Enchanted Evenings:The Broadway Musical from 'Show Boat' to Sondheim and Lloyd Webber (123 page)

5
. Steven Suskin,
Opening Night on Broadway
, 275.

6
. In his notes to the 1958 original London cast recording of
Where’s Charley?
, Stanley Green noted that “at the time of its closing, its 792 performances made it the tenth longest-running musical in Broadway history” (Monmouth-Evergreen MES/7029). See also Riis, 50–73.

7
. Suskin,
Opening Night on Broadway
, 275.

8
. John McClain, “The Best Thing since ‘Pal Joey,’”
New York Journal-American
, November 25, 1950; quoted in Suskin,
Opening Night on Broadway
, 274; reprinted
New York Theatre Critics’ Reviews
, vol. 11, 186.

9
. Abe Burrows, “The Making of
Guys & Dolls
.” For additional material on the genesis of
Guys and Dolls
see Arthur Martin Mann, “The Musicals of Frank Loesser,” 67–87, and Riis, 74–82.

10
. Burrows, “The Making of
Guys & Dolls
,” 41.

11
. On June 29, 1994, this production became the longest running revival in Broadway history up to that time.

12
. William Kennedy, “The Runyonland Express Is Back in Town,”
New York Times
, April 12, 1992, sec. 2, 1 and 26, and Jo Swerling Jr., “Abe Burrows: Undue Credit?,”
New York Times
, May 3, 1992, sec. 2, 4 (with a response from William Kennedy). Those familiar with the machinations of Hollywood screenplays will recognize the terms of Swerling’s contract that allowed him to receive primary credit as the libretto’s author, even if none of his work was used. It is difficult to credit the notion espoused by Swerling’s son that Feuer, Martin, and stage manager Henri Caubisens conspired with Burrows to diminish Swerling’s role in the
Guys and Dolls
drama. Burrows’s account is also corroborated in Susan Loesser,
A Most Remarkable Fella
, 101–02.

13
. Burrows, “The Making of
Guys & Dolls
,” 44.

14
. Ibid, 47.

15
. The quasi-triplets created by two groups of three eighth notes (in 6/8 time) also pervade Adelaide’s admonishment of Nathan in “Sue Me.”

16
. Late in the show when Sarah sings her duet with Adelaide, “Marry the Man Today,” her evolution is complete and triplets (albeit of the common eighth-note variety) become the dominant rhythm.

17
. Tonic (4 measures), dominant (2 measures), tonic (6 measures), dominant (2 measures), and tonic (1 measure).

18
. A leading Italian bass at La Scala (1921–24) and the Metropolitan Opera (1926–1948), Pinza was introduced in chapter 9 as the first internationally known opera singer to star on Broadway (
South Pacific
[1949]).

19
. Another song intended to feature Nathan and Sky, “Travelin’ Light,” was one of several songs dropped from the show. It is included in
An Evening with Frank Loesser: Frank Loesser Performs Songs from His Hit Shows
(DRG 5169).

20
. Frank Loesser, “Some Notes on a Musical.”

21
. Ironically, one of these new songs, “Adelaide,” was given to Nathan, played by Frank Sinatra.

22
. Block, “Frank Loesser’s Sketchbooks.”

23
. Loesser Collection, Music Division, New York Public Library, 3129–30.

24
. Ibid., 2842. This undated sketch page is found sandwiched between other pages dated December 1953.

25
. “Abbondanza” sketches (first sketched as “The Helps”), unlike the sketches for “Lovers in the Lane,” were dated precisely by Loesser in December 1953. Ibid., 2851 and 2859–62.

26
. Ibid., 3006–07.

27
. Loesser, “Some Loesser Thoughts on ‘The Most Happy Fella.’”

28
. Ibid. Loesser expresses the same sentiment in “Some Notes on a Musical.”

29
. Loesser, “Some Loesser Thoughts on ‘The Most Happy Fella.’”

30
. Abe Burrows, “Frank Loesser 1910–1969,”
New York Times
, August 10, 1969, sec. 2, 3.

31
. The phrase “Greater Loesser” in the present chapter title is borrowed from a
New York Times Magazine
profile by Gilbert Millstein, May 20, 1956.

