Q & A: 8/11/04

A: Producer Cameron Mackintosh had had a big hit with a West End revival of Oliver! that ran three years at the show's original theatre, the Albery, from 1977 to 1980. Adding the original London and film Fagin, Ron Moody, and Broadway's Patti LuPone to the mix, Mackintosh brought Oliver! back to Broadway in April, 1984, near the end of a busy musical season and with little fanfare. The production was closely modeled on the staging and physical production of the original '60s version. During New York previews, the actors playing Mr. Bumble and Mrs. Corney lost both "I Shall Scream" and the "Oliver!" reprise when those numbers got cut.

Clive Barnes in The New York Post and Douglas Watt in The Daily News praised the revival, but it was dealt a severe blow by Frank Rich's pan in The New York Times. Rich wrote that "the passing years have not been kind" to the show, calling it "not unpleasant---just dull...The director hasn't bothered to shake the mothballs off his original staging."

I enjoyed the production as a chance to see a semblance of a staging that I had been somewhat too young to fully appreciate the first time around. It was good to see Moody as Fagin for the first time on Broadway, and LuPone certainly hurled herself into the role of Nancy. Rich had good words for both stars. But the production failed to take off at the Mark Hellinger Theatre box office, and was forced to fold after seventeen performances.

Perhaps musical revivals weren't the thing at this time. The same season began with an unsuccessful revival of Mame starring Angela Lansbury. And a revival of The Wiz with Stephanie Mills opened a month after Oliver!and, with another pan from Rich, closed after thirteen performances. That season's revival of Zorba was a hit, but only because of Anthony Quinn's presence in the title role.

LuPone would have to wait for a full-scale Broadway comeback until Lincoln Center Theater's Anything Goes in 1987. But doing Oliver! paid off for LuPone: Mackintosh hired her again the following year, to create the role of Fantine in his Royal Shakespeare Company premiere of Les Miserables.

Q: I have often read that Bock and Harnick ended their years of writing together after an apparently rocky collaboration on The Rothschilds. What exactly happened in the writing of that show that led to their break up? If I can't imagine the show itself ever being particularly compelling onstage, there are a lot of nice moments on the original cast recording, with strong work on both their parts. The oft alluded to, but never fully discussed, rift between the two has always puzzled me. Can you offer any more information?---Donald Butchko

A: I believe that during the Detroit tryout engagement of The Rothschilds, Bock and Harnick strongly disagreed about the firing of the show's first director, Derek Goldby Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead, which led to the show's choreographer, Michael Kidd, assuming the overall direction. Bock apparently felt that Goldsby should have been retained, while Harnick believed that Goldsby would have been unable to bring together all of the show's elements as Kidd was able to do.

One may hold against The Rothschilds the fact that it was the show that put an end to the collaboration of Bock and Harnick, who were among the very strongest musical-theatre talents to emerge during the fertile 1960s. Still, at least for its first act, The Rothschilds was a fine show, and there's much to enjoy on the superb cast recording. The show even played well in the American Jewish Theatre's scaled-down revival of 1990, directed by Lonny Price, which transferred to the downtown Circle in the Square for a run of almost a year.

Q: It is known that Leroy Anderson composed the score for Wonderful Town originally, but it was deemed inappropriate and Leonard Bernstein, Betty Comden and Adolph Green were brought in to compose a new score in seven weeks. Has any of the material of Anderson's ever turned up in his recordings or in Goldilocks? Or was it forever lost to posterity?---Bruce Haberkern

A: As a big fan of the Goldilocks score, I would love to hear the score that composer Anderson and lyricst Arnold Horwitt Plain and Fancy wrote for Wonderful Town. But I've never had the opportunity to hear any of it. While it's hard to imagine it equaling the Bernstein-Comden-Green score, it would be fascinating to collect.

Q: I recently after intense searching got my hands on a copy of the Tess of the D'Urbervilles cast recording. I quite enjoy the CD--the performances are good, the music is absolutely enchanting. Was the complete score recorded, or are these six excerpts all that were preserved?---John White

A: I can't swear that nothing more was recorded. But that six-track CD was all that was ever commercially released of the short-lived 1999 West End musical. It's one of a number of London musicals Abbacadabra, Matador, Someone Like You, Hard Times whose original casts only got to record a few numbers.

Q: Wasn't there a PBS series in the summer of 1964 that featured three different evenings of songs and interviews with the authors from recent musicals -- 110 in the Shade, Here's Love, and She Loves Me? Were any other shows featured and how would one be able to see these once again, since it is the only video record of Inga Swenson's magnificent performance as Lizzie in 110 in the Shade?

Also, will the holders of the "Ed Sullivan Show" rights ever release more of the moments from Broadway -- including the "flop" show clips -- to the public?---Peter Devine

A: I'm not aware of the programs to which you refer; can anyone help out? Around the time of the musicals you mention, there was a CBS-TV/Channel 2 series called "American Musical Theatre," which aired in New York on Sunday mornings. On one episode that still exists, Swenson sang two of her 110 songs, "Is It Really Me?" and "Simple Little Things."

As to those wonderful "Ed Sullivan" clips, it does not appear that there are any plans to issue additional numbers from musicals. The one-hour DVD of Sullivan musical-theatre excerpts was identical in content to the VHS and laserdisc releases of that program.

