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Taran Killam as Benedict A. Juniper, James Urbaniak as Howard Pine and John Mulaney as Simon Sawyer.
Rhys Thomas / IFC
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Rhys Thomas / IFC
Taran Killam as Benedict A. Juniper, James Urbaniak as Howard Pine and John Mulaney as Simon Sawyer.
Rhys Thomas / IFC
As far as niche programming is concerned, there is everything else, and then there is Documentary now!
If we still lived in a world where everything had to justify spending time on one of the three broadcast networks, the probability that we have ever seen a whole series of parodies of documentaries come up is nil. It's less than zero. (And if there was a documentary about the making of the movie Less than zerothere would be a Documentary now! episode about it.) It's for parody lovers who are also the documentary lovers who are also lovers of the parodied documentary film, whether it's bowling, Broadway or 70s bands.
Documentary now! broadcasts on IFC and was created by Saturday Night Live veterans Seth Meyers, Fred Armisen, Bill Hader and Rhys Thomas. In his first season, he covered famous movies like Gray Gardens, North Nanook and The thin blue line. But the longer he lasts, the more he can become (with blessing) specific and strange, and Wednesday night, he still ends up on one of his best episodes.
(Ok, look: Technically, Documentary now! did not make a parody of North Nanook. He made a parody of a 1990 film about North Nanook called Nanook revisited. That fact – that the creators made a parody of a documentary about another documentary – I always seemed to be the perfect demonstration of the individuality, verve and moderate inconvenience of this project.)
The episode of Wednesday is calling Album of the original cast: Co-op. Its starting point is Album of original cast: Company, a 1970 D.A. Pennebaker Movie on the recording of Stephen Sondheim's album Business. Pennebaker's film is marked by several memorable sequences: Elaine Stritch taking after-shot in the early morning hours of the marathon recording session, trying to nail "Ladies Who Lunch"; Sondheim criticizes politely and brutally tiny details of the performance of the members of the cast; and Beth Howland's brave performance in the fast-paced patrol song "(Not) get married today."
Cooperative does not specifically modify some of these sequences. John Mulaney (one of the show's production producers) plays the pompous composer Simon Sawyer, a black turtleneck bag whose inconsistent advice no one wants to contradict. Paula Pell plays Patty, whose long fight with a late recording is not exactly that of Stritch – who would try to be Elaine Stritch, after all? – but whose exasperation plays with the same wonderful energy "it's three o'clock in the morning and I hate a lot my life".
One trick, of course, is that to do this, you must also write the music of your musical scythe. This is not a first for Documentary now! who has already written songs (including for his fake doc on a soft rock band called Blue Jean Committee). But it's an impossible task if you try to make a real duplication: you can not write music for Stephen Sondheim. No one else can except Stephen Sondheim, and that's what makes him Stephen Sondheim. Mulaney and Meyers, who wrote the music with Eli Bolin, instead called for qualities of Sondheim's writing.
For example, there is a moment in the last issue where people are just starting to … say things during the songs. They say these things with great passion, as people do towards the end of Business continues to say things like "Add them, Bobby, add them." It's a very Sondheim whim and a very Broadway whim, and it takes a keen ear to unfold it in the parody of the right way.
There is also a great attention to detail, from time and other: haircuts, clothes, it's been 70 years. And the way theatrical actors watch when they cut out a disc – perfectly stating googly eyes, pointing with one hand or putting one finger on the ear – is familiar to anyone who has ever seen a session documented recording.
But none of this would work without casting, which is where Documentary now!The seemingly deep links with a monstrous number of funny and talented people become essential again. On a recent appearance on Late at night with seth meyer, Mulaney revealed that one of his first notes to take Business, before actually writing anything – while everything was still an idea – was: "Richard Kind is here." And Richard Kind, in the end, is in this. Kind is not only very very funny, but he has already played at the real Sondheim, in the series Bounce. Here, Kind plays a very breathless singer who plays a doorman, and if you want to spoil a preview of the episode, you can see him performing the song for the Late at night public.
They also rubbed the episode with famous Broadway stars: Renee Elise Goldsberry (the first Angelica Schuyler in Hamilton on Broadway) presents herself as an overqualified singer who is still trapped by the strange genius of Mulaney, and Alex Brightman (the first Dewey Finn of School of rock on Broadway), performs the required mix song. This adds up to reliable talents such as Mulaney himself, James Urbaniak, Taran Killam and this charming and strange turn of Pell.
One of the biggest mistakes in parody is to do it without knowing your stuff. For example, you can not parody romantic comedies based on what you have heard about them from third-hand; you must know them in and out. That's where the details come from, and it's the recognition of the details that makes the parody prove grounded. And really, that means you have to have some affection for them, or why would you like to know them? That's why This is the spinal tap is a classic: it is so closebecause the people who did it know a lot about this kind of group. It seems counterintuitive that parody is an act of love, but it is the truth. And this episode, written by Meyers and Mulaney, is full of love for Broadway, love for Sondheim and love for the bizarre 70's with big favorites. All to his advantage, it is the least that can be said.
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