This Friday I bring to you the forgotten musical; One Touch of Venus. When I stumbled on this little gem (looking for some comedic golden-age songs that I could sing), I was thoroughly entertained and amused while listening to the score and reading the libretto. I have definitely received a Touch of Venus and hope that you can too!
Very loosely based off of the myth of Pygmalion, One Touch of Venus, a romantic comedy of errors, was quite successful on Broadway with a run of 567 performances. Unfortunately for this musical debuting in 1943, it was largely overshadowed by a game-changing musical that also hit Broadway that year- Oklahoma!
With a script by Ogden Nash and S.J. Perelman, One Touch of Venus tells the story of a fairly normal barber named Rodney Hatch who is engaged to his domineering and cruel fiancé, Gloria. Rodney, visiting a local art museum, is overcome by the beauty of a statue of Venus that is on display. He slips his engagement ring onto the finger of the Venus statue and from that point, his life turns upside down. The statue of Venus turns into a real woman who immediately falls in love with Rodney. Rodney, being engaged, tries to lose Venus, but she does not give up without a fight. What follows is a series of comical events as Rodney ditches his fiancé of five years for Venus, Venus then magically sending Gloria to the North Pole and Rodney getting suspected of stealing the Venus statue and the murder of his wife. The script is refreshingly hilarious thanks to Nash, who was known for his light-hearted and humorous poetry at the time. The plot takes you on a wild ride of ups and downs and a bit of absurdity sprinkled in between; it reminded me a bit of the chaos of Mel Brooks’s The Producers.
Nash was also responsible for the lyrics and thus the songs are also a source of good chuckles as well as very clever and playful lyrics. A song where Nash’s playfulness really shines is “How Much I Love You,” where Rodney goes on a comparison spree to show how much he loves Gloria. The lyrics are accompanied by a score written by Kurt Weill, who was best known for his play with music, The Threepenny Opera. The sound of One Touch of Venus felt a bit more contemporary than I expected and gave me hints of Stephen Sondheim and even sometimes a bit of Alan Menken?! I can’t quite place my finger on it but either way, it was a hit with audiences back then. The big hit out of the show was the song “Speak Low,” which has since been covered by several famous singers including Barbara Streisand. Another song from this musical, “I’m A Stranger Here Myself,” was highlighted by a cover by Kristen Chenoweth.
The musical was adapted to film in 1948, where a couple of things were changed about the characters, story and score. This did not serve the movie well, however, and it was met with mediocre reviews. Since the film was made, One Touch of Venus has been restaged a couple of times but has largely been forgotten.
This musical is a small gem of a golden age musical theatre comedy that, with a bit of “TLC” and a contemporary lyric rewrite here and there, could easily see a successful revival on Broadway so that everyone could experience One Touch of Venus.
Have you listened to One Touch of Venus? What do you think? Share your ideas in the comment box below!
With Valentine’s Day that just passed the world is still in the afterglow of red hearts, flowers and decorations used to celebrate this love-filled day. For a lot of people, however, this day can be a cruel reminder of heartbreak, hurt and scorn. This list is for all those who have loved, lost and decided to shoot Cupid’s arrow right back at him.
1. “Burn” from Hamilton
After Alexander cheats on his wife, Eliza, and then tells the world about it to clear his name, Eliza is left in heartbreak and ruin. In “Burn,” Eliza reminisces about their love and grieves the husband she has lost as she burns the many love letters that Alexander wrote to her. Going from the burn in her heart when she first fell in love, to the burning of the letters and then finally her hope that he, himself, will burn for what he has done to her and their family, Eliza writes Alexander off and ‘erases herself out of the narrative.’ I am sure she speaks the truth of many who have been the victims of unfaithful partners.
2. “All I Ask Of You (Reprise)” from Phantom of the Opera
“All I Ask of You” is probably the most well-known love duet by Andrew Lloyd Webber, with Raoul promising to protect Christine from the Phantom and both of them confirming their love for each other. The reprise to this beautiful duet, however, has the Phantom looking on as Christine ‘denies and betrays’ his love for her. As the first act closer, this song is a turning point for the Phantom as his heartbreak and jealousy turn to rage and he swears to take his revenge on everyone who has wronged him. I think we can all relate to this feeling of unreciprocated love and the feelings of rejection, hurt and even anger that goes with it.
3. “On My Own” from Les Misérables
In Les Mis, Éponine is also suffering from the hurt caused by unreciprocated love. Éponine falls in love with her best friend, Marius, as they grow up. She soon realizes, however, that Marius won’t ever feel the same way. What hurts more is that Marius does care for Éponine, but as a dear friend and nothing more. When Cosette and Marius’ love starts to blossom, Éponine’s heart is shattered. As a last effort to be with him, she disguises herself as a boy to fight next to him at the barricade. Marius discovers her and wanting to protect her, he sends her away with a letter for Cosette. Wandering the streets of Paris, Éponine dreams of being loved by Marius, knowing that this will never be a reality. In modern terms, you could say Éponine was “friend-zoned” and “On My Own” shows that even though it doesn’t seem so bad to friend-zone someone, it does still hurt – sometimes more than flat out rejection.
4. “Still Hurting” from The Last Five Years
Jamie decides to move on and Cathy is left hurting. The Last Five Years introduces Cathy at the peak of her heartbreak while telling the story from the opposite perspective (Jamie meeting Cathy) at the same time. In “Still Hurting,” Cathy shares how Jamie seemingly just dropped her and left with no hurt or regret. This is oftentimes how it feels in a breakup – that you are the only one that is suffering a loss while the other person is out enjoying their best life. But as The Last Five Years shows us, there are always two sides to the break-up story – and sometimes there is no right or wrong side.
