The Sound of Music--Original Broadway Cast Album on (gasp!) LP

The film of this show is so ingrained in my mind that I really wanted to find a different version of The Sound of Music to consider. Since I'm at my parents' home for Father's Day weekend, I've fired up their old turn table and put on the thirty-three-and-a-third cast album. If you don't know what 33-1/3 refers to, I don't want to know you.

Did anyone other than Mary Martin originate two R&H roles? If so, I can't think of them. Maria would have been after Nellie in South Pacific, and it's interesting to think that both characters are rather innocent of the wider world, while being thrust into it. Ms. Martin makes a very different Maria than Julie Andrews--at least as this recording and the photos included in the fold-out album cover convey. Martin is less crystalline, slightly more adult, and does a whole lot of portamento singing that I don't remember Ms. Andrews using in the film.

SOM was the first musical I was ever in, as a 9th-grader. "I'm Friedrich. I'm fourteen. I'm a boy." Yes, I was the von Trapp's oldest son and La in the solfege line-up. What a great first show for a kid to be in. Not only was I rehearsing and performing at the Senior High School, while still being in Junior High School, but the children are front and center most of the time on stage and sing some very fun and challenging music. But you always have your six stage brothers and sisters with you, so you don't have to carry a lot on your individual shoulders.

Several songs from the show's score were left out in the film, and it was nice to hear the funny "How Can Love Survive" and "No Way to Stop It" again--although the later song has the unfortunate association of turning a blind eye to Nazism. I had forgotten the duet "Ordinary Couple", replaced in the film with "Something Good", which is a better and more interesting song, I think.

Oh, Lord, my father is setting up the slide projector for the umpteenth viewing of some trip or family reunion or other. Maybe you can't go home again, but you will see the photos again and again.

Sound of Music
Music by Richard Rodgers
Lyrics by Oscar Hammerstein II
Book by Howard Lindsay and Russel Crouse
Opened in 1959
Cast: Mary Martin, Patricia Neway, Theordore Bikel, Marion Marlowe, Kurt Kaznar

Once Upon A Mattress--live performance

On a weekend trip to visit my parents, I had cause to see a community theater performance of a perennial favorite--Once Upon A Mattress. While the memory of Carol Burnett is firmly planted in my ear as far as this score is concerned, I was happy to use the extra ticket my parents had for the performance.

The delightful nature of this story and this score very nearly make any performance of Mattress fool-proof, and most of the humor sparkled in this production. For the most part, the players were well-cast and well-matched with their counterparts. This was particularly true for the couples--Dauntless/Winifred and Larkin/Harry. Pairings like this must be particularly tricky when casting from a selection of community performers--each with widely varying abilities and experience.

Lady Larkin had the best voice of the cast; clearly she has some training and her credits included singing Pamina in a college production of Magic Flute. Harry, while having less vocal training, possessed a lovely high-baritone voice that he used well. The comic duo in the show were also well-matched. Dauntless proved a particularly good physical comedian and was literally tumbling across the stage during the Act I finale. Winifred was very good drawing humor from her facial expressions, and managed to project her songs up and down her full range without pushing into an unattractive belt voice.

There was a cast of 24, which is large for my hometown's little community theater company; and the production was staged in a middle school in town that had a larger stage than the small community center holds. The production took full advantage of having more space by including a sizeable set that still left room for the whole cast to dance the Spanish Panic. The costumes were appropriately colorful.

The best side of the performance, perhaps, was seeing that an enthusiastic audience of 400 would show up on a cold Friday night to see a 50 year-old musical. It's good to know that theater is still a priority in some of the provinces.

Once Upon a Matress
Music by Mary Rodgers
Lyrics by Marshall Barer

Book by Jay Thompson, Dean Fuller and Marshall Barer
Cast: 24 community theater actors of varying ability, but high-energy enthusiasm

Fiorello! Original cast album on CD

This is my fourth "!" musical so far this Year. First there was Oklahoma! living up to it's punctuation, then Oliver! and Mama Mia! which didn't deliver for me (at least in their film versions). Now we have Fiorello! which I'm happy to report lives up to its billing.

There is something for everyone in this first major hit for songwriting team of Bock and Harnick. There is a lot of work for the chorus, backing up many of the lead performers. The male chorus gets the wonderful politician scenes with songs like "Politics and Poker", "The Bum Won", and the wryly funny "Little Tin Box". The women's chorus gets the pastiche flapper song, "Gentleman Jimmy".

