Breaking Up Is Hard To Do
Breaking Up Is Hard To Do
Conceived by Marsh Henderson and Gordon Greenberg
Book by Erik Jackson and Ben H Winters
Music by Neil Sedaka
Directed by Roy Alan
Musical Direction by Chris Leavy
Winter Park Playhouse, Winter Park FL</strong>
Write enough pop tunes, and you, too can create a juke box musical. There was some doubt in the cheap seats tonight as to whether Neil Sedaka had really written all these pop tunes, but he did either by himself or with more obscure co-authors back in his Brill Building days. The story is stock: Marge (Candace Neal) gets dumped at the altar; her best friend Lois (Noel-Marie Matson) drags her to the Catskills to cheer her up. That was where the honeymoon was scheduled, but no matter – in a musical heartache can be flushed away with a hot tune and some audience interaction. The pair meets rising star Del Delmonico (Robert Buchanan) and his nerdy song writing brother Gabe (Bert Rodriguez). Del gets a wrong idea about Marge’s connections, they fall in and out of love, and we learn you can always find a pop song lyric that matches your emotional state when you’re young. Later in life you need the stronger stuff, if Sedaka is a sugar high for young love, country music is the whiskey of later life. There’s a subplot as well, Emcee and comedian Harvey Feldman (Frank Siano) turns down the volume on his sport coat long enough to fall for Este Simowitz (Lourelene Snedeker) the widowed owner of the resort and saves her from bankruptcy and makes sure everyone has a date tomorrow night.
From the perfect power pop ballad of “Breakin’ Up Is Hard to Do” to the doo-wop drenched “Oh Carol!” to the proto-disco “Love Will Keep Us Together”, this show is full of the hits of our youth. Liberties are taken with arrangements, songs are fractured and reassembled to fit around the dialog and if you are in the front row or aisle you may be subject to on stage humiliation. No matter, when the songs connect hey really nail you; Louis and Marge’s “Were the Boys Are” takes on a deeper emotional resonance than it did in the movie, and Marge’s “Solitaire” is the best “I Want” song of the show. Mr. Siano reprises “Breaking up Is Hard to Do” Hora Style while Rodriguez pairs with Neil for a very cute “Laughter in the Rain.” “Stairway to Heaven” is on the play list, but it’s not the Zeppelin cover I was hoping for. But like all WPPH events, this happy and positive collection of music. How can you tell? They not only ask you to mute your cell phone, but request you don’t sing along with the cast. If you do, you’ll annoy the rest of us and there will be a strongly worded letter sent to Equity with your name on it.
For more information on Winter Park Playhouse, please visit http://www.winterparkplayhouse.org
