They say the unexamined musical is not worth having seen. I don’t know where that leaves “A Change in the Heir,” the god-awful show that opened on April 29th at the Edison Theater, but I left it at intermission. Written by George J. Gorham and Dan Sticco, directed by David H. Bell, and originally produced by New Tuners Theater, in Chicago, “A Change in the Heir” is set in a fairy-tale kingdom and concerns a prince and princess each of whom, for reasons beneath your notice and attention, has been has been reared as a member of the opposite sex. The show (which has a lot of brave performances by talented actors like Judy Blazer, Brooks Almy, and J.K. Simmons, all of whom manage to cloak their embarrassment with positively heroic distinction) begins with what I take to be a comic simulation of birth. I don’t know how it ends—perhaps with a comic simulation of abortion.
Lest anyone mistake “A Change in the Heir” for another of those breathtakingly bad musicals one wants to have seen because everyone will be talking about it for years—relax. This isn’t “Carrie” or “Prince of Central Park,” or even “Welcome to the Club.” “A Change in the Heir” isn’t extravagantly bad, though it includes lyrics like “Bless these children, keep them chaste, Keep their little undies laced”; it’s just dully bewildering. At whom can this show be aimed? Not children. (There’s a song about genitalia called “Take a Look at That.”) Not the audience for Stephen Sondheim’s “Into the Woods.” (There’s a lengthy production number consisting entirely of pratfalls and slapstick.) And not the audience for drag theater, whose premise, after all, is that homosexuality is pervasive. (The jokes here ride on the assumption that homosexuality is nonexistent.) So crass and outmoded is the style of the show (how hearts must have sunk at the first dress rehearsal when David Murin’s Disneyesque synthetic-fiber costumes were revealed) that when a siren went off in the theatre about ten minutes into the show—a ridiculous wailing sound, like a vaudeville fire alarm, a veritable cartoon of a noise—it was impossible to know that it was not part of the production.
The siren continued to sound. It went on and on, stopping at regular intervals and then starting up again, drowning out the dialogue. All over the theater, respectable, soberly dressed people were convulsed. Finally, Miss Almy, managing to make herself heard, ad-libbed something about getting the situation taken care of, and shortly thereafter an actor who had made an unscheduled exit re-entered and interpolated a line about taking a short break. A brief interval was announced over the P.A. system. I half expected the voice on the loudspeaker to continue, “Actually, folks, we were just kidding. You can all go home.” But the show resumed five or ten minutes later, and from then on all one could do was wait glumly for the next chance of escape.
Mimi Kramer
The New Yorker, May 14, 1990