| . | 05/17/2009
The Broadway Musicals of 1944
By: Simon Saltzman
Jeffrey Denman, performer, director, choreographer
photo by Michael Portantiere
Except for the Leonard Bernstein & Betty Comden & Adolph Green collaboration On The Town, 1944 was not a banner year for musicals on Broadway. But you would never have known that observing the verve and sparkle put into the selections from such lesser shows as Follow the Girls, Michael Todd’s Mexican Hayride, Seven Lively Arts, and Song of Norway, the latter being the biggest hit and longest running show of the year. World War II was still raging in Europe and in Asia. To a large degree, Broadway was catering to anxious folks at home as well as to service men on leave from all the branches, their wives and families. Musicals, in particular, reflected a nation’s need for light entertainment: low brow comedy, lotsa girls and gams.
Host and creator of the Broadway By The Year series, Scott Siegel reminded us in his traditional opening remarks that 1944 was the year Coppertone, Smoky the Bear, Chiquita Banana, Rudolph Giuliani and Stockard Channing made their first appearance on the planet, with the mention of Ms Stockard‘s name getting the larger round of applause.
Many of the usual suspects were rounded up for another diverting evening in which both the obscure and the revelatory were taken out of mothballs for our pleasure. It’s fortunate that the score for On The Town was the centerpiece as its melodies have survived and remained treasures in the show music canon. From it, “New York, New York” and “Some Other Time” book-ended the program and served to blend the beautifully integrated voices of the entire company. Also from it, “Lucky to Be Me,” was not only enhanced by the rich voice of William Michals (Paulo Szot’s understudy in South Pacific) ) but sung without a mike (unplugged, as it is now referred to), and giving us a feeling for what singers really sounded like in a theater before the electronic invasion.
Two Song of Norway selections were awarded the privilege of being “unplugged,” including “I Love You,” as entrancingly sung by Sarah Jane McMahon, who segued rapturously into the duet “Strange Music” with Michals.
Visual comedy was major component, as Stephen DeRosa donned a sombrero, sang through a handlebar moustache, and shook more than his maracas in a hilariously performed duet (with himself) “The Good-Will Movement” (Michael Todd’s Peep Show). DeRosa also had the audience limp from laughing as he gaily insinuated his way through Cole Porter’s “Is it the Girl, or is it the Gown” (Seven Lively Arts).
Three beauties, Kate Baldwin, McMahon, and Melinda Sullivan, paraded their assets in the title song from Follow the Girls. The original production of Mexican Hayride boasted a cast of 79. But boyishly virile Tony Yazbeck and the long-limbed Baldwin, McMahon, Shannon Lewis and Sullivan still managed to fill the Town Hall’s stage with their dancing. Yazbeck and Sullivan brought a robust charm to the amusingly jitterbug-ed “Only Another Boy and Girl.” (. . . Arts). If you get the feeling that showcasing beautiful girls was paramount during this era (and this show), you’d be right.
No edition of BBTY would be complete without the sliding, gliding tap dancing that makes Kendrick Jones unique. He was in top form in two in two numbers: “There Must Be Someone For Me” (…Hayride) and in “You’re Perf” (…Girls) in which he was joined in song and dance by the beguiling Sullivan. Lewis put a sexy edge on “It Was Nice Knowing You” (Jackpot) as did Baldwin when she sang the bawdy “I Wanna Get Married” (originally made popular by the now legendary Gertrude Niesen in Follow the Girls).
Gorgeous voices were plentiful. McMahon was without a doubt “Right As The Rain” (Bloomer Girl)). For “Twelve O’clock and All Is Well” (…Girls), Michals left the mike in the wings for this little known bluesy ballad. DeRosa showed his contemplative side with another “unplugged” gem “Wandrin’ (Sing Out, Sweet Land). But leave it to Yazbeck to stop a show (as he did in Gypsy) with the haunting ballad “Lonely Town” (…Town). “Every Time We Say Goodbye” could not have been given a more memorably plaintive quality than by Baldwin. Baldwin, a scrumptious strawberry blonde, found time to tell us “I Can Cook Too” (…Town).
Shorter at two hours than most of the shows in this series, it was slickly directed and mostly choreographed with pizzazz by Jeffrey Denman, who had his golden moment to personally say “I Love You” (…Hayride) in song and dance to the enchanting Ms. Lewis. The Ross Patterson Little Big Band did what it has done for the past 9 seasons: Be simply terrific.
The Broadway Musicals of 1944
One performance only Monday May 11, 2009
The Town Hall, 123 West 43rd Street.
For tickets and information about future BBTY call (212) – 840 - 2824
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