Life is a cabaret. . .

Cabaret  is  as close to perfection as  musical theater can get  and currently  Alan Cumming is back at  Studio 54-cum-Kit Kat Klub in his career-making  role  as the  androgynous, serpentine Emcee.

One of  the  non-stop hit songs is, of course, a metaphor:   Life  is a cabaret.

The  title of  the  non-musical  adaptation of Christopher Isherwood's  wonderful  Berlin Stories,  was inspired by this metaphoric line: "I am a camera with its shutter open, quite passive, recording, not thinking."
Here's a link to my review of the current revival:
www.curtainup.com/cabaret14.html

some similes gone missing from Act One the play

Moss Hart's  Act One  is one of  the best and most successful   memoirs by a theatrical   legend  ever written.   It  worked as  an inspirational guide for  future  theater professional,  but Hart's personal  rags-to-riches  story   was not limited  to theater aficionados.   Hart  wrote  touchingly and with enormous  psychological insight.   While James Lapine is   also  a noted  man of  the theater,  his  stage adaptation of  the  book is  an  enjoyable but flawed  entertainment.   It  retains much of  Hart's text  but some  of   the  most pungent   imagery (especially similes)   have  gotten lost in  translation.  To cite just a few of  these misplaced gems:

Aunt Kate sailed down the aisle like a great ship  coming into port. . .

The enormity of what I had done settled over me like a suit of mail.

optimism was again flowing through the theatre like May  wine. . .

I've  seen them   (plays  in previews)  go all kinds of  ways, but this was like spraying ether.

He waved me away as though I were an insect buzzing about his head. . .

With each new play the playwright is a Columbus sailing uncharted seas

Here too is a link to my review of the play:
 www.curtainup.com/actone14.html

Hedwig's Angry inch is "like a sideways grimace/on an eyeless face

No contest:  The smartest,  most exhilarating   transfer of a  downtown  show to Broadway  is  Hedwig and the Angry Inch --  and  the  most  amazing performance is  Neil Patrick Harris's   performance as the  transgendered title   character.   Here's a link to my review:  www.curtainup.com/hedwigbway14.html

And for you fans of  figures of speech--  here a few lines with a simile from the  show-stopping title song. . .

  A One Inch Mound Of Flesh
 With A Scar Running Down It
 like A Sideways Grimace
On An Eyeless Face.

Poetic simile inspired title for A Raisin in the Sun

What happens to a dream deferred? 
Does it dry up
like a raisin in the sun?


The  above  raisin simile  in Langston Hughes' poem  "Harlem [2]"  inspired the title and theme of Lorraine Hansberry's  groundbreaking play A Raisin in the Sun.  Sadly  Hansberry died too young,  but fortunately she didn't  defer her dream  before writing  this wonderful play that currently being given a wonderful  Broadway revival


Her  script  includes   this  potent simile  from the Younger family's matriarch:
"He finally came into his manhood today, didn't he. . . Kind of like a rainbow after the rain .
like a raisin in the sun?

Below a link to my review

www.curtainup.com/raisinbway14.html

A song full of similes from If/Then

The  recently opened new musical, What/Then   is  a triumph for Indina Menzel,  though  reviews of the show overall have been mixed.  Though Menzel  is the  ticket selling draw,  she's  well  supported and  one of  the show's  best  songs, "It's a Sign"  is sung  by  LaCanze's  characte .  It  also  features some  nice   some  nice similes.

NOW THOSE ARE SIGNS THAT YOU CAN’T IGNORE!
IT’S PERFECT AND IT’S PLAIN,
LIKE RAINBOWS IN THE RAIN—
ONE MORE CLUE
THERE FOR YOU
DO I HAVE TO EXPLAIN
THAT IT’S A SIGN?
OH, IT’S A SIGN...
LIKE THE LEAVES IN YOUR TEA
OR THE CORK IN YOUR WINE!
IT’S A LADY’S WINK, A POET’S RHYME,