Everything I Know I Learned From Musicals

Reviews - Nymph Errant and New Girl in Town - Off-Broadway Revivals

One of the great things about getting down to New York City as frequently as I do now is having the opportunity to catch revivals of obscure shows at some of the Off-Broadway non-profit theaters. We really don't get many chances to see Knickerbocker Holiday or Strike Up the Band, so it's a real treat when the York Theatre Company or Musicals Tonight trots one of them out for public airing.

Recently, I was able to see Nymph Errant at the Prospect Theater Company, as well as New Girl in Town at the Irish Repertory Theatre. Although neither production was particularly satisfying, that doesn't detract in the least from the fact that these companies are doing musical-theater fans a tremendous service by bringing these works back to New York City for the first time in 30 years and 50 years, respectively. 

Nymph Errant is a Cole Porter show that to date has never played Broadway. It premiered in London in 1933, starring Gertrude Lawrence and featuring choreography by a young Agnes de Mille. The show didn't make it to New York until 1982, and the score wasn't recorded until 1989. The Prospect Theater mounted the production in question in conjunction with the New York Music Theater Festival (Nymph, NYMF - get it?). This production features a new libretto by Rob Urbinati, based on the original by Romney Brent. Most of the songs are from the original show, although there are a few interpolations from Fifty Million Frenchmen ("The Boyfriend Back Home," "Paree, What You Did to Me") and Paris ("Dizzy Baby"), as well as the title number from Red, Hot and Blue. 

The plot of Nymph Errant is fairly scandalous, particularly for 1933, and concerns a young English woman who graduates from finishing school in France and, rather than heading home to her fiancé, heads off on a trans-continental trek, looking for opportunities to misbehave. It's clear that Urbinati is aiming for something madcap and deliciously naughty, but many of his jokes have the subtlety of a sledgehammer, and the whole affair comes off as alternately grating and tame. The Cole Porter score has some nifty little numbers in it, particularly "You're Too Far Away" and "Experiment," but nothing with the nimble tunefulness for which he would later become rightly celebrated.

The direction and choreography by Will Pomerantz is a bit of a conundrum. Pomerantz makes some seemingly smart choices, including a modular set comprising a series of travel trunks, and a neat device in which the juvenile - played with a charming, knowing smile by Andrew Brewer - seemingly follows his ingenue throughout her travels and travails. But Pomerantz also includes some genuinely inscrutable business, including having the female chorus members strip down to their underclothes after the opening number and playing most of the rest of the show in their scanties. At the end of the show, during the inevitable wedding, the bride and groom take their vows in their underwear as well. As to what this was supposed to mean, I can only speculate. Or rather, I've tried, to no avail.

Despite Urbinati's new book and Pomerantz's directorial concept - or, perhaps, because of them - Nymph Errant never bubbles up into the frothy production that the team no doubt was aiming for. Which left in the lurch a cast of mostly talented performers, including Jennifer Blood as the titular nymph, and Tony-winner Cady Huffman in a variety of roles, not all entirely suited to her charm and talent.

Faring only slightly better on the rediscovered-works front is New Girl in Town at the Irish Repertory Theatre. The show was originally little more than a star vehicle for Gwen Verdon, and an opportunity for Bob Fosse to showcase Verdon in as many show-stopping numbers as possible. (One number, a ballet in which the Verdon character recalls her past as a prostitute, was famously cut by the producers after the number caused a scandal out of town.) 

Also, New Girl in Town is a bit of an odd duck, and never really seems to find its central tone. The show is a musical adaptation of Anna Christie by Eugene O'Neill. As you can imagine, a musical based on an O'Neill play is unlikely to make for a lighthearted musical comedy. (Although O'Neill's one upbeat work, Ah, Wilderness!, would become Take Me Along a few years after New Girl in Town premiered.) But New Girl in Town, at least in the slightly altered form in which the Irish Rep is performing the piece, doesn't have enough gravitas to really qualify as a musical play, along the lines of Show Boat or Carousel.

