High School Musicals -- the Origins

THE MAGIC NUTCRACKER

2011-12-22T20:38:00.001-08:00

We have all endured (or at least sat through) more than enough Nutcracker ballets to make one's head spin — and unfortunately, this one will not stop the momentum. THE MAGIC NUTCRACKER (1925) by Jane Kerley (with Tschaikovsky's score edited by Carl Deis, cover artist unknown) takes the bare bones of the story and hones it down to even more bone-chilling simplicity.

The entire thing plays out in a single set, a drawing room, with a — for the moment, anyway — normal sized tree, decorated with toys and candy that look suspiciously like the sort of things that would come to life in a juvenile operetta. Mom and Dad are finishing decorating the room, when Grandpa, hoisting a bag so full of toys that you suspect he robbed a bank to finance it, bursts onstage. It's the usual assortment of things that one might suspect will come to life in a juvenile operetta... but the prize acquisition of the evening is a nutcracker.

Oh, not just any old nutcracker, of course: this one is a magic nutcracker, purchased from an old woman who sat on the sidewalk in the freezing snow, advertising him as something that will "surely bring good luck!" (although one might be tempted to note that it didnt quite work in her case, which makes the advertising altogether suspicious, but anyway...) Grandpa is, of course, delighted that he found something his little granddaughter Marie will like.

But of course, as we all know, that enjoyment wont last long, not with her brother Johnny around who, as he is destined to do in every production, breaks the nutcracker, and Marie is devastated.

MARIE. He was so fine! Now look at him! He's all broken! Grandpa gave him to me! Grandpa gave him to ME! My lovely Nutcracker!

... and so Johnny is sent to bed without dessert and we never see him again. At least, not in this operetta anyway. Grandpa has a good laugh at Marie's emotional attachment to a hunk of wood, and everyone leaves. But Marie sticks around, concerned about her nutcracker. To make him... er, it... feel better, she decides to sing "the Arab cradle song that Nurse used to sing to me." But instead of putting the toy to sleep, she puts head to pillow and crashes out instead...

— only to awaken to find herself now suddenly very, very small, so much so that all the toys and candy on the tree are... wow, human sized. And all the toys are now... gosh, as big as her. A fairy made of candy tells us that Johnny ate her toe, which makes it difficult for her to walk. But knowing that the show must go on, she forces herself to dance like Fonteyn. She's replaced by a Chinese boy :

Me no like hang on tree by hair

Big Mel'can man he tie me there

Me no like

Small Chinese have no fun at all

Small Chinese boy have great big fall

Next, a bunch of reed flute fairies, then a battalion of toy soldiers... which then means the appearance of the evil Mouse King, who's killed by Marie's shoe, which ends the curse on the Nutcracker, who reappears as a handsome prince, who immediately falls in love with a woman who's Marie suddenly all grown up, who says yes to being princess of the realm, and the flowers all gather, and everyone sings and dances, and you're thinking maybe it's almost over...

And there's a very brief scene following, with now-back-to-Little Marie still asleep in the doll's bed. Grandpa finds her and picks her up to put her to bed, all the while telling her that yes he'll fix the nutcracker in the morning. They're just about to leave, when Grandpa stops and says to the audience...

GRANDPA (at door) Drat that Nutcracker!

Exit and curtain.

And you sit there looking at the falling curtain and asking yourself, Whoa, wait a minute! "Drat that Nutcracker"? What was that all about? I have no doubt it was meant to be a shocker ending, but... it doesnt make any kind of sense.

I guess you had to be there.

Okay, to the music. Overall, not a bad transcription of themes from the Nutcracker. The Overture becomes a bit of an operatic scene, that takes us all the way to Johnny's breaking the toy. The rest are mostly solo and duo opportunities, but, with the exception of the now-cringe-worthy Chinese song, they're done with a more or less light touch. There's nothing inherently complicated about any of the voice work, except that it has some demanding little trills and the occasional surprising rhythm sequence. There's very little parts work since this was probably meant as unison work for the lower grades.

What does make this interesting, though, are the substantial production notes that accompany the script. Apparently Ms. Kerley produced this herself many times and gives us many pointers about how to make the costumes and the scenery. One item that I'm sure raised a few materal eyebrows is the costume for the wind fairy, which is accomplished with a long, straight slip of flesh-coloured gauze. She wears a slight jacket over that, also of gauze, but I'm wondering how many mothers in 1925 told little Janey's teacher, "No way am I allowing my child onstage to look like a hooker!" Probably a lot.

Also, please note: "The fattest children are to be dressed as men of brown gingerbread." That no doubt left its own share of emotional holiday scars.

THE BEAUTY CONTEST

2011-11-23T14:27:00.001-08:00

Every now and then a work will that come along that completely defines the generation and culture from when it came... and THE BEAUTY CONTEST (1936), with libretto by Theodosia Paynter and music by G.A. Grant-Schaeffer (cover artist unknown), does that so resoundingly that one reads this script in... well, awe that is part sadness and part stupefaction. We've seen plenty of opportunities to date of how authors of these little works portrayed racial minorities and other countries' cultures, coupled with a patriotic fervor that sometimes verged on the jingoistic and isolationist. But THE BEAUTY CONTEST, arriving with the usual high school operetta innocence, defines relations between the sexes with a trowel-load of solid concrete.

This was another one of those "should I pick it up or not?" moments, as the cover describes the work as "an operetta in two acts for girls". I have a few of these — Wild Rose, The Rivals — and they're usually pretty awful. But THE BEAUTY CONTEST probably wasnt originally meant to be unisex in its production: fully half the cast is men. I'm sure that it was felt that, in performance, these characters would be performed by girls, but there's really nothing mandating that, as the vocal lines for the boys are written more for tenors than sopranos.

All right, let's get to it. We're on the lawn of a summer resort hotel, the type once popular in Pennsylvania and upstate New York. The hostess, Jonquil Jones, and her maid-of-all-work, Milly, have done everything they can to keep folks happy during their stay, but a group of girls (daughters of the guests? students off on spring break? we're never told) are preparing to leave because the place is so boringly dull. Jones herself confesses to finding the atmosphere tedious and, to correct this, plans to run for mayor of the town, opposite the very popular standing mayor Mr. Green, just to, in her words, "mess things up a bit". The girls find this insanely thrilling and agree to stay and campaign for her.

Meanwhile, Jim Dandy, a local country boy, drops by to see Milly. It's obvious he's totally infatuated with her, while she's clueless about it all, seeing her promotion from farm drudge to hotel maid drudge as "improving" herself.

Mayor Green and some of the other local men appear. Green has heard about Jones' plan to run for mayor and is concerned: after all, she's wildly popular. To counter this, he decides that the hotel should have a beauty contest, to "take the women's minds off this campaign". He suggests the rest of the men help; if they do, as reward he'll give each the girl of his choice for a "grand dance aboard my yacht".

Milly returns and finds an announcement for the contest. While she mopes that she's not pretty enough to enter, a local beauty expert, Sylvia Spankum, rides in on her bicycle and shares some of her secrets as a way of getting Milly to enter. The rest of the girls return, and Sylvia cons each of them into entering as well, then takes advantage of the moment by giving them a collective makeover — at a price, of course.

Act Two is the pageant itself. The men have come as hooded Gallants (whatever those might be, although I suspect it was just a device to cut on costuming needs), to somehow ensure the judging panel's anonymity. Each girl is given an opportunity to show her stuff, with Milly performing last — and looking, naturally, shockingly gorgeous enough to win. Jonquil takes second place, and the Mayor "bashfully" asks if she would accept being the Mayor's Lady instead of the Lady Mayor. Despite the fact that she's gotten the support of just about every organization in town (which would mean an easy win), she inexplicably (or maybe not so) takes him up on his offer. Jim also claims his prize, as do the rest of the men, and the evening ends with almost everyone neatly coupled off, dancing a fox trot.

Okay, let's think about this for a moment, shall we?

The woman who has no real self-worth suddenly finds buckets of it by dressing up as a bride and winning a beauty pageant. Another allows her career aspirations to be dashed by a politically calculated proposal of marriage. Frankly, the only woman who seems to be making it in this world is Ms. Spankum, who's described as "anything but beautiful" and yet clearly a successful businesswoman (and, given the way the script handles her, most likely a lesbian). Mayor Green is "forty years of age, or elder: a stout, mature, large and commanding figure", so of course sweet, young Jonquil is just gonna rush into his arms. As for the rest of the cast, the authors take pains to make sure the pairings are simple and direct: here's the self-indulgent couple, here's the intellectual couple, here's the Japanese couple, while over here are the two pair of comic-relief twins (whose comic-relief status is defined solely by their physical appearance).

Ms. Spankum, I hasten to add, foxtrots with no one in the finale.

The lyrics... well, let's take a few examples. Here's the number where Jonquil confesses to the girls that she wants to run for office and their subsequent reaction:

Her case has grown most awfully dire

She's now in politics and cant retire

So give a little maiden's prayer

That she will win as Lady Mayor

On the other hand it's quite screamingly funny

The she can give the Mayor a run for his money

The election will be decided on whether

The womenfolk all stand together.

... which, of course, they dont. The minute they hear of the contest, the campaign is the last thing on their minds, and Sylvia, entrepreneur that she is, works it.

When you get those want-to-be-beautiful blues

From the top of your hat to the soles of your shoes

You've got to be willing to diet and kick

If you want your figure to be slim and slick

Your getup will be both stylish and chic

So that you may fascinate quick

And if it's suggested that you're full of vanity

You want your man to lose his sanity

Oh then you'll shine o'er all humanity

Because you've got those Got-to-be-Beautiful Blues!

But it's not all utterly dreadful (although I do like the rhyme of vanity/sanity/humanity); Rickie, a terminally cute French girl, has a flashy little number called "Allezoop! Boop-de-boop!" which cant be anything but an homage of sorts to a certain cartoon character. A girl fascinated by bugs sings of her adoration of things small and six-legged. But these are unfortunately blips; the remainder of this work seems pointedly oriented to making sure the womenfolk are kept in their places: to bear the children, to adore the husband, to accept a hard-scrabble life on the farm.

THE BEAUTY CONTEST, for all its innocence, is a frightening little portrayal of how men and women expected each other to interact, both personally and socially. As I note, it's a product of its time, when roles were stringently proscribed — in fact, I found it interesting that the men of this show are just as restrained as the women, just not as blatantly — and outcomes, even by high school operetta standards, were eminently predictable.

2011-09-25T14:18:00.000-07:00

One of the great things about writing this blog is the memories folks send me: of their parents performing in one, of being serenaded to sleep by a song from another. The fact that there's so little about the creators is a constant frustration... and then this appears in one's email box:

Searching on “Hattiebell Shields” recently, I came across your review of “The Palace of Carelessness.” I can tell you a bit about the authors. Hattiebell, Ivine and Laurene Shields were three sisters, daughters of George Shields, a Scottish immigrant, and Agnes Stoker, born in Ogden, Utah and the daughter of English Mormon immigrants. The girls had two brothers, Claude Lester Shields and John William Shields. My wife Bonnie is the granddaughter of John William Shields, thus the sisters are her great aunts.

The three sisters traveled on the Chautauqua Circuit, performing music. Ivine was operatically trained and made her debut at the Chicago Met and had a brief career. She also played piano. Hattie played cello; she also sang support vocals and played piano. Laurene did dramatic readings, sang and played piano. After their touring days, all three taught music, either privately or in the schools. They wrote several operettas for schools. We own “The Palace of Carelessness,” Station Cloudville,” and “Lindy: An Ode of Glorious Achievement.” My wife does not know if they wrote more operettas.

You are correct that there is little about them on the web. A search for “Shields Trio of Chicago” brings up a web page at the University of Iowa that contains their publicity brochure.

It was nice to see my Bonnie’s great aunts still mentioned. Thanks for posting your comment on their work.

Sincerely,

Bill Fenton

Here are the lovely ladies themselves. The back of the flyer notes:

The SHIELDS TRIO of CHICAGO INDIAN SKETCHES IN COSTUME A VOCAL AND INSTRUMENTAL PROGRAM Figure Figure Figure Figure The SHIELDS TRIO of CHICAGO Figure PERIOD COSTUME SELECTIONS READINGS AND DRAMATIC SKETCHES Figure THE SHIELDS TRIO of Chicago THE SHIELDS TRIO is an extremely attractive and unique organization. It is most unusual to find three such talented and attractive young ladies in one family. Each of these sisters is an individual artist, and the ensemble is altogether satisfying. These versatile and experienced entertainers offer a program of irresistible charm, consisting of dramatic sketches, and a variety of costume specialties including an Indian musical sketch, numbers in period frocks and hats, monologues and songs in various costumes. IVINE is a singer who has the rare gift of telling a story in song. Her clarity of enunciation and charm of personality captivate her audiences. She is also a pianist of ability. LAURENE is a dramatic reader of great talent, power and charm. She appeals to young and old as she draws from her large repertoire the humorous, the dramatic, the pianologue, etc. She is an excellent accompanist and singer. HATTIE-BELL, 'cellist, possesses a splendid technique and a lovely tone. She plays with equal skill and feeling the old favorites and the works of the masters. She is also an accompanist and joins in the ensemble singing. Figure THE SHIELDS TRIO of Chicago Press Comments from Here and There CHICAGO: Miss Ivine Shields, a singer whose work was exceptional from every viewpoint … splendid voice and dramatic style … won unstinted acclaim from the audience. She has good concert style and appearance … petite and very pretty … (Chas. E. Watt.) Hattie Bell, 'cellist … displayed a beautiful, full singing tone … played with manifest authority. Laurene elicited hearty laughs from the audience … showed great versatility … a charming personality, a musical voice and dramatic power. Ivine sings … with splendid style songs of the kind that require a singer who can project a story in song. This is her special talent. Laurene … as a picturesque Indian maiden … shows great dramatic power … exceeded our greatest expectations. Hattie Bell's 'cello solos delighted the audience. Miss Ivine Shields' enunciation is so pure that not a word went amiss—phrased correctly and scored heavily with her listeners. (Musical Courier.) ILLINOIS: Hattie Bell … showed wonderful technique and mastery of her chosen instrument … Laurene … an appealing personality and voice … true character interpretation … Downers Grove will welcome these young ladies again. The Shields Trio … a delightful program … enthusiastically received … (Wheaton). Laurene … voice capable of great variety of tone colorings … splendid portrayal of characters. (Wheaton.) Each of exceptional talent. (Lake Bluff.) UTAH: Laurene … excellent interpretation and delivery … great ability as reader and interpreter. (Ogden.) Ivine … sweet toned and excellently cultured soprano . . both a pianist and singer of ability. (Ogden.) Ivine … delighted and surprised a large audience … forced to appear after each number … beautiful renditions. (Salt Lake City) OHIO: Hattie Bell … wonderful technique and mastery of her instrument. (Fayette.) Hattie Bell … played with skill and feeling. (Elliston.) Figure DESIGNED AND PRINTED BY THE W. M. KING SERVICE, CHICAGO

Many thanks to you as well, sir.

THE GOVERNOR'S DAUGHTER

2011-09-25T13:03:00.000-07:00

Madness, political intrigue, and dirty old men making improper advances — sounds like just another day on the front pages of the New York Times, but they're also a huge part of the very bewildering GOVERNOR'S DAUGHTER (1929) by Alfred Wakeman (book and lyrics) and Ira Wilson (music), the latter of whom gave us the "themes on a limited variation on Chopin" ENCHANTED ISLE and the "doesnt he know more than one melody by Stephen Foster?" JEANNIE.

It's election time in Calibama, and Mr. Goodspeed is anxiously waiting by the radio to hear if he's won the governorship. He's a nice enough fellow, so you know already that in the world of the high school operetta, he's won — but his wife, even before hearing the news, is already planning on the next big step: using this to get at all those people who did her wrong.

Once the results are in, the place is swarming with reporters, all of whom want to know every little detail they can about their new governor, but he's a bit more worried about the whereabouts of his daughter Jane. Not to worry — right on cue, she shows up with her chorus of girlfriends, and she simply cannot wait to tell her almost fiance Johnny about the news.

But Mom has other plans for Jane in the form of Senator Snow, an elderly ("almost fifty!") man whose marriage to Jane could be politically advantageous. First, tho, she has to get John out of the way, and she does so by playing first on his insecurities about the book he's waiting to have published and next on his love for her ("If you really love her..." — well, you know the drill there.). He agrees to break off the engagement and, as Mrs. Goodspeed further insists, will not tell her why.

Naturally, this causes no small confusion in Jane and her father (who actually thinks the guy's a good kid), but John is adamant: he cant tell Jane why it's over. And as Mrs. Goodspeed looks on with no small amount of smugness at her victory, we end Act One.

