To purchase the Original Broadway Cast Recording of I DO! I DO!, click on the image above.

It’s Double Take December at Musical Cyberspace! Every musical pretty much has something one likes and something one doesn’t in it. This month I’ll be listing one of each for a range of musicals, a different one each day.

I Do! I Do!

Something I Like: I Do! I Do! birngs to realisation a clever concept that still has the potential to offer a pleasant evening’s entertainment, thanks to some delightful songs by Tom Jones and Harvey Schmidt. I would like to see it revived sometime, although it would have to be with a top-notch cast and an incredibly resourceful diretor. (I have to admit, though, that I I would probably prefer to see a brand new adaptation of the source material, since… well, see below.)

Something I Don’t Like: Although this show was never a first-rate musical, it’s even harder to make the show play now. Gower Champion’s original staging helped elevate the material beyond its limitations, the stars bolstered the whole affair with their own public personae, and the nostalgia for the past represented by the play held the attention of a whole generation of Americans as their world was changing around them. After all, just a few years later, Company would explore some the themes here more incisively and, even more recently, The Last Five Years took on the same themes using an ingenious structure to discover their relevance in a (post-)modern context. Placed alongside those two shows, does I Do! I Do! truly hold its own?

Feel free to share your “double take” on I Do! I Do! in the comment box!