Thanks Jo Jo!!!!
STILL DIVINE
Broadway.com
01/28/04
by Paul Wontorek
Orfeh’s not the only brassy blonde getting her act together and taking it to Atlantic City. The Divine Miss M herself, Bette Midler, is scheduled to end her Kiss My Brass tour (which started in December) in the city by the sea on March 20 at Boardwalk Hall. I had the good fortune of catching the thrillingly theatrical Kiss My Brass on January 18, the second of two shows Midler played at Madison Square Garden, and I’m warning you now–if you’re planning on skipping Bette this time out, think again!
Broadway stars packed into MSG for the Sunday night show. I didn’t check all of the 20,000 seats in the room, but I did see The Boy from Oz’s Hugh Jackman, Matthew Broderick and Nathan Lane of The Producers, Wicked’s Joel Grey, Christine Ebersole, A Chorus Line legends Donna McKechnie and Thommie Walsh and a pack of Hairspray stars (including Tony winners Harvey Fierstein and Dick Latessa), who came to cheer on original cast member Kamilah Martin, joining the illustrious ranks of Midler’s Harlettes for Kiss My Brass!
The theater folks in attendance had plenty to enjoy, especially in the Act Two opener, which found Midler’s wheelchair-bound mermaid character, Delores Delago, headlining on the Great White Way in “Fishtails Over Broadway.” The extended sequence, which may or may not play well in Peoria but had New Yorkers in stitches, offered Midler the chance to tear into showstoppers like “Everything’s Coming Up Roses,” “Tonight,” “Cabaret,” “You’ll Never Walk Alone,” “Tomorrow,” “All That Jazz,” “One,” “Hello, Dolly!,” “Oklahoma!” and even “(And I Am Telling You) I’m Not Going,” with a nod to Michael Bennett’s original Dreamgirls staging thanks to Broadway boy Richard Jay-Alexander, Midler’s clever director for the tour. (The evening’s high-energy choreography was provided by ’80s icon Toni Basil.)
I never imagined I’d get to hear the divine diva sing Effie’s heartbreaker, and I also never expected to hear so many of my favorite Midler hits in one night. I was especially thrilled that she included so much of her ’70s music, including four songs from her iconic debut album and not one, not two, but three songs from The Rose, which she delivered with a rock and roll roar that I didn’t know she still had in her. Other highlights: Midler and her Harlettes dancing along with a video of an early Midler TV appearance on “Boogie Woogie Bugle Boy,” the image of Miss M. flying off on a white carousel horse to the final notes of the evergreen beauty “Shiver Me Timbers,” a heartfelt duet with Mr. Rogers via video screen, and, of course, “Wind Beneath My Wings,” which always tears me up by conjuring up the image of CC Bloom and poor doomed Hillary Whitney (and her bloated lips!) sitting on the patio in Beaches.
Midler herself served up a lot of drama; she was clearly moved to be performing for her hometown crowd. But don’t get me wrong–Midler is still the trashy, sassy broad that we all fell in love with many years ago. She also happens to be the greatest showman we’ve got these days. My only wish is that we somehow get her back to Broadway, where she first starred in the original Fiddler on the Roof and caused a sensation in 1975’s Clams on the Half Shell Revue. There are whispers of a Hello, Dolly! revival built around her, but I think Kiss My Brass! could work fabulously in a big Broadway house, too. Drop it down for a month-long run and watch the box office records get broken and Midler walk off with a Special Theatrical Event Tony Award. After all, shouldn’t Broadway get to experience the divine again?