Under the direction of Charlotte Moore, this production of New Girl in Town comes off forced. There's not a genuinely believable performance to be found here, although there are certainly some top-notch performers, including Margaret Loesser Robinson as Anna, and Danielle Ferland as Marthy, a role originated by Thelma Ritter. But even Robinson and Ferland come off affected, although flashes of verisimilitude occasionally break though. In the role of Anna's suitor, Patrick Cummings seems especially artificial, though he does come off far better when he's singing. Cummings' Irish accent sounded particularly false, as did the Swedish accent of Cliff Bemis as Anna's father.

On the plus side, the production design (sets by James Morgan, costumes by China Lee, ligfhting by Mary Jo Dondlinger) features some rather effective atmospheric elements, particularly during the scenes at sea. And the score by first-time Broadway composer/lyricist Bob Merrill has tremendous melodic appeal, particularly in the lovely "Did You Close Your Eyes?," which features elements that seem to presage Merrill's finest score, that of Carnival!. 

But, again, we all owe a debt of gratitude to the Prospect Theater Company and the Irish Rep for giving us a chance to see these historic but mostly forgotten shows. Perversely, they've also given us the opportunity to see why the shows have been forgotten in the first place.

Revisit - Anything Goes With Stephanie J. Block

A few weeks back, I had a chance to revisit the two musical revivals from last season, and it was a stark study in contrasts. My second visit to How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying revealed that the production, after swapping original leading man Daniel Radcliffe for Nick Jonas, was in the process of unraveling. (Read my review) And a glance at the show's weekly grosses and capacity percentages would seem to indicate that this production of H2$ is approaching its final stages.

I also caught the Roundabout Theatre Company production of Anything Goes again, which has similarly swapped its leading player, in this case from Sutton Foster to Stephanie J. Block. But whereas H2$ was showing considerable wear, Anything Goes was fresh and crisp and, overall, a non-stop delight. Keeping a long-running production in shape usually falls on the shoulders of the production stage manager. I'm not trying to find fault with whoever is in charge of H2$: I'm sure it's a complicated process, to say the least, trying to rein in the various parties and egos involved. But whatever the cause, and whomever is to blame, H2$ just isn't holding together. Thankfully, Anything Goes is, and I say bravo to whomever is responsible for that.

I genuinely enjoyed this Anything Goes the first time around. (Read my review.) Sutton Foster, of course, was a major asset, as she almost always is, but the show remains a delight even now that she's departed. For me, it all comes down to the sure hand and keen eye of director/choreographer Kathleen Marshall, who with this production solidifies her place as one of the finest directors and choreographers we currently have, particularly when it comes to interpreting classic works like The Pajama Game and Wonderful Town. (Watch for my upcoming review of Marshall's latest effort, Nice Work If You Can Get It. In short, she's still got it.)

What's remarkable about Marshall is that she has a keen eye not just for dressing a stage, but also for pacing a number. Sure, she can craft thrilling showstoppers like "Blow Gabriel Blow" and the title number, but she can also take "De-Lovely," often a throwaway number, and make it into an absolute highlight by knowing exactly when to bring in the chorus members and bring the number to the next level. She performs similar wizardry on "All Through the Night," opening the number up just when, in another production, the audience's attention might start to flag. (Yeah, I'm kind of a Kathleen Marshall fan. Ya wanna make something of it?)

But, getting back to our How to Succeed/Anything Goes comparison, another aspect the productions share is that they've seen significant turnover among their respective casts. And yet, with H2$, that's a major part of the problem. With Anything Goes, it's a huge component of why the show has stayed fresh. First, let me say what a genuine pleasure it is to see the marvelous Stephanie J. Block finally land in a production worthy of her considerable talents. (The Pirate Queen? Oy. 9 to 5? Double oy.) And she's a joy here: so much personality and individual character. She smartly resists the temptation to copy Sutton Foster in any way and brings her own brand of mischievous enthusiasm to Reno Sweeney.