5. “Mr Cellophane” from Chicago
Ever felt invisible in a relationship? Well, Amos Hart definitely does and expresses this feeling in the quirky, seemingly light-hearted “Mr Cellophane.” Having been ignored and in all sense of the word forgotten by his wife, Roxie, Amos tries to get her attention by stating he is the father of her (unbeknownst to him) fake child. He is however shut down by Billy Flynn who tells him that he can’t be the father since he hadn’t slept with his wife in more than four months. Feeling betrayed, forgotten and ‘see-through,’ Amos compares himself to ‘unimpressive’ and ‘undistinguished’ cellophane. Unlike Amos, it is sometimes better to know your worth and cut off those who make you feel invisible.
6. “Someone Else’s Story” from Chess
Depending on what version of the musical you watch, you will either see Svetlana or Florence lament their loss of love – Svetlana the loss of her husband, Anatoli, and Florence her loss of Freddie. In both cases (even though the lyrics are slightly altered) the root of the song stays the same: reminiscing about a girl who met a boy, fell in love and had her heart broken by a man who changed and forgot about her. They both wish they could warn that girl who foolishly fell in love and tell her to walk away and spare her from the hurt. The twist, of course, is that they are singing about themselves. They don’t want to associate with this story that they are telling and thus distance themselves by singing ‘someone else’s story.’ Sometimes it is easier to just escape the pain by simply removing yourself from it, but one day you must realize the hurt from every broken heart is part of your own story.
7. “Getting Married Today” from Company
For some, the idea of marriage seems unnecessary and for others simply horrifying. A lot of the time the fear only seems to set in the day of the marriage, i.e. cold feet. In this vignette from Company, Amy (or Jamie in the recent revival) is stuck in the midst of a cold-feet-freak-out. While being serenaded by their future husband, Paul, they quickly start to spiral in a perfectly pattered word vomit about all their fears of marriage, like potentially ruining a wonderful husband like Paul, losing their identity in marriage or simply realizing that they married a ‘nut-job.’ So the song barrels through to the point that Amy/Jamie calls off this wedding and storms out. Love is a strong commitment and marriage seems to make that commitment very official, too official for some. So if you find yourself in the shoes of Amy or Jamie just remember; in the end, marriage or not, what is most important is retaining that love that the relationship started with.
8. “Forget About The Boy” from Thoroughly Modern Millie
After being kissed by and seemingly cheated on by Jimmy in one night, Millie is through with him and tells this to her co-workers at Sincere Trust. They give her the advice just to ‘forget about the boy’ and so Millie tries to do exactly that, convincing herself that Jimmy is no good. Soon the rest of her co-workers join in and sing about their own mister wrongs and how they are all much better off without them. A very important part of the breakup process is the last step of acceptance and letting go. Even though Millie does end up with Jimmy, “Forget About The Boy” is still a great anthem for those who broke up and are ready for someone better.
9. “Without You” from My Fair Lady
Eliza Doolittle is taken in by professor Higgens to be “made proper” and to speak like a lady. This process proves to be very difficult and even though they succeed, no recognition is given to Eliza. Insulted and hurt, Eliza leaves Higgins’ house. Later on, Higgins out of confusion complains that women are too irrational and emotional and states that men are the superior sex. The song that follows is Eliza finally standing up to the egotistical and misogynistic Higgens, saying that she’s realized that he isn’t the beginning and the end and stating all the things that will continue existing without his presence. Higgens tries to turn this argument in his favour saying that he has finally made a true woman out of Eliza, but Eliza simply leaves saying that he would not be seeing her again. Eliza found her worth in herself and left the person she once adored to find someone who will truly appreciate her.
10. “In Love With You” from First Date
Casey is traumatized by his past relationship having been left at the altar by his fiancé, Allison. With the help of the girl he is currently on a date with, Casey tries an exercise where he actually breaks up with his ex since he never got the chance to say to her what he felt. In this subverted rock love-ballad, Casey goes off, listing everything he hated about his ex and finally overcomes the trauma of the relationship. Sometimes we harbour feelings towards people in our past without realizing it and this affects our current relationships. Having a chance to vent those feelings and get rid of them is crucial to getting over that ex and moving on!
And there you have it, my top ten picks for best anti-love songs in the musical theatre world and some added relationship advice that came to me as I was writing it. If you have any other good anti-love songs to suggest or good break-up advice, please make yourself heard in the comments down below!
Another Friday, another forgotten Rodgers and Hart gem from the 1920s. This week, it’s all about Peggy-Ann, one of the six shows that would credit Richard Rodgers and Lorenz Hart as composer and lyricist respectively in 1926. We’ve already taken a look at The Girl Friend and Lido Lady, while two revues – The Fifth Avenue Follies, a new version of The Garrick Gaieties – had also made their bow. Their final show of the year, Betsy, would open the day after Peggy-Ann premiered. Quite a busy year!
Historians are inclined to frame Peggy-Ann as a twist on Alice in Wonderland, although given its American nature, I’m inclined to think of it more as a distant cousin of The Wizard of Oz. This is due to the use of an extended dream sequence that was central to the story of the titular heroine, whose everyday life was, like so many Cinderella-type heroines of the 1920s, characterised by drudgery. In this case, Peggy-Ann works in her mother’s boarding house and dreams of a better life for herself, which includes a marriage to her boyfriend, who is a grocery store clerk. By the time the dream sequence ended and the curtain fell, nothing much had happened other than Peggy-Ann making up her mind to go for it.