Act Two is at Snow's mansion, for an inauguration party. Momma has been working not only the party lines and setting up photo opportunities but she's also been laying the groundwork with the media to announce Jane's engagement — even though of course she hasnt bothered to tell Jane about it, but that little detail can be dealt with later. Governor Goodspeed shares Jane's confusion about John and had asked to meet him at the party. John initially tries to say it's over a money issue, but when Goodspeed happily writes him a cheque for ten thousand to cover whatever the debt might be, Joh has to backtrack and say that it's because a history of family insanity, particularly an aunt who lives in Oshkosh. Insanity might be hereditary, you know, so John just had to stop things with Jane in their tracks... for her own protection.

Meanwhile, Snow hasnt been letting any moss grow under him: he's hitting on all of Jane's girlfriends, which doesnt go over well at all with Momma. Now realizing that maybe she erred a bit, she asks where John is — and it turns out she's not the only one looking for him: so is the head of the publishing firm that's considering John's novel (How did this gentleman come to arrive at the party, you ask? Well, you see.... oh, never mind: this is high school operetta we're talking about, remember?). He's come all this way to tell John he's not really interested in the book, when one of the reporters runs in and says there's a crazy man up in one of the trees.

Feigning madness, John sweeps in, pretending to be a count. Or perhaps a duke. Or maybe a king. Nevertheless, he's royalty — and he's carrying a gun, so of course everyone is going to do what he says. The publisher is thrilled by this turn of events — a mad genius! the headlines! what could be better! Mrs. Goodspeed, now seeing John as the lesser of two evils, negotiates a far better contract for John. Everything is going exactly to plan — sorta —

... when Aunt Mary shows up. Governor Goodspeed is somewhat surprised to discover that she's actually not insane and then furious with John for pulling such a trick on his daughter. Momma however smoothly moves in, fesses all, and tells John that, for the fifty thousand he's getting from the publisher, he's free to act as crazy as he wants. And with a hymn of praise to the governor's wife, we end.

Well. As you can see, it's a bit of... well, everything. Preceding the Gershwin's Of Thee I Sing by a couple of years, it still tries to cover the same ground: dirty politics, sleazy senators, the overly infatuated news media... with a few twists all its own. The songs, all of which are far too short, efficiently set up a premise and then never quite deliver on the manic possibilities; for example, the reporters' first interview with the new governor:

REPORTERS.

Sir, we would like to know

Your opinion on so and so

Should we muffle engine toots

Or change the length of bathing suits

GOODSPEED.

This is secret, please dont quote

Or it would get the Statehouse goat

There is no doubt democracy

Demands we make the movies free

REPORTERS.

A scoop that news would be

We tell you confidentially

But problem black as ace of spades

Is what to do with razor blades

... and then it sort of meanders into a more or less concluding chorus. It's a pity, because the premise could have been given a few more pages to really play out. So also with "The Governor's Complaint", in which he tells us the job's not what it's cracked up to be.

The frontline soldier in a war

Is not unlike a governor

Who's always target for a shot

From politicians or what not

He dare not veto any bill

Or show how much he'd like to kill

When office seekers looking wise

Come swarming round as thick as flies

He has to give, he has to get

To please the proletariat

Or make a speech, no matter what

The subject or the cold he's caught.

It's not my nature to complain

But office is a ball and chain

I'd gladly leave it to my wife

And lead a lowly hermit's life

You get to the end of it wishing Wakeman had gone just a bit further, especially since it's to be sung allegretto. Everyone gets the same frustrating star turn, by the way, in a series of under-developed songs that do capture their individual characters.... just not enough so.

Musically? This is the first Wilson score I've encountered that wasnt adapted from another source, and it's not bad. He's not like Don Wilson (nothing I've found suggests they were related), but Ira does have a nice ear for characterization, and some of the parts work for Jane's girlfriends is quite nice. But that's about all.

The pity of this work is that it doesnt go far enough with its screwball storyline. If the rest of the script had been treated like John's mad scene with the gun (which now of course would see him under a pile of secret service men but in the world of high school operetta is just another device), a scene that truly milks the potential of the moment, it would have been a much different — and perhaps far better — work. It crams too much into sixty pages (granted, of small set type) that you wish it had gone on to flesh it out over 90.

Wakeman and Wilson wrote a number of songs together, mostly for barbershop quartets as far as I can see. This was apparently their sole collaboration for the stage.

LOVE PIRATES OF HAWAII

2011-07-23T11:58:00.000-07:00

My friend Russell loves this show, so I'd better be especially careful in my writeup for it. Fortunately, that's not difficult, because LOVE PIRATES OF HAWAII (1918), by Otis Carrington (no cover, unfortunately), is a show that's easy to love.

We're in the garden of a ladies' seminary in, of course, Hawaii. It's an important day, because the US cruiser Tennessee is coming to port, bringing with it a certain young lady's sweetheart. But because men arent allowed on the grounds, the plan is for the sailor and his friends to come in disguise as visiting college professors. And this means tidying the place up a bit.

MAILE. If we're having company, we must tidy up a bit.

LEHUA. And practice our new song.

GIRLS. Our new song!

DOROTHY. You can do that later. Better fix up now.

GIRLS. The song first!

DOROTHY. As usual, the song comes first. Fine, sing your heads off. I'll not wait for you. (exits left)

Any wonder why Carrington is so easy to love? Anyway, they do indeed sing, then wander off to presumably help Dorothy. But hark! A pirate chief! has come into view, bringing his men with him, intent on abducting the schoolmistress Miss Primer, because he's madly in love with her — and he can spout off poetry to make his case. They hide, only moments before she comes on, bringing with her a letter to Dorothy from her sailor, telling her that the plan's been changed: they wont be coming as professors, but as pirates! So of course, when the real pirates jump into view, she thinks they're the sailor/professor/pirates and decides to teach them a lesson.

MISS PRIMER. That you foreswear this pirate business and serve in my kitchen as cooks.

CHIEF. To serve you, what bliss!

Never mind that none of them know how to cook. All they need is a cookbook, and they're set to do "our manly best!"

Meanwhile Dorothy (who, if you remember, was supposed to be cleaning) sits on a bench and pines for her sailor Billy, who conveniently shows up in full pirate costume. He came, sadly, alone, but she makes sure her friends all understand that when Miss Primer is around, they are to be very afraid of this bloodthirsty pirate.

KARLANI. Tell us what you think a pirate's life is like.

BILLY. I'm afraid I cant tell you very little about the pirate business. But I can give you a pirate song if you care to listen.

GIRLS. A song, a song.

DOROTHY. Another song!

When he's done, Miss Primer appears. Billy tries to bluster her, but she's not taken in with it. After all, she's just captured an entire crew of pirates, and the pretenda-pirate Billy is suddenly taken and bound by the pretenda-cooks that used to be pirates (that, remember, Miss Primer thinks were just simple sailors, and... oh, you'll figure it out).

So Billy's taken off to some sort of detention. Dorothy tells Miss Primer that she has no idea who the rest of the people are, that the only one she knows is Billy. Miss Primer realizes that she has indeed captured an entire pirate crew. And this worries her. That Dorothy helped Billy escape worries her even more.

DOROTHY. I am not through. Listen, he told me that as soon as he saw your pirates —

MISS PRIMER. MY pirates?

DOROTHY. Your pirates!

MISS PRIMER. My pirates?

DOROTHY. The real pirates. He recognized them as desperadoes much sought by the United States Government.

MISS PRIMER. Desperadoes?

GIRLS. Desperadoes?

But Billy's returned to his ship to get help. Miss Primer decides the best thing to do is just act natural. For herself, she's off to her garden.

DOROTHY. What can we do to kill time?

GIRLS. We might sing.

DOROTHY. I might have guessed what you would say. There seems to be nothing else you can do.

(I'm likin' this broad!)

The pirates have indeed figured out that Billy's escaped, but none are brave enough to tell the Pirate Chief. But that's okay, because he's off wooing Miss Primer with an appeal to her sympathies.

CHIEF. But I insist that I am not a pirate by nature. It was circumstances over which I had no control that led me into this life.

MISS PRIMER. Oh if only I could believe you, it would make me so happy.

CHIEF. You will believe me when I tell you that my father was a Pacifist and my mother a suffragette.

MISS PRIMER. Poor man, to be raised under such circumstances. You are to be praised for not being worse than you are.

And to prove his love, he tells her that his crew has captured and bound the pretenda-pirate and that he will now bring the rapscallion to her. But of course that doesnt work because Billy's escaped. And that makes the Pirate Chief really, really angry...

But that doesnt matter because Billy has returned in the nick of time and has surrounded the seminary with the entire crew of the Tennessee. The pirates beg for mercy because they're not crooks anymore but cooks... until Miss Primer reminds the Pirate Chief

The words you speak are only true in part
For you have been a robber and robbed me of my heart

And with much flower throwing and singing and hula dancing, the curtain falls.

Okay, it's obviously lifted from a few sources, like, oh, I dunno, PIRATES OF PENZANCE, maybe? And really all it needs is a patter song or two to cement the comparison. Still, one has to remember that Carrington initially wrote these for his school (see Windmills of Holland for the background on this), so one has to forgive the oddly familiar plot. And the characters are all beautifully drawn, from Dorothy the lead who apparently doesnt like sharing the musical spotlight with anyone to the supposedly desperado Pirate Chief who's willing to learn culinary arts just to be with the woman he so desperately loves.

Carrington's music is just difficult enough for his young performers to show off a bit: no overly complicated parts work and a sufficiently wide range of tempe to keep the parade of solos constantly fresh. It's a cute little work, certainly more intriguing than Windmills, with just enough plot turns to keep it all moving.

THE GEISHA

2011-07-22T21:52:00.001-07:00

This is traveling well outside the juvenile operetta canon, but the heck, right? THE GEISHA (1896) has sufficient theatrical pedigree to make it worth the trip. The book is by Owen Hall, the lyrics are by Harry Greenback, and the music is by the incomparable Sidney Jones, the same team that went on to write the overlooked classic A GREEK SLAVE. But it's GEISHA, first produced at the Gaiety Theatre in London, that shows them at their most playful.

The synopsis (courtesy Wikipedia) goes like this:

Stationed in Japan, far from his financee Molly, Lt. Reggie Fairfax of the Royal Navy is lonely. He begins to spend much of his free time at the Tea House of Ten Thousand Joys which is run by chinaman Wun-Hi. There he meets the lovely geisha O Mimosa San, with whom he builds a friendship, but she is in love with Katana, a soldier, so she discourages him with her tale of 'The Amorous Goldfish'. However, Reggie gives Mimosa a lesson in kissing.

The relationship does not go unnoticed by Lady Constance Wynne, a touring English aristocrat, who catches Reggie engaged in his tête-a-tête with Mimosa and reminds him that he is engaged to Molly. Lady Constance contacts Molly, telling her she had better come to the Orient as quickly as possible. The local overlord Marquis Imari, who also fancies Mimosa, is annoyed that his intended bride is consorting with the newly arrived British sailors, and he orders that the teahouse be closed and the girls be sold off. The Marquis himself is pursued by the French interpreter Juliette.

Molly arrives unexpectedly. Left alone, Molly is joined by Mimosa and Lady Constance who tell her how fond Reggie has become of one geisha in particular. Mimosa then suggests that Molly should dress up as a geisha herself to try and win him back. It is now time for the sale of the geishas' indentures. The Marquis tries to buy Mimosa for himself, but Lady Constance manages to outbid him to keep her out of his clutches. Unfortunately, she can't stop him from purchasing lot number 2, a new geisha called Roli Poli whom nobody has seen before. Only after the Marquis has made his purchase is it revealed that this geisha is actually Molly in disguise.

In the chrysanthemum gardens of the Imari palace, Molly, still disguised as Roli Poli, awaits her impending marriage to the Marquis, who has become much attracted to her. Mimosa proposes a plan to save Molly from her fate: Mimosa will sneak into the bridal suite and exchange the veiled Molly for another veiled bride - Juliette, the French interpreter.

The wedding ceremony starts, and the plan is put into effect: Juliette is exchanged with Molly, and the Marquis unwittingly marries the wrong bride. On discovering the ruse, he accepts his fate philosophically, concluding that "every man is disappointed in his wife at some time or other". Mimosa is now free to marry her lover Katana, and Molly is re-united with Reggie, declaring that she would never marry a foreign nobleman when she could have a British sailor.

The synopsis doesnt even come close to conveying just how wondrously mad this little comedy is. The scene, for example, when Molly (as the geisha Roli-Poli) is sold, her disgust at going for the relatively cheap price of a hundred dollars is delicious fun, as is the scene when she negotiates the terms of her marriage to the Marquis Imari. Juliette is a picture-perfect characterization of the scheming socialite who wants to marry up, while Imari moves from laughably autocratic to wittily philosophical when the switch off is revealed.

THE GEISHA was a huge hit, by any standard. With companies traveling across both Europe and North America, it was arguably the biggest sensation of the period, with some 8,000 performances in Germany alone. That it came on the heels of THE MIKADO should be no surprise whatsover. Greenback and Jones were, of course, contemporaries of Gilbert and Sullivan, and at some moments it shows. But Jones had his own style, a lighter, more lyrical approach that seemed better suited to a work that, contrary to the G&S approach, is less pop culture satire and more vaudeville with a layer of romantic operetta slathered on top. "The Amorous Goldfish", the breakout hit from the show, is Mimosa's telling of the sad tale of a goldfish that loved a sailor:

A goldfish swam in a great glass bowl
As dear little goldfish do
But she loved with the whole of her heart and soul
An officer brave from the ocean wave
And she thought that he loved her too
Her small inside he daily fed
With crumbs of the best digestive bread
"This kind attention proves," said she
"How exceedingly fond he is of me."

Alas, her heart is broken when the sailor shows up with a young lady, and she pines away, eventually dying when the maid knocks the table and her glass bowl shatters. The music is just sly enough in its winks at Madama Butterfly.

And of course one very big reason for THE GEISHA's success were the Gaiety Girls, a sort of standing chorus line that was featured in almost every production mounted at the Gaiety. Their job in every production was pretty much just to stand here and look pretty, and fashion designers all over London (and sometimes even Paris) fought to have their latest couture seen on the Girls, no matter how anachronistic it might have seemed for the play in question.

Viewed today, THE GEISHA, with its British patriotism on full display, seems almost snide in its view of other cultures, particularly the exotic Japanese and Chinese. The script has one character, a Chinese laundryman, whose badly written "accent" is almost a British equivalent to blackface performances in the US.

But in some respects, you have to forgive that, because the core of the work still holds you tight with its charm and insouciance. It holds up very well for a century-plus-old work and, lacking the more contemporary potshots of a G&S musical, could easily play as is. Molly is a prime role for a singer/comedian and would be a fascinating challenge for today's crop of musical theatre stars.

SONIA: THE GIRL FROM RUSSIA

2011-07-21T18:53:00.001-07:00

International relations, the Bolshevik Revolution, a surprise birthday party, a political riot, and a nearby squad of Marines all collide in SONIA (1930), by Joseph B. Harrison (who wrote Lucky Jade) and our regular contributor to the form, Don Wilson (with cover art by George and Doris Hauman). In addition, the book was edited and additional lyrics written by Geoffrey Morgan, so you know right away that this is gonna be one slightly demented piece. And it is.

We start things off on the grounds of Oxford University -- no, not that Oxford: this one is in Oxford, Mississippi. A group of students are planning a surprise birthday party for Professor Smythe, who's well known across campus for being somewhat absent-minded.

PEG. And how old do you think he'd be by now, I wonder?

MAURICE. Who knows? All profs look alike after they get to be fifty.

Ahem... well, we'll let that slide for the moment. But it turns out that not only is he absent-minded but there's some trouble in his past: no one, not even he, seems to know how he got to Oxford. The college seems to have adopted him, even though no one, not even he, knows his real name.

The party is interrupted by Aunt Martha, whose niece Sonia is a student at the college, and she is not impressed with all these goings-on. She's even less impressed with Pat, the most popular guy on campus who has intentions for Sonia. But he's not the only one: the vaguely Russian Veda, who runs the local beauty parlour. has information about Sonia's long-missing father, that he's being held prisoner in a castle in Siberia. Veda, along with her co-conspirator Boris (who's also about as Russian as a loaf of French bread), of course has no idea where Sonia's father really is, but they've been shaking her down for ransom money for weeks. They werent counting on her to actually go to Russia, but she's determined to do so — and there just happens to be a steamer leaving on June 1, making stops throughout the Pacific, with an intended destination of... Russia. And she's going. Desperate to keep their meal ticket close at hand, Veda and Boris decide they're going. So's Aunt Martha. And Pat. And Professor Smythe. And... well, everyone else.

Now we're off in search of romance
Blindly taking every long chance
Tho' we're sad at parting
We cant alter fate
Nor delay our starting
Now we're at the gate
Oh hear the open road so softly calling
With its gypsy voice enthralling
There's no need of feeling sad or blue
When we say goodbye to you!

