Ankles Aweigh

Pastiche is hard. You can't just throw some vapid tunes in a silly plot and call it an "old fashioned musical." The musicals we remember from the 30's and 40's are the ones with stars and composers who elevated the material. Ankles Aweigh closed in 176 performances. It's best remembered for the snarky reviews.

 "Some of us have been campaigning lately for a return to the old-fashioned, slam-bang, gags-and-girls musical comedy. Some of us ought to be shot." ~ Walter Kerr

Happy new year!

Gershwin series part three

.
Girl Crazy. Music by George Gershwin. Lyrics by Ira Gershwin. Book by Guy Bolton and John McGowan. 1930 Broadway

Includes the songs Embraceable You, I Got Rhythm and But Not for Me.

A typical Ginger Rogers role does not believe in love at first sight. Whether you're Allen Kearns or Fred Astaire you have to earn her affection. Girl Crazy would launch the careers of Rogers and a brassy young singer named Ethel Merman. It also proved a delightful movie for a young Judy Garland and Mickey Rooney.

I have to make a confession. I'm not a fan of the song "I Got Rhythm." I was in a highschool production of Crazy for You. "I Got Rhythm" is the act one finale and the dancey arrangement lasts about 9 minutes. It felt like 90. It's a different experience with Ethel Merman singing it. She made headlines for effortlessly sustaining the big note as the crowds went wild.

Merman's role had two other songs that I find more interesting. The menacing "Sam and Delilah" and the snarky torch song "Boy! What Love Has Done To Me!" Both were sadly cut from Crazy for You though the supporting woman in that show gets the delightful "Naughty Baby."

Pardon My English. Music by George Gershwin. Lyrics by Ira Gershwin. Book by Herbert Fields and Morrie Ryskind. 1933 Broadway

Pardon My English is less fondly remembered. It provided a showcase for vaudeville comic Jack Buchanan in dual roles. The songs "Isn't It a Pity?" and "The Lorelei" have had some legs and the rest of the score was heard again in a 2004 Encores Concert starring Brian d'Arcy James.

Gershwin series part two

Oh, Kay! Music by George Gershwin. Lyrics by Ira Gershwin. Book by Guy Bolton and P. G. Wodehouse. 1926 Broadway. 1927 West End.

The musical starred Gertrude Lawrence, the "first British performer to star in an American musical on Broadway." The score introduced Clap 'Yo Hands, Fidgety Feet and the evergreen Someone to Watch Over Me. The bootlegger-in-disguise premise was used in the 2012 Gershwin jukebox musical Nice Work If You Can Get It.

Funny Face. Music by George Gershwin. Lyrics by Ira Gershwin, Book by Paul Gerard Smith and Fred Thompson. 1927. Broadway.

The Gershwin's would feature the Astaire's again in Funny Face. Adele Astaire and her love interest introduced the song S'Wonderful. The title song would be re-purposed for Fred Astaire to sing in the unrelated 1957 film Funny Face. 

Gershwin series part one

Lady be Good, Music by George Gershwin. Lyrics by Ira Gershwin. Book by Guy Bolton and Fred Thompson. 1924 Broadway. 1926 West End.

Tip Toes, Music by George Gershwin. Lyrics by Ira Gershwin. Book by Guy Bolton and Fred Thompson. 1925 Broadway.

George Gershwin passed away at the age of 38 from a malignant brain tumor. By that point he had composed an incredible body of music that survives till this day. His brother Ira found new collaborators but devoted his late life to compiling George's music and correspondence for the Library of Congress. He lived to the age of 86.

I was introduced to the Gershwin's through a high school production of Crazy for You (1992). The show took the premise of Girl Crazy (1930) and cherry picked from their song catalog for the score. Tommy Tune and Twiggy had starred in 1983's My One and Only which was a similar hybrid of old and new. Nice Work If You Can Get It (2012) and the stage adaptation of American in Paris (2014) would follow suit. I lined up the song list for these shows and saw they share many of the same songs. "Nice Work If You Can Get It," "But Not For Me," and "S'Wonderful," appear in three out of four.

There's a reason new books are written for the Gershwin catalog. The brother's original shows have extremely creaky librettos relying on thin romantic farces to showcase the stars. When their first shared Broadway show, Lady Be Good, was revived at Encores in 2015 the New York Times called it "a featherweight farrago of romantic contrivances that wears out its daffy appeal long before the curtain falls."

But oh those songs.

Lady Be Good included "Fascinating Rhythm" and "'The Half of It, Dearie' Blues." The song "The Man I Love" was cut. It would be cut from two more shows before becoming a standard on its own.

Tip Toes introduced "Looking for a Boy" and "Sweet and Low Down."

Cole Porter Series part 2

Anything Goes. Music and Lyrics by Cole Porter. Original book by Guy Bolton and P.G. Wodehouse. 1934 Broadway.

High Society. (1956 Film) Music and Lyrics by Cole Porter. Screenplay by John Patrick. Based on The Philadelphia Story by John Barry.

High Society. (1998 Broadway). Music and Lyrics by Cole Porter. Additional Lyrics by Susan Birkenhead. Book by Arthur Kopit.

Poor Hope and Tracy. Their engaged to unsuitable spouses. The supporting cast must unite to reconnect them with their stalkers exes for true happiness.

The leading lady in Anything Goes is Reno Sweeney. She loves Billy but will devote her time to seducing Hopes fiance and setting her up with Billy. But the plot doesn't really matter. It's all an excuse for Ethel Merman (and subsequent divas) to belt some of Cole Porter's best tunes.

Tracy was the lead in Philadelphia Story. Katherine Hepburn commissioned the play, bought the film rights and saved her struggling career. Hepburn often played strong women who needed to be "tamed." She brought such strength to her roles that her leading men never really cowed her. High Society's Tracy is less successful. The film shifted the focus to her suitors, Frank Sinatra and Bing Crosby. Grace Kelly was not a singer and she lacked Hepburn's fire. The Broadway version gave Melissa Errico's Tracy more music but the trunk songs never felt right for her character. Critics recommended that audiences stick with the Hepburn film.