Me and My Girl & No, No, Nanette

Me and My Girl. Music by Noel Gay. Lyrics and Book by Douglas Furber and L. Arthur Rose. 1937 West End. 1952 & 1985 West End Revivals. 1986 Broadway.

No, No, Nanette. Music by Vincent Youmans. Lyrics by Irving Caesar and Otto Harbach. Book by Frank Madel and Otto Harbach. Revival book by Burt Shevelove. 1925 Broadway. 1971 Broadway revival.

Two old fashioned musicals that got revised for modern sensibilities. Though My Fair Lady is the best remembered there were many musicals in the 1930's about crossing class lines.

Meanwhile No, No, Nanette toyed with sexual promiscuity while making sure Nanette and her uncle Jimmy never actually get laid. The men drive the plot but the women get the best songs. Ruby Keeler came out of retirement to dance up a storm in the revival. Helen Gallagher took home a Tony in the role of Lucille. She has the least effect on the plot but the score treats her like a star.

Me and My Girl at the 1987 Tony Awards
No, No, Nanette - A starry medley at the 1972 Tony Awards.
No, No, Nanette - Trailer for the 2011concert at Encores

Flower Drum Song v.2

In 2002 Flower Drum Song was revived on Broadway with a new book. Mei Lei had a tragic backstory, Linda had a sassy gay assistant, and the roles of showman and conservative father were combined into that of the conflicted theater/club owner. The show received mixed reviews but received a stellar cast album and opportunities for regional licensing.

DAVID HENRY HWANG: "The show, which originally arrived on Broadway in 1958, had fallen off the cultural radar, regarded as quaint, patronizing and old-fashioned. But I had always admired Rodgers and Hammerstein's ambition to write a musical about America through the eyes of Asians, who even today tend to be regarded as perpetual foreigners. And notwithstanding shows like ''Miss Saigon'' and ''Pacific Overtures,'' which are set overseas, ''Flower Drum Song'' has long stood alone as the only Broadway musical ever produced about Asian-Americans....

Over time, we evolved the story of a rundown theater in San Francisco's Chinatown, whose patriarch clings to his dreams of performing Chinese opera despite an ever-shrinking audience. The story of this theater's transformation into a Western-style nightclub became a metaphor for assimilation."

Flower Drum Song v.1

A novel about an older generation of Chinese immigrants became a musical about their children. Themes of assimilation remained but darker subplots were removed to focus on comedy and romance. Reviews were mixed but the show drew audiences and cast the leading lady in an uneven film version.

The show would gain a reputation for being condescending to the non-Americanized characters and would disappear for several decades. David Henry Hwang attempted to update the book in 2002. More on his revision in my next post.

DAVID HENRY HWANG: I think the original FDS ("Flower Drum Song") was demonized during a period in American social history when it was necessary to do so. When APA's (Asian Pacific Americans) began writing our own stories, we needed to draw a distinction between our work and popular examples of these stories which were written by non-Asians. Nowadays, when Asian authors and films are more numerous and popular, we're able to view the original FDS ("Flower Drum Song") in a more balanced and nuanced light.

A Connecticut Yankee

Mark Twain's story was a cynical take down of modern greed. The musical settles for a love triangle. Legends say that Rodgers tried to save his partnership with the alcoholic Larry Hart by pitching a revisal for their Pal Joey star Vivienne Segal. Sadly Hart passed shortly after opening. His last song was a showstopping "To Keep My Love Alive."

The show is not favored for revival due to a dull book that the New York Times called "feeble" in 1943 and "quaint" in 2001. The songs "Thou Swell" and "My Heart Stood Still" were hits and "To Keep My Love Alive" has been recorded by the likes of Mary Testa, Ella Fitzgerald and Elaine Stritch.

The Bing Crosby film in 1949 used the same source story but a different (and in my opinion inferior) score.

Happy End

Legends say that Bertolt Brecht and his wife, Helene Weigel, sabotaged the opening of their own show to prevent the career of writing partner Elisabeth Hauptmann. Brecht scholars would debate the uncredited role she played in Brecht's prior work and whether she'd meant Happy End to launch an independent career. Helen Weigel staged a political protest in the middle of the performance, audiences booed, and Happy End was temporarily forgotten.

Several songs, including the Bilboa Song and Surabaya Johnny, gained some airplay on their own. The full show would find a new life in 1977 for a short lived Broadway production with Christopher Lloyd and Meryl Streep.

The slight gangsters vs. salvation army plot has been considered a sequel to The Threepenny Opera and a spiritual precursor to Guys and Dolls.

Flora the Red Menace

"A musical dramatization of Lester Atwell's novel ''Love Is Just Around the Corner,'' ''Flora,'' whose book was written by George Abbott and Robert Russell, tells the Depresion-era story of an idealistic young fashion designer who is persuaded by her stammering boyfriend, Harry, to join the Communist Party. Unable to deal with the organizational discipline and outmaneuvered by a rival for his affections, she is kicked out of the party.

