How Pal Joey Changed the Face of Musical Theater

A handsome charmer with stars in his eyes. A chaste damsel in love. Chorus girls, a sultry mistress, glittering production numbers…sounds like pretty standard musical fare. And it is, unless you’re talking Pal Joey, where the young charmer is a sleaze ball, the oversexed mistress unapologetically uses the “hero” for his body and the naive young heroine is manipulated by a two-timing Casanova out of her own stupidity. And the showgirls? Don’t expect to find Peggy Sawyer in this lineup.

Is this American musical theater?

It is in the hands of John O’Hara, Richard Rodgers and Lorenz “Larry” Hart, the creative team that assembled the groundbreaking Joey, now in previews for its fourth Broadway revival at Roundabout Theatre Company’s Studio 54, more than 60 years ago. Based on O’Hara’s popular collection of stories about a truly selfish, unrepentant man-whore, the musical hit Broadway like a ton of bricks, bringing cynicism, scandal and stardom with it. So how did one of the biggest jerks in literary history end up stealing the hearts, and changing the face, of classic Broadway? It all started with a letter.

Pen Pals
Dear Dick:
I don’t know whether you happened to see any of a series of pieces I’ve been doing for The New Yorker in the past year or so. They’re about a guy who is master of ceremonies in cheap night clubs, and the pieces are in the form of letters from him to a successful band leader. Anyway, I got the idea that the pieces, or at least the character and life in general, could be made into a book show, and I wonder if you and Larry would be interested in working on it with me. I read that you two have a commitment with Dwight Witman for a show this spring, but if and when you get through with that I do hope you like my idea.
Faithfully,
John O’Hara

This was the note received by Richard Rodgers in October 1939 from well-known New Yorker scribe and writer John O’Hara, a talent Rodgers had known for several years when the surprising correspondence reached him during the out-of-town tryout of Too Many Girls.

“The ‘hero’ was a conniver and braggart who would sleep anywhere to get ahead,” Rodgers wrote of O’Hara’s Joey. “The idea of doing a musical without a conventional, clean-cut juvenile in the romantic lead opened up enormous possibilities for a more realistic view of life than theatergoers were accustomed to. Not only would the show be totally different from anything we [Rodgers and then-partner Hart] had ever done before, it would be different from anything anyone else had ever tried.” The intrigued composer telegraphed O’Hara a resounding YES.

A few months later, Rodgers attended a performance of William Saroyan’s Pulitzer Prize-winning The Time of Your Life. A notoriously hypercritical theatergoer one rarely opposed to walking out of a show, Rodgers was underwhelmed by the production, about doleful drunks in a local bar, but captivated by a single performance: a song and dance number executed by “Harry the Hoofer,” played by then-unknown actor Gene Kelly. Rodgers sent a note to O’Hara the day after the show, announcing he had found their star.

With the wheels set in motion, Rodgers called famed theatrical agent Johnny Darrow. According to Alvin Yudkoff’s biography of Gene Kelly, Rodgers minced no words:

“That guy Kelly. Can he sing?”
“You betcha!” Darrow articulately replied.

Rodgers hung up, leaving Darrow without the slightest idea why one of theater’s most successful composers was calling about his tap-dancing client.

The Audition from Hell
A few weeks later, a clued-in Darrow and anxious Gene Kelly met the show’s intimidating creative team at New York’s Century Theater for what was literally the audition of a lifetime. As Kelly took center stage, the jurors positioned themselves unsettlingly around the space’s interior: director George Abbott manned the standing-room section, nearly in the lobby; writer O’Hara disappeared into the shadows of the back row; a stone-faced Rodgers plopped front and center in the first row. Hart, Kelly’s former drinking buddy and only ally in the group, was absent entirely, out of town on business.

