Street Scene

[Producer Theron Bamberger] opened the fly leave and looked at the cast of characters. “Twenty-two characters,” he said. “Too many.” And the play was returned forthwith to Mr. Rice. ~ New York Times, Adele Nathan, 2/2/1947

The play would go on to win the Pulitzer Prize and be adapted into a Tony Award winning Opera. The family tragedy at the center branches off into subplots and vignettes for the neighbors and vendors that visit the central brownstone, expanding the cast from 22 to 30. 

On a side note, I'm realizing that the slice of life structure, and the brownstone set, had an influence on 2004's Avenue Q. 

One Touch of Venus

Marlene Dietrich dropped out of the show calling it "too sexy and profane." Stage fright seems more likely. She was replaced by Mary Martin. Martin had made a splashy Broadway debut in 1938 singing "My Heart Belongs to Daddy" in Cole Porter's Leave it To Me. Her legendary moment in Venus came when she sat on a chair on an empty stage and crooned the song "That's Him." The brassy comedy suddenly had a heart and the audience was spell bound.

A film and TV broadcast have faded from memory and the show is seldom revived. Kurt Weill purists have dismissed this slight show for a lack of politics. However if you squint at this gentle  farce there is social commentary to be found. Venus inspires more fear than lust from those around her and is dismayed by the lack of romance in the modern world.

Happy End

Legends say that Bertolt Brecht and his wife, Helene Weigel, sabotaged the opening of their own show to prevent the career of writing partner Elisabeth Hauptmann. Brecht scholars would debate the uncredited role she played in Brecht's prior work and whether she'd meant Happy End to launch an independent career. Helen Weigel staged a political protest in the middle of the performance, audiences booed, and Happy End was temporarily forgotten.

Several songs, including the Bilboa Song and Surabaya Johnny, gained some airplay on their own. The full show would find a new life in 1977 for a short lived Broadway production with Christopher Lloyd and Meryl Streep.

The slight gangsters vs. salvation army plot has been considered a sequel to The Threepenny Opera and a spiritual precursor to Guys and Dolls.

Lady in the Dark

My first comic in the printed template. I caused quite a debate among my theater friends on Facebook when I snubbed this show for dated sexual politics. One of them rightly commented "the first show to use analysis as anything but a punchline, the first even remotely sympathetic gay character and the whole story is analogous (if coded) to Moss Hart's life."

Lady in the Dark is licensed by the Rodgers and Hammerstein Co. Learn more here.