Peggy-Ann was scripted by Herbert Fields, who based the tale on a 1910 musical called Tillie’s Nightmare, which his father, Lew Fields, had produced. Written by Alfred Baldwin Sloane, John Golden and Edgar Smith, Tillie’s Nightmare had been a star vehicle for Marie Dressler, who would go on to star in a film adaptation alongside Charlie Chaplin and Mabel Normand under the direction of Mack Sennett. Dressler would go on to star in three sequels, Chaplin would become one of the greatest film legends of all time and Normand and Sennett would become the subjects of the Jerry Herman musical Mack and Mabel. There are incredible intersections between showbiz greats when you dive into the world of Peggy-Ann.
Peggy-Ann was also a show of firsts – or at least of significant lapses from the traditions of the time. The opening chorus that was a staple of 1920s musicals was cast aside in favour of fifteen minutes of dialogue before the show’s first number. The chorus girls were used to establish the situation and plot when they arrived. Also, dream sequences weren’t really a feature of musical theatre at the time and would continue to be an underused mode of storytelling until Kurt Weill, Ira Gershwin and Moss Hart’s Lady in the Dark in 1941 and Rodgers’s own exploitation of the conceit in collaboration with Oscar Hammerstein II in 1943’s Oklahoma!
Two hit songs emerged from the show, “A Tree in the Park” and “Where’s That Rainbow?” The latter has perhaps kept the memory of the show alive, albeit faintly, thanks to its inclusion in the 1949 film, Words and Music, and several cover versions by the likes of Barbra Streisand and Betty Buckley. These and other highlights from the score are available to hear in the playlist at the end of this post. The 42nd Street Moon company in San Francisco also revived the show in a staged concert version in 2002.
Perhaps the biggest win for Rodgers and Hart was the critical response to Peggy-Ann, which ran for 333 performances. Reviews of the time referred to them as a modern Gilbert and Sullivan, indicating that they were now a known quantity on the Broadway scene even as they continued to refine their approach and style.
Want to add your own thoughts about Peggy-Ann? Share your ideas in the comment box below!
Nobody I know enjoys dating. In fact, everyone I know who is married or in a stable relationship constantly seems to go on about how glad they are that they don’t have to date anymore. Of course, that seems to indicate that bad dates come around more often than good dates. But experience tells us that there are good dates to be had. And so do musicals. So let’s take a look at ten great musical theatre dates – just in time for Valentine’s Day – all of which are available to see in the YouTube playlist at the end of the post.
1. Carousel
The bench scene in Carousel is a landmark scene in musical theatre history, owing to Richard Rodgers and Oscar Hammerstein II’s seamless integration of scene and song. But it’s also a great date, and arguably the high point of Billy Bigelow and Julie Jordan’s relationship. While blossoms are falling and stars twinkling, Billy and Julie can’t help but wonder what would happen if they loved one another, having already lost their hearts to one another.
2. South Pacific
South Pacific starts off with a great date. Nellie Forbush is visiting Emile de Becque. She is a naive US Navy nurse and he is a worldly French plantation owner. Having met on the island in the South Pacific where Nellie is stationed, Emile wines and dines the young nurse and in the blink of an eye, she’s gone from being “A Cockeyed Optimist” to understanding just about everything “Some Enchanted Evening” can provide. Of course, they have a whole lot of Nellie’s ingrained racism to work through, but if anything can shift your beliefs that the world isn’t what you thought it was, it’s a war.
3. Guys and Dolls
Sarah Brown doesn’t know what’s waiting in store for her in Havana. On the arm of Sky Masterson, she falls in love for the first time to the sound of some pulsating Latin American rhythms. Loosened up after knocking back a few Dulce de Leches, she even survives a bar brawl and comes up singing about what she would do if she were a bell. The film version jettisons the subsequent lush and heady “I’ve Never Been in Love Before” in favour of a new song by Frank Loesser, “A Woman in Love”, which has its own merits, but would never work in the stage show. This has to be one of the greatest nights out for a couple in the musical theatre canon.
4. The King and I
Rodgers and Hammerstein were great at date nights, it seems. In The King and I, things get going at a ball hosted by the King of Siam for some British visitors who are in dire need of being convinced that his country is not a barbaric one. Mrs Anna Leonowens dances with Sir Edward Ramsay at the ball, which puts the King’s nose out of joint – but only long enough for him to convince her that he needs to learn the polka. Before you can say count to ‘and’, the ballroom is brimming with sexual tension as Mrs Anna confronts her desire for what post-colonialists might term the ‘erotic exotic.’ What a pity it is, then, when the King’s guards arrive with Tuptim just as things are about to get interesting.
5. West Side Story
He’s just met a girl named “Maria”, but that doesn’t stop Tony from calling at her home and climbing up her fire escape for a late-night rendezvous. Maria doesn’t mind, of course, because she’s the Juliet to his Romeo and they don’t know what lies in store for them yet. For now, the giddiness of “Tonight” will suffice. Admit it, you’d also be seduced if there were are ‘suns and moons all over the place’. Like Stephen Sondheim himself, you might not admit that ‘the world is just an address’ (cringe) that was ‘no better than all right’ (cringe) – but at least Leonard Bernstein’s soaring music might distract you from that rather awkward analogy.
6. Gypsy
Sometimes you have to wait for the kids to disappear so that you can get some quality time in with your lover. So when June and Louise run upstairs to put on their night cream, Rose and Herbie are left behind. First, they fight a little, then they dance a little, music courtesy of Jule Styne. But they are happy to accept – as Rose dictates to Herbie – that “You’ll Never Get Away From Me”, lyrics courtesy of Sondheim. And then they take home all of the silverware.
