110 in the Shade

"The rainmaker doesn't change the weather: he changes people, turning them into what they really are." ~ Ethan Mordden. Open a New Window: The Broadway Musical in the 1960's 

110 in the Shade has been compared to The Music Man. Both involve a con man who charms the town and a spinster who stands against him. While Marian domesticates Harold, Starbuck awakens a drive in Lizzie. Lizzie's been held down by her well meaning family. She needs to break out of her comfort zone and find some independence before she can settle down with a spouse. The show is more respected than beloved but Lizzie is a fantastic role for a singing actress. The role won great praise for both Inga Swenson in 1963 and Audra McDonald in 2007.

I'll be taking a break from this comic to work on some other projects. Have a safe winter and a happy new year!

Subways Are For Sleeping

This jokey show about homeless con artists knew nothing about the realities of being homeless. With very little plot and a mediocre score the show quickly folded. It is best remembered for a publicity stunt. Producer David Merrick found 7 strangers with the names of the New York critics and got them to sign off on positive quotes. The poster said "7 out of 7 are ecstatically unanimous about Subways Are For Sleeping."

Hallelujah, Baby!

Being good just won't be good enough

I'll be the best or nothing at all

In 1968 Hallelujah, Baby! won 5 Tony Awards: Best Actress, Best Featured Actress, Best Producer, Best Original Score and Best Musical. So why did it close after 293 performances? 

Arthur Laurents's libretto had a tricky concept. Leslie Uggams traveled through 50 years of American history while remaining 25. The book is focused the progress of civil rights. The score is focused on Uggams' showbiz career. It's Roots meets Funny Girl and critics found it a tough sell. The New York Times referred to the 1967 production as "Civics One" and a 2004 revisal as "bland and anachronistic." 

In a 2011 interview Arthur Laurents stated that the show was written for Lena Horne. He felt it lost it's edge when the sweet Leslie Uggams replaced her. Edgy or not Uggam's star-making turn is what the show is best remembered for now. You can watch her performances on the Ed Sullivan Show and the Tony Awards broadcast to see why.

The Fantasticks

Two innocents go on a journey, suffer and return home sadder but wiser. It works for me in Candide and Into the Woods. So why don't I care for the world's longest running musical? I think it's the lack of self-awareness. I find the father's plot so unpleasant and the lovers so ill-suited to each other that their sincere act two duet rings as hollow as the satirical act one duet. The original production charmed audiences for 42 years so I've had to accept I'm simply not the target audience. I haven't experienced the things the show feels nostalgic for. I can not remember so I can not follow.

Still, it did give us Jerry Orbach.

Promises, Promises

Okay so it's not really a holiday musical but it does have the song Turkey Lurkey Time.

Billy Wilder's The Apartment and the musical adaptation Promises, Promises fall into the genre of dark romantic comedy. It's boy meets girl with a villain in the way but this time the boy is self loathing and the girl is suicidal. The corporate setting makes it a creepy cousin to the peppier How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying. 

The brittle film has held up better than the sentimental musical. It was a hit in 1968. Bacharach's sound was fresh and the gender politics slightly less dated. When the show was revived on Broadway in 2010 the critics found Sean Hayes and Kristin Chenoweth's natural liveliness was undercut by the hangdog roles. The 2017 London revival faced similarly mixed reviews.

Fortunately act two is perked up by the arrival of Marge, a flirty alcoholic. Christine Baranski and Kate Finneran made three course banquets out of her would be seduction of the leading man.

The Gay Life

Barbara Cook spent the first decade of her career playing ingenues in musical comedies. The Music Man was her biggest hit but even "flops" like Candide and She Loves Me gave her signature songs like "Glitter and Be Gay" and "Vanilla Ice Cream." Today I look at one of her real flops; The Gay Life. 

We start with a set of one act plays about a rouge named Anatole and his many mistresses. In adapting them to a musical a through line was needed. That would be Liesl the young woman who loves him from afar. Like Bobby in Company she observes all his adventures. Like Sandy in Grease she wins him by asserting her own sexuality. The role could have been a cipher or a joke. Instead Barbara Cook made her the beating heart of the show.

