No, it is not a new Peter Sellars production of "La Traviata."

It's a new musical based on Dumas' "La Dame aux Camelias" and the Piave
libretto for Verdi.

What's with the monosyllabic treatment in the operas-into-musicals racket?

They made "La Boheme" into "Rent."

"Aida" into, well, "Aida" (that's real clever!)

This time it's "La Traviata" becoming "Kept."

What next? "Tosca" as "Leapt"?

The team of Henry Krieger (composer) and Bill Russell (lyricist), having
given us "Everything's Ducky" and "Side Show," now offers the world premiere
of "Kept" at Mountain View's TheaterWorks, and it's a sight.

The music is bland and trite, in the class of Andrew Lloyd Webber rejects,
ditto for the lyrics:  "Is this what it's like on the top? I don't want
this feeling to stop." That's an actual quote.

Verdi, of course, had it easy.  Not only did his text have some actual
music to go with it, but in Italian, everything sounds ever so much better,
although that nice rhyme is gone:  "E questo che cosa e simile sulla parte
superiore? Non desidero questa sensibilita arrestarsi." (Interpreted back
by Babel Fish as "It is this that what is similar on the advanced part? I
do not wish this sensibility to arrest itself." Translations are so much
more fun than bad musicals.)

The book for "Kept," by Russell and Stephen Chbosky (who has just completed
the screenplay for "Rent," to be directed by Spike Lee) is a beaut:

Alfredo (called Ian here, played well but spoken, not sung even when he
is supposed to be carrying a tune of some sort, by Will Swenson) is a
first-year medical student at NYU.  As such, he discovers the heroine's
illness early.

Violetta, so help me, is Caleigh.  My heart went out to Christiane Noll,
a fine actress and singer, with no music to speak of - or even speak.

There is no Germont pere, but Ian does have a mother, Karen Murphy doing
her best in a small, unnecessary role.  The Flora here is Brigitte, Brenda
Braxton having a grand time singing and vamping, both very well.  The
sugar-d addy looms large in "Kept," presented winningly by Dennis Parlato.
A particular bright spot in the cast is Barrett Foa as Blake, Ian's
roommate.

The large cast also engages in spirited (but tragically awkward) dancing,
Andy Blankenbuehler's choreography making one nostalgic for the artistic
purity and excellence of disco dancing, a genre (yes) to which it pays
homage.  This is to support the book's party-scene venue, where the
Alfredo-Violetta/Ian-Caleigh tragedy originates.  That would be Studio
54, described by Russell in the program notes as "paradise. . . (which)
provided some of the best theatrical experiences of my life." Well, the
man is honest, give him that.

As to the story, the lyrics, the music, the entire presentation of "Kept,"
it's all phony and forced, unreal and inconsequential, "some of the worst
theatrical experience" from this otherwise fine and daring small company.
Even the usually excellent TheaterWorks band, under Sam Davis' direction,
was having an off night.

The time is 1979, described by the notes as a period of "glamour
and decadence" to serve as the background to this "dramatic tale of a
tumultuous, sizzling love triangle." Here, in the heart of the late, great
Dotcom culture, where marketing lit has consistently outpaced products, the
musical's producers also characterize the beginning of the 'Eighties as
pervaded by "glitz and hedonistic energy. . . torrid get-rich, spend-quick
lifestyles. . . (when) increasing numbers of Americans began living for the
moment, fueled by a drug culture." One feels ever so grateful that - at
least until the San Francisco Opera's current "rebranding" campaign -
theater programs have traditionally eschewed the roles of junior
psychologists and amateur sociologists.

This misguided effort, this complete flop should make TheaterWorks fans
sad.  After all, this is the company of brilliant presentations of great
musicals, home to memorable productions of "Pacific Overtures," "Into the
Woods," "Passion," and scores of premieres (good, bad, indifferent, but NEW
works) over the years. The company's outstanding artistic director, Robert
Kelley, who is organizing the first annual New Works Festival of music
theater, May 1-5, around "Kept," this time laid a large egg, unfortunately.

Given the state of the American musical, of course, "Kept" may well end up
on Broadway, West End and as major motion picture. I wish it - and us,
everyone - good luck.

Janos Gereben/SF
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