Dirty Rotten Scoundrels.(Audiobook review)

Dirty Rotten Scoundrels. Music and lyrics by David Yazbek and Billy Strauss (Ghostlight 7915584406)

While each of these four cast recordings embody a certain degree of camp--Dirty Rotten Scoundrels is also the most retro. Not quite film noir like Cy Coleman's City of Angels, Scoundrels is in the spirit of a classic whodunit. And it is also old-fashioned in the best sense--actually having songs you leave the theatre humming.

For openers, John Lithgow explains life as a con man in the tuneful, upbeat "Give Them What They Want." While the lyrics of Joanna Gleason's "What Was a Woman to Do" get plenty of laughs ("If music be the food of love, he ate my smorgasbord"), the melody is just as pleasing. The show's real star, Norbert Leo Butz (yep, that's his name), then pours out his materialistic affliction in "Great Big Stuff." Like Zero Mostel in Fiddler on the Roof, Butz will be identified with this role for a long time. The entire featured cast is outstanding as well. Gregory Jbara continues to be the master of understatement (as he was opposite Julie Andrews in Victor Victoria) in "Chimp in a Suit." Sara Gettlefinger (yep, that's her real name too) makes country & western swing in ""Oklahoma?" A witty novelty song, "All About Ruprecht," follows, which with words like "KY Jelly," "testicles" and "farts" may someday wind up on the ...