THEATER

My Favorite Year

Book by Joseph Dougherty

Music by Stephen Flaherty

Lyrics by Lynn Ahrens

Directed by Susan Livingstone

at the Cabot JCR

through April 30

The man sitting next to me at Cabot House's production of My Favorite Year was smashed and by the second act I wished I'd had a few drinks before the show myself. an adaptation of the 1982 movie, My Favorite Year's run on Broadway was brief and it is easy to see why. The all-Cabot cast and crew strive valiantly to rise above the material, but despite their enthusiasm, this is a show best enjoyed at less than full mental capacity.

Not content with the light-hearted story of a young television comedy writer and the aging movie hero he idolizes, the perpetrators of the musical version of My Favorite Year threw in an idiotic subplot straight out of Iron John. Benjy Stone (the write) now worships Alan Swann (the movie star) not just for his cinematic derring-do but as a substitute father-figure in place of his own who "went out for cigarettes and never came back." This moronic blunting of the relationship between the two (in the original movie, Benjy's deceased father is mentioned exactly once) is introduced in a hackneyed song called "Larger then Life." This number is unfortunately typical in its irritating soliloquy style. As written by composer Stephen Flaherty and lyricist Lynn Ahrens the songs don't just pause the action, they bring it to a screeching halt.

Most of the songs in My favorite Year are blatant rip-offs of other, more famous, numbers from other, better-written, shows. While Flaherty's music is more boring than bad, Ahrens' lyrics are unremittingly awful. The tag line of "Everything Was Beautiful at the Ballet"-- whoops, I mean "Larger than Life"-- for example, is "Gee, he was bigger and better and larger than life." The by-the-numbers finale (called, of course, "My Favorite Year") includes the profound lyric "you could cross a bridge and not have it burn/someone leaving your life could also return.

The lyrics stand out in part because the book of this musical is so good. Joseph Dougherty's script hysterically recreates the world of 1950s television comedy a la Sid Caesar and "Your Show of Shows." Much of the action of My Favorite Year takes place in and around the offices of "Comedy Cavalcade," the show for which Benjy writes, giving Dougherty the opportunity to toss off one-liners and badinage worthy of a much better show than the one he's stuck with.

My favorite Year definitely has moments of brilliance--the Musketeer sketch and "Welcome to Brooklyn" come to mind--but they are not enough to save the show from its mediocre music, abysmal lyrics and overwrought plot.

None of this is Cabot's fault, of course, and they are to be commended for attempting such a new musical. Director Susan Livingston should also be commended for her non-traditional casting. My Favorite Year is populated mostly by sarcastic New York Jews--that many of them are played by actors of other ethnicities detracts not a bit from the essential humor of the show.

As Benjy Stone, Ben Toro-Hernandez is stuck with some of the most painful material to deliver. It is a tribute to his acting ability that Benjy seems halfway-believable. Toro-Hernandez sings competently and is endearingly cute in his courtship of K.C. Downing, an assistant on Comedy Cavalcade. It takes a brave actor to slog through some of Benjy's asides to the audience; Toro-Hernandez should get a Purple heart.