Q: I recently purchased a bunch of playbills from Milwaukee's now-closed summer stock theater, Melody Top. I came across a playbill from a mysterious production. From August 14-26, 1979, Johnny Desmond starred in Leonard M. Landau's production of Lullaby of Broadway book by Arnold Drake and Stuart Bishop. Mr. Desmond played composer Harry Warren, with the first act taking place in "the early years at Warner Brothers" and the second act featuring "the later years at 20th Century Fox, M.G.M. and Paramount." The score contains many of the songs heard in 42nd Street, and I'm wondering if the two shows have any connection. Was Lullaby scrapped in favor of the Merrick/Champion 42nd Street? Can anyone offer more information?---Dan Pagel

A: Lullaby of Broadway sounds like one of those musicals that was destined to be seen only in stock, like Martha Raye in Hello, Sucker about Texas Guinan, Mickey Rooney in W.C. about W.C. Fields, and featuring Bernadette Peters, or Eartha Kitt in Peg based on Peg o' My Heart. But of course, once the stage version of 42nd Street happened, there would have been little chance of Lullaby of Broadway going further.

Strangely enough, another show called Lullaby of Broadway was produced at Los Angeles's Tiffany Theatre in 1997. This one was about the life of Warren's 42nd Street collaborator, lyricist Al Dubin. Joel Kimmel wrote the book and David Galligan directed. Nathan Holland played Dubin, while Kirby Tepper played Warren. The cast also included Heather Lee Tessie Tura in the recent Broadway Gypsy and Tami Tappan.

Naturally, the Dubin-Warren songs heard in the 1997 show included such 42nd Street numbers as "Lullaby of Broadway," "A Quarter to Nine," "You're Getting to Be a Habit With Me," "We're in the Money," "Plenty of Money and You," "Dames," and "Forty-Second Street." I don't believe this Lullaby of Broadway was heard from again after its L.A. run.

Q: Could you tell me how many productions were done by the Music Theatre of Lincoln Center, and which ones were recorded?---Harry Ramsey

A: From 1964 to 1969, Richard Rodgers headed the Music Theatre of Lincoln Center, which presented summer revivals at the New York State Theater. During the first three seasons, two shows were staged in a summer, while each of the final three summers featured just one production.

In order of appearance, the shows were The King and I, The Merry Widow, Kismet, Carousel, Annie Get Your Gun, Show Boat, South Pacific, West Side Story, and Oklahoma!. Kismet Alfred Drake, Carousel John Raitt, and Annie Get Your Gun Ethel Merman boasted a star recreating his or her original role. Five of the productions also played tours.

RCA Victor recorded the first six titles, with Columbia preserving South Pacific. The final two productions went unrecorded. RCA's The King and I Rise Stevens, Darren McGavin, Lee Venora, Frank Porretta, Patricia Neway and The Merry Widow Patrice Munsel and Columbia's South Pacific Florence Henderson, Giorgio Tozzi have yet to appear on CD.

Q: The recent Tony Awards got me thinking about performers in the same show competing against each other. Would you venture your opinion on why Bernadette Peters did not receive a Tony nomination for her role as the Witch in Into the Woods? Could it have been because the producers did not submit her name because they did not want the two leading ladies the other being Joanna Gleason to be contending against each other?---Jean Ernst

A: When Into the Woods played its world premiere at the Old Globe Theatre in San Diego, Ellen Foley played the Witch. For the Broadway production, Betty Buckley was to have taken the role, but fairly late in pre-production, Buckley was out, and Bernadette Peters, the leading lady of the previous Stephen Sondheim-James Lapine show, Sunday in the Park With George, agreed to take on the role.

Perhaps owing to previous commitments and her late signing on to the project, Peters did not stay long in the show. Into the Woods opened in November, but by Tony time, Peters had been replaced by Phylicia Rashad, who performed in the Into the Woods sequence on the 1988 Tony Awards. This was probably fine with the show's producers, as Rashad was a highly recognizable TV star from "The Cosby Show."

Peters made a significant contribution to Woods and should have been nominated for a Tony. But I don't think there was any plan to leave her out so as to protect Joanna Gleason. Instead, I suspect it was the fact that Peters had already left the show and that it was a strong season for musical leading ladies. The musical-actress Tony could easily have gone to Patti LuPone, who won raves for Anything Goes. But Gleason's performance in Woods was pretty special, and most people expected her to win, as she did.

There were only four nominees for the category at the time; one can't help thinking that had there been a fifth slot, it would have gone to Peters. It may seem surprising that Judy Kuhn in Chess and Alison Fraser in Romance/Romance were nominated over Peters. But in addition to their strong performances, those ladies had opened in their respective vehicles late in the season.

Q: What are your feelings on Pipe Dream? It is a musical I grew up listening to and have always felt it to be underappreciated. I think it would be a grand idea for an Encores! mounting. Patti LuPone in the role of Fauna would be good to see. Actually, I think that Helen Traubel may have been the real liability of the original production. Marc Kudisch would make a good Doc. But who to play Suzy?---Robin in Portland

A: While the book of Rodgers and Hammerstein's 1955 show Pipe Dream isn't satisfying, the score is quite good. I certainly think it a show worthy of Encores!, even if one imagines that Encores! isn't rushing to do it. I used to envision Tyne Daly as Fauna, although LuPone might work as well. Suzy needs a really gritty young actress with a wide vocal range.

I've always suspected that Traubel was not the real problem with Pipe Dream. While she may not have been ideal as Fauna, she was a convenient target of blame for the show's other shortcomings. Traubel is quite enjoyable on the cast album.

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