7. The Fantasticks
“Try to Remember” a time when you didn’t know what love was yet, and you’ll remember a time when you went on a date that your parents expressly forbade you to go on. You probably didn’t sing out a “Metaphor” that was a fantastic parody of operetta and musical theatre love scenes, but you probably do remember how you felt on that night, filled with the anticipation of true love’s kiss and the thrill of forbidden love. That’s what Harvey Schmidt and Tom Jones capture in this classic scene from The Fantasticks, which despite being a tiny show manages to give you two dates for the price of one! I’d tell you more about the second, but I have to run to a hideaway with my own love, because “Soon It’s Gonna Rain.”
8. Beauty and the Beast
Love at first sight was not to be for Belle and the Beast. In fact, it takes quite a bit of manoeuvring for them to get to the night of their big date, when Belle dons her iconic golden dress and the Beast dresses up and the two dance to the sound of Alan Menken and Howard Ashman’s title song. The journey to that moment takes much longer in the shamelessly padded stage version of the almost perfect film, but when Mrs Potts toots a ‘tale as old as time’ through her spout, it’s time for some first-class romance.
9. RENT
There’s only one couple really worth rooting for in RENT, and that’s Angel and Collins. Roger and Mimi have to bear the brunt of being the hetero-normative, show-thesis-crushing centre of Jonathan Larson’s musical and Maureen and Joanne’s on-again-off-again dynamic gets a bit tiresome, even if they do get a fabulous break-up song. There’s nothing quite as moving as Angel’s funeral in the second act and as Collins sings his eulogy, a ballad version of their date song, “I’ll Cover You.” you realise just how profound their love was. And it’s all because of that first, joyful, effervescent version of the song. That’s all a date has to be: coat-shopping and one helluva tune.
10. Dogfight
Here’s an example of a first date that goes really, really badly. What at first seems ‘nothing short of wonderful’ soon turns out to be anything but, when Rose realises that Eddie has brought her to a dogfight, where the marine with the ugliest date wins the pot. But, this being drama – and one with a fantastic score by Benj Pasek and Justin Paul, that sets things up for reconciliation and redemption, and so we get “First Date/Last Night”, which is self-conscious and endearing and everything else you’d expect a real first date to be.
So there are ten of my picks for great musical theatre dates. How about you head down to the comments box and share some of yours?
As February trundles on, it’s time to take a look at another of the forgotten musicals created by Richard Rodgers and Lorenz Hart during the 1920s. I’ve had such a good time with Rodgers and Hart over the past six or seven weeks that I’m inclined to stick with them for a while.
This week, I’m having a look over Lido Lady (1926), which was different from the previous Rodgers and Hart musicals for a couple of reasons. Firstly, it was a project that had its origins in London. Jack Hulbert was planning to produce a play as a vehicle for his wife, Cicely Courtneidge, and himself. He wanted songs with an American flavour because the music of No, No, Nanette and Lady, Be Good was trending like a viral hashtag in London and so he hired Rodgers and Hart to write some material for the show. This was all the more remarkable because the pair had yet to have a hit in London, a city that had not seen productions of Dearest Enemy or The Girl Friend. Secondly, the script had already been written, so Rodgers and Hart were seeking out and writing for obvious song spots rather than creating original material with a collaborator as they went along or even tailoring previous songs to fit new situations as they had done before.
As per tradition when it came to musical comedies in the 1920s, Lido Lady didn’t amount to much plot-wise. Set in Venice, on the Lido, Fay Blake is the tennis-playing daughter of a wealthy sports goods manufacturer. Amidst all sorts of romantic shenanigans, there is some business about a tennis ball design going missing – and that’s about it.
Added to the songs Rodgers and Hart composed for the piece were “It All Depends on You” from Buddy de Sylva, Lew Brown and Ray Henderson’s Big Boy and “Tomorrow the Skies May Be Gray (But Not Today)” by Con Conrad. One of the highlights of the score was “Try Again Tomorrow,” which was a duet for Courtneidge and Hulbert, who played siblings in the show. It’s a catchy and witty little number that elicits an easy chuckle – Just a couple of minutes of unadulterated fun.
Rodgers and Hart also interpolated “Here in My Arms” from Dearest Enemy into Lido Lady. In fact, several songs bounced between various Rodgers and Hart projects of this period, partly because they were juggling so many projects as they hustled through the roaring twenties. Those easy shifts made me wonder why there hasn’t been a Rodgers and Hart equivalent of My One and Only, Crazy For You or Nice Work if You Can Get It. There seems to be so much material to re-envision. It’s difficult to argue for any kind of respect for the much-maligned 1920s musicals, even the ones that do hold together relatively well – but it seems that so much of what Rodgers and Hart did during this decade has been written off wholesale. Of course, there are some 1920s shows that can’t be revived for anything but pure historical interest and that’s just the way it is. Some things are meant for history books or historical reconstructions – but I can’t help wonder if there’s a missed opportunity here.
Another interesting aspect of the Lido Lady journey was the criticism that was aimed by the British critics at Hart’s lyrics, particularly at the more inventive wordplay in pursuit of rhyme, which they viewed as nonsensical, or at lyrics that required a performer to distort the word to fit the musical line, something that also happened in the pursuit of a rhyme on the page. I found this intriguing as Hart’s reputation as a lyricist appears to be based less on his technical craft but on his often cynical tone, humour and the pathos created through the apparent encoding of his life experiences into his lyrics. Perhaps that’s a good topic for a deep dive here on Musical Cyberspace sometime down the line.
Want to add your own thoughts about Lido Lady? Share your thoughts in the comment box below. While you’re doing that, check out the YouTube playlist below, which includes some of the musical highlights from the show in various forms as well as some silent film footage of the original stage production.
