Carousel vs. A Tree Grows in Brooklyn

Quick! Which of these two shows features:

• Ne'er do well fathers who dies young
• Leaving their winsome working mothers
• to raise mopey teenage daughters alone.
• The father returns from the dead to offer the daughter advice at her high school graduation,
• while the wife's feisty best friend provides the comic relief with her own dysfunctional marriage.

If you answered both you are correct!

A Tree Grows in Brooklyn's Johnny never beats his long-suffering wife. He just drinks and gambles away her money while promising to "Buy her a star." Meanwhile Carousel's Billy brings an actual star to his daughter but settles for giving her a slap.

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