Broadway Old, New and Imaginary

*** HAIRSPRAY, Original cast, Sony Classical

“I used to hate musical comedy,” writes bizarro filmmaker John Waters in the liner notes to the cast album of the musical based on his “Hairspray,” which opened on Broadway Aug. 15. However, he claims that this score, by Marc Shaiman and Scott Wittman, has “turned me into a real show-tune queen.” Gee, do you think it’s just a coincidence that the show that transformed his taste is one from which he’ll take royalties?

Beyond that, his comment unfortunately may raise expectations a little too high. The sound of “Hairspray” isn’t radically different from that of “Grease” or “Little Shop of Horrors” or several less-well-known musicals that use pop styles of the late ‘50s and early ‘60s.

Waters’ notes also make a big deal out of a couple of topics that the lyrics address: the racial integration of teenagers’ social institutions in 1962 Baltimore, and fat liberation--the show delivers a message that girth can be great, that big women can be the life of the party. Still, judging only from the recording (I haven’t seen the show), “Hairspray” is not exactly searing social commentary.

The recording is a fun, finger-snapping confection that is most distinguishable from similar shows by the presence of Harvey Fierstein in the drag role of Edna, the warm-hearted mother of the leading character. His patented croak is here in all of its cellar-dwelling glory.

The album does its essential job well: It makes the show, which is staged by Jack O’Brien of San Diego’s Globe Theatres, sound as if it would be a lot of fun.

***AUDRA McDONALD, “Happy Songs”, Nonesuch

The title of this album (due in stores Sept. 17) is surely someone’s idea of a joke. Most of these songs are not “happy.” One sample lyric: “My heart is broken, it won’t ever mend.” A couple of sample song titles: “Ill Wind (You’re Blowin’ Me No Good”), “Beat My Dog.”

Not that the album is a downer. The characters in these songs aren’t necessarily defeated. But they are people who are struggling with life, not people who are blissfully content with what they have.

Broadway star McDonald (or should we say, incipient TV star McDonald? She has a role on an upcoming NBC series, “Mister Sterling,” as well as a new baby, so presumably she won’t have much time for appearing in musicals any time soon) displays her usual keen sense of style in her selections, as well as her impeccable musicality in her performances.

Most of the songs were copyrighted between 1927 and 1954. They include three very familiar standards: “I Wish I Were in Love Again,” with its dazzlingly witty Lorenz Hart lyric; “More Than You Know”; and “He Loves and She Loves,” which is performed here with a slow, tender guitar arrangement.

But most of the vintage selections won’t be nearly as familiar to McDonald fans. The opener, “Ain’t It De Truth?,” was cut from the film “Cabin in the Sky” and included in the 1957 musical “Jamaica.” McDonald sings the Brazilian folk song “Bambalele” in Portuguese and vocalise--no words at all--in Duke Ellington’s “On a Turquoise Cloud.” Irving Berlin’s “Supper Time,” from the 1933 show “As Thousands Cheer,” is a raw lament by an abandoned wife and mother who sounds as if the Depression is hitting home.

McDonald usually supports contemporary composers too, and two are represented here: Jay Leonhart (“Beat My Dog”) and Michael John LaChiusa (“See What I Wanna See”). Both selections are amusingly grouchy, fitting in well with the general theme of unhappy songs.

** BROADWAY INSPIRATIONS, Various artists, Fynsworth Alley

“Happy Songs” would actually be a better title for this new compilation than it is for Audra McDonald’s latest. In fact, “Happy Songs” would be a much better title than this album’s real moniker, “Broadway Inspirations,” considering how many of the uplifting songs on this album were never in any Broadway show.

It even opens with a song from a movie, “Newsies,” and includes selections from such non-Broadway theatrical fare as “Heartbeats,” “Elegies for Angels, Punks and Raging Queens” and “Kicks: The Showgirl Musical”--in addition to eight shows that really were on Broadway. The album title is an example of a larger phenomenon: attaching the “Broadway” label to any form of musical theater other than opera, perhaps on the dubious grounds that the tourists who populate Broadway know nothing about any other venues where they can see musicals.

Packaging aside, this album has some genuinely inspirational moments--for example, the late Laurie Beechman singing a power-pop, gospel-shaded arrangement of “You’ll Never Walk Alone.” But it also has some dross, such as the supposedly grand finale, “These Are the Good Times,” from “Kicks,” also sung by Beechman. This song is the epitome of the sort of shallow, feel-good anthem that turns some people off to the whole idea of musicals. It shares some of the same sentiments as Stephen Sondheim’s “Our Time,” from “Merrily We Roll Along,” which is also on this album, sung by Liz and Ann Hampton Callaway. But the Sondheim song is an artfully written jewel by comparison.

The album has a couple of intriguing, bass-dominated jazzy arrangements of unlikely songs: “It’s Today” from “Mame,” sung by Paige O’Hara, and “You’re Never Fully Dressed Without a Smile” from “Annie,” sung by Jason Graae--who, oddly enough, is the only male soloist (compared with nine women soloists and two female duets) on the album.

** 1/2 THE BOYS FROM SYRACUSE, 1963 London cast, Rudy Vallee, Frances Langford, Decca Broadway

The 1938 musical comedy “The Boys From Syracuse,” like its precursors by Plautus and Shakespeare, was about twins. So perhaps it’s fitting that this new album offers two separate, albeit partial renditions of the Richard Rodgers and Lorenz Hart score.

First up are 14 tracks from the 1963 London production. These are followed by six songs recorded in December 1938, less than a month after the original Broadway production opened--but not with the original cast. Instead, Decca recruited two of its contract singers, Rudy Vallee and Frances Langford, to sing six songs from the score as a “souvenir” record. No original cast album was recorded.

Most musical theater scholars would have preferred the chance to hear the original cast. Still, Vallee and Langford were in fine, mellow form, and the remastering job is excellent.

Comparisons between Vallee/Langford and the 1963 London cast aren’t always appropriate, because Vallee sings two songs sung by women in the real score, “Oh, Diogenes!” and “Sing for Your Supper.” However, Langford brought a darker sound to “Falling in Love With Love” than did her London equivalent, Lynn Kennington, and the Vallee/Langford duet on “The Shortest Day of the Year” is more interesting than the Denis Quilley solo from the London cast.

Indeed, the London cast isn’t especially notable. To American ears, the English accents (“This Cahn’t Be Love” instead of “This Can’t Be Love”) sound a little out of place in such a prime example of old-fashioned American musical comedy. Too bad no recording of the last L.A. “Syracuse,” the 1999 Reprise! production, is available.

*** GETTING TO KNOW WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE, Various artists, Echo Peak Productions, for the Road Scholar series

A new series of introductory audio biographies, Road Scholar, opens with a documentary on the Bard of Avon.

Smoothly narrated by Fred Child and written and produced by Joy Wake, with contributions from a variety of Shakespeare scholars and a couple of actors, and ample musical selections, the program covers a surprising amount of territory in just 74 minutes. It even delves briefly into such issues as the bisexual implications of the sonnets and the question of whether others could have written some of the plays (probably not, is the general conclusion).

The pacing keeps the program moving along, but without any kind of a hurried feeling. There isn’t time for detailed analysis of all the great plays, but several are examined for a few minutes each. The best audience for this isn’t Shakespeare novices or scholars, but rather the large group that falls in between those two descriptions.

*

Don Shirley is a Times staff writer.