32
. Robert Coleman, “‘Most Happy Fella’ Is a Masterpiece,”
Daily Mirror
, May 4, 1956; review excerpted in Suskin,
Opening Night on Broadway
, 455; reprinted in
New York Theatre Critics’ Reviews
, vol. 17, 310.

33
. John McClain, “This Musical Is Great,”
New York Journal-American
, May 4, 1956; review excerpted in Suskin,
Opening Night on Broadway
, 455–56; reprinted in
New York Theatre Critics’ Reviews
, vol. 17, 310.

34
. Walter F. Kerr, “‘The Most Happy Fella,’”
New York Herald Tribune
, May 4, 1956; quoted in Suskin,
Opening Night on Broadway
, 455; reprinted in
New York Theatre Critics’ Reviews
, vol. 17, 308. Kerr’s lack of appreciation for shows most take for granted as rich in music is also evident in his responses to
Candide
and
West Side Story
.

35
. Richard Watts Jr., “Arrival of ‘The Most Happy Fella,’”
New York Post
, May 4, 1956; reprinted in
New York Theatre Critics’ Reviews
, vol. 17, 308.

36
. George Jean Nathan, “Theatre Week: Fish nor Foul,”
New York Journal-American
, May 9, 1956, 16.

37
. Brooks Atkinson, “Theatre: Loesser’s Fine Music Drama,”
New York Times
, May 4, 1956, 20; reprinted in
New York Theatre Critics’s Reviews
, vol. 17, 311.

38
. Howard Taubman, “Broadway Musical: Trend toward Ambitious Use of Music Exemplified by ‘Most Happy Fella,’”
New York Times
, June 10, 1956, sec. 2, 7.

39
. Conrad L. Osborne, “‘Happy Fella’ Yields Up Its Operatic Heart.”

40
. Ibid., 5.

41
. Ibid.

42
. Ibid., 17.

43
. According to Abba Bogin, Loesser’s musical assistant and rehearsal pianist in
Fella
and a reliable source of practical and anecdotal information, “Ooh! My Feet” was originally intended for Lieutenant Branigan in
Guys and Dolls
. See Block, “Frank Loesser’s Sketchbooks,” 77–78.

44
. Loesser Collection, 3004. A transcription of this “Big D” draft appears in Block, “Frank Loesser’s Sketchbooks,” 65.

45
. Loesser Collection, 2794, 2811, 2857–58, 2900–01, and 2915.

46
. Loesser, “Some Loesser Thoughts on ‘The Most Happy Fella.’”

47
. In the previous chapter it was suggested that Porter deprived
Kiss Me, Kate
of dramatic nuance when he departed from his conceit that the Padua songs would distinguish themselves from the Baltimore songs through contrasting statements in the major and minor modes.

48
. Vocal score and libretto (New York: Frank Music, 1956, 1957), 67.

49
. Sometimes Loesser’s melodic manipulations can be subtle to the point of inaudibility for most listeners. For example, a transformed version of the “Tony” motive (the seconds have now been inverted to become sevenths) can be detected during the final moments of act I, when Rosabella “overcomes her resistance” and willingly accepts Joe’s sexual advances. During the course of their kiss the “Tony” motive returns to the “sighing” seconds that underscored Tony’s imaginary conversation. Vocal score, 126.

Moments later (near the beginning of act II) Loesser inserts another small musical detail that conveys a dramatic message. In the fleeting moment between choruses of the uplifting “Fresno Beauties” Joe and Rosabella sing their private thoughts in a duet that neither can hear. The interval that separates the one-night lovers is the same minor seventh that brought them together in the seduction music ending act I. Ibid., 133.

50
. Ibid., 187–88.

51
. Ibid., 252–53.

52
. Ibid., 257.

53
. Burrows, “Frank Loesser: 1910–1969,
New York Times
, August 10, 1969.

54
. Donald Malcolm, “Nymphs and Shepherds, Go Away,”
New Yorker
, March 19, 1960, 117–18.