''If the show has a guiding philosophy,'' Mr. Ebb said, ''it is to be true to yourself. When we wrote the show, I was having a similar identity problem, since no one in my family was thrilled at my decision to be a lyricist.'' ~ New York Times. 1987.

Football Musicals: All American and Good News

Good News was a hit. It got a film, revivals and revisals. The football hero can't play in the big game unless he passes the big test. His pretty new tutor helps him but his chance at romance is nearly dashed by a clingy ex.

All American was a flop. The football hero got the romantic subplot while the focus went to Ray Bolger (The Scarecrow in The Wizard of Oz) as his zany Engineering teacher. Ray nearly loses his love interest and his self respect when he sells out to a corrupt corporate sponsor.

Other singing football players include the washed up Wreck of Wonderful Town and the beefcakey Aggies of The Best Little Whorehouse in Texas.

Hey, just realized I finally got a 20's show in here! 

Happy Super-Bowl!

Road Show

“Sooner or later we’re bound to get it right.”

Stephen Sondheim devoted over a decade to writing a musical about the Mizner brothers. He’d read their story at age 22 and held onto the obsession till the rights were available. The piece went through several collaborators, tones and titles (Wise Guys, Gold!, Bounce) before settling into Road Show. What was once intended to be a vaudeville tinged musical comedy became a somber piece and received mixed reviews.

Some critics felt the brothers were underdeveloped and that Addie’s devotion to Willy remained unexplained. Others saw the characters as archetypes representing conflicting sides of the American dream. Another group saw the beleaguered gay artist Addison as a stand in for Stephen Sondheim battling a lifetime of inner demons.

Will the next revival of Road Show convince critics they finally “understand it?” Will songs like "The Best Thing That Ever Happened," “Talent” and “Isn’t He Something” get the same concert and cabaret attention as Sondheim’s other ballads? Will this be Sondheim’s last musical?

“And doesn't he sparkle?

See how he glides!

Isn't he something!”

Merrily We Roll Along

Three artists become friends. One becomes rich and the other two turn on him. Is Frank a villain, a cipher, or a victim of of his clingy friends' unrequited crushes? The 2013 London broadcast made a case for the latter with a surprisingly sympathetic Frank, torn like Company's Bobby between some nasty friends and lovers. However Frank's solo "Growing Up" is spent complaining about his friends. He never gets an "I want" solo to tell us exactly why his career path changes, so we're left to view him through the unreliable lenses of Charley and Mary. 

AS we all should probably have learned by now, to be a Stephen Sondheim fan is to have one's heart broken at regular intervals. ~ Frank Rich, New York Times, 1981. 

In Harold Prince’s original staging the ensemble was notable for its youth and lack of professional experience. Mr. Prince has said he envisioned the show as a sort of “Babes in Arms”-like frolic for fresh-faced performers. But Mr. Sondheim, being Mr. Sondheim, streaked even the show’s sunniest songs with chilling shadows of melancholy. ~ Ben Brantley, New York Times, 2012.

Merrily, for most of its length, chides Frank for "selling out," and this could be the prime reason why audiences don't take to the show. Face it: Most theatergoers must feel as if they've sold out in some capacity. ~ Peter Filichia, 2005. 

The Frogs

“In Aristophanes' account, Dionysus must choose between Aeschylus and Euripides as the playwright to revitalize rotten old Athens. Shevelove, whose first (nonmusical) version of ''The Frogs'' was performed in 1941 when he was an instructor at Yale, subsituted Shaw and Shakespeare. When the show was resurrected in 1974, Shevelove enlisted Mr. Sondheim, with whom he had collaborated on an earlier, happier slice of singing antiquity, ''A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum”… Though the (1974) production, which starred Larry Blyden, ran only a week, it has since acquired a mythic, Brigadoonish haze in the land of showbiz, thanks in part to its exotic (and acoustically disastrous) aquatic setting and a student chorus that included Sigourney Weaver, Meryl Streep and the playwright Christopher Durang.” ~ New York Times

The Visit

The macabre and the misty-eyed vie uneasily for supremacy in “The Visit,” a musical adaptation of Friedrich Dürrenmatt’s 1956 tragicomedy about vengeance and venality... Claire is a kind of female Sweeney Todd. Her heart was singed by betrayal in her youth; now she is bent remorselessly on brutal revenge. But as reconceived here, she wavers between sentimental musical interludes and glinty-eyed commitment to retribution. ~  Charles Isherwood, New York Times.

Spiderman: Turn Off The Dark

Julie Taymor wrote a meta-theatrical libretto in which four comic book fans debate the connections between modern super-heroes and Greek myths. The mythical Arachne creates Spiderman and his foes, toys with their fates… and sings a song about shoes.