So in Act Two we're off to Siberia, where a bunch of Bolshevik revolutionaries are having a little party.

Russia, Russia, land of the proletariat
Rushing, rushing, to the commissariat
Crushing, crushing all the bourgeoisie like that

And everyone stamps their feet a great deal, followed by a group of young ladies who delicately tell us

We are some of Russia's daughters
Left from all the recent slaughters

(You cant make this stuff up, y'know?)

The Bolsheviks stealthily exit as everyone from Oxford enters. Despite the fact that this is the ancient family estate, Aunt Martha is quite horrified by the surroundings, but Sonia is adamant: today is the day she rescues her father. As far as everyone else is concerned, tho?

MAURICE. This's a perfect setting for the college musical show.

PEG. The one we're planning for the spring festival?

MAURICE. Sure. We should hold a rehearsal right here and now.

PEG. But what about costumes?

MAURICE. We'll use the ones we got from that stranded opera company in Vladivostock.

PEG. Splendid! Let's go change right now!

MAURICE. And we'll rehearse the scene where the Bolshevik rush in and tie everybody up and leave them sitting around a bomb with a slow fuse.

PEG. That will be very exciting.

So they all rush off to change as the Professor tells Pat that the castle seems "so familiar somehow". As they explore the place, Pat overhears Boris meeting with a fellow co-conspirator, Count Ginwhiski, plotting for the count to play the part of Sonia's father. They capture the count and take him to the dungeon. Pat takes the count's coat and false whiskers to assume the part of Sonia's father so he can expose the conspiracy. Unfortunately, Sonia sees through it and berates him for not taking her quest seriously. But there's no time for that, because

AUNT. There's an evil looking mob swarming around the castle!

BORIS. It's the Redder-Reddists raiding the castle!

Pat's friend Maurice, who's directing the spring musical, dismisses the idea, saying that it's just everyone from Oxford dressed as Bolshevicks for rehearsal. But it's the real Bolshevicks, who, true to form, tie everyone up and leave them with a bomb with a really long fuse. Professor Smythe comes to the rescue and unties everyone. Maurice, upset that rehearsal didnt go as he wanted, casually throws the bomb over the parapet —

— and it quite promptly explodes. The students rush on and tell everyone that the Bolshevicks have taken the professor captive and set the castle on fire. And there's a storm brewing. And amidst all this chaos, the curtain falls.

Act Three. The storm put out the fire. Pat has gone in search of Professor Smythe. Maurice has captured the count, whom Sonia thinks is her father. And Aunt Martha has had quite enough of this place, thank you very much. And who shows up now?

A bunch of Marines.

The female students are of course in a complete tizzy over this, but Veda, with her expertise in cosmetology, gets them all fixed up.

To lure with beauty
Is your duty
As all women know
With azure eyes and manner shy
And rosy cheeks aglow
With rouge and lipstick
Perfumes mystic
Every charm display
For men succumb,
If you're pretty, though dumb

And after a few more turns, we find out that (in case you hadnt figured this out by now) Professor Smythe is actually Count Markova and Sonia's father. The Bolshevicks are his old retainers and now see the error of their ways. The extortion money is returned to Sonia. And Pat decides it's gonna be used as a nest-egg for the house he and Sonia will build once they're married. And with much merriment and Russian-style dancing, the curtain falls.

This description doesnt even come close to the totally surreal quality that permeates SONIA. With its many mistaken identities and bizarrely complex plot turns, it's actually pretty easy to see what parts of this are Morgan's rewrites... especially considering his fondness for scenes involving revolutionaries (see Rose of the Danube and The Belle of Baghdad). The suprisingly weak score's song cues are about one step away from "Oh, you're from Java? Tell us about it" when they're not outrageously bombastic choral pieces, like the second act finale, in which the frightened students are counter-sung by the gloating Bolshevicks. And, as is usual in a Morgan script, the supporting characters — Veda, Boris, the count — are all far more interesting than the romantic leads, who are utterly bland by comparison.

Still, overall it's a strange, sprawling, almost disorganized little work whose final efforts are only vaguely near the plot's promise. I suppose this was Morgan and Wilson still finding their operetta feet, because SONIA comes so early in their careers — particularly Morgan, who apparently had this serious thing for bomb throwing revolutionaries.

I have been severely remiss...

2011-07-21T17:58:00.000-07:00

... with this blog, and I sincerely apologize, particularly after all the emails from people who either performed in one of these little shows or had a parent or other relative who did. One lady wrote to say her father used to lullaby her to sleep with a song from BETTY LOU. Others have shared fond memories of their elderly uncle or aunt still able to perform a song or two from a show they had done in their youth. Some have also sent some great pieces of memorabilia, so I'd like to share some of them with you, if I may.

Here's a performance shot from MEET ARIZONA, sent to me by a lovely lady who performed the role of Lettie in 1960 when she was in the 9th grade at Westlake Junior High in Erie, Pennsylvania. These same folks went on to high school together (McDowell, also in Erie) and are having their fiftieth reunion in 2013. She requested the music and lyrics to the title song and in return sent these great photos of their production.

This second is from THE GYPSY TROUBADOUR, performed in 1954 in Iuka, Mississippi. Their 55th reunion is in October, and they're planning a singalong of music from the show.

This last one is quite the story: a 1928 production of PICKLES, performed in Fortuna, California. I got a message recently from Dr. Alex Service, who runs the Fortuna (CA) Depot Museum:

I am writing from the Fortuna Depot Museum in Fortuna, California. We are involved in the historical research for a Halloween cemetery tour of one of the cemeteries here in town. The tour is in its second year as a fund-raising event for the Fortuna Cemetery District. The tour features actors portraying 8 of the people buried in the cemetery, giving five-minute monologues on their lives (and usually, on the unusual circumstances of their deaths). One of the people we are featuring this year was named Leo Gallagher. He was a sixteen-year-old actor, musician and athlete at Fortuna High School when he died as a result of injuries sustained in the school’s final football game of the 1928 season. As a result of this tragedy, the following spring the students voted to ban football at the high school, and football was not played at the school again until 1945.

I’m writing to you because one of the roles that Leo played in Fortuna High’s theatrical productions was J. Jennison Jones in Pickles, performed at Fortuna High on March 16, 1927. We were not having much luck discovering any information about this piece, until we ran across the descriptions of it on your blog. So, thank you again for the blog; it has made the difference between a large gap in our knowledge, and getting a good feel for the show and the role Leo played.

From the clippings Dr. Service sent, this was a freak accident (the details of which I'd rather not go into), but what I found amazing was the impact he had on the school for years afterwards. Truly, a case of "what would have happened if..."

I really do enjoy seeing these production photos and the memories that come with them, so please do send them on.

PRINCESS TING AH LING

2010-10-02T10:29:00.000-07:00

Written by the husband-and-wife team of Charles and Juanita Roos, with music by Franceso B. DeLeone, PRINCESS TING AH LING (1930) is mindless, silly fun. Yes, looked back upon from eighty years' distance, it's also a bit racist in its stereotypical portrayals of the Chinese, but to a degree you have to forgive that. It's not an operetta meant to make a political or social statement but, akin to Arthur Penn's CHINA SHOP, simply an opportunity for the performers to chow down on some scenery and sing some more than decent music.

As noted, we're in China, in the distant mysterious past, in a small kingdom called Way Off, ruled by the noble king Duck Ling (You might as well resign yourself now: the script is loaded with such groaners). Way Off is one of those small countries under constant attack, so the king decides to strengthen his position by marrying his daughter Ting Ah Ling to Prince Tu Fat, heir to the throne of Ho Kum. Needless to say, the princess doesnt find Tu Fat one white attractive; instead, she has her eye on Ah Lee, the son of the court astrologer Look See -- and he's not exactly indifferent to her charms either.

But he's a commoner and she's not, and besides her marriage to Tu Fat has already been announced, so you'd think it was time to just write this one off. But the court jester Ku Ku, who's sympathetic to the lovers' plight, administers a drug to Tu Fat that takes away his appetite just before the vows. Now the prince holds that part of his life dearer than anything else — even the upcoming marriage — so you can imagine his desperation. Overcome with his loss, Tu Fat says the wedding's off.

Well, that could be kind of convenient for Ting Ah Ling, but now Way Off finds itself at war once more, this time with a more powerful kingdom. Its king Wun Lung, who's not only aged and dissipated but gosh darn evil to boot, arrives and says that peace is possible... if he can marry the Princess. She's not happy about the situation, but still she's ready to sacrifice herself for her country's good —

— when suddenly Tu Fat issues a proclamation that he will grant any wish to the man who can restore his appetite. Duck Ling, anxious that his daughter not marry Wun Lung, ups the ante to two wishes. Ku Ku, ever prepared, tells them both that he knows of such a magician: a marvelous man of magic who just happens to be Ah Lee in disguise. He makes Tu Fat believe hs appetite has been stolen by a genie and is held prisoner inside a large rubber ball, which he must bounce repeatedly if he is to regain it.

After eight hours of bouncing the ball, Tu Fat is sweaty, exhausted... and famished. Convinced his appetite has been returned to him, Tu Fat agrees to anything the Man of Magic asks, whereupon Ah Lee has him sign a treaty that says Ho Kum will forever promise protection for Way Off from war or invasion. Duck Ling is ecstatic and reminds the Man of Magic that he'd offered the granting of two wishes. Ah Lee thinks for a moment, then asks first that he be made a prince and second that he be able to marry Ting Ah Ling. And as everyone sings and dances in merriment — except for Tu Fat who spends the finale gorging himself — the curtain falls.

The work of Charles and Juanita Roos inexplicably runs extreme hot and cold: for a pair of trained musicians who made their marks with serious compositions, they seem to flounder a bit when it comes to the juvenile operetta. That's not to say that PRINCESS TING AH LING is anywhere near as bad as, say, GHOST OF LOLLIPOP BAY or SOUTH OF SONORA — far from it, actually. But it simply demonstrates how maddeningly inconsistent these two can be when it comes to the final product. Here, the Roos' work is completely and utterly fun, with almost perfect music from DeLeone that underscore wonderfully inane lyrics such as this, sung by Ku Ku:

When man and maid a friendship form
Then Cupid strings his archer's bow.......
The world looks on through smiling eyes
As down life's winding road they go.......
But remember there is not much room
In heart of man or maid
For friendship's little fires to burn
It smothers where it's laid
And if you add fuel to it
You have yourself to blame
If spontaneous combustion
Sets the fires of love aflame.

It's a little convoluted, but trust me: it sings far better than it reads. There are also daffy little touches in the increasingly annoying cute nicknames the Princess and Ah Lee give each other: "my rose of dawn" / "my little heart of amethyst" / "my prince from the coloured cloud"... and so on and so on. In fact, the language throughout is so very, very arch that I imagine it was a challenge to speak any of the lines with a straight face.

But the music... ah Gentle Reader, the music is indeed sublime. DeLeone takes every opportunity for large-scale choral work, with as many vocal lines as he can squeeze out. His tempi may be a tad too monotonous, but he makes up for it by throwing us such delicious little numbers as Tu Fat's paean to food or Ah Lee's military march on the wonders of exercise. The lyrics may be mundane, but DeLeone tosses in the occasional musical wink, as if to tell us "Look, I know how absurd this all is". And it doesnt take much for us to as charmed by it all as he no doubt hoped.

It would be a hoot to see this mounted with all the visual overkill of the Zeffirelli Turandot at the Metropolitan Opera: the work almost begs for it. And this is a work where you really wonder what the orchestration sounded like -- as with a few other in this genre, the piano reduction has small hints here and there about the instrumentation, all of them indicative that DeLeone meant this to be played with great passion and enormous gusto.

This particular copy, as you can see from the image above, is in pretty decent shape and was autographed by the Roos. I dont know who did the cover art, but everything there, from the cartoon to the typography, was done by hand.

AT THE TOURIST CAMP

2010-09-16T15:12:00.000-07:00

As you've seen from other entries, I sometimes find the cover art more fascinating than the actual work itself. This was never more true than for AT THE TOURIST'S CAMP (1937), by Elsie Duncan Yale and Clarence Kohlman, who also provided us with the very odd and phantasmagorical MOOON MAIDEN.

Let's get the work itself out of the way. A short, 48-page work that purports to last an hour (although I suspect less), TOURIST'S CAMP is the story of Mrs. Smiley, who, along with her son Chester and her sister Miss Melody, runs a tourist camp named "Happy Haven". It has your usual assortment of oddball residents: the woman who loves, in equal parts, fishing and epic poetry; a wealthy if off-beat family from Texas; a very pushy 30s version of a Mary Kay saleswoman... and the stuttering Professor Propendorimentasia (Say that six times fast).

Now one would hope this would be a happy little troupe, but that's not quite the case. There is jealousy and snobbery and a touch of teenage lust and... well, just all sorts of things going on between the various tourists, which makes you wonder why they dont pack up and leave for a Happier Haven someplace. And into this soap opera arrives a lone hiker, Charles Dill, president of (what else?) a pickling factory.

But Mrs. Smiley's not buying that for a moment, because she knows that he's got to really be Charles Dial, a radio producer who's supposedly traveling about the country in cognito. As a result, everyone does a little star turn for "Mr. Dill", in the hopes of getting a job on the radio. Sadly for them, it turns out that he really is Charles Dill...

— but wait! The Professor isnt the Professor! He's Charles Dial, and he's so impressed with everyone that he gets Charles Dill to sponsor a radio show soap opera about tourist camp life, with everyone here for its cast!

EVERYONE (in concert). Hurrah!

... which takes us to the closing number:

ENSEMBLE. Then off to the city
To win a fortune or two.
No more, you see, may we campers be,
For we've too much to do.

PROFESSOR (sternly) You must be willing workers,
Rehearsing day and night
I have no time for shirkers
They never get things right

MISS MELODY. My heart is filled with grief and care
Ah Life you are so fickle
To think that I should have to share
The spotlight with a pickle

... and so on and so on as we build to a crescendo about roses and lilies and campfires and pickles and how we all just love each other... even if we really dont. But hey, it's summer, and they all have the chance for a cushy job with lots of pay, so, for now anyway, it's all good.

The copy I own is in perfect condition; it doesnt like it's been cracked open since printing, let alone actually be used — and honestly I'm not surprised. I suppose this could have been written as an easy-to-stage diversion at a real tourist summer camp, but I cant imagine any possible production possibilities beyond that. The music is interesting, but it's so solidly undercut by Yale's less than pedestrian lyrics. As for her book, well, it's just too... well, awful, even by 1930s standards. She tries so very, very hard to make things funny, particularly when it deals with the continually injured Chester (who's always managing to somehow hit himself in the head with a rake), except they rarely are: she's created an environment that barely masks a whopping big helping of hostility, to the point where it's difficult to care about anyone or his or her dreams of success as a radio performer. It's almost too delicious to think that one reason why Dial's taking this crew on is because he knows he can get storylines out of their just-barely-genteel interrelationships for years. It's hard to believe this comes from the same team that did the slightly surreal (and far more genuinely comic) MOON MAIDEN... not that that particular work was any great shake in the Grand High School Operetta Scheme of Things. But this is just so relentlessly weak that it makes RADIO MAID seem like a Gershwin show.

Then there's that cover.

Okay, two men, one in front and to the side of the other. If the perspective is to be considered correct (which is doubtful, considering it would mean the trailer on the left is parked on a pretty severe slope), the guy in back is huge. I mean, we're talking Andre the Giant big. Further, I'm not exactly sure what his friend is looking at, let alone why he's smashing his forehead into the very large question mark that the Very Large Man is apparently holding.

Also, note that the subtitle of this work is "Dad's Vacation". Dear Reader, I've been through this thing twice now, and there's no dad anywhere, unless we're looking at the family from Texas, who are third-tier characters. Maybe this was suggested by something that happened to Elsie or Clarence's fathers? Maybe it's a self-referential in-joke? I have no clue.

THE COUNT AND THE CO-ED

2010-09-12T17:25:00.001-07:00

This wonderful little piece of work was on my list of orphans, and it was only by luck that I managed to find a copy of the script at, of all places, Amazon. The seller was almost embarrassed to send it, because of its near-precarious condition... but am I ever glad she did.

THE COUNT AND THE COED (1930, with unsigned cover art) continues that stream of works by the two Geoffreys, either together or with others, in which madcap humour rules the day in a piece that almost suggests the 30s-style movie musical. We're on the campus at Marden College, which has seen unfortunate financial times (Given the date of the work, that's not surprising). The President of the College has decided to show off the college a bit by producing an evening's entertainment for the benefit of some wealthy potential donors, including the Count Gustave von Weinerheister, in the hopes that maybe someone from the group will part with sufficient cash to keep the place going.

