From The Crimson White: With UA’s new musical “City of Angels,” I had a mystery on my hands. Sure, its 1940s Noir parody had a convoluted detective story, but this mystery didn’t involve a millionaire’s missing daughter or blackmailing mobsters – it was the case of who killed the audience.
Don’t get me wrong, “Angels,” the department’s second musical farce in a row, is funny. In fact, it’s a riot. Larry Gelbart’s book slops on equal helpings of razor-sharp wit and schmaltzy hardboiled pulp as he tells the stories of Stone, a fictional private eye hunting a missing heiress, and Stine, the persecuted writer bringing Stone to the screen for 1940s Hollywood – all illustrated by a jazzy, big-band, lounge-lizard score.