February is the month of love and this Saturday has caught me in a romantic mood. There’s simply no better time to compile a list of ten great love songs by Alan Jay Lerner and Frederick Loewe. Loewe writes gorgeous music that really recalls the eras in which this famed team’s musicals are set, whether it is Edwardian England or the Age of Chivalry as much as it does the sound of Broadway in its Golden Age. While Lerner doesn’t measure up to the likes of Oscar Hammerstein II or Stephen Sondheim, he certainly deserves his place in the musical theatre canon, even if he is rather the Tim Rice of his day. I often wonder if he would have had a better time in the heyday of musical comedy when he would have not been required to craft his lyrics so specifically to character and situation. It’s almost always in those aspects that his lyrics fall short. I guess my point is that I don’t believe he was always as meticulous as he should have been given the era in which he was writing. But that’s opening up a whole can of worms into which I don’t wish to delve today, so let’s just jump into the love songs of Lerner and Loewe. Oh – and by the way, this is a countdown list, so I’ll be ranking the songs as I go.
10. “On the Street Where You Live” from My Fair Lady
The bottom spot on this list was either going to belong to this song, or to “I Talk to the Trees” from Paint Your Wagon. But even though the lyric of “On the Street Where You Live” is flawed, it at least has a winning accompaniment that doesn’t push into the ideologically shaky territory by using generic rhythms to indicate cultural heritage, as Loewe does in “I Talk to the Trees” by associating generic Latin American rhythms as a character marker for Julio. (“I Talk to the Trees” has its own fair share of lyrical transgressions too, making ample use of purple imagery.) As for “On the Street Where You Live”, Lerner would have been better off had he written something like:
People stop and stare; I don’t care at all – For there’s nowhere else in town that could compare at all
– and thought up something different for the ending. At least that way, we wouldn’t have to suffer through that truly awful ‘bother me’/’rather be’ rhyme that is second only to the suggestion that Eliza should be taken out and hung, like a drape, for her transgressions against the English language.
9. “How Can I Wait?” from Paint Your Wagon
Numbers during which people dance with other people’s clothes make for good romance it seems. It worked here in it would work when Disney staged “Once Upon a Dream” in Sleeping Beauty. There’s a kind of uninhibitedness about this kind of expression through imaginative and transgressive role play that makes the emotions felt, in this case by Jennifer, feel completely convincing in the world of Paint Your Wagon.
8. “I Loved You Once In Silence” – Camelot
This song comes late in Camelot and the tendency is to take the tempo a little more “up” than it should be. Although this perhaps makes sense towards the end of a long show, it’s a song that needs space to land dramatically. It’s a key moment for Guenevere, balancing her first number, “The Simple Joys of Maidenhood” and needs to reflect the development of her character since the top of the show. Bouncing the number along doesn’t help that cause. But Camelot is that most frustrating kind of musical, the flawed masterpiece, a show with a huge emotional impact that seems never quite to have found its best form.
7. “The Heather On The Hill” from Brigadoon
There’s something so seductive about this song, sung in Brigadoon by Tommy and Fiona as they gather heather for Charlie and Jean’s wedding. We all know that Fiona’s been ‘waiting for [her] dearie’ and here, it seems, he is. I’ve loved this song since the first moment I heard it in a revue in which I performed in 1997. That led me to seek out Brigadoon, a show which has always appealed to me more in idea than in execution, although I’ve come to like it more as the years have passed. But however I feel about the show, I’ll always adore this song.
6. “If Ever I Would Leave You” from Camelot
If love is timeless, then this is a song that does its best to capture that sentiment. Lancelot’s thoughts on how he could never leave Guenevere at any time of the year are accompanied by a seductive melody. With a set of lush orchestrations, it’s time to swoon. Yet there’s a curious shallowness that keeps this song from creeping up higher on my list. The song always makes love feel so full of promise and possibility, but there’s an emptiness that remains once it’s gone. Perhaps the kind of love here is a romantic ideal of courtly romance, an idea of love rather than love itself. I don’t know. I can’t put my finger on it. Any ideas?
5. There But For You Go I – Brigadoon
Sometimes the biggest battle of being in love is admitting that you are. This song is one of the big moments in Brigadoon, but it so often turns out to be a big blustery ballad and I think that is why it passed me by for a long time. Enter Robert Goulet and his understated and beautifully acted interpretation of the song – and now I find the song haunting, compelling and something that one wants to admit someday, no matter how difficult it might be.
4. “Gigi” from Gigi
I discovered this song long before I discovered the film, as a youngster playing songs that I found in the seat of our piano stool. Besides its simply enchanting melody, I think something in this song immediately connected with me. I often feel quite funny and awkward, as Gigi is described as having been, and I think that I also wanted – and am lucky to have found – someone to see past that and love me the way that Gaston realises he loves Gigi in this song.
3. “I’ve Grown Accustomed to Her Face” from My Fair Lady
Some people will argue that My Fair Lady is not a love story, but they’re most likely confusing it with its source material. Pygmalion is not a love story; My Fair Lady is. The ending has something to do with it, so do other key moments in the score and certainly, this song does too. Sometimes love is hard to express. Sometimes the expression is restrained. That’s what makes “I’ve Grown Accustomed to Her Face” so moving. It holds back what is there. But those who deny that it’s there would have a difficult time convincing me that it’s not.
