Kennedy Center’s ‘Mail’ Splits the Critics

“Mail”--the musical where an anxious yuppie’s junk mail comes to life--was such a big hit at the Pasadena Playhouse last year that the theater brought it back for a pre-Broadway engagement.

Now “Mail” has opened at the Kennedy Center in Washington. The local radio-TV reviewers were enthusiastic; the print reviewers were divided.

David Richards of the Washington Post said No, with a capital N. He thought the show took “a nugget of an idea and drove it into the ground.” Moreover, he found that Jerry Colker’s lyrics and Michael Rupert’s tunes owed everything to the collected works of Stephen Sondheim.

Rupert’s performance as the wired Alex reminded Richards unfavorably of Anthony Newley singing Anthony Newley. Even the set by Gerry Hariton and Vicki Baral came in for a rap:

“The biggest question in the first act isn’t ‘Who is Alex and why is he going ‘round the bend?’ Rather it’s ‘How many different hiding places can this production invent for the letter writers in Alex’s life?”’

Louise Sweeney of the Christian Science Monitor gave the show a capital Y Yes. “You don’t need a return receipt to know that this new yuppie musical really delivers. It delivers an evening of fresh contemporary fun that’s filled with sassy musical numbers, high-voltage dancing and a cast that seems to run on rocket fuel.”

Hap Erstein’s review in the Washington Times was mixed to negative but did end on a slightly encouraging note. “Interestingly enough, although ‘Mail’ has almost nothing in common with ‘Phantom of the Opera,’ it shares the same primary assets: exceptional sets and a fine male leading performance.”

Is “Mail” still on the way to Broadway? Absolutely, say its producers. It opens at the Music Box Theatre on April 14, with previews starting March 28.

“Carrie” (based on Stephen King’s shocker) is also due on Broadway in April--another English musical hoping for the big prize. Actually this is a runaway American production overseen by the Royal Shakespeare Company, and the immediate reaction to its Stratford-Upon-Avon tryout wasn’t encouraging.

Variety, in fact, used the word “hostile” to describe the bulk of the British reviews. “An undertow of resentment over what might be termed the RSC’s blatant commercialism, namely a production intended specifically for export, could also be detected.”

IN QUOTES: John Ruskin--”The greatest thing a human soul ever does in this world is to see something, and tell what it saw in a plain way.”