Whatever Lola Wants...

My Krak(owski) addiction is acting up again since I took in the NY City Center production of Damn Yankees over the holiday weekend. The ridiculously talented Jane Krakowski dares invite comparison to the legendary Gwen Verdon ...and survives.

For those of you too young to know about Gwen Verdon, she was Bob Fosse's chief muse (Leland Palmer plays a version of her in Fosse's auto-biopic All That Jazz, 1979 --click for my retrospective). She created Lola for the stage and transferred her to the screen as well in the 1958 movie musical. Damn Yankees is a comic spin on Faust wherein a crazed baseball fan makes a deal with the devil to help his beloved losing baseball team beat the Yankees. "Lola" is the devil's #1 home-wrecking right hand girl. It's essentially a supporting role but the kind of supporting role that dominates a show. Lola gets the most and the best numbers. Jane Krakowski was working her ass off throughout the new production (running until July 27th), and having a ball with the complicated Fosse choreography.

The production isn't without its rough patches [cough* Sean Hayes is horrible. He can't decide whether to do "JUST JACK" or not ] but the ensemble is great. Cheyenne Jackson plays the Hell bound baseball star and his voice is in better shape than ever. Jane, though, was the dazzling bright spot of the show. She's making a habit of that even if she isn't getting the A list fame her entertaining generosity warrants. She was always a treat on Ally McBeal as "Elaine" working innumerable varations and vulnerability into what would have been a one note role. And then there was Nine, (pictured right) in which she brought down the house with her cooing orgasmic rendering of "Call From the Vatican". The movie version (coming next year --more on that very soon) is going strictly A list in casting. Penélope Cruz snagged Jane's TONY winning role. We know Cruz can do sexy but there's no way her singing is as good. And can she make her seduction wickedly funny as well as sizzling hot? She'll need to bring her Volver A game if she hopes to stop the show movie.

Can Penélope Cruz make seduction hilarious?

Anyway, just for fun here's a very old video of Bob Fosse and Gwen Verdon discussing "Whatever Lola Wants" and performing some of it too.

Whatever Lola wants...
Lola gets
And little man, little Lola wants you!

How about Nathaniel. Can Nathaniel get what he wants? It's simple: an Emmy nomination for Jane Krakowski for 30 Rock.

She's one of the 10 finalists for supporting actress. Nobody on 30 Rock makes me guffaw as loudly and that's saying something since its the funniest show on television.

the 10 finalists
Bold means I'm rooting for them though it's basically a respectable list of ten, don't you think? Kristin Chenoweth, "Pushing Daisies" , Conchata Ferrell, "Two and a Half Men" Jenna Fischer, "The Office" Jane Krakowski, "30 Rock" Judith Light, "Ugly Betty" Elizabeth Perkins, "Weeds" Amy Poehler, "Saturday Night Live" Jean Smart, "Samantha Who?" Holland Taylor, "Two and a Half Men"
and Vanessa Williams, "Ugly Betty"

I'm not naive enough to think Jane is ever going to get a big film career (her current movie part is a dance instructor in Kit Kittredge: An American Girl) but her profile should still be higher for all that she keeps giving in television, on Broadway and very occasionally on the movie screens, too (her last decent film role was Alfie, 2004 though she had a relatively indecent one in Pretty Persuasion, 2005)