Italian film star Walter Chiari couldn't really sing. The mistresses and the sidekick get the comedy numbers but those are mostly uninspired. The good stuff goes to Barbara Cook and her tracks on the cast album are spellbinding.

"Our leading man couldn't act, dance, sing or speak English, which was a handicap." ~ Howard Dietz

"When the show was published for the first time in 1986, it was retitled, for perhaps obvious reasons, The High Life." ~ Kevin Mandelbaum

Flapper Julie Andrews

The Boy Friend. Music, Lyrics and Book by Sandy Wilson. 1953 West End. 1954 Broadway

Thoroughly Modern Millie. 1967 screenplay by Richard Morris. Original music by Elmer Bernstein.  2002 book by Richard Morris. Original music by Jeanine Tesori. Original lyrics by Dick Scanlan.

The Broadway transfer of The Boyfriend featured the New York debut of Julie Andrews! She would don her flapper dresses again for Millie and make her directing debut with a production of The Boyfriend in 2003. Both stories focus on flappers who enjoy their independence till their poor boyfriends confess they are secretly rich and propose. It's telling that the sequel to The Boyfriend was titled Divorce Me, Darling!

The Boy Friend is a fairly conventional musical that was turned into a strange film.
Millie was a weird film that got turned into a conventional musical. Carol Channing and Beatrice Lillie are doing... something... bizarre that the raise the film to new camp levels. Channing's character was toned down when the show transferred to Broadway but Harriet Harris made Lillie's villain her own crazy (and Tony winning) creation.

Trailer for The Boy Friend on film.
Trailer for Thoroughly Modern Millie on film.
Performance from Thoroughly Modern Millie at the Tony's.

Hello, Dolly!

Hello, Dolly! is a big brassy star vehicle with a hit title song. The libretto is based on a play by Thornton Wilder which lifted generously from French and Austrian farces. Though Dolly is a matchmaker the story isn't necessarily a romance.

Dolly, Horace and Irene have each survived a spouse and settled into unfulfilling lives. Dolly decides to let her memories go and "rejoin the human race." She learns to like herself again and teaches the others to do the same.

Check out Richard Skipper's collection of testimonials on the many, many divas who've played Dolly Gallagher Levi.

Little Me

Patrick Dennis is best remembered for his 1955 novel Auntie Mame: An Irreverent Escapade. Mame could be cruel but she had a big heart. There was no heart to be found in his 1961 novel Little Me: The Intimate Memoirs of that Great Star of Stage, Screen and Television, Belle Poitrine (as told to Patrick Dennis). Belle is ruthless as she sleeps and murders her way to B-movie stardom.

The musical shifted focus to her 7 hapless suitors. All were played by television star Sid Caesar. The show ran 257 performances and received 10 Tony nominations but revivals shutter fast. There’s not much there to work with. If Fosse had collaborated with Kander and Ebb he’d have explored the dark side of Belle’s ambition. Neil Simon’s book isn’t interested in that, or much of anything, beyond broad sketch comedy. Revivals have expanded Belle’s role but rewrites can’t make her sympathetic. The title song, “Little Me,” reminds us that Belle’s greatest love affair is with herself.

Cabaret

Cabaret has gone through many rewrites. Bob Fosse's film brought the text closer to Christopher Ishwerwood's original stories. Revivals turned the subtext into text. But from the beginning the show turned a mirror on a hedonistic society that ignores politics at their peril.

Mr. President

This week I'll be posting on musicals that explore the office of U.S. President. We'll start with Irving Berlin's Mr. President which places a fictional President Henderson in a shallow family sitcom. The show was a flop and would prove to be Irving Berlin's last.

The synopsis on Wikipedia is a sprawling mess with no character development or stakes. The songs I've found online are bland one-joke affairs despite a fun performance from Nanette Fabray as the First Lady.

In Ethan Mordden's book, Open a New Window, he writes: "Blame unfortunately fell on Berlin... Actually, the only thing that worked in the show was Berlin's score. It is not at all impressive; but it is tuneful and it tries to create content for the silhouettes that Lindsay and Crouse gave Berlin..." 