Original cast member Colin Donnell was delightful as Billy Crocker, and Laura Osnes was thoroughly charming as Hope Harcourt. Thankfully, their replacements are eminently up to the task themselves. Erin Mackey makes for a lovely Hope, expressive and winsome by turns. And Bill English is endearing as Billy, although he's a dead ringer for Colin Donnell, and, I'm not exactly sure why, but somehow that feels like cheating on someone's part. One significant improvement in casting is Robert Petkoff as Sir Evelyn. Yeah, Adam Godley got a Tony nod for the role, but there was something about his stuffiness and gawkish angularity that didn't quite sit with me. Petkoff is playful and disarmingly sexy as Evelyn. It reminded me of when I cover Oklahoma! in my history course, and we talk about how the show works so much better when Jud has a sort of earthy magnetism. Same here: with Petkoff, you can see why Reno would fall for this guy.

Anything Goes is currently set to run until September. The way the show's grosses are headed, it would seem unlikely that the production will see another extension. If you have a chance, I'd say catch the show, even if you already saw it with Sutton Foster. Tastes differ of course, but if my experience is any indication, there's just as much to enjoy here the second time around.

Something for the Boys - A Staged Reading

What’s so special about Oklahoma!?

Seventy years ago when Oklahoma! premiered on the New York stage, it singlehandedly changed musical theater forever. Well, I say “singlehandedly,” but in fact composer Richard Rodgers and librettist/lyricist Oscar Hammerstein II didn’t so much innovate as bring the innovations together.

These two gentlemen had worked for decades prior to Oklahoma! to bring dramatic integrity to musical theater, and when they joined up as a team, their work became a culmination of years of experimentation, both in their own work and from the work of others.

Today, however, when some people see Oklahoma!, they often find it quaint, almost hokey, in its seemingly simple tale of a young woman and her momentous decision about who’s going to take her to the box social. People dismiss the show as old-fashioned, the songs as corny, and the creators themselves as hopelessly mired in the picturesque, and consequently of little relevance to our modern sensibilities.

What these people fail to realize is what a genuine revolution Oklahoma! represented to the development of musical theater. All you have to do is look at the typical show of the time – the early 1940s – to see how transformative Oklahoma! truly was.

And that’s why I decided that, as part of the staged-reading series for the musical-theater history course at the Boston Conservatory, I wanted to do Something for the Boys (1943), which was put together by legendary producer Mike Todd, who was famous for a certain kind of Broadway show. That type of show is perhaps best summarized by the famous quote that is often attributed to Todd (but is very likely apocryphal) when he supposedly walked out on Oklahoma! during the show’s intermission when the show was playing its out-of-town tryout engagement in New Haven:

“No legs, no jokes, no chance.”

This quip, whatever its actual source, pretty much sums up the appeal of most Broadway musicals prior to and concurrent with the run of Oklahoma!. The shows were typically empty-headed star vehicles with plenty of pretty girls and lots of corny topical jokes. The score often comprised a random list of songs usually only partially connected to the proceedings at hand. At the time, Broadway music and American popular music were pretty much synonymous, and show songs were often written not so much for character or context but rather to create hit records. Quite frequently, producers would throw in random novelty acts or include a song just to shine a spotlight on an up-and-coming performer (perhaps someone with whom the producer was romantically involved). Whatever dance occurred in the shows was usually mere decoration.

All of this was true of Something for the Boys, which premiered on Broadway in 1943, a mere two months before Oklahoma! hit the stage. The show had everything that was supposed to make a show a hit, at least at the time: a big-name star (Ethel Merman at the height of her box-office power), a score by one of the biggest names in the business (Cole Porter, almost twenty years into a long and successful career), and a book by two of the most reliable quipsters available at the time, brother and sister Herbert Fields and Dorothy Fields. The show also had plenty of opportunities for showing off female pulchritude, and a list of random interpolated “specialty” numbers.

