“Please Sir” from The Act

Kander and Ebb’s The Act was one of the most relentlessly mediocre musicals of the Seventies. One of their many vehicles for Liza Minnelli, it was basically a glorified nightclub act masquerading as a musical. Granted, the idea of a Minnelli-fronted nightclub act doesn’t sound all that unpalatable in itself, but when you add in the least interesting score of Kander and Ebb’s career and the star being in extremely poor voice for most of the run, the result was a severe disappointment. That said, in the early stages of the show’s creation, it seems to be trying for something more ambitious than just a dressed-up nightclub act, as this cut song from an early draft of the show indicates. But while this song certainly doesn’t lack for serious content, it’s still a spectacularly unpleasant piece. It consists of an incredibly disturbing musical narrative from the perspective of a wealthy society lady who was abused as a child and now hires random thugs to beat her up because she gets off on it. The show this song was written for certainly sounds more interesting than the finished version of The Act, but it doesn’t really seem any more likely to succeed, or, frankly, any less awful.