Sherry!

Some musicals eclipse their source material. Others just add songs. The Man Who Came to Dinner remains a delightful comedy while Sherry! is rightfully forgotten. In 2004 an all star cast was assembled for a studio cast album of the score. The problems were laid clear. The three act play was squished awkwardly into two acts and the generic songs never quite fit the characters. The secretary got ingenue ballads (Elizabeth Allen /Bernadette Peters), the diva got the belty numbers (Dolores Gray / Carol Burnett), but poor Sheridan Whiteside (George Sanders / Clive Revill / Nathan Lane) was stuck with dull Henry Higgins patter and a bizarre dream ballet.

A fuzzy recording remains of Dolores Gray belting the title song. Critics agreed she was the best thing in the show but she wasn't onstage long enough to carry the show.

Marc Miller's review of the recording ended with: "The deluxe presentation and drop-dead cast seem a little silly under the circumstances; you can take hamburger, dress it up with spices and fancy cheeses, flip it onto a silver platter and call it steak haché au gorgonzola, but it'll still be hamburger."

Mame

Why does Patrick Dennis turn on his lovable Auntie Mame?
Why does the open minded Mame immediately reject Patrick's fiance?
If Mame and Patrick had been so close, why do they never discuss his late parents?
Why is Mame's late husband so quickly forgotten?
What happened to Patrick at boarding school that made him feel ashamed of his upbringing?

Many things are left unsaid in Mame. This was true of the original novel and play as well. The Mame/Patrick relationship takes a backseat to Mame's episodic adventures and those of her friends Vera and Gooch.

Mame was a huge success on Broadway running 1508 performances over 4 years. Sadly the movie was a miscast bore and a 1983 revival ran little over a month. Hello Dolly and La Cage Aux Folles have had successful revivals but Mame's magic seems harder to replicate. The star must be a triple threat who can balance comedy, class and pathos. She must also overcome the dated, creaky book.

Tilda Swinton has proposed a new film based on the novel. This may revive interest in the musical. Till then we'll always have the fantastic original cast recording.

Bye Bye Birdie

In 2014 I wrote a post on Bring Back Birdie, the dreadful sequel to Bye Bye Birdie. The sequel had the same writers, star and structure but lightning didn't strike twice.

As I attempted to summarize Bye Bye Birdie I was reminded of what a bizarre show it truly is. The libretto juggles 5 principal characters, 2 key supporting roles, 2 romances and the teens vs. parents conflict. The hip rock star, Conrad Birdie, gets the title but the old-fashioned heart of the story is carried by Rosie and her desire to settle down with Albert.

If Dick Van Dyke wasn't playing him Albert would be a very unpleasant character. That's one reason revivals keep flopping. It was made clear in the sequel when he dumps Rosie for a "newer model." It's better to ignore the sequel and let their story end with Bye Bye Birdie's charming finale.

High Spirits

Last night I saw the new Ghostbusters movie. I loved the cast and their banter. I was disappointed in the ghosts. The designs were generic and they behaved like bosses in a video game. If the franchise continues I'd like to see more interplay between the ghosts and mortals.

This made me think of the musical High Spirits. Noel Coward agreed to direct this adaption of his play Blithe Spirit though he eventually ceded control to Gower Champion. The supporting role of Madam Arcati, the medium, was expanded for comedienne Beatrice Lillie. Sadly Lillie was in ill health and would improvise large portions of her dialogue. This delighted audiences but enraged Coward.

Elvira, the ghostly wife, gets a fun establishing song: You Better Love Me While You May. The rest of the score is pleasant but forgettable. The play gets regular revivals while the musical is largely forgotten.

"As Coward surely meant it, however, it presents a homosexual whose closet marriage is destroyed by the reappearance of an old boy friend." ~ Ethan Mordden, Open a New Window

Even if “High Spirits” had no other attractions—and it has a stageful—it would be cause for celebration. It has brought back Beatrice Lillie. ~ Howard Taubman, New York Times.

