In Print, as in His Music, Marc Shaiman’s Storytelling Skills Stand Out

‘Never Mind the Happy: Showbiz Stories from a Sore Winner’By Marc ShaimanRegalo PressMarc Shaiman in Conversation with Nathan Lane92NYSunday January 25It’s not exactly a revelation that Marc Shaiman is a great storyteller. We have long known that he can tell the most amazing stories in the music that he composes and the words that he writes, the latter usually with his longtime lyrical collaborator Scott Wittman. Now, with the publication of his memoir, “Never Mind the Happy: Showbiz Stories from a Sore Winner,” we learn that he also is a master of narrative even when the words have no music directly attached, as on a printed page. Undoubtedly, he will tell more of these stories, of a life in music, film, and theater, in an interview with another old friend and collaborator, Nathan Lane, at 92NY on Sunday evening.Most of us first paid attention to Mr. Shaiman’s songs when he and Trey Parker wrote the score for the 1999 animated feature “South Park: Bigger, Longer & Uncut.” This was the breakthrough that showed us everything that Mr. Shaiman was capable of. On the surface, these were songs that directly parodied specific musical genres, using copious amounts of profanity and scatalogical humor for shock purposes.The songs in “South Park” were effectively satire, but they also filled all the functions of modern musical theater: They told a story; they delineated character and place; they were hysterical; and they were tuneful. You couldn’t stop laughing and you couldn’t stop humming them.At that moment at the end of the last century, there was virtually nothing that could compare to “South Park” in terms of wit and originality. With “La Resistance,” sung by Broadway’s Howard McGillin, “South Park” out-heroic’ed Andrew Lloyd Webber, Frank Wildhorn, and the entire “Les Mis” bunch. And they anticipated what Mel Brooks achieved a few years later with his Broadway incarnation of “The Producers.”Up until then, Mr. Shaiman, as he shows in “Never Mind the Happy,” had worked extensively for pop diva Bette Midler and composed instrumental underscoring for dozens of Hollywood dramas and comedies. But “South Park” made it clear that Mr. Shaiman would achieve his greatest range of expression in full-blown musical theater.“Hairspray” (2002) was an inspired choice, the first full production by Marc Shaiman and Scott Wittman and their biggest hit so far. In a way, it’s a parallel to “Ragtime” — sometimes I think of the two as the great musicals of the current era — in that one is based on a novel, the other a film, and they both delve into the specific music of an era in American culture as well as pop music to tell a story. “Ragtime” utilizes the titular form but also early jazz, vaudeville songs, and Tin Pan Alley; “Hairspray” recreates the sounds of the Brill Building and Motown — even gospel and a period advertising jingle — to convey its narrative.As Mr. Shaiman acknowledges in the book, they haven’t landed another blockbuster since then, but all of their shows have been worthwhile and highly enjoyable. The two continue to show their skill in all manner of musical idioms; “Catch Me If You Can” was also set in the 1960s, but more Rat Pack than jukebox.“Charlie and the Chocolate Factory” (2017) and “Mary Poppins Returns” (2018) both built on the foundation of landmark American musical films based on British children’s fantasy franchises at once whimsical and bittersweet. “Poppins” didn’t rehash the 1964 mega hit but rather extended its messages and deepened its glory. “Charlie” was, so far, the only worthwhile revisiting of Roald Dahl’s candy-coated classic, with Christian Borle far outpacing both Johnny Depp and Timothy Chalomet as the best Wonka since Gene Wilder. Furthermore on “Charlie” they added excellent new songs to Leslie Bricusse and Anthony Newley’s pantheonic standards, thus almost literally standing on the shoulders of giants.In fact, Mssrs. Shaiman and Wittman would have been a better choice than Mr. Lloyd-Webber to open up and expand the 1939 film score to “The Wizard of Oz” for live theater purposes. “Fame Becomes Me,” their 2006 one-man-show-with-a-cast-of-thousands written for Martin Short, includes “Sittin’ on the Fence,” a brilliant homage to the MGM “Oz,” which accurately nails the spirit of Yip Harburg, Harold Arlen, and Ray Bolger. Likewise, “Step Brother to Jesus” savages “Superstar” and “Godspell” in a way that’s more memorably melodic than either. In his book, Mr. Shaiman is very hard on “Smash,” the 2012-2013 TV series for which he and Mr. Wittman were importuned to write a new song every week to go into a fictitious musical-within-the-series about Marilyn Monroe. (Still, I’ll grant him that the first season was vastly superior to the second.) And the 2022 musical version of the epic comedy “Some Like it Hot” reimagined the plot and added songs to explore issues of race and gender, providing a rather serious undergirding to a fundamentally fun and frivolous story.Mr. Shaiman talks about all of this, somehow cramming a lifetime of music and theater into a fast-moving 300 or so pages. He is unconvincing only in his repeated attempts to portray himself as a grumpy “Eeyore” type — “Winnie the Pooh” is one British children’s franchise he’s never addressed — when virtually every photo has him smiling, and every anecdote is about the joy in his life. It’s impossible to never mind the happy when it’s there on every page.This article has been updated to correctly identify Mr. Shaiman’s collaborators.

In Print, as in His Music, Marc Shaiman’s Storytelling Skills Stand Out

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