Upping the Auntie: A 'Mame' Makeover

"The two of them were both kicking their legs up," Schaeffer reports. "And of course Christine was like: 'Now, what did you do about the hair? How did you change?' She was talking technical."

Bona fide musical theater stars: "We don't make them anymore," sighs Herman, "because we don't have shows like 'Mame' anymore."

Having been on Broadway with last season's revival of "La Cage," Herman has a freshly sharpened opinion of the Great White Way. Critics, producers, audiences -- nobody really likes the new stuff, or has much taste for tradition. What's a composer to do?

"I think everybody's confused, for good reason," he says gravely. "I don't think they know what's going to work. . . . I understand where we are with the musical. And I have squandered a lot of my talent by not writing anything for years, because I didn't believe I had a welcoming world to write it in. I feel that I am six shows short of the career that I could have had."

The current crop of musical-theater writers leaves him perplexed. "They are probably more talented than we all were at the time we were starting," Herman asserts. "They really are. But they're afraid to write a melody, because someone will say it's old-fashioned."

So for many reasons -- among them Kaiser's statement that "my goal is to make this the destination" -- it's tricky speculating whether this "Mame" and Herman might make it to Broadway.

"Would I like to? Yes, I would," Herman says. The laugh is quiet, but not without ambition: an exile dreaming of triumphant return.

"But," he continues, "I would like to go on anywhere. I would like this to play other cities. Because I'll tell you, people have been asking me for years, 'When are we going to see "Mame" again?' It hasn't been done. I think it's going to please a lot of people for that reason."

"No clue," Schaeffer shrugs about the prospects. "We're just trying to do the best damn show we can. New York could use something like this. It's the real thing."