2. “How To Handle a Woman” – Camelot
“How To Handle a Woman” is a song that is, in fact, about how to handle anyone you love. Love them. That also means putting aside things like your job, so that you can have the time to love them. It means being passionate about them. It means engaging with them and loving them actively. Arthur doesn’t quite get it right in the end but hopefully, we aren’t all destined for a tragedy of classical proportions. And hopefully, we know that trying to get it right means getting it wrong sometimes. We’re all flawed, and getting that across is a huge part of what makes Lerner and Loewe’s take on Camelot so effective.
1. “I Could Have Danced All Night” – My Fair Lady
The “My Fair Lady is a love story” naysayers may come after me with fire and pitchforks now, but that’s probably not going to change my mind that this is my number one love song by Lerner and Loewe. In Shaw’s Pygmalion, Eliza would be buoyed by her mastery of the English language. Here it is the moment, she says, ‘when he began to dance with me.’ Capturing Eliza’s ebullience in the moment of the recognition that it is the connection made between herself and Higgins as a result of her mastery of the English language is what shifts “I Could Have Danced All Night” into love song territory. And no matter where it ends, that first moment of joy is unique.
So that’s my list for today. Which Lerner and Loewe love songs you would choose for yours? Any that you’re passionate about that didn’t make my list? I’d love to hear about them via the comment box below. In the meantime, here’s a playlist of the songs mentioned in this column. Enjoy!
If The Garrick Gaieties was an important stepping stone for Richard Rodgers and Lorenza Hart and Dearest Enemy finally gave the pair a legitimate show with their names as the sole songwriting team on the bill, The Girl Friend cemented them in the public consciousness of 1920s America. It ran for 301 performances – a smash hit in those days – and paved the way for further musicals that would come from this pair, during which Rodgers would begin to develop some of the techniques that would eventually cause musical theatre to evolve. Directed by John Harwood, with musical staging by Jack Haskell, the show featured a book by Herbert Fields and brought Rodgers and Hart right up to date with a story reflecting the typical crazy pop-culture milieu of the roaring twenties.
Musical comedies of this period are known for their threadbare narratives and this one is right up there. The rather bizarre plot of The Girl Friend starts off with a cyclist who trains on a wheel connected to a butter churn on his dairy farm! The dairyman in question is Leonard Silver (played by Sammy White in the original production), who hopes to become a great six-day cyclist by winning an important race and thus, the everlasting affection of Mollie Farrell (Eva Puck). Several gamblers and swindlers, including a professional manager and his scheming sister, try to get Leonard to ride for them or to lose the race, but Leonard manages to win both the race and the girl by the time the final curtain falls.
The score’s sweet delights can be heard on a 1987 cast recording from JAY Records, but musical theatre fans will likely be familiar with the runaway hit song of the show, “Blue Room”, which is given a splendid rendition by Ella Fitzgerald (see the album featured on the right). The arrangement performed by the Revellers in the YouTube clip below also offers a great interpretation of the song. A charming number, “Blue Room” is a memorable little ditty from the Rodgers and Hart songbook and like “Manhattan” before it really showcased the style into which they’d grow throughout their collaboration.
On the whole, The Girl Friend is a typical show of its time – a fun bit of silliness that would have resonated with 1920s audiences. Want to add your own thoughts about the show? Head to the comment box below.
One way of measuring success in musical theatre is the length of a musical’s Broadway run. Of course, that’s just one measure of success and it certainly doesn’t always take craft and artistry into account. As Julian Woolford says in How Musicals Work, it’s easy to write a bad musical, bad musicals can be produced and they can even be huge hits. There’s certainly at least one stinker in the ten longest-running Broadway musicals – but of course, there are more here that have brought years of joy and fandom to show tune-lovers around the world! For the purposes of this list, I’m mostly looking at the shows as dramatic works rather than ranking the particular productions as seen on Broadway – although sometimes the production elements are inseparable from the show itself.
10. Oh! Calcutta!
Let’s get the uncontestably stinky Oh! Calcutta! out of the way first. This so-called erotic musical revue is little more than the gold standard for sexism, misogyny and tastelessness. Well, at least it was the best at something other than raking in the big bucks over its thirteen-year run of 5959 performances starting in 1976, when the show was revived – what an indictment on us as human beings. Conceived by Kenneth Tynan, the sketches were written by Samuel Beckett, John Lennon, Sam Shepard, Leonard Melfi, Edna O’Brien, Sherman Yellen, Jules Feiffer and Tynan himself, while Peter Schickele, Robert Dennis and Stanley Walden provided the score. Beckett withdrew the rights for the use of his scene following the debut of the original off-Broadway production in 1969. At that time, Tynan was so desperate to give the show an air of legitimacy that he tried to seduce Harold Pinter into directing it. That task eventually fell to Jacques Levy, who would return to stage the long-running revival. This one isn’t so bad it’s good, it’s so bad that you can hardly begin to fathom how deeply awful it is.
9. Beauty and the Beast
On film, Beauty and the Beast is one of Disney’s greatest animated features. It’s pretty much perfect, once you get over little flubs like Gaston not noticing the rather prominent pictures in Belle’s book in an early scene in the film. On stage, there were certainly moments of magic to keep it running for 5461 performances, but the show feels a little padded with book-writer Linda Woolverton not having enough of a sense of where this adaptation was going in its transition from one medium to the other. Tim Rice provided additional lyrics for the new songs in the stage show, but “If I Can’t Love Her” aside, the songs don’t really live up to the small masterworks they augmented. The law of diminishing returns was further proved when the property was developed for a live-action adaptation. Still, at the heart of it all, we have Alan Menken and Howard Ashman giving the show its heart and soul in the original set of songs they crafted for the film. For those musical moments, we can very eternally grateful.
