A musical about a musical? In fact, about two guys concocting a musical and trying to sell it? It’s been done. Over and over again, the art of musical comedy writing has provided reliable subject matter for musical comedies, using the collaborative process as a meta excuse to investigate the fragile bond between overreaching males.
The 1981 Stephen Sondheim/George Furth show, Merrily We Roll Along — currently being revived on Broadway — centers on two close friends whose primary connection involves collaborating on quality musicals, for a while, anyway. In 2001’s The Producers, based on the classic Mel Brooks movie, musical theater is simply a means to a scam: Two sleazy cohorts whip up an appalling, pro-Nazi musical in hopes that it’ll flop and they can run away with the (over-) capitalization. Unfortunately for them, the show becomes a so-bad-it’s-good surprise hit — unlike The Producers, which was expectedly fine.
Then, in 2004, came the brilliant [title of show], a musical about a pair of decent guys writing a musical while trying to steer clear of the various Broadway cliches they bump into along the way. This was sort of the anti-Producers, about two non-sleazeballs scrambling to create a good show against all odds. And unlike the Merrily trajectory, both men come to realize that their friendship is more important than their chance to win Tonys.
A cliché of musical theater is that when a show makes it to uptown, it suddenly has names, production values, and even streamers shot at the crowd.
And here comes my proverbial 11 o’clock number — or item, anyway. In 2005, Gutenberg! The Musical! was developed as a one-acter at the Upright Citizens Brigade, then expanded for London in 2006; later that year, it ran off-Broadway. The show positioned itself midway between the aforementioned musicals, in that its central dudes meant well but were totally inept and created utter mayhem in their feeble stab at art. And yet, they lived their dream! In the show, best friends Bud and Doug are acting out their tone-deaf tuner, about 15th-century printing press inventor Johannes Gutenberg, for potential backers (i.e., all of us sitting in the theater, who they aim their project at), gamely playing all the roles by switching caps labeled with the characters’ names (Drunk #1, Antisemite, etc.). But their project is full of almost as many anachronisms and weird accents as Springtime For Hitler. And the songs they line their crazy narrative with are so off-kilter, they bring to mind two underrated film comedies: Billy Wilder’s Kiss Me, Stupid (1964) and Elaine May’s Ishtar (1987), in which male BFFs co-write tunes that are more Lerner and Lowbrow than Lerner and Loewe. (Yes, movies have long seized on this two-males-and-a-broken-piano trope too. In any medium, it makes failed artists feel better about themselves.)
Well, Gutenberg! The Musical! — unlike the show within the show — has finally made it to Broadway, with a script and score by Anthony King and Scott Brown, who wrote the stage musical of Beetlejuice (it’s Lauren Boebert’s favorite show), and directed by the protean Alex Timbers (Moulin Rouge, Beetlejuice, Here Lies Love). The production serves as a chance to reunite the original stars of The Book of Mormon, Josh Gad and Andrew Rannells, who play, respectively, a Chris Farley–like 42-year-old hetero virgin named Bud and a prissy gay guy in an argyle sweater and an arched eyebrow, Doug. By day, they work at a nursing home, where they poke various bodies to see if they’re still alive, but here is where they come alive, pushing the latest in their body of work, which includes Stephen King! The Musical! and a Phantom of the Opera prequel (“How did he get that boat down there?”).
Unlike the original production, this one has a set (designer Scott Pask clutters the stage with instruments, props, and paraphernalia), as well as a combo — half of a New Jersey wedding band, we’re told —instead of just a piano. Another cliché of musical theater is that when a show makes it to uptown, it suddenly has names, production values, and even streamers shot at the crowd.
In the course of promoting their musical to us, the two guys discuss various inevitabilities, such as the “I want” song, foreshadowing, motifs, metaphors, and the de rigueur anthem that always closes Act One. (Here, three warring characters alternate singing “You only get one chance to be a star / Tomorrow is tonight / It’s a history and future fight”). Carrying shtick like that all night, Gad and Rannells are so energetic and comically deft — especially in odd moments like Bud admitting to Doug, “I wish I was gay!” — that even as they’re wallowing in their characters’ terrible creative choices, sometimes magical things happen. Amazingly, a song can come off almost good, reminding us of the proverbial thin line that makes so many shows hard to critique on Yelp. For example, Helvetica, an illiterate German wench with a thing for Gutenberg, has a melodic torch song about her conflicted feelings that could be a winner, except for intentionally rotten lyrics like “I’m in a tower with rats and some feces.…”
At the end of the “reading,” tongues go even deeper into everyone’s cheek when a celebrity comes up from the audience as a producer who’s desperate to present the guys with a deal. (At my performance, it was Ashley Park from Emily in Paris and Only Murders in the Building, announcing, “I don’t need to hear another note! I’m a famous Broadway producer, and I hold in my hands a Broadway contract!”)
The moral? “It’s not the success that matters. It’s the dream,” says Doug, playing Gutenberg. That’s good news for Gutenberg! The Musical!, since at times the show feels like an overstretched SNL skit. But it’s insistently giddy and well-played, and it closes with a coup de théâtre that made me want to co-write a musical. ❖
Gutenberg! The Musical!
James Earl Jones Theatre
138 W. 48th Street
Michael Musto has written for the Voice since 1984, best known for his outspoken column “La Dolce Musto.” He has penned four books and is streaming in docs on Netflix, Hulu, Vice, and Showtime.
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