After a skyrocketing budget, an extended preview period, defiant critics, backstage battles, onstage accidents, casting changes and a lawsuit the new writers scaled down the ambitions. The revised Spiderman: Turn Off The Dark followed the arc of the 2002 film. Spiderman gains his powers, pines for Mary Jane, and defeats the Green Goblin.

Would the more ambitious libretto hold up in a concert staging, without the burden of expensive sets and dangerous stunts? Did the Greek myth/Comic hero parallel have potential? Now that it is tied up in legal red tape we may never know. 

It's a Bird... It's a Plane... It's Superman! v.2

Where the 1966 Superman was kin to Adam West the 2010 Dallas revisal aimed for Christopher Reeve. Roberto Aguirre-Sacasa attempted to flesh out the Clark/Lois romance and introduce more characters from the lore. In a diplomatic interview he explains that DC Comics did not approve and he was asked to make his characters legally distinct from their comic counterparts.  “So Lex (Luthor) went back to being Max Menken….”

Reviews were mixed suggesting that the modern sensibilities of the new book didn't always gibe with the retro score and the villains again stole focus from Lois and Clark.

One change that interests me was the use of the song “WeDon’t Matter At All.” In 1966 Lois sang this duet with her disposable love interest Jim Morgan. He sings of peppy nihilism (“We Don’t Matter At All”) and she refutes him (“Oh we matter we do. What’s the matter with you.”) In 2010 the cynical verse goes to the gossip columnist and the rebuttal goes to Clark Kent. This makes him more sympathetic than the Gaston-like boasting of “Doing Good” and “Pow. Bam. Zonk.”

DC Comics may never let this production go to Broadway but Sacasa was soon scooped to save another flailing superhero musical… 

It's a Bird... It's a Plane... It's Superman! v.1

Superheroes and musicals have been an uneasy match. Musicals are often about big characters pursuing big dreams. In a superhero narrative that’s usually the role of the villain. This week we'll look at three super hero musicals. The libretto for It’s Superman keeps Clark and Lois busy with new love interests while three villains drive the plot.

Benton and Newman’s Superman is an Adam Westy / Lil’ Abnery lug with big ego. In today’s era of angsty superheroes it’s interesting to see Superman’s act two angst played for broad laughs.

The writers never came up with anything compelling for Superman to sing. The breakout song, “You’ve Got Possibilities,” goes to a villain’s girlfriend as she tries to seduce Clark Kent. Some have suggested that song should go to Lois, while Lois’ ballad “What I’ve Always Wanted” should go to Clark. The 2010 revisal had other plans. More on that tomorrow.

Carrie

If you've any interest in obscure musicals you'll want to read Ken Mandelbaum’s fantastic book Not Since Carrie: Forty Years of Broadway Musical Flops.

The original production suffered from the conflicting styles of the original artistic team who made it a strange mix of earnestness and camp. Carrie and her mother were staged for Greek Tragedy while the chorus of mean girls were staged for a revival of Grease. The show closed in five performances to jeers, catcalls and snarky reviews.

 "But when was the last time you saw a Broadway song and dance about the slaughtering of a pig? They've got one to open Act II of ''Carrie,'' and no expense has been spared in bringing the audience some of the loudest oinking this side of Old McDonald's Farm." ~ Frank Rich

The writers pulled the show from circulation and retooled it bringing a new Carrie to Off-Broadway in 2012. While that production received mixed responses the show is now available for schools and regional theaters to tackle.

Pioneer Romance Musicals

While Annie Get your Gun has been successfully revived several times, Wildcat has vanished and The Unsinkable Molly Brown is only now seeing a resurgence. Ethel Merman's Annie threw a shooting match to heal the wounded ego of her suitor. Bernadette Peters did the same in 1999 but her suitor caught on and threw his own shot as well. Will the upcoming revisal of Molly Brown put her on equal footing with her spouse? Time will tell.

The Beautiful Game and The Boys in the Photograph

So you've advertised a show about football but it’s really about terrorism. Most of your football players end up dead or maimed and your ending is a downer. What to do? Change the title to take the emphasis off the football. Then slap on a new happy ending for your protagonist. Neither The Beautiful Game nor The Boys in the Photograph was a great success but it was an interesting development Andrew Lloyd Webber’s career. As with Whistle Down the Wind he attempted to apply his music too a small naturalistic story. A few years later he’d return to form with The Woman in White and Phantom of the Opera 2: Coney Island Boogaloo. 

Performance Clip.

Review Round Up from 2000

Brigadoon

Run an' get 'im! Get 'im!

Run an' get 'im! Get 'im!

Run, ye men, or ye will never see another morning'.

