The sexual revolution has just started. Bob and his wife want in.
DAMN, THEY MADE THE PANTS TOO TIGHT “Bob & Carol & Ted & Alice” follows two 30-something married couples in their 1969 fashions with their 1969 attitudes. From left, Joél Pérez, Ana Nogueira, Jennifer Damiano and Michael Zegen (Bob, Alice, Carol and Ted),
IF YOU EVER SAW the 1969 movie “Bob & Carol & Ted & Alice,” there are a couple of things you need to know about the New Group’s musical stage version.
(1) Stage-musical Bob looks way too much like movie Ted. That is, the actor Joél Pérez — with his dark hair and coordinating mustache — now onstage at the Signature Center, looks a lot like Elliott Gould. Which is confusing for older audience members. Which, as my press-night guest BP noted, was pretty much the whole audience.
‘I’M IN LOVE WITH MY SECRETARY, PENNY’.No, not really. The bedmates here are Alice and Ted. But Zegen, shown with Nogeuira, is better known as a wayward husband (now ex-husband) on “The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel.”
(2) Stage-musical Ted is the de facto star of the show. After a recent Sunday matinee, at the bar at Chez Josephine, a fellow audience member referred to the actor who plays Ted as Joel. And of course I understood.
Michael Zegen is better known as Joel Maisel, the title character’s flawed but good-at-heart ex-husband on Amazon’s nostalgia-fest megahit “The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel.” And although his character was the cad of Season 1, Joel (who dumps his wife for his secretary because he’s feeling inadequate about his abilities as a stand-up comic) has become more sympathetic and lovable as the seasons have passed.
Zegen is appealingly goofy as Ted, who kind of wants to get in on the sexual revolution that’s sweeping 1960s America — and kind of knows he shouldn’t.
BUT ENOUGH ABOUT Joel. Ted. Michael. How about the show? The plot is basically the same as that of the 1969 movie, starring Natalie Wood, Robert Culp, Elliott Gould and Dyan Cannon, directed and co-written by Paul Mazursky.
A hip-looking 30-something couple — Bob and Carol (Pérez and Damiano) — head to a “human potential” weekend workshop in Big Sur. (The retreat is based on the Esalen Institute which is still going strong in 2020.)
HOW I LEARNED TO DRIVE Carol and Bob (Damiano and Pérez ) on their way to Esalen, where they’ll take off their sunglasses and start saying “I feel.” instead of “I think.”
BOB, A DOCUMENTARY FILMMAKER, is just there to do research for a future project. But he and Carol hear one sentiment — “Don’t tell me what you think. Tell me what you feel” —so often and look so cute in their robes, that they shed their inhibitions and open their minds (and bodies) to the institute’s ideas, especially the ones about sexual freedom.
BREAKING THE RULES . The foursome have dinner out, sharing a microphone and taking turns singing. As one does. The musical number is “You Can’t Sing in a Busy Restaurant.” From left, Damiano, Pérez, Nogeuira and Zegan.
BACK HOME, THEY’RE EAGER to share their insights with their best friends, Ted and Alice (Zegen and Nogeuira)., who basically think they’ve lost their minds. Although Ted (who has never cheated on Alice during a business trip but has really, really come close) is intrigued. Eventually, there’s a showdown — when the four best friends have gone to Las Vegas for a weekend to see Tony Bennett. How about a little orgy before the show? And that’s when they get in touch with a whole new set of values and range of feelings.
HOOKAH? Suzanne Vega, center, plays multiple roles in ‘Bob & Carol & Ted & Alice.” And she sings. The bongo drums are a nice period detail. So is the cute little pipe that the foursome use for marijuana.
THE MUSIC IS BY Duncan Sheik, who gave us “Spring Awakening,” and Amanda Green, and has a split personality. Half the songs are moody lounge-act numbers. The other half are irreverent and/or silly, with lyrics like “It’s not complicated/Everybody gets naked.”
But wait, who’s that woman at the microphone, welcoming visitors to Esalen? Isn’t that the same woman asking sensitive but probing questions in a calming therapist’s voice? It’s Suzanne Vegas, the production’s Grammy-winning musical star. Sometimes Vega even interacts directly with the characters — at one point crawling into bed with Nogeuira, who was just minding her own business, and joining her in a duet.
GO ASK ALICE. Nogeuira and Vega sing a duet.