8. The Lion King
The Lion King is a show that causes a bit of cognitive dissonance, for want of a better word. It has an incredibly moving opening and some astounding sequences that pop up throughout the show, but it is a little bitty as it shifts modes in pursuit of the different members of its wide target audience. I mean, did anyone really need “The Morning Report,” “Chow Down” or “The Madness of King Scar,” the new numbers provided by Elton John and Tim Rice to augment the 1994 film’s score? The song spots might not be badly identified and the last of the three works in a crucial plot point, but the execution is forgettable. The development of Hans Zimmer’s themes from the film score and the extension of Lebo M’s contributions to the film and on its follow-up concept album, Rhythm of the Pridelands. The thing that really elevates the show, though, is Julie Taymor’s staging and her ingenious use of puppets to tell the story. After all, a little “Circle of Life” goes a long way – so the show’s play for the audience’s love is won at the top of the show and it continues to run more than 9000 performances after its opening night.
7. Wicked
Wicked is a proper blockbuster. Like the perfect summer popcorn movie, it is a super piece of popular entertainment. While its tone is much lighter than the book by Gregory Maguire upon which it is based, Stephen Schwartz proved a wiz at filling the score with memorable tunes and incorporating Oz/was rhymes, while book-writer Winnie Holzman leaves no word unozzified – although she does duff up the ending for the sake of sentiment. Even so, as the years go by, Wicked is a bit of a gift that keeps on giving almost 7000 performances in as we hear new Elphabas riffing it up in “The Wizard and I” and “Defying Gravity” in pursuit of their re-interpretation of the iconic Wicked Witch of the West.
6. Mamma Mia!
Mamma Mia! ran for 5758 performances before it closed on Broadway and remains the longest-running jukebox musical at the time of writing this column. It’s a bit of fluff that has become something of a franchise, with a hugely successful film version that led to a sequel and inspired Cher to record an album of ABBA covers. The first-rate ABBA songs aside, what makes Mamma Mia! work where other jukebox musicals have missed the mark is in Catherine Johnson’s knowledge of what she was writing and the subsequent way she exploits this by weaving that knowledge into its overall tone and including several asides that let the audience into the joke. In many ways, this is the ultimate party show and it a joy to experience.
5. Cats
7485 performances on Broadway. A studio proshot that has a huge fanbase. A misguided film that was the cat-butt of all jokes and sent composer Andrew Lloyd Webber in search of a pet dog. These are some of the key moments in the history of Cats, the musical that divides musical theatre lovers into superfans or superhaters. But here’s the thing: despite the endless (and, it has to be said, sometimes valid) nitpicks that the haters list about the marriage of the T. S. Eliot lyrics to Lloyd Webber’s tunes or the lack of a plot (although I wonder whether those who claim this actually understand the definition of the term), Cats works theatrically. When a top-notch cast performs the show and totally understands the nuances of the world it is creating, it makes for a funtastic couple of hours in the theatre. Let the memory live again!
4. The Phantom of the Opera
Having clocked more than 13 000 performances on Broadway, The Phantom of the Opera is another show that divides people into superfans and superhaters. I mean, this appears to be the general trend when it comes to Andrew Lloyd Webber’s musicals, no matter who he chooses as his collaborators, in this case, Charles Hart and Richard Stilgoe. Lloyd Webber’s work here, layered in style and rich in allusion, played a key role in the trend of musicalising the nineteenth century with elements of pop music, but it never works as well in the copycat shows, in which old vs new music isn’t a key thematic element. What elevates this show is Harold Prince’s approach to it as a campelisious melodrama and his original staging of the piece, which embraces old theatre tech and mixes it with then-current theatre tech to make for some wonderfully entertaining moments of pure theatre. In many ways, the further it strays from its roots and the more seriously it takes itself, the less compelling it becomes. But when it all comes together just right, it’s a blast.
3. Les Miserables
The 6680-performance Broadway run of Alain Boublil and Claude-Michel Schönberg’s modern classic, Les Miserables, seems short in comparison with how long it feels the show has been around. This is likely because of the London production which ran twice as long, making the show a ubiquitous part of the modern musical theatre landscape. While it has a few head-scratchers when it comes to the way it uses musical motifs and so on, the show’s overall redemptive narrative arc and liberal use of pathos throughout the show connects with all of us who long for a time when we can hear all the people sing rather than the few at the top who set up systemic structures to keep them in their ivory towers. It’s hard to shake the feeling that you’re watching something significant happen in this story about social and personal transformation, the nature of morality and faith. It cuts deep.
2. Chicago
Still running as it heads for the 10000-performance milestone, Chicago is a show that came into its own two decades after its original run. Yes, I am aware that this is not how the show looked in the 1970s and that yes, there was a different approach to the set and costumes back then and that yes, there is are loud arguments about how inferior the approach of the revival is in comparison. In my view, both approaches are valid so that’s not an argument you’re going to win with me. You prefer the old one? Fine. You prefer the revival? Fine! Yes, I’m aware that – shock, horror! – Fred Ebb and Bob Fosse’s book has been tweaked. Fine by me – the show is better off without things like Billy’s homophobic jibe at his tailor and I have no problems with revivals that rebuild a show from the ground up, an approach that works wonders as often as it doesn’t. Chicago was in many ways ahead of its time, but it’s difficult to argue that it didn’t find its stride until the 1990s in a very different world with very different aesthetics. The traditionalists can clutch their pearls, but this streamlined Chicago is all that jazz and then some too. After all, it has what counts most: a convincing concept and a fantastic score from Ebb and John Kander as well as a way of telling a story as old as time in a way that means something to us today.