Facing the firing squad, Kelly launched into Rodgers’ “I Didn’t Know What Time It Was,” unknowingly committing the composer’s cardinal sin: NEVER audition with one of his songs it was not uncommon for auditioners who sinned similarly to be ejected from the theater before finishing their first eight bars. Kelly was not ejected or cut off, but was met with a sphincter-tightening silence after finishing. Shaken, the auditonee let loose with his back-up piece, the campy ditty “It’s The Irish in Me.” Again, dead silence followed. A humiliated Kelly slunk back from the edge of the stage, gathering his sheet music before preparing to leave.

Then, from the back of the theater, came the voice of O’Hara: “That’s it! Take him!”

Bewitched, Bothered and Bewildered
The show had found its star contracted at just $350 a week, well below traditional starring-role scale. The script, however, was another matter. Told in the form of letters, the original Pal Joey story and eventual novel depicted the exploits of Joey Evans, a charming but sleazy womanizer with ambition to spare the letters were signed by Mr. Evans with “Your Pal, Joey”. The musical strung together several of Joey’s previously published exploits while telling the story of his manipulative affair with a wealthy married woman, producing a show that was cynical, dark and marbled with fat from the smarmy underbelly of society. The creative team and its new star agreed that maintaining O’Hara’s original tone was essential, but it needed to be done in a way that kick-line loving ticket buyers would support.

Infighting abounded. Director Abbott pushed O’Hara for rewrites while Rodgers nagged Hart for tighter lyrics, both major obstacles—Rodgers was a chronic depressive, Hart was prone to bouts of crippling self pity and alcoholism as well as long disappearances, usually into his own locked bedroom, and O’Hara, well-respected off the Rialto, frequently escaped production altogether, disappearing for weeks at a time to drown his Broadway frustrations in snifters of scotch. With O’Hara hiding out, much of the rewriting fell on Abbott, who also acted as producer while confiding in the crew that he had little faith in the show.

Regardless, the production moved forward. The team cast actress Vivienne Segal as Joey’s aging benefactress, Vera Simpson, and June Havoc as in the sister of Gypsy Rose Lee as a brash, supporting-role showgirl, Gladys Bumps. Choreographer Robert Alton worked closely with Kelly, collaborating with the star to present dance numbers that remained unset choreographically even after the show opened. Kelly coped with countless rewrites, returning from performances during the show’s out-of-town run in Philadelphia with dozens of new pages to learn or replace each night, causing Segal and Havoc to confide in friends that the show was in “trouble.” Still, just a year after O’Hara’s first letter to Rodgers, Joey was ready to take the New York stage.

Merry Christmas!
Pal Joey debuted on Christmas night 1940 at the Ethel Barrymore Theatre. In this first Broadway show to open on an empty stage, without a traditional chorus, the audience was greeted by the lone voice of Kelly as the curtain rose, introducing New York to Joey its new anti-hero. “He was completely amoral,” Kelly was later quoted as saying. “After some scenes I could feel the waves of heat coming from the audience. Then I’d smile and dance and it would relax them.” After the final curtain fell on the moody production, the cast and creative team, applause fresh in their ears, rushed to Hart’s apartment for a champagne-drenched post-show/Christmas bash, awaiting leaks as one had to before the advent of the BlackBerry from the newspapers while early reviews trickled in:

“Brilliant, sardonic and strikingly original,” crowed the New York Herald Tribune. “Done with such zest and scornful relish that it achieves genuine power.” Other early reports singled out Kelly’s charm, Segal’s sultry voice and Havoc’s easy vaudeville-style humor.Then, out of the din emerged the now infamous wet blanket: critic Brooks Atkinson of The New York Times. “Although it is expertly done, can you draw sweet water from a foul well?” he famously asked, cutting right through newcomer Kelly, who had panicked early on that his character was too unlikable to be a hit. “Pal Joey offers everything but a good time,” it continued. The review, read aloud to the group of stars and creators, drove Hart into his bedroom in hysterics. He refused to come out for several days.

