Theater
January, 1975
The father of the Keystone Cops, pratfalls and the custard-pie fight was Mack Sennett, king of the two-reel silent comedy. How can you make a musical about Mack Sennett and not be funny? Easy, if you know how. In Mack & Mabel, producer David Merrick, author Michael Stewart and composer Jerry Herman (the trio that founded Hello, Dolly!) have zeroed in on the squalid side of Sennett, his on-and-off-and-on-and-off romance with his star Mabel Normand and her collapse into drink, drugs and delirium....
