Cole Porter series part 3

Can Can. Music and Lyrics by Cole Porter. Book by Abe Burrows. 1953 Broadway.

Out of this World. Music and Lyrics by Cole Porter. Book by Dwight Taylor and Reginald Lawrence. 1950 Broadway.

In the past 4 shows the leading man pursued a lady. In these 2 shows the leading lady pursues a man. Both Can Can and Out of this World have had concerts at Encores but their books are too weak for Broadway revival. The Paper Mill Playhouse produced Can Can with Kate Baldwin and a new book, but the production did not have legs.

Can Can featured some juicy backstage intrigue. Leading lady Lilo was upstaged by supporting player Gwen Verdon and apparently seethed with diva rage. Both scores have their klunkers but Can Can features "I Love Paris" and "It's All Right With Me." Out of this World has the delightful, if forgotten, "Cherry Pies Ought To Be You."It starts as a compliment duet for the lovers. Then Juno and a gangster enter and turn it into an insult duet.

I know GoodTickleBrain has drawn a Can Can comic as well. It's buried in the archive but if I find it I'll post a link.

Edit: Here it is!

Cole Porter Series part 1

Kiss Me Kate. Music and Lyrics by Cole Porter. Book by Samuel and Bella Spewack. Basis William Shakespeare's play The Taming of the Shrew. 1948 Broadway.

Silk Stockings. Music and Lyrics by Cole Porter. Book by George S. Kaufman, Leueen MacGrath & Abe Burrows. Basis Melchior Lengyel's story Ninotchka. 1955 Broadway.

This week I'll be looking at six musicals composed by Cole Porter. Two bad films have been made about his life. Both tell us he wrote musicals, had a complicated marriage, and broke his legs in a riding accident. The second film explores his bisexuality. The first film is less honest but features stronger musical performances.

It's been quoted that Cole Porter felt Rodgers and Hammerstein's musical librettos "made it that much harder for everyone else" Kiss Me Kate was Porter's most ambitious and most successful musical to date. The interweaving of Shakespeare's brutal comedy and Spewack's backstage farce inspired a broad range of music from Porter. It also explored a common theme of his: the abusive mismatched couple. Fred and Lilli's first duet, "Wunderbar," is a parody of Viennese opera. The honest song they share is "So In Love."

"Taunt me, and hurt me.
Deceive me, desert me.
I'm yours till I die.
So in love with you am I."

The melody and lyric present their co-dependent relationship as something beautiful and tragic.

Silk Stocking's leading lady gets her liveliest song when she dismisses love as "A Chemical Reaction." When she falls for Steve she sings the dreary "Without Love (What Is a Woman?)" which makes romance sound funereal. Porter's heart was clearly in the brassy comedy and the spiky conflict.

"Though the uninstructed faction
Calls it mutual attraction
it's a chemical reaction, that's all."

Part 2's shows will continue a theme from Kiss Me Kate: hooking up with your ex.

Quick Sketch: Guys and Dolls

Lunch time " work meetings" are cutting into my lunch time art so this will have to be a quick sketch.

Guys and Dolls is regarded by some as a perfect musical. The uneven movie and some poorly received revivals have reminded us that it is not fool proof. You'll notice very little Nathan and Adelaide in the synopsis. They get far too much material to be dismissed as "supporting roles" but Sky and Sarah most definitely carry the plot. 

But then there' s not much plot in act two either. Damon Runyon's original story, The Idyll of Miss Sarah Brown, ended with Sarah rolling the dice for Sky's soul. The dice rolling goes to Sky in the musical leaving Sarah little to do in Act Two but sing "Marry the Man Today." None of this is a negative. It's just interesting to re-examine the "perfect" musical's structure after some time away from it.

Adelaide's Lament remains my favorite showtune and I'll always have a special place in my heart for the 1992 revival cast. 

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.

How To Succeed Clones

"The sad thing about a poor musical is that as much effort goes into it as goes into a good musical - probably more." ~ Clive Barnes. New York Times. 1967 review of How Now Dow Jones.

When a new idea is a hit it looks easy. Oh sure. Let’s take a satirical novel about corrupt businessmen and make it a musical!

I Can Get it for You Wholesale and What Makes Sammy Run went for grit; focusing on the victims of the con men. How Now Dow Jones went for breezy and jokey but gasped and wheezed instead. Both Sammy and How Now have been revived regionally with revised books but none have captured the lightning in the bottle of the frequently revived How to Succeed.

My Fair Lady Clones

How do you write a song for Sherlock Holmes, Mr. Darcy or Vincent Price? Perhaps make them sound like Henry Higgins? My Fair Lady was, and is, an unusual musical despite attempts to clone it. Lerner and Loewe's Camelot and Gigi both used structural pieces of their prior masterpiece to create something new.  Other imitations were less successful.

Baker Street: He has Holmes being pursued by a woman in love with him.... After all, Alan Jay Lerner had Higgins getting quite cozy with Eliza Doolittle at the end of "My Fair Lady..." If you're a strict constructionist of the Holmes canon, you won't like the early crudities of this treatment. ~ Howard Taubman. New York Times. 1965.

Darling of the Day: One way to really appreciate what a flawless musical “My Fair Lady” is, is to experience the ultra-rarely performed imitation of it called “Darling of the Day..." Not helping matters was having hopelessly miscast screen boogeyman Vincent Price attempt a Rex Harrison imitation in the leading role ~ New City Times. 2005.

First Impressions: Although Mr. Burrows is an able man with gags and guffaws, he is not likely to settle comfortably in the smaller compass of a Jane Austen novel. Even if he were, Hermione Gingold would not be the proper lady to keep steady company with him there.... she scampers nibly around the stage like a beldame in a burlesque show ~ Brooks Atkinson. New York Times. 1959