But he also has to deal with the college glee club -- and in specific, the club's resident comedian Kenneth Andrews, otherwise known as Snooze, who has the remarkable tendency of getting into scrapes of one kind or another. This wouldnt be so bad, were it not for the fact that Snooze is in love with the President's daughter Dolly; all he really wants to do for now is make a good enough impression through his performance so that the college will get its much-needed endowment and he can get his girl.

On the day of the benefit, poor Snooze has had a bit of a run-in with the law while picking up his costume. He's not exactly sure what it was he did; all he knows is that a motorcycle patrolman is hunting him down -- and naturally, panic strikes. To hide from the officer, he slaps on the costume and pretends to be owner of a delicatessan. But the President, thinking this is just one more manifestation of the Count's eccentric ways, assumes that Snooze is the Count and (happily for Snooze and Dolly) insists his daughter escort their guest to the evening's performance, with the thought that possibly not only will the college gets its money but their daughter might also marry very, very well.

But Snooze also discovers that, as the Count, he's suddenly also the object of the affections of Agatha Lockstep, the housemother of the girls' dormitory. As you might expect, this leads to a series of overlapping situations in which Snooze finally has to confess to both the policeman and the President who he really is. As it turns out with the policeman, he merely wanted to make sure that Snooze keep quiet about a possible career-harming incident... but the President is not so magnaminous. He's about to send Snooze packing —

— when a registered letter arrives, from the real Count, who sends his regrets for being unable to attend. However, he was so impressed by the actions of a certain Marden college boy who helped repair his limousine that he's sending the college a check for the endowment fund. Naturally, that certain college boy was Snooze, who claims Dolly as his reward for saving the day.

Yes, it's outrageously silly, but it's also outrageously charming, as one would expect from the two Geoffries. Like so many works attached to their names, THE COUNT AND THE COED would require only a bit of tinkering here and there to see value for a revival: the script is solid as a rock, with an almost bravura role for Snooze (who's onstage throughout virtually the entire show). The three supporting roles for the president, his wife, and the dorm mother are all marvelously written, with just enough character cliche to make them easy to approach while at the same time affording possibilities for some fun character development. And the second tier romantic couple, Hamilton and Marjorie, are given inexplicably more time musically than Snooze and Dolly, including a lovely Act Two duet, "Campus Moon". For the chorus, O'Hara doesnt take it easy on them: there are at least four places in the show where the ensemble gets a chance to really show off musically, including a remarkable medley of various college songs of the period.

But it really is Snooze who gets the whopping majority of the evening. From his first appearance on the run from the law to the final curtain in which he sings of the joys of sausages and bratwurst, his character is relentless fun, yet another role that instantly reminds one of movie stars such as Danny Kaye or Donald O'Connor or even possibly Mickey Rooney. He sings, he dances, he mugs to distraction — and even though you know he's gonna get the girl, it's delicious fun watching him arrive.

Morgan and O'Hara also provided work on another college musical, PEGGY AND THE PIRATE, which is yet another case where I have the score but no libretto. If anyone out there has a lead on this, please let me know.

PICKLES

2010-08-29T16:12:00.000-07:00

One of the first operettas described in this blog, IN OLD VIENNA (with the subtitle PICKLES) was an immediate favourite of mine, for its almost perfect construction. So imagine my surprise when I came across an eBay listing for PICKLES (or IN OLD VIENNA) that not only had the original creators Benedict, Wilson, and Crane, but now added to that list "edited by Alfred Wathall" and "dramatized by Frederick G. Johnson". That last name is important, because if you look at other entries here that deal with works by Johnson, you find a collection of scripts noted for their off-beat humour. Knowing that somehow he had been roped into working on a possible revision of this already remarkably comic piece was just too inticing.

And imagine my further surprise to see that the cover art had been drastically changed: a more expansive layout, a more detailed illustration... which turned out to be only one of the many alterations that went into this piece when Carl Fischer Inc bought the property from H.T. Fitzimmons. I dont know if Fischer bought the entire HTF catalogue or only selected works, but when they took this one, changes were clearly made.

Naturally, it's almost impossible to know where Wilson and Crane revised their work and where Johnson took over, but they're there. The alterations to the book are slight but develop the already outrageous characterizations even further: Jigo, the evil gypsy father, is now almost melodramatically evil, while his supposed daughter Ilona is even more of a victim of her father's mechanizations. But what's intruiging is how the Jones/Ilona subplot has now been pushed to the forefront, taking the focus off June and Arthur in the process. It's all done almost delicately, which suggests that Johnson didnt want to tinker too much for fear of incurring the wrath of Wilson and Crane for mangling a solid piece of work. But an already polished book is now even tighter.

But the music... Dear Reader, this is where we strike gold. The choral work is now far more layered, with much more parts work, and there's an amazing sextet at the end of the first act in which major themes are played on top of each other in the kind of blend that must have driven musical directors to nervous distraction in performance every night. Benedict's piano arrangements have been reset for four hands in one particular number in Act Two, and his parts work is now given more sweep and (dare I say it) near-operatic grandeur, with -- at one point -- ten harmonic vocal lines. The entire score has been amplified and enhanced; you can actually see that Benedict is taking more chances and, in the process, demanding more of his performers.

Because the original entry was written before I'd really gotten into this, you may remember that I commented that IN OLD VIENNA must have come from a professional production, even though there were no listings for it on IBDB.com. Having now seen so many examples of the kind of work this genre was capable of, I'm sure that this, like so many other gems in this collection, was written specifically for high school and community theatre production. But it's still the bar by which I measure new entries to this blog -- and with the receipt of this revision, the bar just went a little higher.

PUDDIN'HEAD THE FIRST

2010-05-23T06:26:00.001-07:00

An odd little piece that seems meant for the lower grades while designed for the sensibilities of the upper ones, PUDDIN'HEAD THE FIRST (1936), by Edward Bradley and Geoffrey O'Hara (with unattributed cover art), reads like a Danny Kaye sketch. The story is a simple and reliable one: ineffectual rulers whose kingdom is actually run by scheming couriers, and it's up to their son the Prince to set things aright.

Problem is, the Prince has been thrown in jail because he let the army stand out in the rain, thereby rusting their armour and making them unable to fight. But he's escaped.

His father, the titular King Puddin'head the First, wants to be seen as the wisest monarch in all the world, but instead he's dull-witted and easily swayed by his royal council — General Quakinboots, Count Pennypincher, and Doctor Pillstuffer (respectively, the army commander, the royal treasurer, and the royal physician). The play opens on the Annual Judgment Day, the one time in the year when the citizens of Lampoonia can ask for wrongs to be re-addressed. The King and Queen are asleep on the throne during the ceremony, so the court jester takes it on himself to awaken them. Because they're heavy sleepers, he has to be more than a little forceful about it, a gesture that sees him ordered to leave the country for presumption. But before he does, he stops to help Marianne, a peasant girl who has come to plead the case for Prince Roland.

Act Two takes us to the actual judging, and we see what an inept ruler Puddin'head is.

KING. Speak, Dame Woodenshoes. Has someone wronged you?

WOODENSHOES. Please, your Majesty, a big black crow ate all my corn.

K. That's easily fixed! We'll trap the crow, suff him, and let you take him to market to sell.

W. But a sneaking dog ate the crow.

K. Oh! Then the dog that ate the crow must guard your sheep.

W. But a ravenous wolf are the dog.

K. Then we'll skin the wolf that ate the dog that ate the crow that ate your corn, and make a nice warm rug.

W. But a wily huntsman killed the wolf.

K. Then we'll skin the huntsman... I mean, we'll let the huntsman who skinned the crow who ate the wolf... well, anyway, let him pay for your corn.

W. But the huntsman is in the dungeon for hunting the royal deer.

K. Hunting my deer?

W. Yes, your Majesty.

K. Well, it looks like I'm stuck again. I'll have to pay for your corn.

It seems everyone in the kingdom gets justice except him; all he gets (as he reminds us mournfully) is bran muffins.

And he really hates bran muffins because that's all he ever gets to eat.

He's about to shut things down when Marianne approaches the throne and asks for forgiveness for Prince Roland. The king refuses, saying that Roland was a traitor... and not only is he a traitor, he's escaped the dungeon, which makes him worse than a traitor. The jester steps forward and says he knows where to find the prince: all they have to do is consult the Magic Ruby, a gemstone so amazing that only the wise and good can see it.

Naturally, the king decides he can and rhapsodizes on its colour and sheen. The Queen decides she must have it made into a brooch. The royal council... well, the royal council is panic-stricken, especially when one soldier, who has also come seeking justice for his rusty appearance (from being left out in the rain, you know), reveals that it's not Roland who gave the order. Instead:

QUAKINBOOTS. Your Majesty, I did leave the Tin Soldier out in the rain, and I did blame Prince Roland. But it wasnt my fault entirely - Count Pennypincher —

PENNYPINCHER. Your Majesty, if I did... er... mislay the funs for the army's umbrellas, it was only because of the bad example set by Doctor Pillstuffer, who —

PILLSTUFFER. Your Majesty, even I have been a little bit careless with the appropriation for the royal groceries, I left enough money for bran muffins. And bran muffins make you wise!

Well, that last seals it, of course. And they have no choice but to confess:

Q. I've always been a model military man
Till guilty of the little carelessness.

PENNY. To guard the royal treasury was my one and only plan
Although I've taken samples I confess

PILL. And most peculiar notions
On pills and sour potions
Have dulled my sense of honour just a trifle

ALL THREE. But we swear by all the salt in the seven oceans
Temptation to betray you... much... we stifle.

His mission accomplished, the jester reveals himself to be Prince Roland, who's happily reunited with his parents. He asks that they make Marianne a princess so he can marry her, and all ends (well, for most anyway) happily ever after.

PUDDIN'HEAD is a giddy little show, no doubt about it, but one that's almost unapologetic in its insistence that power, no matter its original intent, corrupts. It's interesting that this was written during the early years of the Depression, when Roosevelt was coming down from the high of being swept into office, and cracks in the veneer of his administration — especially as regarding the implementation of the New Deal — were starting to show. The Supreme Court was overturning many of his initiatives, particularly the National Recovery Act, and he was finding defiance within his own party as he sought to expand the powers of the Executive Branch. I dont think it takes much to see PUDDIN'HEAD as a satire of the first years of the Roosevelt administration, given Bradley's and O'Hara's own very liberal leanings.

But the show, as earlier noted, plays like a 30s comedy sketch. Had it been written in a later time. Danny Kaye would have been all over it, but it's easy to see character actors like Guy Kibbee and Margaret Dumont as the King and Queen, with Alan Hale, Sig Ruman, and Adolfe Monjou as the council. With a bit more expansion, this would have made a perfect Vitaphone picture, and it makes one wonder how many of the writers of these little pieces had aspirations in that direction.

THE WISHING WELL

2010-05-15T15:39:00.001-07:00

Fairies and real estate double dealings form the core of THE WISHING WELL (1923), by that always remarkable team of May Hewes and John Wilson Dodge (with cover art by Cynthia Dodge). Even with their consistently unique construction -- a sprawling first act, a middling second act, and an abbreviated (yet exposition-heavy) third act -- this particular work is almost satisfying.

The basic story revolves around Lady Mary Donnell, an impoverished member of the Irish gentry. Her finances are such that, in desperation, she's unwittingly taken out a second mortgage on her estate through the connivings of Squire Matthew Baxby.

Her niece Noreen has met a gentleman vagabond named Terrence O'More -- who's actually Sir Terrence O'Grady, from a wealthy family. He's been in love with Mary since they were children, but she thinks he (the nobility version of Terrence) is just stringing her along. Terrence knows about Baxby's duplicity and tries to intervene, but to no avail. In the process, Mary discovers who Terrence is and what Baxby wants, and it's all just awful.

So, to try and remedy things, Terrence tells Noreen that there's an old wishing well in the garden and that fairies who live there will grant anything one wants. She wishes for a fortune, which Terrence easily supplies. The mortgages are paid, the estate stays in Mary's hands, and you'd think everything would be set up for the inevitable meeting of kindred spirits...

... but this is a Dodge creation, so we have to wade through a couple of pages of exposition at the top of the very short Act Three, in which Mary is convinced that Terrence is not engaged to someone else and really does love her. That little misunderstanding out of the way, we can move along to the utterly expected finale.

Now, on top of that is a second little story that involves the fairies... who do indeed live in the bottom of the garden. They pop out of the well, they weave through the various love affairs, and they mysteriously insert themselves into the finale. Beyond that, they serve nothing in propelling the plot, but that's okay, because the Dodges have given them some really lovely music to sing. The whole score is quite the delight, a mixture of old folk songs and original work that has an authentically Irish feel to it. I can even manage to overlook the clumsy construction (which would actually be rewoven into a more satisfying two-acter), because this ia arguably the Dodge's best work aside from the already discussed CRIMSON EYEBROWS. The three principals are all written with more than the usual juvenile operetta depth, and the supporting characters provide not only good comic relief as well as a bit of decent dramatic tension. The groomsman Dan and the maid Kathleen and the old married couple Darby and Nora steal the stage in every scene they appear in, and Baxby's lawyer Felix Murphy is perhaps a step or two from the classic melodrama villain, save with an Irish brogue.

A reader of the blog sent me a photo of a production of WISHING WELL from 1927 at Turlock Union High School. I have no doubt it was a lovely production if this one image is any indication.

Overall, WISHING WELL is a charming and surprisingly delicate work that could use just a bit of editing and rewrite to make it function a little more smoothly. Not the best the genre has to offer, but certainly far from being the worst. If anything, WISHING WELL demonstrates the innocent beauty that was the juvenile operetta, a gentle simplicity of purpose. Once again, I'm reminded that these little pieces will probably never see the boards again, not unless presented for camp value. Their earnestness would now be seen as silly and derisive...

... which really is a shame.

(Happy news: I've found a copy of the script to THE COUNT AND THE CO-ED, one of the musicals discussed in the "Orphans" post, and I'm really excited to see what this Morgan/O'Hara collaboration brings. Also, I came across a one-hour radio version of THE PINK LADY, by Ivan Caryll, performed by the Chicago Theatre of the Air in the 1930s. It's a truncated script, but enough that I can finally post something on that wonderfully lush and romantic work.)

AN UP TO DATE GRAND OPERA

2010-05-09T05:32:00.000-07:00

Attendant to the juvenile operetta was the glee club, usually at the college or university level. Although some remain today (and favour returning thanks to the television show Glee), the glee club is also quickly going the way of the musical dodo. Nevertheless, during its heyday, the traditional glee club — kind of a pop chorus — was the sort of genre that bore commissioned works, much as the juvenile operetta did.

One such insanely popular work was AN ACT OF UP TO DATE GRAND OPERA (1896) by the pseudonymous "Frank J. Smith" (in reality a reporter named H. B. Stevens), with a libretto adapted from a news article he wrote for the Chicago Record of an apartment fire.

A short work, only 30 pages long, UP TO DATE (written for the New York University Glee Club) chronicles the events in a fifth-floor walk-up apartment during a seemingly deadly blaze. I say "seemingly" because even though death appears eminent, the residents of the fifth floor act much more interested in singing about their plight than actually doing anything about it... like, you know, leaving...

... which, when you think about it, isnt that far off from what goes on in traditional grand opera.

Be that as it may, UP TO DATE takes place in the home of Mr. and Mrs. Tyler. He's reading a newspaper when she slowly and cautiously approaches.

MRS. TYLER. I think I smell smoke.

MR. TYLER. She thinks she smells smoke.

... which is repeated several times until he comes to a realization:

What does it mean?
What does it mean?
This smell of smoke may indicate
That we'll be burned.
O awful fate.

... which leads to an extended duet in which they rail against the Fates and describe, in somewhat gory detail, "writhing in the curling flames" and what a dreadful thing it is to "fry and sizz". Once this is well established, the chorus — their neighbours — join them. There's six more pages of singing that they really should go before they all die. Then a janitor shows up:

I come to inform you
That you must quickly fly
The fearful blaze is spreading
To tarry is to die
The floors underneath you
Are completely burned away
They cannot save the building
So now escape I pray

The chorus responds:

The flames are roaring loudly
Oh what a fearful sound
You can hear the people shrieking
As they leap and strike the ground
Ah horror overtakes me
And I merely pause to say
That the building's doomed for certain
So haste o haste away
La la la la la la la la la away
La la la la la la la la la away

With six more pages of telling us they must "haste away", they finally do, in a Grand March to the fire escapes.

Stevens knows just how long to carry his joke, and along the way, he snatches a bit of Puccini here, a bit of Verdi there, and a whole lot of Wagner over there. We get waltzes and mazurkas and polkas and dramatic recitatives and a concluding march, all thrown at us with such dizzying speed that the humour actually remains fresh all the way to the end. Lest you think it sounds a bit too relentless, about the best I can compare it to is the Grand Grand Festival Overture written by Sir Gerald Hoffnung in the 1950s for the London Philharmonic, as part of his many hilarious Hoffnung Interplanetary Music Festivals. The eight minute overture rattles through every possible cliché; just when you think that dominant seventh is going to resolve into a frenetically glorious ending... the piccolo picks up the main theme, which cascades through the rest of the orchestra like a tidal wave, and we're off once more. So it is here with UP TO DATE: every time you think "Okay, they're gonna cut out of here", a soloist interrupts to remind us that the building is on fire... and the chorus dissolves into yet another variation of "We really should leave".

