all of the time, but it does give one a feel for the history of an entertainment form that today survives mainly in durable song standards and numbers in movie musicals such as The Band Wagon.

The performances and miking were uneven last night (at least in the nosebleed seats, where I sat), but the production was still strong enough to make this the strongest Encores! season so far. Kristin Chenoweth stood out as the show's star, showing off her versatility in different styles of singing as well as comedic acting. Capathia Jenkins was also a vocal standout, with dance highlights coming from tapper Kendrick Jones as well as ballroom team Holly Cruikshank and Barrett Martin.

So now it's once again time to wonder what Encores! will revive next. I'm still curious about the old Mel Brooks-Charles Strouse-Lee Adams musical All American and desperately waiting for High Spirits.

Here's an Erin McKeown cover of Rhode Island is Famous for You.



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FACE THE MUSIC! The Encores! series might grow another exclamation mark this season--that's how good its productions are turning out to be! Follies was a tough act to follow, but the current revival of the Irving Berlin-Moss Hart 1932 musical Face the Music--is a sparkling, revelatory success.

Together with two other Encores! highlights directed by John Rando--Strike Up the Band (1927) and Of Thee I Sing (1931), both by the Gershwins--Face the Music is a reminder of how entertaining and satirical the shows of its period could be. Almost from its first second, it trots out the cliches of a super-wholesome "Let's Put on a Show" musical, but--at least in this restoration involving David Ives [whose program notes are inspired] as well as Bruce Pomahac--it soon subverts them.

Led by a producer who prides himself on squandering investment money, the Depression-era showpeople patch together their Follies with the help of thoroughly corrupt cops and save the show by resorting to naughtiness. You don't have to know the story of Mae West's sensational 1926 play Sex to find the broad comedy in this or make the connections with Mel Brooks's The Producers. It's funny, surprising, and thoroughly delightful, performed by a great singing and dancing cast featuring Judy Kaye, Felicia Finley delivering a torch song to end all torch songs, and the great pairings of Jeffry Denman/Meredith Paterson and Mylinda Hull/Eddie Korbich.

[The timing of this production--during the runs of The Producers and The Drowsy Chaperone and the opening of the B-musical festival at the Film Forum--is excellent.] With Kristin Chenoweth slotted for the next production, Stairway to Paradise, this season promises to be an outstanding [extraordinary] one for Encores!!

Here are Korbich and Hull.

















And here are Patterson and Denman.


















Photos: Joan Marcus