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David Yazbek has been lauded for his Broadway score to The Full Monty. But he's no fan of musical theater. And he can't get radio to play his band's music.
By JOHN FLEMING, Times Performing Arts Critic
© St. Petersburg Times, published February 17, 2003
You'd think that David Yazbek's most recent CD would be easy to find. In 2001, Yazbek was nominated for a Tony Award for his smart, funny, pop-rock score to The Full Monty, the hit musical adapted from the movie about stripping steelworkers.
Doesn't it figure that the music industry would want to capitalize on a bright Broadway newcomer with alt-rock cred?
But a couple of weeks ago in New York, Yazbek's Damascus was nowhere to be found in the bins of either of the giant Tower or Virgin outlets that carry just about everything a record buyer might want. Instead, it was available only at Colony Records, a store that specializes in musical theater recordings and sheet music, and there was just one copy, kept in a locked cabinet.
Damascus, on the small What Are Records? label, is full of the infectious music that made The Full Monty such a kick. With 12 songs by Yazbek, who performs with his band, it's the sort of record that, in another time, would have been put out by the likes of Randy Newman, Elvis Costello or Steely Dan.
Yazbek, speaking from his home in a New York suburb, blames the current state of radio, in part, for his relative lack of exposure.
"Damascus got very little airplay because the kind of stations that you can market to don't exist anymore," he said. "Starting in the 1960s, FM radio had independent disc jockeys playing what they liked. Today, all of radio is owned by four companies: Clear Channel, Infinity and two others. They are programmed basically through a combination of this weird sort of computer science and an ingrained system of payola. Everybody I know complains about what you hear on the radio."
The Full Monty, whose national tour is at the Tampa Bay Performing Arts Center this week, was nominated for 10 Tonys, but it got shut out when The Producers swept the awards. Yazbek, who wrote the music and lyrics for the show, was hired by producers on the basis of his first two albums (Damascus was his third). Nobody was more surprised that he got the job than the composer, who had no particular fondness for musical theater.
"American musical theater is just so mediocre these days," Yazbek said. "I'm one of the many millions of people who every few years said, 'Okay, people say this is a great show, I'll try it,' and then leave disappointed. I psyched myself up for The Full Monty by listening to a lot of classic shows, because whenever I would listen to a modern show, I'd be disappointed."
The Full Monty benefited from the odd-couple collaboration between Yazbek and playwright Terrence McNally, who wrote the musical's book. McNally is an experienced Broadway hand who also wrote the books of Ragtime, Kiss of the Spider Woman and The Rink.
"The first time I went over to Terrence's house, he was listening to Moby, which surprised me because he's an opera guy, that's what he's into," Yazbek said. "I meet theater people all the time who just know theater. I meet theater composers who know everything about theater and a little about classical music, and that's it. But Terrence is someone whose frame of reference is very wide."
Yazbek said he and McNally clicked right away on an approach to turning The Full Monty into a musical. "I said 'Guys and Dolls,' and he said, 'I see what you mean, like a conventional-form musical,' and we were off and running."
An original star of The Full Monty was St. Petersburg native Patrick Wilson, who played Jerry Lukowski, the jobless, divorced dad and ringleader of the steelworkers. Several of Jerry's numbers are among Yazbek's best, including a mock-macho duet called Man; a lyrical ode to fatherhood, Breeze Off the River; and a spoof on suicide, Big-Ass Rock.
Wilson went on to play Curly in the Broadway revival of Oklahoma! and land the part of Joe Pitt in Mike Nichols' production of Angels in America, forthcoming on HBO.
"I love Patrick's voice for theater," Yazbek said. "He can do the big Broadway baritone thing, or he can do the recording artist, Full Monty sort of voice. He'll be a gigantic star within the next two years."
As much as Yazbek liked the original cast, he thinks the touring company may be an improvement. "When I saw the opening night of the tour in Los Angeles, I found that these guys served the comedy of the show better," he said. "They're having more fun with it, it seems to me."
Yazbek, 42, has had an eclectic career, having won an Emmy Award during a stint as a scriptwriter for Late Night with David Letterman. He has another stage musical in the works, an adaptation of the Michael Caine-Steve Martin movie Dirty Rotten Scoundrels, but he also has an eye on Hollywood, which is more receptive to screen musicals than it has been in decades now that Chicago is a smash.
Typically contrarian, Yazbek is not ready to jump on the Chicago bandwagon. "I was disappointed, because the story line is so wispy," he said. "When you're watching it onstage, you don't mind that, but in a movie . . ."
Nor did he think Rob Marshall's directing did much more than emulate what Bob Fosse would have done. Fosse, the original director and choreographer of Chicago on Broadway, made path-breaking dance films such as Cabaret.
"I know there's a whole generation of moviegoers who don't know Cabaret backwards and forwards, but (with Marshall's treatment of Chicago) I might as well be watching Cabaret in terms of camera angles and cutting and stuff like that," he said.
So, if Yazbek were a Hollywood producer hungry to make the next great movie musical, what would he do?
"If I was a producer, I would call me, and I would say, 'Let's make a movie musical from the ground up. Let's just totally screw with the medium and with what a movie musical is supposed to be. Let's do something original.' "
Yazbek doesn't think the next great movie musical is to be found on Broadway. As he drolly noted, "If I was looking for the next thing to adapt into a musical from stage, well, I don't know, because everything onstage now is adapted from movies."
The Full Monty opens at 7:30 p.m. Tuesday and has eight shows through Sunday at the Tampa Bay Performing Arts Center. Tickets: $24.50-$66.50. (813) 229-7827 or toll-free 1-800-955-1045.