UP TO DATE was wildly popular: there are records of its performance through to the 1920s, with a smattering into the 1930s. As far as I can tell, this was Stevens' only musical composition — and I say "composition" in the loosest sense, as today it would be better described as "sampling". Still, it's an engagingly easy piece that would stand well in a program of works by PDQ Bach or Spike Jones. Although Stevens scored it strictly for piano, I read through it wondering what it would sound like performed by the New York Philharmonic, with the residents sung by a fifty-piece chorus. Such a bloated monstrosity might put it waaaaaaaaaay over the edge, but it'd be fun driving it there.

THE LAND OF DREAMS COME TRUE

2010-05-02T18:16:00.001-07:00

Meant for performance by the lower grades, THE LAND OF DREAMS COME TRUE (1930), by Alan Campbell (with a typically gorgeous cover by Corina Melder-Collier), seems almost a paean to hallucinogenic drugs than anything else.

No, I'm serious. Here's the set-up: some children are out playing when one of them comes up with the idea of everyone going to the Land of Dreams Come True... which they have to do by injesting some "magic berries". Most of the children sensibly say no and run away in horror, while four of them go for it. They promptly pass out and are magically transported to the story book land of Dreams Come True, where they meet Mother Goose, the Old Woman Who Lived in a Shoe, Jack and Jill, and other recognizable characters. Everyone's partying down when a giant is heard bellowing "I smell the blood of an Englishman!" The storybook characters surround the children and put them back to sleep --

-- and they wake up back in the meadow, convinced they had a swell time and cant wait to do it again...

Hooked on magic berries.

At such an early age.

One can only imagine the personal stories they'll share at their twelve-step program.

Okay, as for the work itself... The intruiging thing about LAND OF DREAMS COME TRUE is that part of the score is written in swing time, which I'm sure must have made quite the impact on parents in 1930. It's not big band swing, obviously, but about as close as you can get with a piano, a juvenile "rhythm orchestra", and singers who are probably about eight years old. Still, it's the first time I've come across this kind of pop music used in something aimed at the lower grades.

And it doesnt stop with swing: Mother Goose's number at the top of Act Two, "Strange Adventures", has a distinctly blues feel to it — to the point where you can almost see her languishing on top of a piano lid, with a bright red scarf dangling from one hand. The polka "Here's the Way We Dance" has a relentless repetition to it that just adds to the overall disorienting feel of things in the Land of Dreams Come True. Campbell does have the obligatory waltz, but you cant help but notice how much he also looks to unexpected musical sources for his score.

Further, the script is surprising in its own distinct way. Consider this exchange, a piece of early 20th century peer pressure:

PEGGY. O Betty, are you really going to eat one of those berries? Arent you afraid?

BETTY. Of course I'm not scared. It's your turn now, so hurry.

PAUL. C'mon, Peggy; be a good sport.

(After much urging, PEGGY timidly swallows berry.)

ALL. Now then, we're ready. (ALL sit down on the ground.)

BOB. What do you suppose is going to happen now?

BETTY. I dont know. Let's wait and see.

One can only imagine as well what ringleader Betty must have done to this pack in later years, when they became her "people". Interestingly enough, when the Giant appears (offstage) in Act Two, it's Big Butch Betty that panics first, crying that she wants to go home.

A bad acid trip, man.....

It's curious, in a way, at how strange and bizarre the operettas for the younger grades can be. Like AT THE RAINBOW'S EDGE and LAZY TOWN, THE LAND OF DREAMS COME TRUE has this near-Fellini-esque surreality to itself: moods shift almost frenetically from happy to morose, bleak to mirthful, without any real reason, and legions of characters roam about the stage for no purpose other than to give everyone a part, no matter how minimal. Whether or not they have anything to do with the play is almost irrelevant; instead, the writers of these mini-extravaganzas seemed to just pull characters at random, as though writing by stream of consciousness.

To their credit, there's a certain deranged joy to these that gets lost as you advance into middle-school and high school works. The stories become more structured; the scores more predictable. But at the lower levels, it seemed like anything goes... even to the point of Mother Goose performed in the style of Helen Morgan in a drug-induced dream.

THE SLEEPING QUEEN

2010-04-28T16:50:00.000-07:00

Another curiosity, this one demonstrates, as my friend Randy says, that "sometimes the story of the object is more interesting that the object itself". Such truly is the case of THE SLEEPING QUEEN (1865) by Michael Balfe, with a libretto by H. B. Farnie, and published by Ditson. There's no copyright, but despite the antique image on the cover, it looks to have been published some time in the 1930s. Something about that cover in a moment.

Born in Ireland in 1808, Balfe is best known for BOHEMIAN GIRL (1843), although he composed almost thirty additional works, few of which have been recorded, even in excerpt. A noted performer and singer in his own right as well as composer, Balfe performed across Europe before returning to London and settling down to write his operas. His first major success was FALSTAFF (1838) -- which was only recently revived for the first time since the work's premiere.

He was a quick yet sensitive composer, able to turn out an entire opera in as little as seven weeks, and his compositions were universally praised in their time. There were moments that, in historical retrospect, must have seemed like synchronistic greatness... such as the 1862 revival of BOHEMIAN GIRL in Rouen -- conducted by a young Massenet and performed by Celestine Galli-Marie, who went on to create the roles of Mignon and Carmen.

Designed as a short one-act for a cast of four accompanied by a piano and harmonium, THE SLEEPING QUEEN was a commissioned work, for the Opera di Camera, a small company operated by German Reed, a university chum. It's difficult even now to understand why Balfe would have taken the commission, because it's so wildly out of synch with the rest of his works... so much so that he rewrote it some years later as a full evening's work with chorus and full orchestration, replacing the spoken dialogue with proper recitatives.

So... what is this first draft attempt about? A queen is being pressured by her regent to marry the King of Spain, even though her heart lays elsewhere, with the son of one of the regent's many political foes. Thanks to her maid, who has been stringing the regent along with the tempted possility of an affair, the queen is able to finally marry the man she loves. It's short, only 76 pages, and moves at a pretty brisk pace over what I would gather to be about only 45 minutes, an hour max. The score is High Romantic, with some beautiful parts work for the ensemble. Stylistically, it screams the work of Balfe's mentor, Rossini, and I can only imagine that the full-out version screams even louder.

This chamber version has never been performed professionally (the proposed production by Opera dei Camera never took place, thanks to a falling out with a short-fused director) nor recorded, although the recent revival of interest in Balfe may result in it at some point.

As for the edition itself... well, it comes from Ditson, which published the previously mentioned RADIO MAID and physically follows their usual low standard of presentation. It looks like Ditson simply bought the chamber version and printed it wholecloth, without even bothering to do anything in the way of an edit. Everything -- the dialogue, the music, even the title page -- looks like a relic from the 19th century, so I have little doubt the publisher did naught to make it presentable, which is pretty much par for the course for Ditson anyway. It seems such an odd addition to their catalogue of juvenile operettas, but no one ever said Ditson was all that bright a company in the first place. Honestly, I wonder if any school ever tackled this: the role of the queen demands a near-coluratura soprano, and the maid's "ribbon" aria has some very tricky elements in its timing, with a rattle of 32nd notes preceded by a host of grace notes, which makes it appear to sound like nonstop hiccups. Colleges and universities might have tackled this -- but a high school? Very unlikely.

The copy I have also has the additional oddity that someone, at some point, carefully translated the lyrics into what looks like Czech. Not the dialogue, mind you, just the arias and ensembles. Perhaps the written text was replaced by a complete overhaul? I have no idea, good Reader, although it adds to the mystery of the object itself.

THE CHINA SHOP

2010-04-18T02:14:00.001-07:00

THE CHINA SHOP (1922) comes from the pen of one of my favourites in this genre, Arthur Penn. I've commented on the Gilbert and Sullivan resonances of his work in CAPTAIN CROSSBONES and YOKOHAMA MAID. This one doesn't disappoint in furthering that conceit, but it has more than a few problems all its own.

We start with a brief prologue, sung by two "chinamen" before the curtain:

A new Chinese operetta
We present to you tonight
The scene is laid in gay Ping Pong
The story isnt very long
In this Chinese operetta
We play for your delight
We'll charm your ears with many a tune
And finish up with a honeymoon
In ths Chinese operetta
We present to you tonight

Now the Chinese cannot boast much music
And what they have sounds queer
It's the kind of music that might make you sick
If we sang much of it here
So if the tunes we sing you
Dont sound very much Chinese
You will surely like them better
In this Chinese operetta
For they're likelier to please

Yes, it's sounding pretty insensitive right off the bat, but remember, this is 1922 we're talking about. Not exactly a time when anyone was let off lightly for being "different".

We open in a backroom behind Fat Sing's shop. The trade is exceedingly brisk (although exactly what he sells is -- and remains -- a mystery), most of it conducted by his son Sing Fong. Fat Sing is at the point in life when he realizes he cant take his wealth with him when he dies, and his son consoles him with the suggestion that he leave it to someone... like, maybe, his son.

FAT SING. Your suggestion is a good one, and like most good suggestions it will be ignored.

No, rather than spoil his son with wealth that would make work unnecessary, Fat Sing has decided to leave his fortune to the Ping Pong Orphan Asylum. Sing Fong none too gracefully accepts this, reminding his father that upon his demise, Sing Fong will become an orphan and might perhaps benefit, "if only indirectly", from his father's legacy.

This is interrupted by the entrance of Mush Lush, an avowed woman hater, and Hoy Tee Toy, the woman he wants as wife.

MUSH LUSH. I pointed out to her that love and hate being only a step removed from each other, she could naturally hope to overtake the former by walking briskly.

Hoy Tee Toy sends him on his way, then turns her attentions to Sing Fong, telling him that she has brought three lovely young ladies he might consider for his own wife, her "three belles". His choice is set aside when an impoverished fisherman enters, looking to sell a doll he has outside. The doll, as it turns out, is the lovely Lotus Blossom, the fisherman's niece, and Sing Fong is immediately smitten. He takes his new acquisition into the kitchen just before we meet Juscot Karfair, a "reformer" from Medicine Hat, Kentucky. Through him, Lotus Blossom realizes she's in love with Sing Fong and insists he become her husband. Sing Fong is more than happy to do this, until his father reminds him that she's penniless and Sing Fong is penniless, "a speedy cure for love".

But it gets even worse for Sing Fong: his father is leaving for points unknown. He informs Sing Fong that he'll tell everyone that his son is the heir apparent to his fabulous wealth, just for a laugh. Thinking he's rich beyond all expectation and therefore highly influential, the city fathers want Sing Fong to become the new chief magistrate. Although it's not clear exactly what, this puts another obstacle in his hoped for marriage to Lotus Blossom, who, weeping, returns to her uncle's shanty by the sea.

Act Two is a year later. Sing Fong is celebrating his first anniversary as magistrate with a garden party. No one understands why he hasnt married in all that time (considering they've all done their best to throw every available woman at him). Further, he's issued a decree that any heiresses who are still unmarried by sundown must leave Ping Pong in banishment. Hoy Tee Toy tells the three belles that one of them must land Sing Fong that night. But even that hope is dashed when his secretary reveals the magistrate's latest decree:

Sing Fong will marry nobody
Good bad or sick or healthy
Except an orphan who must be
Incontinently wealthy

("Incontinently"?)

Sing Fong enters, in a truly lousy mood, and immediately dismisses the belles because none of them are orphans. Now, why is he doing this, you ask? Because he wants to set things up so he can never marry: he's still in love with Lotus Blossom, who, true, is an orphan, but a penniless one. All seems lost until Wun Tun, one of Sing Fong's political associates, makes a marvelous discovery:

WUN TUN. Your illustrious father, who disappeared a year ago, was drowned a month later on a voyage to a far province. We kept the news from you at the time because we only learned about it an hour ago.

SING FONG. That was very thoughtful of you.

WUN TUN. Your father, as is now known to all, left every yen to the Ping Pong Orphan Asylum. This institution has been unoccupied for ten months at which time the last orphan was married off to a lonely widower. Consequently, no one felt concern when the Asylum itself burned to the ground.

Sing Fong hopes this means his father's wealth will revert to him, but Wun Tun cuts that off, telling him that the terms of the will dictate it must be divided amoung the indigent orphans of Ping Pong. For the last hour, apparently, they've been looking, trying to find these indigent orphans, with limited success. The parents of Ping Pong were all extremely healthy, and what orphans there were appear to have married well. The only one left is... Lotus Blossom, who now in addition to being an orphan is filthy rich. Free to fulfill his own decree, Sing Fong makes sure everyone, even the belles, gets married on the spot. So with much rejoicing (well, sorta: something on that in a moment), the curtain falls.

Now. What to make of this addled little play...

As noted, it's from 1922, later than CAPTAIN CROSSBONES and YOKOHAMA MAID (as well as the to-be-discussed LASS OF LIMRICK TOWN), and you would thnk that Penn's satirical outlook would have sharpened. Instead, the humour is dry to the point of arid, and this is the first piece of his I've encountered in which the plotting seems, well, slapdash, with a huge hole right in the centre. There's no reason to prevent Sing Fong from marrying Lotus Blossom at the end of the first act: his ascension to chief magistrate doesnt really change things for the two of them. But without creating this obstacle, Penn doesnt have a second act, so I guess it was just put in there with a take-it-or-leave-it attitude.

And that seems to permeate the entire show. It has a few great lines, but you almost get the feeling that Penn's tired of doing it all. As far as I can tell, this is the last show he wrote solo: everything from here on out was done in collaboration. Granted, he worked with some major names in the genre, like Geoffrey Morgan, whose individual creativities inspired him musically. But CHINA SHOP appears the work of a man about to give up. Unlike the wit of CROSSBONES or YOKOHAMA, this one tries far too hard, with too many poorly executed puns and too many jokes that want desperately to sound funny... when they just arent. The social satire we saw in the previous works is practically non-existant, and the characterizations are flatter than the two-dimensional stereotypes they hope to evoke. On a later reading, I thought, okay, maybe he wants everyone to be as bland as possible, perhaps to make the show into some sort of turn of the century commedia play where the performers are free to go as big as possible. But that doesnt work either.

Then there's the curious character of Karfair, the reformer from Kentucky. He doesnt really move the plot anywhere, and yet somehow this third-tier character gets the finale, a reprise of his earlier song "My Kentucky Home". It's slightly bewildering, as though Penn shoved him in in the last draft as yet another attempt at hoping to find something funny to say. I daresay a director today would find a way to eliminate him altogether, by reassigning his lines and incorporating songs from other works by Penn to fill in the gaps, thus leaving room for a finale about, you know, the happy couple, like it should be.

Musically, his work is just as good as ever, with some lovely ballads for Lotus Blossom and a some musically amusing ensemble work for the Three Belles. The first act finale hints at what Penn no doubt hoped to accomplish, with choral writing that could have come from Iolanthe or Patience. But the rest of it simply dies on the vine. I suspect that, in contrast to his other works, CHINA SHOP was not a wild success.

Curiously, Penn dedicates this work to the inhabitants of the "Island of Mantsees". A Google search failed to shed any light on where this might be: the only reference I could find was in a poem by Whittier, who appears to treat it as a metaphor. Maybe this was some kind of inside joke?

SUNBONNETS AND OVERALLS

2010-04-14T12:27:00.000-07:00

This exceptionally charming book dates from 1914 and is the work of Etta Craven Hogate and Eulalie Osgood Grover, with music by Isadora Martinez and wondrous little illustrations by Bertha Corbett Melcher (who created the characters). It's a combination "dramatic reader" and operetta for perhaps first- or second-graders and comes from a series of works by Hogate and Melcher about the Sunbonnet Babies and Overalls Boys. The lessons in the reader, for example, are adapted from The Sunbonnet Babies' Primer, The Overalls Boys, and The Sunbonnet Babies in Holland. Hogate and Melcher collaborated for many years on this series, taking the Sunbonnet Babies and the Overalls Boys to Switzerland, Italy, and other parts of the world as geography studies for second-graders. Inspired by Kate Greenway's drawings of little girls, the Sunbonnet Babies and Overalls Boys took the appearance to a cleaner, more graphic dimension, with a simpler line and a simple colour palatte.