Plus, the show took place on and outside an Army base near San Antonio, and thus tapped into the patriotic impulses of the ticket-buying public. The show even ends with a tribute to our fighting boys:

For we’ll all be doing something for the boys
While they’re doing so much for us

So, the show had everything, at least by the standards of musical theater in the early 1940s. And it certainly became a modest hit, running for just about a year, which was more than enough in the day for a show to turn a profit.  But then, Something for the Boys just disappeared, as did most of the shows prior to and concurrent with Oklahoma! and its Broadway run. Why?

In a word: integration. At the start of my history course, I write that word on the board and tell students that it will essentially become the theme of the entire course. In the context of musical theater, integration essentially means the extent to which the various elements of a show – musical, lyrics, dance, etc. – serve a dramatic purpose in the larger context of the show. Integrated songs progress the plot, reveal character, or establish time and place, with many elements serving a number of or even all of these functions.

Once the critics and the theater-going public got a taste of Oklahoma! and the integrative possibilities that the show reflected, they became less and less patient with the typical Broadway show that Something for the Boys so aptly represented. So the shows that lasted, the shows that we continue to perform and attend today, are mostly the shows that caught on to the Rodgers and Hammerstein revolution.

The plot for Something for the Boys is particularly emblematic of the typical show of its time: three distant cousins jointly inherit a ramshackle Texas ranch. They renovate the house and open it up to servicemen’s wives from the local Army base. A jealous rival insinuates that the place is actually a bordello, so the commanding officer declares the house off limits. All is well at the end when the Blossom Hart, the Ethel Merman character, discovers that she can pick up radio signals through the carborundum in the fillings of her teeth. Yup, her teeth. This creates a classic deus ex machina plot resolution, and all is well with the world.

To hear the score to Something for the Boys by itself, you would have no idea what the story was, which is one of the surest signs of a non-integrated show. My personal favorite in this regard is “By the Mississinewah,” a racially insensitive (by today’s standards) duet in which Blossom and her cousin Chiquita perform a non-contextual number to entertain the troops at a graduation ceremony.  Now, admittedly, Rodgers and Hammerstein were certainly capable of including songs in their shows that were there for pure entertainment’s sake. (“Honey Bun” from South Pacific being a notable example.)

Don’t get me wrong: the songs for Something for the Boys are terrific, although none of them really became pop standards, as so many of Cole Porter’s other show songs were able to do. But one of the striking things about Something for the Boys is that you could conceivably take all of the songs out of the show, and the story would still work. As musical theater would progress, this would become less and less possible, to the point at which songs and dances have become such an essential part of the story-telling process that we have numerous examples of shows that are all-sung (Les Miserables, Once on This Island) or even all or mostly danced (Movin’ Out, Contact).

Next year, the Boston Conservatory will be putting on a production of Oklahoma!. This production of Something for the Boys is a chance for students and audience members to appreciate that show for the milestone it is.

If you're in the Boston area tonight or tomorrow night, and would like to see Something for the Boys, you can call 617-912-9144 for reservations. The shows are at 8 pm both nights in the Zack Box Theater. Admission is free, and seating is general admission.

Review - Anything Goes at the Roundabout

Things haven't been going all that well for the Roundabout Theatre Company over the past few seasons, particularly when it comes to musical theater. Two seasons back, Pal Joey was a thoroughly dismal affair. And Bye Bye Birdie last season was an utter abomination before all man- and woman-kind.

But the Roundabout seems to have rebounded quite handily with Anything Goes, a joyous revival of the Cole Porter favorite. Director/choreographer Kathleen Marshall and her staff seem to have stuck pretty close to the script from the 1988 revival with Patti LuPone, which is sort of symbolic of the entire production: there's nothing entirely new on view at The Stephen Sondheim Theater, but the entire enterprise is thoroughly professional, and a heck of a lot of fun.

