LETTERS From CAMP Rehoboth |
Big Apple CAMP |
by Kenn Harris |
Everything's Coming Up CDs
If gay culture were a religion (or has that already happened?), I can see Moses climbing Mount Sinai to receive the Ten Commandments. In my vision, our very hunky young Moses, clad in skin tight white shorts, would be given two stone tablets engraved with the titles of all the great Broadway shows that we observant gays would have to worship and pass down to future generations. Gay people have had a special relationship with The Broadway Musical. The most talented among us create and perform them. And most of the rest of us love them. Last week I was in need of a feel-good present. I'd read that the 1960s Lincoln Center revivals of The King and I, starring Rise Stevens and Darren McGavin, and South Pacific, with Florence Henderson and Giorgio Tozzi were now released for the first time on CD. Now, that's the kind of stuff that makes Ol' Daddy Kenn feel real good! Cast albums are becoming like opera recordingsthere are multiple versions: Broadway, Soundtrack, Revival(s), foreign performancesand show queens of every orientation want them all. Take the incredibly vibrant The King and I. The Rodgers and Hammerstein score has been set to disc by the original cast (Gertrude Lawrence and Yul Brynner), film cast (Deborah Kerr, but Marnie Nixon does the singing) London Cast (Valerie Hobson, the long suffering wife of scandalous John Profumo). Then there was the first Broadway revival (Brynner and Constance Towers), Revival Two, (Donna Murphy and Lou Diamond Philips) and a Julie Andrews studio version. Each one is special, worth owning, and I want' em all! By god, I have them all. Of course, as an opera junkie, I own 37 versions of Carmen and 62 Toscas, so I guess I'm a lost cause. But each edition is unique. With The King and I, not all recordings boast that wonderful ballet sequence, The Small House of Uncle Thomas or the silly, lovable second act opener, "Western People Funny." The newest reissue has them both, and, in opera star Rise Stevens, a heroine with an incredibly beautiful voice.Stevens was a crossover artist decades before the term was invented. She conquered Hollywoodland (chastely seducing Bing Crosby's Father O'Malley in Going My Way), concerts, radio, and the Metropolitan Opera. She was not only sexy and glamorous, but managed to emerge unscathed from a steamy extramarital affair with the studly divo Mario del Monaco. I still have (kind of) racy photos of Rise as Carmen on my wall, and since the lady is now 93, that makes me feel a bit pervy! The South Pacific CD contains a standard version of the score, but it's nice to be reminded that Florence Henderson enjoyed a fine Broadway career before she married into the Partridge family. She was in Wish You Were Here, The Girl Who Came to Supper, and Fanny. Speaking of Harold Rome's Fanny, I wonder when the long suppressed Yiddish version with Robert Merrill and Molly Picon will be released? We live in show queen heaven now because before, most albums were taken out of print after a few years. Now, an enormous number of musicals are available, from the hottest hits to the most obscure. The two most prolific and successful theater composers of the latter half of the 20th century, Stephen Sondheim and Jerry Herman are, as you probably know, gay, and, of course have become icons to our community. Sondheim rarely addresses gay issues directly, although gay subtexts are all over his songs. Herman, bought us the immortal characters Dolly and Mame, adapted from other sources and brought thrillingly to life in his music. He also gave us La Cage Aux Folles, Broadway's first musical in which the gay lifestyle is fully embraced and celebrated. We all owe Jerry a tremendous debt of gratitude. Charges of plagiarism have haunted Herman over the Dolly score. The out of town tryout was chaotic, and evil producer David Merrick let other songwriters "help out." These included Bob Merrill (Funny Girl), who may or may not have ghosted "Elegance" and the team of Lee Adams and Charles Strouse (Bye Bye Birdie), who gave Herman a hit with "Before the Parade Passes By." Every memoir by someone connected to Hello, Dolly! has a different story. To make matters worse, after Dolly became a big hit, Herman was sued by a country-western composer who complained that the title song was not Herman's but his. That suit dragged on for years before Herman, admitting no wrong-doing, paid the louse off to clear Hello, Dolly! for its Hollywood sale. Considering the horrible way that flick turned out, maybe Jerry should have stood his ground. Then, of course, there are my guilty pleasure CDs, immortalizing flops. Listening to these is like watching old Tammy movies on AMC all night long. Have you ever heard of First Impressions, a 1959 musical based on Pride and Prejudice? In the trade, it was called Jane Austin Meets Abe Burrows. Writer/director Burrows was as far away from Jane Austin as a chocolate egg cream is from Boodles' gin. The cast boasted classy singer Polly Bergen, a very young Phyllis Newman, and playing that 18th century battle ax mother, the 20th century battle ax star, Hermione Gingold. It's fun to hear La Gingold warble her way through the dreadful songs. They say Gingold was a B-word backstage, but if I hadto do those numbers, I'd have been bitchy, too. You should hear Darling of the Day, a Jule Styne flop. Here, the librettist was so embarrassed that he had his name removed from the program and all advertising. Let's not forget Two's Company, a 1952 musical review starring Bette Davis. Really. It ran less than three months, when Miss Davis's alleged illness forced abandonment. Miss Davis had only three numbers, But what the heck, it was Bette Davis. I think my all time favorite guilty pleasure is the 1963 musical Tovarich, starring Vivien Leigh and Jean-Pierre Aumont playing Russian noble people who escaped the Bolshies and are working as domestic servants in Paris. This was the only time Miss Leigh, who had a rich and musky baritone, sang professionally. Trying to recover from her heart-breaking divorce from Laurence Olivier, the petite but very bipolar British star managed all the pre-Broadway publicity with aplomb and rarely missed performances. But as the successful run progressed, poor Viv became very manic. She took a sudden dislike to her old friend Aumont and kicked the poor fellow in the gonads during a performance. Barred by the producers from appearing the night following the assault, Miss Leigh sneaked into Aumont's dressing room and trashed it. It's rumored that the First Lady Olivier was sedated and flown back to London immediately. Worst of all, our Scarlett O'Hara was replaced by Miss Eva Gabor, straight out of Green Acres. But it's amazing to listen to Viv sing, "He's The Only One," and, "I Know the Feeling." Zut alor, mes amis, I don't think you need any further encouragement from me. Check these fabulous old shows out. And if you are already familiar with this CD genre, you really ought to hear Dear World, a Jerry Herman/Angela Lansbury show that was not successful. Who needs Tammy, when you have this kind of guilty pleasure? Kenn Harris, a NYC theatre and music critic, is the author of the biography of opera diva Renata Tebaldi, and The Ultimate Opera Quiz Book. |
LETTERS From CAMP Rehoboth, Vol. 16, No. 13 September 15, 2006 |