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A look at a cast album you may not have heard about:

PRETTY FACES:
THE LARGE AND LOVELY MUSICAL
2004 NEW YORK CAST

In this cast album of PRETTY FACES, writer Robert W. Cabell seems to reject the idea that "less is more" and opts for "more is more." I'm not referring to the size of the cast (8) or the size of the cast, meaning the dimensions of the plus-size women who are the focus of this show. It's that there are 27 tracks and that's a lot! Among them, there are many good moments, but overall, I find the quality to be uneven. Cabell wrote book, music and lyrics. He's also the album producer. I think his strong suit is comedy, innocent, bawdy and snide. There's cleverness here. It's the straight, sincere songs that disappoint. It's frustrating, because the good stuff is quite good.
          The musical is set at a beauty pageant for overweight women, and the contestants are madly rehearsing for the high-pressure event. Among the character song highlights are the Southern gal practicing with her baton that she is "Twirling for Jesus," and "Too Plump for Prom Night" for a character named Pleasure.
          The cast works well in the ensemble numbers, and their songs about getting ready for a show have fun, frantic energy that people used to putting on any kind of show will appreciate. The two male characters are the amusingly bossy stage manager and the singing host of the pageant. His pastiche of a theme song is fun and could be expanded. The musical accompaniment is bare bones, sounding like a synthesizer, which does not serve the songs well. It makes the non-comedy songs sound cheesy. 
          The composer-lyricist is familiar to me because of his album for Z: The Masked Musical which was also a quirky but daring mix with a cast of name performers. The company here is from the production in 2004 at The New York Musical Theater Festival (NYMF) which showcases promising musicals. The ACE theater in Eugene , Oregon (the writer's hometown) premiered both Cabell shows.
          Despite the subject of scale-tipping ladies, this is a lightweight show that is most entertaining when it stays entertainingly so. Like its main characters, it has potential to be a winner.  

- - Rob Lester