The Great Parade

March 30, 2015
A glance at the dramas, musicals, and comedies performed during Broadway’s 1963–64 season tells a great story, but theater critic Filichia’s choppy recounting gives the reader little sense of the context or importance of this remarkable concentration of theatrical talent. Barbara Streisand wowed crowds in Funny Girl, Robert Redford captivated audiences in Barefoot In the Park, and major stars and complete unknowns trod the boards in hits and flops, but the descriptions of the 68 productions staged in this time frame read like rewritten vintage reviews. Some of the pieces are quite fine, like the one about the surprise hit Any Wednesday starring Sandy Dennis and then relative unknown Gene Hackman, and Filichia does offer a wonderful summary of the lineup of musicals. In isolation, there are plenty of good short set pieces, such as the marvelously snarky takedown of The Passion of Josef D., Paddy Chayefsky’s final Broadway play. Filichia’s summary of how Chayefsky’s grinding, real-time account of Stalin’s rise to power in the late stages of the Russian revolution leaves few questions about why it was not a runaway success. While Filichia includes some fine observations throughout (such as the flop drama “But For Whom Charlie” “wasn’t as bad as the title”), they aren’t enough to sustain the narrative.

January 15, 2015
An exuberant look at one year on Broadway.In this chatty, gossipy history, former Newark Daily Ledger theater critic Filichia (Strippers, Showgirls, and Sharks: A Very Opinionated History of the Broadway Musicals that Did Not Win the Tony Award, 2013, etc.) looks back exactly 50 years and insists that the 1963-64 Broadway season-June 1, 1963, to May 31, 1964-was the greatest ever. That season, however, seems no greater than many others. In 1956, to take one example, there were many iconic Broadway openings, including Auntie Mame, starring Rosalind Russell; Bells Are Ringing, with Judy Holliday; Long Day's Journey Into Night, featuring Fredric March; and My Fair Lady, with Rex Harrison and Julie Andrews. The season Filichia examines in overwhelming, sometimes-hyperbolic, detail had its hits, to be sure: Hello, Dolly!, Barefoot in the Park, 110 in the Shade and Funny Girl, starring one of the author's favorites, Barbra Streisand. Filichia offers abundant evidence to support his view, summarizing plots, citing actors, directors, producers, playwrights, choreographers, composers and lyricists, critics, ticket sales and losses, and analyzing the contents and covers of every Playbill for, it seems, every show. He knows which directors turned down scripts and why and which actors didn't get which parts and why. After Nanette Fabray stubbornly refused a chance to audition for the role of Dolly Levi, Carol Channing campaigned aggressively to get the part and made Hello, Dolly! a smash hit. Filichia is especially interested in the politics behind Tony nominations, winners and losers. He deems Carol Burnett's failure to win a nomination as best actress in a musical for the now-forgotten Fade Out-Fade In "one of the greatest insults a Broadway musical has ever endured." To call Filichia a devotee of Broadway is an understatement; this book will interest only die-hard fans like himself.

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April 1, 2015

There are theater nerds who can lapse into their favorite Shakespearean soliloquy at the drop of a coxscomb and uber-theater geek fanboys who can belt out show tunes from musicals that ran less than a week. Then there is Filichia, former theater critic of the Newark Star-Ledger, a way-too-animated drum major leading The Great Parade. For the author, the 1963-64 New York theatrical season was Broadway's zenith, and his book is a 275-page opinionated, gossipy, snarky encyclical to substantiate this claim. In excruciating detail, he devotes chapters to the season's musicals (be prepared to endure what feels like endless reviews of each song), comedies, dramas, and revivals with lots of attention given to the political machinations of the Tony Awards and their--according to him--egregious oversights and slights. The truth is, 50 years ago the 1963-64 Broadway season was great, with Hello, Dolly!, Funny Girl, Barefoot in the Park, and The Subject Was Roses all playing. But Broadway can boast of numerous ticker tape parade seasons with incandescent shows, and pronouncements such as Filichia's are so much grist for the theatrical argument mill. VERDICT Calling all Broadway history divas, this one's for you.--Barry X. Miller, Austin P.L., TX

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