Man of La Mancha

Man of La Mancha makes a case for optimism in tragic times. Though remembered primarily for the big song it always proves timely. Sadly a poorly sung film and a bland revival have dimmed the shows reputation.

"In its heart, Man of La Mancha is about the 1960s, and by extension, about any time of political unrest – including today – and it is about the responsibility of each of us to make the world a better place than we found it." ~ Scott Miller

Here's Where I Belong

One wonders whether [East of Eden] could ever have been made into a satisfactory musical. It is too serious- and yet in a musical, lightness is always breaking in. As a result, the climax of the play, the big moment between the unloved son and his unbending father, comes strangely after a jolly family song-and-dance number. The mind cannot adjust so easily. ~ Clive Barnes. New York Times. 1968.

When book changes went in that were not his own, McNally asked to have his name removed from the credits.... Miller relented, and the Broadway Playbill listed “Alex Gordon,” a nom de plume for novelist Gordon Cotler, as author of the book. In spite of the rewrites, much of McNally’s original work remained... A ballet and song in the show about the packing and shipping of lettuce was expectedly awful, as were all the production numbers. ~ Ken Mandelbaum. Not Since Carrie.

The song list includes a number called "Pulverize the Kaiser" and seems to keep the doomed brother Abra alive to sing in the finale: "We're a Home." 

Skyscraper

~ Let's take a movie star and write a musical for her!

~ Sounds great. Can she sing?

~ Not really but we'll write charm songs for her and give the big ballads to the leading man.

It worked for Rosalind Russell and Lauren Bacall. It flopped for Katherine Hepburn, Lucille Ball, and many others. They leave behind broken dreams and fascinating cast albums. Take the Julie Harris vehicle Skyscraper. She's charming and the audience wants to root for her but the show won't have it. The music, plot and ultimate victory got to the men. 

In 1941 Lady in the Dark used dream sequences to psychoanalyze the star. Here they were mostly filler. Peter Marshall's architect makes the feeble argument that skyscrapers are a "way to the stars." He, and Charles Nelson Reilly's clown, somehow persuade her to sell her home and business for the sake of urban development.

“Skyscraper qualifies as one of the weakest shows ever to receive favorable reviews... The final version of Skyscraper borrowed only the heroine’s name and the idea of her daydreaming from Rice’s play, and the daydreaming was now just a gimmick to pad out a thin evening.” ~ Ken Mandelbaum. Not Since Carrie

"It stank. A good idea needs more than a good cast and a good choreographer [Michael Kidd]...  The score generally lacked delight." ~ Ethan Mordden. Open a New Window. 

Breakfast at Tiffany's

Burrows gave audiences the standard musical comedy treatment in Philadelphia. Audiences snored. Albee  restored the darkness of the source material in Boston. Audiences booed and producer David Merrick shut it all down. The scandal lifted the show to mythical flop status. When the score was  given a recording people were disappointed. We were expecting insanity and got mediocrity.

Edward Albee: "They made a perfectly safe, middlebrow, mediocre and, I thought, extremely boring musical that would have probably run a year on Broadway. I managed to turn it into a disaster that never opened on Broadway.”

A similar thing happened to the Richard Greenberg play in 2013. Truman Capote's stories are better remembered for atmosphere than plot. The film Breakfast at Tiffany's rewrote the story considerably but is remembered for Audrey Hepburn and Moon River. A stage adaptation has neither of those to draw from.

I Had a Ball

In a heartbreaking interview with the Phoenix New Times Karen Morrow stated:

"I've analyzed this, trying to think of why I've had so many flops. I keep coming back to my contemporaries ... it was always the ones who could sing but also had something extra, something interesting about themselves ... I think with me, I was just a singer with a big voice and I was pleasant, and that can only take you so far." 

Karen Morrow is known by musical theatre connoisseurs for her thrilling voice and flop shows. She made her debut in the Buddy Hackett musical “I Had a Ball” and supplied the vocal thrills that Hackett could not. Her love interest, Richard Kiley, found greener pastures next year as the “Man of La Mancha.”