Anything Goes occupies a unique position in musical-theater history: it's really the only show from the old style of musicals before Oklahoma that has lasted, albeit with significant changes upon each reincarnation. As I tell my students, this is fairly fitting, since the original show was a bit of a rush job. The original book was by the "Princess" pair P. G. Wodehouse, Guy Bolton, and was supposed to be about a shipwreck, but a large passenger ship sank off the coast of New Jersey shortly before the show was to open. As this would have been somewhat akin to a musical version of "The Towering Inferno" opening just after 9/11, the creative team panicked. Wodehouse and Bolton were in London, so the show's director, Howard Lindsay, teamed up with press agent Russell Crouse to throw together a quick re-write, which actually became the start of a successful writing team.

The 1963 Off-Broadway version of Anything Goes featured a revised book by Guy Bolton, and interpolated many of the Cole Porter numbers that we often associate with the show, but in fact were written for other Porter shows. These numbers include "It's De-Lovely" (from Red, Hot and Blue) and "Friendship" (from Dubarry Was a Lady). It's a testament to the non-integrated nature of Porter's songs that they are so easily transported from show to show. Porter was decidedly old school with respect to song-smithing, and wrote songs that were meant to be hits, not to fit a particular context within his shows. I mention this not as criticism merely observation: the same could be said of most of the output of George and Ira Gershwin, and we're talking some pretty glorious songs here.

But even the songs that were actually written for Anything Goes represented some questionable integration. When Cole Porter wrote "I Get a Kick Out of You," he knew it was going to a hit, but because the song occurred at the top of the show, he knew that his society friends, who always arrived fashionably late, would probably miss the song. So, he put in a reprise in Act 2 to make sure his influential friends would be exposed to the song and help make it a hit. I always use this example in my course as a point of contrast when I'm discussing the origin of the "dramatic reprise" (e.g. "Make Believe" from Show Boat, "If I Loved You" from Carousel).

OK, enough with the history lesson. The current production starts off a bit slow, but eventually act one builds to an effervescent crescendo. And Marshall's rousing take on the show's title number puts an energetic tag on the first act that excuses a multitude of plotting and pacing sins. Marshall has a knack for creating fluid old-fashioned choreography that also features quirky touches of modern inspiration. She also know how to dress a stage, and makes effective use of Derek McLane's multi-tiered set.

But, with all due respect to Marshall, this production's key asset is its absolutely top-notch cast. Sutton Foster is a marvel in anything she does, and in another age would have been the kind of performer that they created shows like Anything Goes especially for. Marshall makes effective use of Foster's many talents, to the point of re-conceiving "Blow, Gabriel, Blow" as a dance number. It's almost as though the show itself is saying, "Good Lord, a Reno Sweeney who can dance! Let's show her off." Even the sleepy blue-hairs at the Wednesday matinee that I attended woke up and took notice, and the number genuinely stopped the show.

Capably framing Foster is a talented complement of the best of Broadway, both past and present. From the old guard, we have the spry and adorable Joel Grey as Moonface Martin, and the masterfully comic John McMartin hamming it up swimmingly as Elisha Whitney. From the younger set, we have the charming Colin Donnell as Billy Crocker, a handsome and talented young man who almost made Johnny Baseball at the A.R.T. bearable. And a significant surprise for me was the winsome and sparkling Laura Osnes as Hope Harcourt. Say what you want about reality TV and the most recent revival of Grease, it provided a springboard for the eminently worthy Ms. Osnes. After winning her way onto Broadway, Osnes has since established herself as a dependable leading lady, both here and in taking Kelli O'Hara's place in South Pacific. And if Anything Goes is any indication, she should be around for many seasons to come.

The Roundabout recently announced that Anything Goes, which was originally supposed to run until July, has been extended to January 2012. I recommend taking it in, to witness both the best of what Broadway once was, and the best that it still can be.