Four female roles have significant songs and this must be some kind of record. The best of the bunch is "When Did I Fall in Love" (well-sung here by Ellen Hanley), but "The Very Next Man" is also good, and none of the others are bad.

Surprisingly the titular character has little music to perform. The very good liner notes for this CD reissue of the 1959 cast album explains that La Guardia had a lot of dialogue, but little music. And the fact that Tom Bosley won his Tony for this role in the featured actor category, bears that out. The notes also give a wonderful account of the history of Howard da Silva's career, from working actor, to black-list bust, to triumphant return in this show. I'd previously talked a bit about da Silva when discussing 1776.

Fiorello!
Music by Jerry Bock
Lyrics by Sheldon Harnick
Book by Jerome Weidman and George Abbott
Cast: Tom Bosley, Patricia Wilson, Ellen Hanley, Howard da Silva, Eileen Rodgers, Pat Stanley

Gypsy film on DVD

Two days in a row with film versions of shows that starred Ethel Merman, but where the film didn't. At least with Gypsy, the story and music from the show are faithfully preserved in the film.

Despite it's title, the show is not really about Gypsy, but about Mama Rose. Or perhaps its about how Mama Rose created Gypsy--or rather how Gypsy created herself for Mama. Regardless, this is a first rate musical, well done on film, with all the showbiz hokem and human desires to fill a big story against a bigger cyclorama.

Rosalind Russell is very good as Mama and if her singing doesn't quite live up to the demands of Jule Styne's powerhouse music, Ms. Russell's bravura more than makes up for it. Karl Malden is also great as fast-talking Herbie, a very different type of role for him from most of his film and television credits. I may be in the minority (again) but I like Natalie Wood as Gypsy; I think her personal history with a poor background and pushy stage mother helps inform her performance.

A tangent that is truly tangent. A few years ago I read February House by Sherill Tippins. It tells about a house in Brooklyn where in 1940 and 1941 an unusal collection of artists lived. The unlikely group included composer Benjamin Britten, tenor Peter Pears, authors Carson McCullers, W.H. Auden, Jane Bowles, Paul Bowles, Richard Wright, and budding memoirist Gypsy Rose Lee. Do communities like this exist today, where artists of varying disciplines and varying experience come together to foment their ideas?

Well, with all the drinking and Benzadrine-taking that took place in February House, maybe the artists are better off if they don't congregate too much.

Regardless, the musical Gypsy offers a good time at the theater or on the screen.

Gypsy
Music by Jule Styne
Lyrics by Stephen Sondheim
Book by Arthur Laurents
Film directed by Mervyn LeRoy
Released by Warner Bros. in 1962
Cast: Rosalind Russell, Karl Malden, Natalie Wood

Once Upon a Mattress Original Broadway Cast Recording

I find it very easy to be inspired by Carol Burnett. She's the quintessential comedic performer who took her own personality and unique skill set to build a significant and lasting career. And no show better epitomized Ms. Burnett's uniqueness than Once Upon a Mattress.

You have to be a real singer to perform Princess Winifred, I think. While the big "Shy" number can just be belted out to some effect, "The Swamps of Home" and "Happily Ever After" require good legato singing and are rangier than expected. The singing by the "legit" singers in the cast is a little disappointing at times. "Yesterday I Love You" is a beautiful, tuneful song and needs good singing actors. Maybe the Sarah Jessica Parker revival includes some of that. But that's for another day.

I have performed in Mattress, when I did summer stock with College Light Opera Company on Cape Cod in 1984. It's a fun show to perform in--lots of good in-jokes. The best one that the audience never sees is Queen Agravaine's big monologue, which in the script is called the mamalogue.

The liner notes for this CD release give what I thought was interesting background on the show's creation and how certain characters developed in the way they did.

Once Upon a Mattress
Music by Mary Rodgers
Lyrics by Marshall Barer
Book by Jay Thompson, Marshall Barer, Dean Fuller
1959 Broadway Cast Recording
Released on CD in 1993 by MCA Classics Broadway Gold
Cast: Harry Snow, Joe Bova, Allen Case, Anne Jones, Carol Burnett, Jane White, Matt Mattox, Ginny Perlowin