Chapter 12:
My Fair Lady

1
.
My Fair Lady’
s performance run was not surpassed until nearly a decade later by
Hello Dolly!
in 1971.

2
. Walter Kerr, “‘My Fair Lady,’”
New York Herald Tribune
, March 16, 1956; quoted in Steven Suskin,
Opening Night on Broadway
, 470–71 (quotation on 470); reprinted in
New York Theatre Critics’ Reviews
, vol. 17, 346.

3
. William Hawkins, “‘My Fair Lady’ Is a Smash Hit,”
New York World-Telegram
and
The Sun
, March 16, 1956; quoted in Suskin,
Opening Night on Broadway
, 470; reprinted in
New York Theatre Critics’ Reviews
, vol. 17, 347.

4
. Rex Harrison,
Rex: An Autobiography
, 114. According to Gene Lees, Porter was one of the many who had turned down the
Pygmalion
adaptation (see note17). Gene Lees,
Inventing Champagne: The Worlds of Lerner and Loewe
, 88.

5
. Robert Coleman, “‘My Fair Lady’ Is a Glittering Musical,”
Daily Mirror
, March 16, 1956; quoted in Suskin,
Opening Night on Broadway
, 470; reprinted in
New York Theatre Critics’ Reviews
, vol. 17, 345.

6
. John Chapman, “‘My Fair Lady’ a Superb, Stylish Musical Play with a Perfect Cast,”
Daily News
, March 16, 1956; quoted in Suskin,
Opening Night on Broadway
, 468 and 470 (quotation on 468); reprinted in
New York Theatre Critics’ Reviews
, 17, 345.

7
. Hawkins, “‘My Fair Lady,’” 347; Suskin,
Opening Night on Broadway
, 470.

8
. Brooks Atkinson, “Theatre: ‘My Fair Lady,’”
New York Times
, March 16, 1956, 20; quoted in Suskin,
Opening Night on Broadway
, 468. Reprinted in
New York Theatre Critics’ Reviews
, 17, 347.

9
. Gene Lees in
Inventing Champagne
and William W. Deguire,
The New Grove Dictionary of American Music
and
The New Grove Dictionary of Opera
annotator, give 1901 as the date for the composer’s birth (some earlier sources say 1904). Although Lees remains curiously noncommittal in attributing the city of Loewe’s birth (Berlin or Vienna), Berlin is the setting for all the biographical material that he offers for Loewe’s early years. Lees,
Inventing Champagne
, 12–16; and William W. Deguire, “Loewe, Frederick,”
The New Grove Dictionary of American Music
, ed. H. Wiley Hitchcock and Stanley Sadie (London: Macmillan, 1985), vol. 2, 101–3, and
The New Grove Dictionary of Opera
, ed. Stanley Sadie (London: Macmillan, 1992), vol. 2, 1306.

10
. Lees,
Inventing Champagne
, 14.

11
. It was noted in the previous chapter that the revue
The Illustrators Show
, which folded after five performances, also marked the Broadway debut of Loesser, who wrote the lyrics of several Irving Actman songs for this same show.

12
. Dan H. Laurence, ed.,
Bernard Shaw Collected Letters 1926–1950
(New York: Viking, 1988), 528.

13
. Laurence, ed.,
Bernard Shaw Collected Letters 1911–1925
, (New York: Viking, 1985), 730–31. It is clear from this letter, however, that Shaw’s motives were as much financial as they were artistic.

14
. Laurence, ed.,
Collected Letters 1926–1950
, 817.

15
. Alan Jay Lerner,
The Street Where I Live
, 30–135. See also Stephen Citron,
Wordsmiths
, 261–64, and Keith Garebian,
The Making of “My Fair Lady”
(Toronto: ECW Press, 1993).

16
. Lerner,
The Street Where I Live
, 36.

17
. Ibid., 38. In Lees’s undocumented claim, Lerner and Loewe “knew that he [Pascal] had previously approached Rodgers and Hammerstein, Howard Dietz and Arthur Schwartz, Cole Porter, and E. Y. Harburg and Fred Saidy, all of whom had turned the project down as fraught with insoluble book problems.” Gene Lees,
Inventing Champagne
, 88.