1. A Chorus Line
A Chorus Line is a classic, one of those great pieces of art that attests to the principle that the more specific a piece of theatre is, the more universally it resonates with its audience. Its memorable score by Marvin Hamlisch and Edward Kleban is studded with numbers that are by turns thrilling, moving and rib-tickling, while the vignettes relayed by the company of dancers in James Kirkwood Jr and Nicholas Dante’s book match them step for step. Paul’s heart-rending monologue about his journey to becoming a dancer is unforgettable, as is Cassie’s laying everything on the line in “The Music and the Mirror.” The show is bookended by two thrilling sequences, “I Hope I Get It” and “One.” The extended “Montage” is a brilliant piece of dramaturgy. Everything that it takes to be a dancer is scaffolded into a story of what it means to be human. There was a time when nobody could imagine a show surpassing the length of the original production’s run of 6137 performances and when revisiting the show today, it is easy to understand why.
Have any thoughts you’d like to share? Think we’ve ranked something too high or low? Head to the comments and let us know!
The success of The Garrick Gaieties opened up doors for Richard Rodgers and Lorenz Hart. Although they had tried to get Dearest Enemy produced before, those who were considered to be “in the know” had thought that a musical by a relatively untried songwriting team that dealt with an apparently trivial event during the American Revolutionary War would never fly. But with a hit like “Manhattan” behind them, Dearest Enemy suddenly became a viable proposition. With a book by Herbert Fields, direction by John Murray Anderson, the direction of the libretto by Charles Sinclair and Harry Ford and dance and ensemble direction by Carl Hemmer, the show ended up running for 286 performances. The show made Helen Ford a star and how much of that had to do with her entrance wearing only a barrel is up for conjecture!
At the centre of Dearest Enemy is the historic incident of how Mary Lindley Murray detained the British troops in her home, thereby allowing 4000 American soldiers to sneak past and assemble in Washington Heights in 1776. Fields threw in a couple of fictional love stories, between Jane, Mary’s daughter, and Harry Tyron, the British general’s son and between Betsy Burke, Mary’s niece, and Sir John Copeland, a British captain, and Rodgers and Hart gave them all a sunny score through which all and sundry could be romanced.
It’s nice to have a musical from the 1920s with so much material available to explore. In the 1950s, a television broadcast of the show was flighted and this is now available on DVD – wonderful! A cast recording lifted from the soundtrack of the television special is available, as is a studio recording from the 1980s. Truly wonderful, however, is the 2012 studio cast recording from New World Records, a jam-packed, beautifully performed recording of the score. It has the ring of authenticity in its approach, but it never feels jarring on our modern ear either. It gorgeously showcases the finest moments of the score: its cornerstone, “Here in My Arms,” the characterful and witty “I’d Like to Hide It,” the touching “Bye and Bye” and the catchy and irreverent “Sweet Peter.” Personally, I think it’s an essential cast album in any musical theatre fan’s collection.
Although the history books sadly seem to consider Dearest Enemy somewhat unremarkable, I think it has a bit more joy on offer all told, even more so given the period in which it was created. And with retooled and “new” Gerswhin shows like Crazy For You and Nice Work If You Can Get It surfacing all the time, perhaps it’s time that someone dusted off Dearest Enemy for the audiences of today.
Want to add your own thoughts about Dearest Enemy? Share your thoughts in the comment box below.
While Richard Rodgers and Lorenz Hart’s songs had been heard on Broadway prior to The Garrick Gaieties, neither A Lonely Romeo nor Poor Little Ritz Girl did much to advance their careers. What was missing for them was a breakout hit, a song to infiltrate the public’s mind in the same way pop stars have their breakout hits today. After all, the music of the stage was the popular music of the time. Cue The Garrick Gaieties, which provided just that stepping stone in the career of Rodgers and Hart owing to its introduction (by Sterling Holloway and June Cochrane) of their first runaway hit, “Manhattan.”
This show, which was a revue, would lead the pair forward to bigger and better things. I’m not the biggest fan of revues. They are hard to get right and often their topicality wanes as time goes by. What would modern audiences make of skits and songs based around the relationship between President Coolidge and his wife, the Scopes trial, the New York City subway system and the Theatre Guild itself? Not much, I’d wager, even if they did offer some entertaining insights into the past. As it is, The Garrick Gaieties had two sequels and then faded into obscurity. Does that mean its material should fade along with it? No. In fact, I’d love to see a proper recording of the scores of all three revues.
Because there aren’t, it complicates any discussion of the show somewhat. I certainly haven’t heard all of the songs from The Garrick Gaieties, nor am I familiar with the sketches at all. Of the songs that I do know, I would pick “Manhattan” as my favourite: it is charming and lovely and is such a vibrant personality piece. It’s instantly memorable and it’s easy to see why it was a smash hit for Rodgers and Hart.
It might be somewhat unfair to choose a least favourite song from the show because I’m only basing my choice on a selection of songs with which I am familiar, but I’d say that “April Fool” holds less appeal for me than the rest: it’s not a bad song, but it lacks – perhaps – the effortless charm of the best Rodgers and Hart songs.
Of course, Rodgers and Hart weren’t the only contributors to The Garrick Gaieties. Other songwriters included Benjamin Kaye, Mana Zucca, Edith Meiser and Dudley Digges, while music by Tata Nacho was used for the “Rancho Mexicano” number at the top of the second act. Sketches were also provided by Kaye and Meiser, with other contributions by Sam Jaffe, Morrie Ryskind, Arthur Sullivan and Howard Green. Directed by Philip Loeb, with musical staging by Herbert Fields, The Garrick Gaieties ran for 211 performances from June through November 1925, having had a two-performance benefit in May of that year.
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