The look of the characters was almost a mainstay for three decades and continues on even now, albeit in adaptations. Still, it's always little girls with their heads and faces completely hidden by enormous sunbonnets. Melcher painted thousands of these little images, releasing some as postcards during the height of the Sunbonnet craze in the mid 1900s. Sunbonnet figures seemed to be everywhere - on postcards, calendars, even on fine china. It was only natural that illustrators like Dorothy Dixon and Bernhardt Wall would jump on the bandwagon (in later years, Wall would claim he was first) and produce knockoffs, including Wall's 1906 postcards and his 1907 books Bennie and Jennie and The Sunbonnet Twins, images from which became part of quilters' standard catalogue until well into the 1930s.

The characters never completely left the American psyche — even as late as the 1960s, the little girls were still around, this time reborn as Holly Hobbie. By the time that character had passed on, craftspeople were re-discovering the original characters and putting them back into use, even as late as 2005.

What distinguishes the original series of books is that it's the first "early reader" to have continuing characters throughout the text, as well as to be the first to use full colour printing and a larger, easier-to-read font size.

The playlets themselves are, as one might expect, very simple works -- a girl is crying because her dolly carriage is broken, and a boy fixes it for her; or an invitation to go to the store in Dad's wagon is threatened by the loss of a sunbonnet. What I found interesting about the text, tho, is that the range of required vocabulary seems a great deal wider and demands more than, say Dick and Jane's exploits.

The music adapts simple folk tunes of the times, but Hogate's choreographic requirements are, in spots, pretty darn pushy if she expects them to be performed by first graders: a great deal of precision marching and walking and strolling and skipping that would keep the stage in constant motion. And considering that the girls' faces are always to be kept hidden (since that's part of the Sunbonnet Baby look), I have little doubt that there were plenty of performance accidents.

Still, it's fascinating to see the genesis of such an iconic image.

AUNT DRUSILLA'S GARDEN

2010-04-11T08:14:00.000-07:00

There are some titles that, for whatever reason, I just avoided picking up — no real reason, actually. I suppose more than anything it was looking at the operetta cover and thinking, "Sheessshh, it's like a dozen or so I already own; how many of these do I have to have?"

Then I give in, buy the damn thing — and lo and behold it comes with a surprise.

AUNT DRUSILLA'S GARDEN (1927), by George Murray Brown (who wrote MEET ARIZONA) and John S. Fearis (with a really lovely cover illustration by Doris Holt Hauman), arrived with a treat: a stage manager's guide, something I'd not seen before. In essence, the stage manager's guide is everything you need to know to put the show on without the benefit of a designer or a choreographer or a costumer or even a director. It's all laid out for you, step by torturous step. This one, put together by Clara Elizabeth Whips, contains almost everything, as you'll see below.

But let's go through the operetta itself first. Nelda, who ives in a city tenement with her large family, has been taken in by a maiden aunt who lives on a largish estate in the country. Problem is, Aunt Drusilla has a bit of a reputation as a dragon with the children in the village, so Nelda is left pretty much on her own yet again. She's allowed in her aunt's famous garden and to school, but that's about it.

The last day of school, Nelda gambles on her aunt's largesse and invites her school friends into the garden. Things predictably go awry, and Aunt Drusilla starts to throw everyone out, then proceeds to rip Nelda a new one.

AUNT D. Well, I never! PRU, COME QUICK! The yard is full of strange children, and I who never let a strange child inside of that gate!

AUNT P. What a sight! How'd they all get in?

NELDA. Please dont send them away! I only asked hem in to learn their names and get acquainted.

AUNT D. Stop right there, Nelda Alvenia. When I want you get acquainted, I'll pick out your acquaintances myself.

But she ultimately allows them to stay (just this once!) as long as they watch out for the signs and dont make a mess, all the while reminding them of how much different (and better!) things were when she was a child. Unfortunately, tho, someone picks a flower and someone else steps into a flower bed and things are just awful all around and Aunt Drusilla throws everyone out like she should have done originally and Nelda cries and Aunt Drusilla tells her to man up as she stomps off in high dudgeon.

The kids all come back and tell Nelda they know it's not her fault her aunt is a terror, but she has to shove them all out just before Aunt Drusilla comes back to tend to her garden. Suddenly, a softball comes flying in and, breaking a plant in the process, lands at Dru's feet.

Aunt Drusilla is not amused.

She decides to keep the ball as a punishment, and the boys swear revenge. Once Drusilla and Nelda leave for town, the boys invade. They're just about to ruin the garden when one of them smells smoke coming from the kitchen. Breaking a window, he gets inside to find the stove on fire. The boys quickly put it out, just as Drusilla comes home. Realizing she misjudged the children, she invites them all back on the following Monday for a lawn party.

Act Two is the party itself, with much singing and dancing. Things are going just spiffy when the local postman drops by with a letter from a long-lost uncle, who's made a fortune out west and has returned to put Nelda's family into the lap of luxury, which means she'll be going home.

Aunt Drusilla is sad. But Nelda cheers her up with a masque in which all the children come out wearing flower costumes of one kind or another, because

In the city's noisy street
Gardens have no chance to grow
There the people seldom meet
Pretty flowers they'd like to know
Yet a garden each may tend
Finding joy from hour to hour
If he thinks of every friend
As a rare and valued flower
Everyone may own a garden
If he chooses friends for flowers

Nelda then arranges everyone in a perfectly lovely stage picture and announces, "There, isnt this a nice garden? And we will call it Aunt Drusilla's Garden!" Cue the finale music, please.

Okay, you can see why I might be loathe to put this in the collection. It's meant mostly for the lower grades, with all unison singing — and to be ruthlessly honest, it's just not that good. Little wonder it shows up so much on eBay and some of the other auction sites. But what distinguished this particular copy, dear Reader was...

... the Stage Manager's Guide. These are unbelievably rare, because they would be the first thing to be tossed after a production was finished. They contain detailed notes about the set and costumes, as well as step-by-step instructions for the choreography and particular stage moments. Clara Whips, who prepared this one, suggests a cast of no less than 50 and then lays out how to wrangle -- er, handle -- everyone.

This spread, for example, demonstrates what the local teacher should do for some of the musical numbers, including the geometry of the movement. If you notice, it's all very tightly written, much like we saw with THIRTY MINUTES WITH THE MIKADO. Whips also adds to the cast with a few creative additions of her own, such as the Wild Rose, which she inserts into the masque as an opportunity for a strong dancer to have a solo moment. Whips also extends the number and type of flowers presented by the children, as well as adding an entire additional panto, involving butterflies, fairy sprites, rain drops, a few bees, and the West Wind. I dont know that such augmentation was the standard operating procedure for the Guides, but it'd be interesting to find out.

Whips prepared costume sketches for the masque, with very detailed notes on execution, with an emphasis on the use of crepe paper and cardboard. The sketches, of course, show performers substantially older than the lower-grade children who would actually be performing this. The colour work was done by the previous owner, a Miss "H", who was in charge of the "drills". The cover notes that it's IMPORTANT (with a double underscore) that this be "returned to desk". Throughout the script, there are several pencil notations of cast placement, and it shows that Miss "H" followed the Guide almost to the letter. Good for her!

PIRATES OF PENZANCE

2010-04-07T18:02:00.000-07:00

Now you're probably thinking, "PIRATES OF PENZANCE? Huh? What's that got to do with this place?"

Well, nothing actually -- and yet, in its own way, everything.

See, here's the thing: Gilbert and Sullivan had a terribly time with copyright thievery. Their shows would open to rave revues in London, but before they could bring a production to the US, half a dozen producers here would have already stolen the material and put it on the boards in blatantly unauthorized (and yet, given the copyright laws of the time, perfectly legal) productions. G&S simply never got a chance when it came to productions in America...

... until PIRATES. Shrewdly, they decided to premier it in the US first, obtain the US copyright on the work, then take it back to London for its proper premiere at D'Oyly Carte.

So, in 1880, New York got to see PIRATES before London, and it was, of course, a sensation. Almost immediately, two national tours were released -- both under the very careful supervision of G&S. It was only then that they sailed home.

However, between the US premiere in 1880 and the London premiere in 1882, they tinkered a bit with the script and the score. Not in huge ways: a slightly rewritten scene here, an almost barely reworked song there. The biggest change comes at the end of the second act, when the ensemble sings the amazing chorale about Poetry. The pirates are revealed to be all lords gone astray. "What, all?" asks the Major-General. "Well, nearly all," replies the King. This exchange doesnt exist in the official playscript, and I was a little surprised to find it intact in the edition of the score I now have. Looking further, it seems that the copy I have is marked "Authorized Copyright Edition", with the date 1880 -- so it seems that I have managed to acquire one of the rehearsal scores used by one of the very first national tours, one printed specifically for the purpose of covering the copyright needs. It was owned by Lois Jane Barth, who played the part of Ruth, but sadly I cant find out anything more about Ms. Barth.

As I read through it one night, a few other things emerged: a different overture, for example. Not different in big ways, but still, different. Some different phrasings in Frederic's "Stay, Ladies, Stay". Taken all together, it wouldnt so much be like looking at a different show so much as it would be that nagging sense of "Okay, it sounds almost right, but why does it feel... not quite right?"

It's almost impossible to express my excitement at finding this. I've always loved PIRATES, ever since seeing it in Central Park with Kevin Kline (who will always be my Pirate King) -- a rowdy, boistrous production that no doubt would have made G&S giggle a bit themselves. But to find the prototype score... reader, you honestly have no idea what visceral pleasure this gives me. The book itself is in gorgeous shape for something 130 years old, and it's almost joyous to see these woodblock printed pages with their carefully reduced piano versions of "Climbing over rocky mountain" and "When a felon's not engaged in his employment". This version doesnt even try to emulate the sound of the orchestrations -- it's about as bare bones as you can get, and I have no doubt it's exactly as Sullivan originally wrote it on his piano.

THE SINGER OF NAPLES

2010-04-07T11:59:00.000-07:00

A surprisingly good piece of work, THE SINGER OF NAPLES (1928), by Cynthia Dodge and May Hewes Dodge, seems to inform, right off the bat, why some of the other work by the Dodges is so frustrating. If you look at other titles by May Hewes, you'll find her husband's name attached — and in every case save one, the dramatic construction is, to be kind, problematic. A huge first act. A middling-sized second. And a very brief but exposition-intense third, where everything you really need to know to resolve the story is crammed into two pages of near breathless dialogue between minor characters.

Not so with THE SINGER OF NAPLES, I'm happy to say. While it's not the best the genre has to offer, it's well-paced and solidly written, in terms of both music and dialogue. But what surprised me more than anything was the maturity of the story.

We're in Naples, where a family of itinerate street singers, led by the patriarch Nicola, are engaged in their profession outside the garden town house of one Countess of Tristiani, who's well known for taking handsome young singers under her wing (as well as under other things) as she propels their careers. Nicola's foster son Guido attracts her attention, despite the worries expressed by Nicola's daughter Gabriella that Guido will forget his musical roots — and her, although she never quite says anything about the latter. After all, they were just childhood friends, and of course he's completely blind to her attention.

Still, Guido is dazzled by the Countess' attention and the prospects of fame, and when we see him again two years later, he's prepping for his debut at La Scala as Pagliacci. He's wrangled a promise from the Countess that if his debut is successful, she'll marry him. Once more, Gabriella tries to talk some sense into him, but he's a bit too caught up in the diva lifestyle to pay attention.

As we might expect, the debut is a disaster. His voice is ruined. The Countess, now no longer interested in her plaything, ignores him and moves on to yet another protégé, and Guido returns to Nicola and Gabriella a sadder but wiser man... albeit with a bit of a secret: the damage done to his voice was not permanent. He can still sing, but now he knows who his real audience is — and who the woman is who truly loves him.

Okay, these days, this would come across as sappy and sentimental... but kindly notice some of the themes running through this. A rich woman using younger (and much poorer) men as sexual toys: it's never baldly stated, of course, but certainly suggested broadly enough. The idea that riches arent always measured by wealth, something no doubt caused by the riot of bubble money just before the crash of the Depression. Even more amazing, there are no cultural or ethnic stereotypes in this play — instead, we have fully-drawn characters. Even the Countess is portrayed as less a facile villain than a woman who is, for her own reasons, simply incapable of a relationship. Her intentions are all well-meaning — Cynthia Dodge goes almost out of her way to make that plain — but she just cant find the right fit. As such, the gossip spoken behind her back comes off as cruel — and as a result, a frighteningly honest portrayal for the times of the results of meanspirited rumour.

THE SINGER OF NAPLES also distinguishes itself by being, at times, a full fledged opera rather than an operetta. There are long stretches in which the score almost flows from one character's song to the next, with no dialogue inbetween. The sixteen-page opening number (remember: most are only five or six) is divided across the stage for three distinct groups, a pretty nifty piece of construction, with some credible parts work that must have been a challenge for its inexperienced performers. Guido has a couple of truly lovely ballads that do indeed sound Napolitano, and Gabriella has one heart-breaking solo in the second act. And there are a couple of vicious little comedy numbers — one in particular on the importance of style and au courant clothing if one wants to succeed in life — that remind us that we're not watching some pleasant little show about happy Italian streetfolk. Rather, THE SINGER OF NAPLES comes across as a shockingly solid drama: predictable, to be sure, but with far more depth than your usual high school operetta fare.

I'm still not sure what, if any, relationship there might have been between Cynthia, May, and John, but I'm pretty certain it was more than just a coincidence of a last name. Cynthia was also an accomplished illustrator whose work appears on the covers of some of the Dodge's other efforts, and she was also a composer in her own right — albeit one that specialized in musicals for much younger performers (As noted in this blog earlier, she did all the work on WHAT'S THE MATTER WITH SALLY). I suspect she was possibly John's sister or cousin, given the time lines in which the various Dodges' work appears, but there's nothing to substantiate that. The one huge loss on this particular copy of SINGER is that the front cover has been hacked apart and pasted on card stock, no doubt because of the wear and tear of rehearsal.

Two months of a gap?

2010-03-23T08:56:00.000-07:00

Okay, my apologies for that. But the pickings have been a tad slim of late, so dont be surprised if the blog starts to wander a bit from strictly high school stuff to more and more into professional level material from the same era. I already have, to a degree, but we might be wandering even more afield. There are all kinds of little treasures out there, similar to the unjustly ignored works of Arthur Penn and Charles Cadman, that could use a little dusting off. So be prepared for anything in the coming months.

MUTT AND JEFF

2010-01-10T07:29:00.001-08:00

Not a high school musical or juvenile operetta, this songbook from MUTT AND JEFF (1919) was one of those rare finds that speaks to a culture long past and long lost.

Only people "of a certain age" will remember Mutt and Jeff, two cartoon characters from the early part of the 20th century who managed to hang on, in various forms, until about 1960 or so. In its first iteration, in 1907 by Bud Fisher, it was arguably the very first newspaper comic strip to feature recurring characters on a daily basis. From Wikipedia:

Under its initial title, A. Mutt debuted on November 15, 1907 on the sports pages of the San Francisco Chronicle. The featured character had previously appeared in sports cartoons by Fisher, but was unnamed. Fisher had approached his editor, John P. Young about doing a regular strip as early as 1905, but was turned down. According to Fisher, Young told him, "It would take up too much room, and readers are used to reading down the page, and not horizontally."

This strip focused on a single main character, until the other half of the duo appeared on on March 27, 1908. It appeared only in the Chronicle, so Fisher did not have the extended lead time that syndicated strips require. Episodes were drawn the day before publication, and frequently referred to local events that were currently making headlines, or to specific horse races being run that day. A 1908 sequence about Mutt's trial featured a parade of thinly-disguised caricatures of specific San Francisco political figures, many of whom were being prosecuted for graft.

On June 7, 1908, the strip moved off the sports pages and into the SF Examiner where it became a national hit, subsequently making Fisher the first big celebrity of the comics industry. Fisher had taken the precaution of copyrighting the strip in his own name, facilitating the move to King Features and making it impossible for the Chronicle to continue the strip using another artist.

A dispute between Fisher and King Features arose in 1913, and Fisher moved his strip on September 15, 1915, to Wheeler Syndicate (later Bell Syndicate), who gave Fisher 60% of the gross revenue, an enormous income in those times. Hearst responded by launching a lawsuit which ultimately failed. By 1916, Fisher was earning in excess of $150,000 a year. By the 1920s, merchandising and growing circulation had increased his income to an estimated $250,000.

In 1918, Mutt and Jeff became a Sunday strip, and as success continued, Fisher became increasingly dependent on assistants to produce the work. Fisher hired Billy Liverpool and Ed Mack, artists Hearst had at one point groomed to take over the strip, who would do most of the artwork. Other assistants on the strip included Ken Kling, George Herriman, and Maurice Sendak while still in high school.

