Candide

Why doesn't Candide work on stage? Some said Lillian Hellman's grim book clashed with Bernstein's bouncy score. However the score has it's share of pathos and Wheeler's jokey new book robs the characters of depth. The 90 minute version does not earn it's meditative ending and the extended opera house version can be a chore to sit through. Perhaps it's simply that Voltaire's philosophical novella doesn't belong in a literal setting.

The Broadway premiere ran 73 performances but two revivals outran it and opera companies have made it a staple. While the title role is a cipher the supporting roles provide showcases for divas and clowns. Cundegonde's "Glitter and Be Gay" deserves all the praise it musters and the Old Lady frequently walks away with the show.

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

Plain and Fancy

This week's posts have looked at teen rebellion channeled through rock music. The teens of Plain and Fancy rebel in a milder way. Hilda tries on some "fancy" lingerie and  Ezra drinks a bottle of scotch. They return to the Amish community after a quick visit to a carnival.

Plain and Fancy had a successful Broadway run and could prove a worthy candidate for an Encores concert.  The Round Barn Theatre at Amish Acres revives the show annually and the York Theatre Company has revised it for a small cast. Barbara Cook's ballad, "This is All Very New to Me," was the closest thing to a breakout ballad but the score has other lovely moments.

The Grass Harp

Once Truman Capote gets his misfits into the tree house he's not sure what to do with them. So Karen Morrow shows up as a hippie revivalist and sings 12 minutes of white gospel!

The Grass Harp would not be Karen's last Broadway musical but it would be for Barbara Cook. After a string of flops she opted to focus on her concert career, coming back for the occasional Sondheim revue.

The New York Times wrote: “The musical is also folksy and fey, in so far as it has any real character at all, for it is the kind of show that is almost as difficult to dislike as to like…. Mr. Capote’s concept of pastoral innocence and goodness suffers from mawkish sentimentality and dies quietly with scarcely a murmured protest.”

Luckily for fans of the score there was a cast album and a televised concert.

She Loves Me

GEORGE: You’ve never really looked at me.

AMALIA: I’m looking at you right now- and shall I tell you what I see? A smug, pompous, petty tyrant-very sure of himself and very ambitious.

But I see him ten years from now- selling shampoo.

And twenty years from now-selling shampoo.

And thirty years from now still selling shampoo!

Because, basically, you know what he is? Just a not-very-bright, not-very-handsome, not-very-young man with balding hair and the personality of a python!

Is this a couple you want to get together? Oddly enough yes. 

She Loves Me is a rare romcom where neither of the sparring lovers has to rewrite their personality to come together at the final curtain. By setting them in a larger workplace drama we see the tensions that are causing them to lash out and the good qualities that will make them compatible when they take the time to really see each other. The show loses money in a large house but delights in a black box.