40 / CHRONICLESnnewly integrated Hollywood. NownNora Charles is sending Nick off tonGrant’s Tomb, not so much to get himnout of the way but because he deservesnit. Making Mr. Right is also exactlynthe film you might expect as a responsento the now discredited Yale-nHarvard study, in which statistics demonstratednthe appalling unlikelihoodnany female over 25 has of gettingnmarried. In a world without tolerablenmen, what other solution is there butnan android? It is the final femininenrevenge.nThis could, with some truth, bencalled a feminist movie. But feministnis one of those slippery words that cannSTAGEnViva la MusicalnComedynby David KaufmannA few months before I saw the musicalnLes Miserables — actually a fewnmonths before it opened at the KennedynCenter last December—I heard it.nThe show’s publicist had sent me antape of the London version. When Infirst listened to it, I felt disappointed. Itnsounded more than a littie like Evita,nwith the strongest passages or thencatchiest musical phrases not onlyncheaply sentimental but also repetitiousnin a manipulative sort of way.nWhatever its merits or shortcomings,nLes Miserables was earmarked asna significant event for more than justnthe season. I felt privileged to obtainnseparate interviews with CameronnMackintosh, its producer; Alain Boublilnand Claude-Michel Schonberg,nrespectively the French lyricist andncomposer who together in 1978 conceivednof the whole project; HerbertnKretzmer, the English lyricist; andnTrevor Nunn and John Caird, thenco-directors and the top two artisticnminds behind the Royal ShakespearenCompany, under whose auspices thenEnglish version premiered in Londonnin the fall of 1985.nBack in September and October ofn1986, I forced myself to listen to thentape again and again—occasionally asnmean many things. Seidelman’s “feminist”nviewpoint is not of the black andnwhite variety, where men are irredeemablenand women angelic. Stevenmay be a louse, but he does have hisnmoments, and somebody falls for evennplain, bumbling, sarcastic Dr. Peters.nFrankie’s patronizing treatment of Peters,nwhen he’s done her a favor andnagreed to come as her date to hernsister’s wedding, is unkind and unfair,nfor all his preposterousness. Trish,nbeing of the school that any man isnbetter than no man at all, puts morenpressure on Frankie to get back withnSteve than even Steve does. All ofnwhich is to say, it’s not really like life.nbackground music while I was revisingnmy routine theater pieces, or perhapsnmore intently while I was sitting inntraffic jams on the FDR drive hopingnI’d still make the 8:05 curtain. Andnthen gradually, imperceptibly, itnbegan to happen. The music started tongrow on me and assume the subtletynand the distinctive sound of a musicalncomedy.nWhen I spoke with Mr. Nunn duringnthe rehearsal period for the Americannproduction, he claimed that it wasnMr. Schonberg’s score which first interestednhim in the project. “What onenwas able to respond to was the sweep ofnthe music,” he explained. “One couldntell that the composer had got hold ofnsomething, because there’s somethingnthat is very contemporary in the feelnabout the music, yet we could imaginenpeople singing it in period costumenwithout being embarrassed.”nBut before my interview with Mr.nNunn, when I had my own littlenmusical epiphany, I suddenly rememberednthat when I was growing up innOhio I used to listen to the albums ofnmusicals countless times before Inwould actually see them. I realized Incould sing the entire scores to dozensnof shows long before I saw them. Mynfamily made annual — sometimesnbiannual—pilgrimages to New York,nwhich meant to Broadway. Invariably,nthese visits consisted of seven shows innfive days, sometimes more, when wenwere fortunate enough to stay longer.nMuch of the excitement essential tonthe success of a musical depended onnthe sensation of hearing an old friend.nnnbut it’s as confused and mixed as lifenis, and that gives the movie a surprisingnsubtiety.nSeidelman understands that charactersnwith no redeeming features belongnto tragedy, not comedy, and so avoidsnthem. And a man who is dragged bynhis girlfriend or wife to see MakingnMr. Right can take some comfort innremembering that the only truly wonderfulncharacter in the movie, whilennot exactly a man, is at least a male,nnot a female, android.nKatherine Dalton writes from NewnYork.nIt doesn’t really matter that I understoodnlittie of what the lyrics meant ornwhat the sentiments represented. Thenpoint is that until the 60’s a musicalncomedy was something to be listenednto again and again, until its personalitynand its character, its woofer and itsntweeter, its sparkle and its fizz tooknroot in that magical recess of beingnwhere tunes lie dormant and a sense ofnall being right with the world isnformed.nHas anyone else noticed that thengreatest musical comedy hits of thenpast 15 years have usually shown up asnrecords, before they were produced onnstage? This was true of Jesus ChristnSuperstar, Evita, Cats, Song andnDance, Starlight Express, and now ofnPhantom of the Opera—which collectivelynrepresents the Andrew LloydnWebber oeuvre. Indeed, it was alsontrue of the initial, French version ofnLes Miserables. It first appeared as andouble album in Paris before it openednfor a limited eight-week run (extendednto 16) at the Palais de Sports in 1980.nBut as obvious as this formula fornsuccess may appear, today’s vast majoritynof musicals are lucky if they getnrecorded even after they open—theynclose too fast to justify the expense.nIn our era, the musical comedy hasnbeen ridiculed, reviled, “tried-out,”npanned, workshopped, revised, imitated,nreworked—in short, everythingnbut loved, and so rarely recorded.nSome of the best songs written for thenstage in the past decade are lost, sincenno albums were made to preserventhem. Gait MacDermot’s 1983 scoren