On the heels of “City Slickers,” just a few years after “When Harry Met Sally,” Billy Crystal was at the pinnacle of his movie stardom when he shot the movie “Mr. Saturday night.” Watching it now, you can see why it flopped, not least because Crystal played against the type Buddy Young Jr., a brutally selfish has-been comic with a vicious streak.
Crystal was in her forties at the time; for much of the film, Buddy is in his 70s. And Crystal embodied him with the idea of a middle-aged comedian of that later stage of life: under old-fashioned makeup that was so blatant it was impossible for viewers to suspend disbelief, and with the physical mannerisms of an old one – like Miracle Max, Crystal’s indelible elder from “The Princess Bride”, but without the charm.
Three decades later, Crystal is also in his 70s and in the new musical comedy ‘Mr. Saturday Night,” which started Wednesday night, it slides into Buddy’s skin much more naturally. As a piece of theatre, the show is a bit of a mess; the jokes, even some of the gray ones, work better than the stories, and the acting styles are everywhere. Still, it makes for an entertaining evening – because it almost certainly makes you laugh, and because Crystal is so keen on the audience.
As he works his way through the script, fine-tuning the fun, he feeds on the energy of the audience in the Nederlander Theater. Like Buddy, who in a tragic vest in his New York apartment grumbles and mourns the gigs he now has to take—the morning in a retirement home isn’t a comedian’s dream, after all—Crystal is in his element performing live. steps. If you’re a fan of his, or just someone who’s missed that kind of symbiosis between actor and audience, it’s a joy to watch.
However, the musical is a clumsy beast, alternately crazy and sentimental. Directed by John Rando, with a mood-setting score by Jason Robert Brown (music) and Amanda Green (lyrics) that is vocally easy on its star, it features a book by the film’s screenwriters, Crystal, Lowell Ganz and Babaloo Mandel. Less cynical and more hopeful than the movie, it gives us a Buddy who is still cruel but not as insensitive, and thus a better candidate for our sympathy.
That’s despite the myriad ways he’s abandoned his brother Stan (the immensely likeable David Paymer, an Academy Award nominee for the same role in the film), who sacrificed his own ambitions to become Buddy’s manager; his wife, Elaine (Randy Graff, thwarted by an almost total lack of chemistry with Crystal), who has put Buddy first for half a century; and their daughter, Susan (Shoshana Bean, in a beautifully calibrated performance), who at age 40 has been rightfully mad at her father since she was 5.
“Mr. Saturday Night” traces Buddy’s second chance at life and fame, which is set in motion in a cracking fashion one night in 1994 when he catches the memorial montage on the Emmy Awards broadcast and reveals his own face and name. appears right after John Candy’s, Buddy is booked for the “Today” show to understand the error.
As his career teeters towards a possible CPR, he gradually finds himself a jerk to those who love him. Hurt ’em is the command he’s always used to pep himself up before taking the stage, but no matter how many audiences he’s killed, he’s done lasting harm at home.
In the film, the relationship of the brothers is paramount. In the musical, the father-daughter rift comes to the fore, while Elaine—whose only solo, a fantasy about going to Tahiti, is the show’s most cuttable song—is once again strikingly underexposed. (The six-piece orchestra, which sounds great, is conducted by David O.)
“Mr. Saturday Night” means being a Valentine to both the family ties and the comedians of yesteryear — pros like Buddy, who had his big break at a Catskills resort in the 1940s and hosted a hit TV show Saturday night at the ” 50, before blowing a hole in his career with his licentious arrogance.
The costume designers, Paul Tazewell and Sky Switser, have their craziest fun dressing Buddy’s wacky sidekicks – Joey (Jordan Gelber), Bobby (Brian Gonzales), and Lorraine (Mylinda Hull) – for the musical’s 1950s flashbacks. A singing, dancing pack of cigarettes, anyone? (The choreography is by Ellenore Scott.)
As for Crystal’s vocals, he doesn’t have the range to play Fanny Brice, but he doesn’t have to. He’s doing well. Paymer, set to music in Stan’s one emotional outburst, almost approaches singing, but doesn’t have those chops. That works on a meta level, because Buddy is the brother who feels comfortable on stage.
What’s surprising is how unconvincing the show is when the protagonists play decades younger versions of their characters—a transformation that in theatre, a much less literal medium than film, can require nothing more than a changed attitude. Bean is the only one who takes advantage of that simplicity.
But most of the show is set in 1994. By then, Buddy’s longtime sidekicks are regulars at the Friars Club, and so is he. But if Lorraine is a member, she must be relatively recent; in the real world, the Friars Club of New York admitted its first female member, Liza Minnelli, in 1988.
This is where nostalgia gets tricky. That boys’ club’s territoriality sets the stage for a meeting with the brethren that the authors have largely and unwisely kept from the film: when Buddy, expecting a powerful male cop to join him for lunch, is met instead. by a bright young female agent, Annie (a sunny Chasten Harmon, who has a bubbly chemistry with Crystal).
Annie, who will prove to be a godsend for Buddy, provides comics for a large agency. Still, she’s never heard of any of the comedic greats whose names he fires at her in a bullying pop quiz, or even, apparently, the Friars Club — improbable for an industry professional, and nearly impossible so soon after the infamous 1993 roast of Whoopi Goldberg. Annie is written as ignorant so Buddy can teach her, which entails a strong dinosaur touch on the part of the author.
Of course, Buddy is a caveman himself. When his old friends called him and Elaine “Fred and Wilma” — as they affectionately did during the performance I saw, and Crystal wasn’t the only one enlivening the script with variations — it was funny because it’s true.
But Buddy does want to evolve, at least a little. If his revelation about his need to change seems to come out of nowhere, backed by piano and brass in a beautiful, passionate solo, we cheer for his redemption anyway.
This is a musical that wants his man to have a happy ending. Despite all the flaws of the show and Buddy’s, it turns out we are too.
mr. Saturday Night
At the Nederlander Theater, Manhattan; mrsaturdaynightonbroadway.com. Running time: 2 hours 35 minutes.