Harry Beaton’s unhappy subplot sends the fairy tale romance of Brigadoon into dark and creepy territory. The town minister “enchanted” the town to protect it from “witches.” The town “wakes” for one day every 100 years and vanishes while the townsfolk sleep. If a local leaves the enchantment is broken and Brigadoon vanishes permanently... So the townsfolk can't let Harry leave...

Chicago’s Goodman Theatre is opening a revised Brigadoon this week. Director Rachel Rockwell discussed the project with New City Stage. The discussion suggests that Brigadoon will now be escaping the Scottish/English wars rather than witches. Time will tell if the revisions minimize the town’s fascist tendencies or embrace the stories darkness.

Meanwhile check out Tom and Lorenzo’s hysterical recap of the film:

Unfortunately, Gene wakes up the next day and, realizing that everyone he’s ever known or loved has been dead for 50 years, spends most of the day crying. The day after that, he wakes up and the town has materialized in the middle of a high-speed rail line, killing half the town’s inhabitants. The day after that, they’re all killed by aliens.

Background Reading

Licensing 

On A Clear Day (v.2)

In 1965 Daisy Gamble flashed back to her past life as Melinda Wells. This allowed one actress to play two roles but the plot gave them little to do.

In 2011 Daisy was rewritten as David Gamble, a gay man with a past life as a female jazz singer. Was this a terrible idea? Not necessarily.

• Is David in the closet at the start of the show? Or at least insecure about his sexuality?
• Melinda was at one point written for an African American actress. Did the adversity she faced in the 1940’s frighten or inspire David’s life as a gay man in the 1970’s?
• What journey do these two characters make over the course of the show? What does David learn from his past as Melinda to carry him into his future?

The writers didn’t answer these questions, instead choosing to focus on David’s relationship to Dr. Mark Bruckner, a widower who becomes infatuated with Melinda despite her voice coming from another man. Was this a terrible idea?... Not… necessarily…

• Is Dr. Bruckner bisexual? If he’s always identified as straight, how does he respond to his feelings for David/Melinda? Does he begin to admire in David the qualities he admired in Melinda?
• Will a revised libretto have him conduct his “study” of David in a more professional manner? Or keep it as sketchy as it was in the original and call him out for it?

Then Harry Connick Jr. was cast as Dr. Mark Bruckner. This was a terrible idea. The Chicago Tribune’s Chris Jones wrote: “in order to work, it requires a little sexual complexity on the part of Bruckner (who is now loving a woman through a man), an ambivalence that Connick (unlike the omnisexual Hugh Jackman, playing right across the street in "Hugh Jackman: Back on Broadway") does not embody” The show allowed him to croon several ballads but the issues of sexuality were kept as far away from the star as possible.

Jessie Mueller made an impressive Broadway debut as Melinda, and quickly moved to the Tony winning role of Carole King, but the new libretto gave her even less to do than her predecessor. Melinda wants to be a singer, makes a winning debut, then dies young. What does this mean for David? Apparently very little.

After the critical drubbing the show received there is a chance that Peter Parnell’s libretto will vanish. That would be a shame. Encores has already produced On a Clear Day with Kristin Chenoweth but I’d love to see someone produce the two versions in rep and cast some actors who were willing to ramp up the (bi) sexual tension.

On A Clear Day (v.1)

This week Chicago's Goodman Theatre begins previews for a rewritten production of Lerner and Lowe's Brigadoon. Director Rachel Rockwell told the Chicago Tribune that the hope is the new libretto will "freshen up" a show that has fallen out of popularity in recent years. There's a lot of potential there but before I do a post on Brigadoon I thought I'd talk about another Alan Jay Lerner show that was rewritten in 2011.

Barbara Harris received rave reviews for her dual roles in On A Clear Day (You Can See Forever) and was nominated for a Tony Award. She would a Tony the following year playing three roles in The Apple Tree. Neither show was a success and she soon left Broadway for Hollywood. The relationship between Daisy and her alter ego, Melinda, is an interesting one but the show was not willing to explore it. The Melinda flashbacks had, reportedly, gorgeous costumes but very little plot and raised more questions than they answered. Melinda was betrayed by a cad and died in a shipwreck. Is that why Daisy has gotten engaged to an uptight killjoy and can predict a plane crash? The libretto isn't sure as we spend more time on the Dr's infatuation with Melinda, his Higgins/Eliza-esque arguments with Daisy, and a subplot for a Tycoon who wants to leave his fortune to his reincarnated new self. The 1970 film version wrote some new songs for star Barbara Streisand but did little to strengthen the plot.

One legend goes that an enthusiastic fan told Alan Jay Lerner "At intermission I didn't know what was going to happen next!" Lerner replied "That was the problem. We didn't either."

YouTube clip of the Broadway Cast performing five songs on television.
Background Reading
Production licensing

What happened to On A Clear Day in 2011? Tune in tomorrow to find out.