But Wolcott Gibbs, critic at The New Yorker, came quickly to the show’s defense: “It seems to me that the idea of equipping a song and dance production with living, three-dimensional figures, talking and behaving like human beings, may no longer strike the boys in the business as merely fantastic.”

Mixed reviews aside, Pal Joey was a success, branded the anti-tuner of the earnest, ballad-laden musical theater heyday. The piece broke form with steady musical exposition, shamelessly inserting numbers for entertainment value alone: “Zip” and “Do It the Hard Way” did little to service plot, with several tunes, part of the Joey’s night club act, admittedly added to provide glitter and skin to the stage. The foundation, however, was the production’s more intricate, revealing numbers like “Bewitched, Bothered and Bewildered,” woven expertly into unique character arcs. They were the root of Joey’s success, fueling the show through 374 performances and two transfers before its close at the St. James on November 29, 1941.

Not Your Average Joey
Pal Joey ultimately became the most successful Rodgers and Hart collaboration, if not the climax of their pairing. The show proved to be ahead of its time, a production with staying power that fared even better in its 1952 revival. Vivienne Segal reprised Vera, while Harold Lang understudied by then-unknown Bob Fosse took the title role, playing 542 performances—a Rodgers and Hart record. The revival was hailed as the most exciting musical of the season, winning three Tony Awards, including Best Choreography and Best Featured Actress in a Musical Helen Gallagher, as Gladys Bumps. Brooks Atkinson even amended his previous reservations, writing that “Brimming over with good music and fast in its toes, [Pal Joey] renews confidence in the professionalism of the theater.”

Just five years later the show returned again, this time as a major motion picture starring Frank Sinatra as the namesake scoundrel and screen siren Rita Hayworth as Vera Simpson. The film despite the truly abysmal tagline: “From Your Pal, Columbia Pictures!” nabbed four Academy Award nominations, as well as a Golden Globe for Sinatra, who dazzled audiences with the combination of his golden voice and Rodgers and Hart’s time-tested songs. The film was followed by two more revivals on the New York stage: City Center’s 1963 production starring previous-understudy Bob Fosse it lasted just 15 performances, though still earned Fosse a Tony Award nomination and Circle in the Square’s 1976 version starring Christopher Chadman. In 1995, Patti LuPone, Peter Gallagher and Bebe Neuwirth teamed up for an Encores! presentation and recording of the show.

Zipping Back to Broadway
Now, over 30 years after Pal’s last revival, Broadway is poised to greet its newest Joey Evans in Joe Mantello’s production at Studio 54. Like Kelly, Matthew Risch is a relative newcomer: Originally cast as Joey’s understudy, the former ensemble player Legally Blonde, Chicago dramatically replaced Christian Hoff when the Tony-winning star was injured during the revival’s second week of previews. Risch will get smarmy opposite Tony Award winner Stockard Channing as Vera Simpson and Tony nominee Martha Plimpton, who makes her musical debut as the June Havoc-originated Gladys Bumps. Toss in choreography by Graciela Daniele, and the musical has all the schematic components necessary to debut a classic story to new audiences with gusto.

“[Joey] is a character that would do anything to get ahead. He’s a bit of a conman, a bit of a street hustler, an artist, a hopeless romantic, but more than all of those attributes, he’s a guy who loved making people happy,” Hoff explained of the show’s appeal early in production. “He loved entertaining.”

The Roundabout production also features a rewritten book by Richard Greenberg, one that strives to honor O’Hara’s original grittiness while maintaining the show’s edge at a time when conmen and hustlers are pretty much par for the course. “Richard Greenberg has managed to do an extraordinarily faithful and true adaptation while keeping it utterly modern. He’s actually restored much of O’Hara’s original dark, sexy humor,” Plimpton says. And therein lays Pal Joey’s timeless appeal.

“It’s about sex!” says Channing. “It’s about sex and desire and power and money, and all those things that we deal with today. It’s a very different kind of musical. And in a way, it seems more contemporary than a lot of musicals that came after it.” Pal Joey opens at Studio 54 on December 18.