Augustus Mutt is a tall, dimwitted racetrack character - a fanatic horse-race gambler who is motivated by greed. Mutt has a wife, known only as Mrs. Mutt (Mutt always referred to her as "M'love") and a son named Cicero. Mutt first encountered the half-pint Jeff, an inmate of an insane asylum who shares his passion for horseracing, in 1908. They appeared in more and more strips together until the strip abandoned the horse-race theme, and concentrated on Mutt's other outlandish, get-rich-quick schemes. Jeff usually served as a (sometimes unwilling) partner. Jeff was short, bald as a billiard ball, and wore mutton chop sideburns. He has no last name, stating his name is "just Jeff — first and last and always it's Jeff." He has a twin brother named Julius. They look so much alike that Jeff, who can't afford to have a portrait painted, sits for Julius, who is too busy to pose. Rarely does Jeff change from his habitual outfit of top hat and suit with wing collar. Friends of Mutt and Jeff have included Gus Geevem, Joe Spivis and the English Sir Sidney. Characteristic lines and catch phrases that appeared often during the run of the strip included "Nix, Mutt, nix!", "For the love of Mike!" and "Oowah!"

In addition to the comic strip, MUTT AND JEFF also appeared, from 1911 on, as a series of over 300 silent animated cartoons, making it the second-longest running series for theatrical release (The longest is KRAZY KAT. The more obvious contender POPEYE only had 120 meant for theatres; the rest of its run was designed specifically for television.). In 1910, a film company in New Jersey also produced live-action single-reel versions at the then-phenomenal rate of one per week.

With this kind of wild success, it shouldnt be surprising that the national fad should show up on the stage as well, produced by Gus Hill, who was primarily known for his "Big City Minstrel Shows". The musical, about which next to nothing is known, was a touring show, with a libretto by Frank Tannehill, Jr, and Bud Fisher and appears to have put the boys into a revue-like mosh that was more about pretty girls and "songs of the South" than anything else. According to the Internet Broadway Datatbase, it never played New York.

The sixteen-page songbook features seven numbers (vocal line only, no accompaniment) and almost a dozen pages of ads for such things as "fun-making jokes and tricks" (like explosive matches and imitation bed bugs), books on how to write love letters, and "200 stage jokes", an omnibus of vaudeville jokes with a cover image that looks remarkably like MAD's Alfred E. Newman. There's also a page of "rib rocking riddles", most of which are bad puns (The two largest ladies in the US? Miss Ouri and Mrs. Sippi.) and some of which are now culturally obscure ("Why are Addison's works like a looking-glass? Because in them we see the Spectator."). The songs themselves are typical Tin Pan Alley fare and just about as memorable... with one notable exception: this is the show that gave us "I'm Forever Blowing Bubbles".

From one of the blog readers

2009-12-18T21:09:00.001-08:00

I received an email from someone this past week, with the photo at left and the notation: "Mabel Gonsalves, playing Hilda in a circa 1925 production at Hughson High School in Stanislaus County, California". I gather the boy with her is playing Franz, with the two of them in a pose meant to suggest the song "There'll Be Others".

Ms. Gonsalves' daughter has also provided some great images from a 1927 production of THE WISHING WELL, which I'll discuss in an upcoming post.

Many, many thanks to this lovely lady for sending these on.

WISH LIST

2009-10-21T04:52:00.000-07:00

While I continue to pour through websites that carry these things, there are a few I'm actively looking for, so if you have a lead on any of the following titles, let me know.

ASK THE PROFESSOR (Lee/Clark)
MAGAZINE PRINCESS (Lee/Clark)
HOLLYWOOD BOUND (Wilson/Bradley)
DON ALFONSO'S TREASURE (Morgan/Penn)
TUNE IN (Bradley/Wilson)
A NAUTICAL KNOT (Inch) -- just the libretto; I have the score
MAM'ZELLE TAPS (Penn) -- again, just the libretto, please
THE GOLDEN TRAIL (Cadman)

Should you have any others not necessarily on this list, let's hear about it.

SNOW WHITE AND THE SEVEN DWARFS

2009-10-05T15:21:00.001-07:00

SNOW WHITE AND THE SEVEN DRAWFS (1938) comes to us from the team of Theodosia Paynter and G. A. Grant-Schaefer, whose work we've reviewed before. Paynter was a recognizable name in the genre as well, mostly in adaptations of fairy tales and popular novels such as Tom Sawyer (an adaptation to be discussed later). Designed for a mixture of middle- and high-schoolers, SNOW WHITE is remarkable for the fact that the lead doesnt really appear onstage until Act Two.

It's sometime in the Middle Ages, and Queen Winnifred has recently given birth to the Princess Snow White. But upon the princess's introduction to the world (in the form of a large doll), the harbinger of death, Frosty Fate, appears and tells the queen her hour has come. She in turn tells her husband to wait seven years, then to marry again so that Snow White will have a mother.

Unfortunately, the king's grief led him to some pretty bad judgment, if the second scene is any indication. It's seven years later, and he's married, per his dead wife's wishes — but to a vain and pompous woman named Tiger Lily, who has a magic mirror that tells her, yes, she's the fairest of them all.

Well, until the mirror meets Snow White, then all bets are off. And of course Queen Tiger Lily is just furious when the mirror tells her that she's now the runner-up in the kingdom's beauty contest. So Tiger Lily does what any sensible-yet-egocentric ruler would do: she hires a terrible woodsman (who, as he tells the audience, is just pretending to be terrible — he's actually a rather nice guy) who is to take Snow White into the forest and return... without her.

He's no sooner gone than the King shows up, wondering where his daughter's gotten to. Queen Tiger Lily tells him she was looking a little pale, so she sent Snow White into the forest for a little walk.

KING. What? Alone? Do you not know that the forest is infested with wild beasts?

QUEEN. Oh, she wasnt alone. A kind and gentle woodsman, who knows the forest well, accompanied her.

KING. What woodsman?

QUEEN. I have no idea; I never saw him before.

KING. You sent Snow White into the woods with a stranger? Your act astounds me! It could only have been prompted by the treachery of a black heart! (QUEEN laughs maliciously.)

Well, now that he's finally figured that out, he sends her to the dungeon while ordering everyone else to go into the woods and find his daughter. And on that, the first act ends.

Act Two is a few weeks later, in the house of the seven dwarfs, who are completely and utterly inept when it comes to the most basic of housekeeping skills. Still, they manage to get it together, take up their pickaxes, and head off to the mines (without whistling, I might add). Once they've left, the woodsman and Snow White appear.

(Okay, just as a note: the script is very specific that Act Two is "a few weeks later" than Act One. What have these two been doing during all that time?)

He tells her she cant go back to the castle, that she has to remain here. But to convince the Queen that she's dead, he's going to take Snow White's kerchief and stain it with blood... never realizing, of course, that now the King is gonna be all over him for letting it happen.

There's a brief intermezzo, and when we come back, she's gone. The dwarfs rattle in, surprised and suspicious at the smell of cooked food coming from the kitchen. They strike a deal with Snow White: they'll protect her if she does the cooking, the cleaning, the laundry, the vacuuming, the mowing, the sewing and darning, take out the garbage, peel the potatoes... Well, this thing was written in 1938, right? Still, beggars cant be choosers, so she takes the job. But they're no sooner into their celebration of the free household help when there's a loud knock at the door: it's Queen Tiger Lily, who's somehow managed to escape the dungeon and is out looking for Snow White (I gather the woodsman's ruse didnt work for her either). The dwarfs chase her down the hill, and we take another short break.

The Queen's a determined woman; over the next couple of scenes, she tries to suffocate Snow White with magic lacings for her blouse and then brings the poison apple that sorta/kinda does the deed. The drawfs return, lay her out for burial, and sing a lament for their now-dead housekeeper...

... as a handsome prince shows up, looking for someplace to rest for the night. And they now conveniently have a bed empty. He looks at the dead girl on the table and asks if he can take the body and bury it in the garden behind his castle. They say sure, no problem, and to seal the deal, he kisses the dead girl.

And even though she's not Sleeping Beauty, Snow White wakes up anyway. This being a fairy tale, the prince immediately proposes; she accepts; and we rush into the Act Two finale to let everyone know that Snow White's alive and about to marry off really, really well.

Act Three is at the Prince's place, where the wedding rehearsal is about to begin. Snow White's distraught because the Queen intercepted the invitation meant for the King, but when Tiger Lily shows up to make one more attempt at murdering Snow White, the drawfs grab her up and put her feet in a pair of red-hot metal dancing shoes, then send her out the door. But the King, having found the invitation in his wife's wastebasket, does arrive, and it's decided to move things on to a real wedding. And so with much singing and dancing and happiness towards vertically-challenged protectors, SNOW WHITE ends.

Now, not unsurprisingly, there's a lot of Disney-style flavour in this adaptation: talking animals and wee fee folks dress out the cast, even if the story has plot holes the size of small moons circling Jupiter — not the least of which is what to make of the relationship between the king and Tiger Lily. Remember, he sent her to the dungeon... but she apparently got out to wreak havoc. Even though he knows (or rather believes) the she sent his daughter to her death, he keeps her around — with a royal hairdresser no less.

Well, no one ever said that operetta royalty was especially bright.

Still, it appears Tiger Lily, with her vaguely Oriental-sounding name, can run circles around everyone in the kingdom, since she seems to be about the only one who can track Snow White to the dwarfs' cottage: the woodsman wouldnt have had enough time to get back and tell her anything, so I gather it must be chalked up to her mysterious Oriental powers... and maybe the mirror.

In the directing notes, it's written that the pacing of this should be "brisk", which I gather is how you plow through so the audience doesnt notice all the errors and omissions. Who knows, perhaps Paynter expected them to come in with a still firm memory of the Disney film, which would allow her to slack off a bit. Still, from a plotting point of view, a lot of this borders on the unforgivable, which makes me suspicious of what to expect from TOM SAWYER.

Side note: my copy of SNOW WHITE was previously owned by "Barry", who played the part of Nutty the Squirrel. Tiger Lily was played by "Norma Jeane": please note the odd spelling of the second name. I've only seen that once before, from a certain sex-pot actress who would have been 11 when this production was mounted. There's nothing, of course, definitive in thinking that this was perhaps Marilyn Monroe's first acting gig, but it's fun to think about.

The Saucy Hollandaise

2009-09-19T20:02:00.000-07:00

Secrecy is at the core of THE SAUCY HOLLANDAISE (1930) by Paul Bliss (cover art by Corina Melder-Collier), although the secret itself... well, like all secrets, you'll have to wait a bit to find it out.

That's not to say it's a good secret. Just that you have to wait.

We're in Holland, in the Royal Gardens. A ship from another country (never specified, but I think it's supposed to be England) has just arrived, and the sailors share their love for sailing the oceans and having a girl in every port. But the Prince who has commissioned this voyage has larger things in mind: to woo the Princess of Holland so he can learn the important State Secret she holds.

For their part, the narcoleptic King of Holland and his wife the Queen (who actually runs Holland with a semi-iron fist) dont want anyone to learn the secret, so they've arranged for the Princess to be shadowed by a tinker named Hans.

Still, the Prince is more than a little relentless and eventually wins the heart of the Princess, who tells him all about the important secret just before the curtain falls.

Running parallel to this numbingly obvious story is a series of gag scenes involving a doctor who, through a process he calls "trephining" manages to mix up the brains of the King and the Prince's ship's captain, who was about to organize a mutiny if the Prince didnt allow the men to stay in Holland. As a result, the mutineer becomes docile (and sleepy), while the King is transformed into a ragin' ruler, cutting through protocols with a razor-sharp sword in order to get all the storylines completed before the final curtain.

The secret? Okay, remember Hans Brinker, who saved Holland from drowning by supposedly putting his finger in the dyke? Nope, didnt happen. Instead, he reversed the engines in the windmills, which sent the water away from Holland instead of into it. For some reason I still havent quite figured out, if everyone knew this, it'd be a problem. I'm not sure how. I suppose it might involve the windmills generating such a force that they would blow back the ships of any invader who might come along. But that's a guess, because Bliss is... well, blissfully silent on the issue.

And perhaps I'm not supposed to. Bliss wrote THE SAUCY HOLLANDAISE as a kind of broad, vaudeville-style comedy, with character roles all over the place — the title should be your first clue about how seriously he takes the story. Everyone except for the two leads gets to participate in some very low comedy: Hans, for example, has a relentless stutter that only goes away when he sings. The doctor is afforded countless opportunities for improvised slapstick, particularly during the operation scene when he mistakenly transfers part of Joe's and the King's brains "without losing a single drop of blood!", as he reassures us. The Queen laughably runs roughshod over everything — think Carol Burnett as Maggie Thatcher here. If nothing else, Bliss does write some delightfully whacked out scenes for his oddball characters.

But the problem is, that's all he does. The score, even by juvenile operetta standards, is paper thin, and it seems that even the publisher had issues with the final product, as there's a moment in the first act when an entertainment is to be performed for the Prince. It's noted that you can ignore the "English Dance" in the score and use just anything else you want. I dont know about you, but that seems a bit cold. Or slapdash on the part of the composer. Or maybe both.

Still, that chill is merited, to some degree. The music aside, the lyrics use the same device — the "story song" — a little too frequently for the numbers to have any real impact. Hans tells us about being a tinker. The Princess tells us about being a princess. The Queen... well, you get the idea. Even the doctor gets a star turn, but it's doled out in the same three-verse/one-chorus architecture Bliss uses for everything else. When he's not using the device, usually during the large ensemble numbers, he writes four lines and has the chorus repeat them... over and over again, to the point where you no longer care about the life of a sailor on the open seas.

Ultimately, THE SAUCY HOLLANDAISE doesnt quite know what it wants to be, whether vaudeville act or romance. And in the process, it turns out to be neither. For that matter, by the end we dont even know for sure if the Prince actually got the Princess. Perhaps we're not supposed to know.

Not that it would make all that much difference anyway.

Sadly...

2009-08-26T06:33:00.000-07:00

... it seems that Willlis Music, one of the last publishers and distributors of these little shows, has moved its sheet music inventory to Hal Leonard, and the latter has decided not to carry them.

Not unexpected, of course, but still... very sad.

Orphans

2009-08-23T18:39:00.000-07:00

For a while, some educational publishers chose to release the script and the vocal score separately, even though you bought them as a set. While I'm sure that was a great idea in 1930, it's left some major holes today, mostly because the scores had longer lives as antiques than the libretti. As such, I have a few that are songs only, leaving the actual storylines a mystery.

It's not surprising, actually. Most operetta librettists, even the professionals, didnt intend for their work to last beyond the final performance. They knew that all they were providing was a verbal clothesline for the music to hang onto. In some cases, what materials we do have conflict with the published scores, which themselves have been revised and changed, mostly just to retain copyright control. For example, THE QUAKER GIRL (1910), by Lionel Monckton, James Tanner, Adrian Ross, and Percy Greenback, saw the removal of a single song from Act Two, which seemed sufficient for Chappell to put in a new copyright claim in 1956, which allows them to retain control of this rarely performed work until apparently... oh... sometime in the 23rd century. Interestingly, the score available at the Internet Archive is earlier than the '56 version and has all of Monckton's work. So would Chappell get all bent out of shape if one performed the 1910 version, even though some of the music is now contained in the "re-edited" score? Probably so.

But the script? We're actually lucky in this case, because the script is available pretty readily online, both the original 1910 version and a pared-down one prepared in the 1980s. Still, there are areas where both conflict with the published vocal scores... granted, in small ways, but enough to be a bit of a headache. Traditionally, the published scores had "extra songs", added to the end, numbers that were cut during rehearsal — or even after opening night — or written when a new performer came into the production. The fact that the available scripts werent likewise updated is cast aside, because the librettists never seriously thought their work merited preserving. These were cast-off plots, built to order around a series of songs... and it was the songs the audience wanted, not the story.

Still, at least in this case, the script exists, and with a little rewrite, it can be adapted to fit the existing score, so I suppose we should be happy to have at least that much. Not so for some of the works in my collection. So we'll muddle through, as best we can, with what materials as they do exist.

EVERYSOUL (1912), by the Reverend J.F.X. O'Conor, is a religious pageant, not to be confused with the morality play of (almost) the same name. In this one, Everysoul is seeking the Land of the Sunrise Sea, where he will find happiness. He's guided by an Angel, who shows him how to distinguish between the voices of nature and the Evil Spirits that sow only confusion. The powers of Darkness are defeated by the Angel and her Good Spirits, and Everysoul finds he can communicate with the flowers and birds. Sorrow comes to Everysoul, but she's pushed back by Gladness and Hope. A few more metaphorical scenes later, and he arrives at the Golden Shore, where the gleaming waves "light up the vision of glory".

I have no idea what the libretto must have been like, but it appears that, were it staged, this would have been a major production, with no less than nine choruses required on top of a score of named characters. O'Conor is very specific that this is not to be performed as a cantata but as a fully staged work. As such, with a complete cast, this would have run close to 100, minimum, not including the orchestra.

