Although she had served briefly as a replacement in the musical Chicago in 1975,
Liza Minnelli returned to Broadway in her own show for the first time in 12 years with The Act, which opened in New York on October 29, 1977. With music and lyrics by her favorite songwriting team,
John Kander and Fred Ebb, it was a backstage musical concerning a fading film star attempting a comeback in Las Vegas. But the thin plot was really just an excuse to put the star on-stage in a bunch of new songs; except for one choral number, "Little Do They Know,"
Minnelli sang every song in the show.
Kander and Ebb tended to enjoy their greatest successes with period works, especially those set in the 1920s (Chicago) or '30s (Cabaret), for which
Kander could apply his expertise in hot jazz styles and Ebb could vent his negative world view. But The Act was set in the present day; while
Kander threw in the occasional disco rhythm and electric guitar lick, he really didn't have a feel for the music of the 1970s, and it showed. Ebb's free-floating cynicism was at home in the era of Watergate, of course, but it ran counter
Minnelli's "the show must go on" enthusiasm. As a result, the score failed her, and that's what one gets on a cast album which is little more than a
Minnelli solo recording with the thinnest indication that the performances derive from a book musical.
Minnelli sings the songs with her usual verve, vanishing only for "Little Do They Know" and its reprise, a song that addresses the star-vehicle nature of the project. Fittingly,
Minnelli won a Tony award for her performance, but the show itself lost out. It ran 233 performances, closing after eight months. ~ William Ruhlmann