Golden Boy original Broadway cast album on CD

If you need any proof of Sammy Davis, Jr.'s strength as a singer, just listen to this show from 1964. I suspect his live performances were electric, because his vocal performance of Golden Boy seems to jump off the cast album. Mr. Davis makes the uneven score uniformly sing.

Between the notes to this CD release and some online reading about the history of this musical, I can understand why the show seems a bit of a hodge-podge. The book is based on Clifford Odet's 1937 drama of the same name but with significant changes--including changing the title character from an Irish-American immigrant to an African-American outsider. I suppose that in the 30s, the Irish in America were outsiders, too, but now the race card is clearly played, and the civil rights cause of the 60s is the larger issue that boxer Joe Bonaparte is fighting.

I generally like most of the music on this album, although it does seem to be missing a uniform "voice" a lot of the time. There are numbers that seem like Big Band, swing, gospel, pop and more conventional Broadway. Some of it deserves a life outside the theater, although I had never heard any of these songs before. I was particularly struck by two elegiac ballads about life in the big city--"A Night Song" which is in the Sinatra vein, and "While the City Sleeps" which lacks a little structure and oomph.

This is clearly a vehicle for Sammy Davis who shines throughout even when the heavy-handed inter-racial love story and some obvious racial jokes are added. The rest of the cast has significantly less to do, except Paula Wayne as the love interest with the great character name of Lorna Moon. Ms. Wayne has a slightly gravely character voice that reminds me of a younger Elaine Stritch.

I wonder if Encores has ever done a concert version of this show? I can imagine Taye Diggs in it.

Golden Boy
Music by Charles Strouse
Lyrics by Lee Adams
Book by Clifford Odets and William Gibson
Opened in 1964
Cast: Sammy Davis, Paula Wayne, Billy Daniels

Ghost Light Monday--Cat on a Hot Tin Roof, British Television adaptation on DVD

The year 2011 is the centenary of playwright Tennessee Williams and I've been considering some sort of personal Williams project. Maybe the Year of Williams Thinking? Too derivative?

While I was a theater major in college, I have seen and read very little of Williams'
work--just the occasional film adaptation and I'm sure I had to read Glass Menagerie for some class. Oh, and I was in a production of Summer and Smoke in college. I've always had the (unsubstantiated) thought that Williams told the same couple of stories over and over. Perhaps I should read and see a little more before I make such a bold and damning statement.

Well, while I consider that project, I ran across a television adaptation of Cat on a Hot Tin Roof that I thought might be interesting, so I checked it out from the library and enjoyed watching a version created for Granada Television in 1977. Such a quintessential American play seems an odd choice for the British Television company, but this was part of a series of performances produced and starring Laurence Olivier, who must have seen the role of Big Daddy as a good fit for him at the time.

The production is well done with a seasoned cast of mostly Americans. Natalie Wood is memorizing as Maggie and while I found her performance a little too twitchy even for this twitchy character, I couldn't take my eyes off her. Ms. Wood's husband Robert Wagner portrays Brick, Maggie's downward-spiralling husband. I enjoyed Mr. Wagner's performance as well. He is very still for much of it, particularly in contrast to Maggie.

If I do take on Tennessee, one question in my mind is the structure within his plays, both the overall structure and of the scenes and beats within the plays. If feel that maybe he is a good structuralist and gives actors lots of moments to build and release the tension in a scene. At least that is my first impression based on this one television version. Given the loads of Williams plays to investigate (by reading, seeing live, or viewing on film) that question alone could fuel a year's worth of discussion.

Cat on a Hot Tin Roof
by Tennessee Williams in 1955
This production for Granada Television produced in 1977 as part of Laurence Olivier Presents
Starring Laurence Olivier, Robert Wagner, Natalie Wood, Maureen Stapleton