The Boston Globe
October 2, 2008
By Christopher Muther
 Broadway star Debra Monk plays the title role in ''Mrs. Miller Does Her Thing.'' |
"We were just sort of having breakfast and trying to find something to talk about," recalls Lapine of the meeting arranged by their mutual manager. "Mark started talking about Mrs. Miller. He adores Mrs. Miller."
For those who are not fans of arcane pop culture, Mrs. Miller was the original 1960s musical novelty act. Before Tiny Tim tiptoed through his tulips, this 60-ish hausfrau from the California suburbs caterwauled her way into American consciousness by singing such hits as "These Boots Are Made for Walkin' " and "Downtown" in an ear-splitting soprano that could peel paint.
Lapine was intrigued by Elva Miller's rise to fame, and an unlikely creative partnership was born between the librettist/director and the pop star. A few years later, their play "Mrs. Miller Does Her Thing" is in the workshop stage at the Vineyard Playhouse on Martha's Vineyard. The show, which Lapine is directing in its final performances tonight through Saturday, tells the story of Miller's meteoric rise - and quick crash - as a beloved national oddity. Her butchering of tunes by Jefferson Airplane and the Beatles was the stuff of Johnny Carson jokes and endless radio DJ jabs, but it also sold hundreds of thousands of records, landing her gigs on "The Ed Sullivan Show" and "Merv Griffin," and even a USO tour in Vietnam with Bob Hope.
A fidgety and chatty Lapine, sitting in shorts and a raincoat in a cafe down the street from the Vineyard Playhouse, acknowledges that after working on the show for so long, he now finds Miller's curious vocal stylings endearing.
"Even if she was terrible, she still loved to sing," he says. "There was an odd passion to it." With Broadway star Debra Monk in the title role, "Mrs. Miller Does Her Thing" explores a mystery that remains to this day: Was Miller simply a church choir soloist with terrible pitch and no sense of rhythm who was unaware that America was laughing at her, or was she laughing, too?
"Nobody was really clear if she was in on the joke," says Everett, who is credited as a co-creator of the show, by phone from his home in Los Angeles. "I was so obsessed with her that I ended up tracking down and talking to her family members. It seems that she wasn't in on the joke at the beginning, but she started picking up on it during her Capitol recording sessions, when they were picking her worst takes."
Everett, who admires the humanity of Miller's recordings, was initially hoping to turn the story into a film. But Lapine transformed Everett's research into a show that is part biography and part fiction. While telling Miller's story, Lapine portrays her fame in the context of the cultural and social upheaval that was swirling around her in the 1960s. Adding a trio of fictional backup singers, he uses Miller as a symbol of America's change from polished politeness to counterculture restlessness.
"She seemed to me like the last innocent," Lapine says. "I sort of imagine her as the last person to get on the bus in the 1960s. She represented to me the kind of post-World War II mentality which was having a very hard time adapting to the changes of the 1960s." "Mrs. Miller" includes performances of more than a dozen pop songs - some recorded by Miller, some not - to show how the world quickly changed from 1966 to 1968, the period in which she released her four albums. Lapine and musical director Michael Starobin sifted through 600 hits from the late '60s to find emblematic songs for Monk to sing during the show.
"Popular music started reflecting what was going on in the social environment," says Starobin. "There was a huge transformation in the music, and Mrs. Miller sang a lot of it." While there is a fair amount of camp and comedy in "Mrs. Miller," Lapine balances them with dramatic moments. During Miller's short career, her husband, 20 years her senior, passed away. And for all the low-quality singing she inflicted on the world, it's hard not to be charmed and touched by a lady who equally enjoyed making Jell-O molds and singing the hits of the Mamas and the Papas. Lapine uses her vulnerabilities to craft a surprisingly touching story.
The first reading of "Mrs. Miller" took place at the Vineyard Playhouse in the summer of 2005, followed by a November workshop production in New York with Monk in the title role. Then development of the show crawled ahead while Monk performed on Broadway in "Curtains." Both Lapine and Everett say they can't imagine another actress attempting the challenging vocals that Monk tackles in her portrayal of Miller.
"I was astonished the first time I saw her perform the role," Everett says. "As Mrs. Miller's biggest fan, I felt like I was in the same room with her."
But singing badly is not as easy as it sounds. Starobin, who has worked with Lapine on past hits such as "Falsettos," rehearsed with Monk to keep her off the beat and off-key. He needed to fight the urge to adapt his piano playing to follow Miller's timing.
Monk says she inadvertently began preparing for the role of Miller as a child. Growing up in her Baptist church, she made fun of the sopranos in the choir, mocking them in warbling Miller fashion. Now, not only does Monk eerily emulate Miller, she also gets to sing in her own lovely voice.
"Mrs. Miller thought she was a good singer, so we have this trick we use in the show where the lights change and you hear me sing as Mrs. Miller thought she sounded," Monk says. "Then the lights change back, and you hear how everybody else heard her." A similar technique was used, of course, in "Souvenir," the Broadway show about another tone-deaf singer, Florence Foster Jenkins, who numbed eardrums in the 1930s and 1940s.
There are no plans for "Mrs. Miller" after its Martha's Vineyard run, but it's already served its purpose as a workshop production. Lapine plans to tweak portions of the script, he says, adding that friends and Broadway producers were making the trip to the Vineyard, and all involved hoped it would evolve and eventually find a home on Broadway.
Miller's self-proclaimed No. 1 fan has another goal for the show. "I really want to give Mrs. Miller her shred of dignity that was taken away from her," Everett says. "People have a memory of her as the little old lady who ruined 'Downtown.' But she really believed in what she did. I want people to understand her a little more."