Musically, it's... well, very Jesuit. O'Conor was no doubt a man of very deep faith but almost negligible musicianship. The songs are all almost relentlessly cut time, save for the occasional (and very brief) foray into 6/8. But beyond that, virtually the entire score is written, enigmatically enough, in b-flat major. I'm not that well-versed in church music to know if there was some particular symbolism attached to that particular key, but it was a bit surprising.

So, right off the bat, is this something where the libretto even deserves to be preserved after almost a century? Probably not — it was no doubt didactic as all get-out, filled with its own smug religious superiority. But the problem is, we'll never know. And one more little gap appears in our theatre history.

A NAUTICAL KNOT (1909) (no cover available), by Maude Elizabeth Inch and W. Rhys-Herbert (who gave us the painfully dreadful WILD ROSE) has at least a bit more information available, from professional productions in London of the time. Also known as "The Belle of Barnstapoole", it appears to have been a romantic comedy in which the haughty belle of Barnstapoole finds herself serving Her Majesty as a tar on a sailing ship. She gets involved with the first mate of the HMS Bounding Billow, and (somehow) hilarity ensues. Think TWELFTH NIGHT on the high seas, I suppose. Running counterpoint to their naval infatuations is the story of a young village girl and a wandering artist, but it's difficult to know exactly how that one sorts out because the score gives no real indication.

Musically, KNOT is much more interesting than WILD ROSE, possibly because Rhys-Herbert could focus on just the music in this case. Rather than the typical operetta fare, he's filled the score with hornpipes and jigs and country songs, but each has been given a little musical push. The finale, with its nine vocal lines, is almost ravishingly beautiful, but the rest are lovely simply unto themselves, with no specific purpose than just being lovely (Again, shades of WILD ROSE). I have a vague suspicion this was a lot more comic a show than the score will admit.

Finally, THE COUNT AND THE CO-ED (1930), by Geoffrey Morgan and Geoffrey O'Hara, is in many respects, the greatest loss of all. Yes, it's a simple college musical, but it's Geoffrey Morgan, folks, one of the few librettists in this format who had a consistently off-base take to almost everything he wrote. I'm guessing that the script is fairly straight-forward college material: pretty girl meets rich (pretending to be poor) guy and, after a few totally unnecessary complications, lives happily ever after. Colour me seriously disappointed at this loss.

Still, there are a few fascinating points still be uncovered by just looking at the score. For example, Marjorie (who I think is the titular co-ed) is a soprano, while her love interest Hamilton is a high tenor, not the expected mid-to-high baritone one finds in the shows Morgan wrote with Frederick Johnson. O'Hara reserves the lower male voice for a secondary character who happens to be a motor cop (who, again I think, is part of the secondary romantic couple), which says something, I think, about how he saw voice as a portrayal of masculinity.

There's also a number in the second act, a quartet for Marjorie, Hamilton, and two secondary characters:

It's sad but it's funny
How frequently money
Will furnish us joy and delight
It's awfully handy
For flowers and candy
And for lights that are bright

If you had a nickel
And I had a nickel
Between us we'd both have a dime
But now in our pockets
We've nothing but hands
And we've nothing to spend but time

It's a very charming and sweet lyric, with just the right turn at the end... if only I knew how it fit into the plot! Knowing Morgan's other work, I'm sure it had quite the setting.

Any information any reader might have about these three works would be greatly appreciated.

It's difficult to believe...

2009-08-23T13:48:00.001-07:00

... that I've been writing this little blog for over a year now, and yet there we are: the first post was back in June of 08. How time flies.

So I felt it appropriate to stop a moment and just muse a bit about this bunch of lyricists and composers who brought so much consternation and, at the same time, joy to a generation of students. Having worked through enough of these scores, I realize we're talking about music that, quite simply, has not weathered well... at least not in the eyes of the theatre and/or music community. Any apparent value it might have as music has been superceded by the inescapable fact that it was written for a negligible purpose. I recently posted a short bio of Arthur Penn on a board dedicated to classical music, and it was greeted with a collective dismissive roll of the eyes. Never mind that the man was good at his craft -- he's simply not on the invitation list anymore.

And I find that sad. After all, Penn and Frederick Johnson and even the slightly batty Estelle Clark did their part to move high school theatre to a higher level, in essence paving the way for the endless performances we have today of RENT and GREASE and WICKED. Before these folks, there was no real school theatre per se, certainly not at the high school level: theatre, like the other arts, was viewed as a waste of time when there were more serious subjects at hand (The more things change, huh?). I dont know whose idea it might have been to write something original for the educational market, but from whatever humble start it might have had, it grew and developed and, for a while, flourished until it was shoved out of the way by cheap knock-offs of Broadway shows. One has only to look at the debacle that was early 50s MERRY WIDOW by Charles George to see how far we plummeted in such a short period of time.

I started writing these firmly thinking that what we have here deserved to be lost, what with their quaint little plots and thin little music and cardboard little characters... and yes, many of them do deserve to be sent into the dustbin of history. But sixty or seventy of these later, I've developed a real affection for not only the works but the people who put them together. Sure, there're lotsa clunkers in the list, but at the same time there's some highly polished work that merits new attention, rather than being shoved into the back shelves of the musty wing of the library and the bargain basement section of eBay. It's sad, in its way, that no one seems to see fit to give these another try, but then I suppose there's a relatively easy answer to that.

I wrote earlier on that these shows came to you as pretty much just words on a page. There were few indications of how something was to be produced beyond the stage manager's guide — assuming the school thought it necessary to spend the extra cash on one in the first place. No cast albums. No YouTube videos. Just the words on the page, which meant you had to find your own way through the material. You had to find your own sound to the music, your own look to the scenery and costumes, your own rhythms to the choreography, and your own interpretations for the characters. And the result was something uniquely your own, not a bad photocopy of "how they did it in New York".

But you had to work to get it. I suppose it shouldnt be surprising that these little works had their glory days during the Depression, when the national attitude towards solving a problem was to just get in there and work it out for yourself, not look to someone else to solve it for you. These operettas and the accompanying books on how to produce them, as minor and dismissable as they may be now, pushed the students into finding things on their own and, along the way, learning to make the most out of what they had at hand. We would no doubt laugh now at the idea of making a costume from crepe paper, but I'd happily bet that in 1931 the little actress wearing it felt as wonderful as her latter-day equivalent does today in her professionally-sewn, expensive New York rental.

Perhaps it's just my own cynical point of view, but it just feels like we've lost something very precious and magical en route to the Junior version of ANNIE. I might even go far as to say we've lost what it simply means to be involved in theatre as an artform, period, but I suppose that might come across as taking on a bit too much. Nevertheless, like everything else these days, theatre — even school theatre — is now an industry, designed for producers and licensing companies to make a few more bucks off the backs of starry-eyed kids. I guess it's best to just accept it as such and move on.

THE STAGE AND THE SCHOOL

2009-08-17T14:55:00.000-07:00

Another production handbook along the lines of those by Beach and Wilson, THE STAGE AND THE SCHOOL, by Katherine Anne Ommaney, gives a pretty decent overview to putting on a show.

Ommaney was an instructor at the North High School in Denver, Colorado, and her experience shows: this is a nearly exhaustive (and exhausting) book that covers the entire production process in enormous detail. Unlike Beach and Wilson's books, Ommaney doesnt limit herself to operetta but instead the entire gamut of the performing arts, from straight plays to musicales to pageants to even dramatic societies and how they should best be organized. Her focus is more on directing and acting -- with one chapter dedicated, in detail, to accents -- but she also inserts guidance on the art of the physical production and the craft of playwriting.

Each chapter provides exercises, some of which are... well, a little unusual (in the chapter on pantomime, she suggests going to the movies to watch George Arliss just for his hands). But her intent is obvious, to get her young actors and directors and playwrights and designers to think well beyond the traditional solution. For example, in the chapter on characterization, "laugh like a giggling schoolgirl in church; a fat man at a vaudeville show; a polite lady at a joke she has heard many times; a minister at a ladies' aid meeting." What's interesting (to me, anyway) about her choices is that they all require second level of thought -- not just a giggling schoolgirl, but one in church, which makes the exercise all the more intruiging.

Another, more complex exercise -- this one for playwrights -- starts with five clippings from the local paper. Each additional step in the exercise takes the nascent playwright deeper into the story-telling process: starting from the essential "what", s/he moves on to adding "who", "how", and "why" by working both in the micro ("write a detailed character sketch of the most interesting person you know") and the macro ("name five problems facing civilized people which you think must be solved by society"), then combining all of these various, seemingly unrelated facets into one working script.

Ommaney has a definite leaning towards the simple and direct yet comprehensive. "The average play written by high school students takes ten minutes to present, although there are sufficient possibilities in the plot for a half hour's action." She has little time for the irrelevant and trite: "the average conversation is too scattered, pointless, and dull to hold the attention of the audience" (David Mamet, take note!).

While not lavishly illustrated, THE STAGE AND THE SCHOOL has some wonderful black-and-white images of scenic design, created by Ben Kutcher. Kutcher came to the U.S. as a child and studied at the PAFA (1910-15) where he was awarded a traveling scholarship for one year of study in Europe. After serving in WWI, he worked in New York in advertising and theatrical work until 1927 and then moved to southern California. Known as an illustrator of children's books, he was a resident of Hollywood, CA until his death in 1967. His usual illustration style is heavily detailed, but in THE STAGE AND THE SCHOOL he abandons that for simpler images that reduce things to mass and shape. Nevertheless, there's a definite whimsey to his approach, even for what he considers "realistic" scenery. The endflaps, images of stylized character costumes, appear to be his work as well.

As with both the Beach and Wilson books, THE STAGE AND THE SCHOOL is an intruiging snapshot of stage production during the Depression. There's a great deal of emphasis on self-reliance and independence of thought, although Ommaney is careful to temper that with mentor-like guidance -- never pointedly pushing in one direction or another, but gently guiding around the traps and potholes.

There's also some fascinating theatre history that could put you on top of your game when it comes to trivia. For example, Ommaney goes into great detail about the Clavilux, devised by Thomas Wilfred as a means of shifting colours of light within the same instrument... a sort of early 30s version of a programmable LED or VariColor today.

THE SUNBONNET GIRL

2009-08-16T15:48:00.001-07:00

Every show, in its way, is a Cinderella story: the heroine (usually) gets her handsome prince after some trial or other, and everyone lives happily ever after. But few embrace the fairy tale as wholeheartedly as THE SUNBONNET GIRL (1929) by the otherwise dependable team of Geoffrey Morgan and Frederick Johnson (with cover artwork by Doris Holt Hauman).

I say "otherwise dependable" because SUNBONNET GIRL is a bit of a mystery. Other Morgan/Johnson shows discussed here, such as CROCODILE ISLAND, display the labours of a team that took a bit of a sideways look at the operetta genre. But SUNBONNET GIRL is either a straight-forward traditional entry into the canon... or a highly subtle parody of one.

We're in the backyard of the Meadows household, where we find all of the local boys and girls gathered for the arrival of Mrs. Coleman, the president of the State Federation of Music Clubs. She's conducting a talent contest for a music scholarship. She's brought with her her son Bob, her daughter Barbara, and Bob's friend Jerry. And it seems everyone in the township will be entering, even the Meadows' daughter Miranda, who's courted by the simple-minded yet devastatingly handsome Reuben (Think Julie Brown's Superman-with-a-lobotomy).

In the midst of the excitement, a shy and poorly dressed girl named Sue timidly approaches and asks if she can participate. Mrs. Coleman is more than happy to add another contestant to the list, but Mrs. Scroggs, Sue's foster mother, adamantly refuses: the girl has plenty to do at home without getting her head all filled with fantasies about getting an education. Sue is of course devastated by this and tells Bob that she knows the Scroggs are holding out on her, that her parents left her a deed to some property, but they wont tell her what it is. Bob decides to enlist the services of the local constable, Ezra McSpavin, to find out the truth of the matter.

The second act is that night, with the contest being staged in the Meadows' yard. There's a couple of singers and a dancing team, and Mrs. Meadows declares the contest complete -- until Mrs. Coleman consults her list and says, No, we have one more, Susan Clifton. No one's really sure who this Susan Clifton is until Sue appears, gorgeously dressed (courtesy her fairy godmother Barbara), sings her solo, and is immediately awarded the prize.

The handsome prince Bob, carried away by the moment, immediately proposes, but Sue refuses, convinced that he's doing this out of pity. The only way she'd seriously entertain marriage, she says, is if she were his equal in wealth and independence. No sooner has she said this than Constanble McSpavin appears, telling her that amoung her affects hidden away by the Scroggs is a deed to a piece of property in Los Angeles (at the corner of Western and Wilshire), which is of course of immense value. This removes any barrier to the match, and the curtain falls on the prospect of a triple wedding.

Now, taken for what it is, this appears to be yeoman's work. The genre is filled with plays such as this, complete with the deus ex machina ending that ever so conveniently wraps up any and all straggling plot threads. But remember: this is Morgan and Johnson we're talking about, guys whose approach was anything but straight-forward. In work either written as a team or with others, they provided some twist that throws the proverbial monkey-wrench into the proceedings. CROCODILE ISLAND and TULIP TIME both have a whacked-out sensibility that made them casually hysterical. ROSE OF THE DANUBE (written with Arthur Penn, who was no comic slouch himself) takes devastatingly accurate pot shots at the film musicals of the day; UP IN THE AIR (with music by Don Wilson) gives us a leading man who was anything but.

So what is it, then, that we should find in SUNBONNET SUE? There are a couple of moments of dead-pan hilarity during the contest sequence, especially Evalina Scrogg's "art song", "Spring is on the Way", sung to an overblown harp accompaniment and a vocal tessitura that rivals that of CANDIDE's "Glitter and Be Gay".

The gentle spring is on the wing
It flies along like anything
The gentle spring is on the wing
The gentle spring is on the wing
So let us sing about the spring

Merrily the birdies sing
Tra la la la la la la
Merrily the notes they fling
Tra la la la la la la
Listen to the birds and bees
Warbling among the trees
Let us sing the livelong day
Spring is on the way

Okay, that's pretty bald. So's "It Aint My Fault", sung by Reuben, the constable's too-hot-for-his-own-good son.

I'm awfuly tired of getting blamed for everything I do
When lots of times it aint my fault as I can prove to you
I never do run after girls as you can plainly see
But then of course the trouble is they all run after me

It aint my fault Im handsome
It aint my fault I'm bold
When I go walking down the street
The girls all say "Aww, aint he sweet"
My fatal gift of beauty
Will haunt me night and day
But it aint my fault I'm handsome
I was born that way

Now, sure, a couple of comic numbers are to be expected, even in the most highly postured operetta. But once you get past the obvious ones like these two, the waters get a little murky. "I'm the Constable" continues the easy laughter, a character study of a self-important "minister of the law", but Mrs. Coleman's "Garden of Old Fashioned Flowers" starts to blur the line a bit between character song and the parody of a character song. It's like listening to something straight out of Hokinson cartoon.

Give me an old fashioned garden
All full of old fashioned flowers
Daisies are dotted all over the lawn
Violets bloom in the hush of the dawn
Roses are shedding their fragrance
Bright with the sun and the showers
There is a balm
In the beauty and calm
Of a garden of old fashioned flowers

Sue's entrance number, "Washing Dishes", outlines her frustration at the apparently endless stream of dirty plates the Scroggs leave in their path, but it's pushed just a bit over the edge, leaving the listener with the image of a kitchen that's filled to bursting as poor Cinderella is denied her night at the ball.

Washing dishes washing dishes
That is all I do it seems
Making wishes making wishes
While my head is full of dreams
Light the fire and scrub the floors
Carry ashes out of doors
And after all my other chores
Then I go back to washing dishes

And that's the thing: everything appears to be mocking the standard traditions of the operetta, but it's an appearance that could be misleading inasmuch as Morgan and Johnson arent so much sending up the conceits of the various song formulas as quite possibly the entire genre itself. Still, I have little doubt these two jokesters submitted this manuscript to Willis with tongue firmly planted in cheek, giggling like schoolgirls at what they got away with. Given their history, it's almost impossible to believe otherwise.

A brief note about Doris Hauman, who provided the cover art: she and her husband George (who illustrated the cover of SAILOR MAIDS) were apparently Willis regulars. It's difficult to know exactly which ones they did, since so many of these covers are left unsigned, but this is the third of hers (the others are HULDA OF HOLLAND and THE BAND WAGON, which she created with George) I've found with a name. I suspect she created the one for SOUTH IN SONORA as well, but it's not signed, so I cant say for sure. This charming cover for FAIRYLAND MUSIC is a truer example of her style: a very open layout, with a nice use of balance and colour. The typography is hand drawn, but it looks like the efforts of a different artist.

ROBIN HOOD INC.

2009-08-08T08:01:00.000-07:00

A bit of a riff on "A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court", ROBIN HOOD INC. (1928), by Frederick H. Martens and Allan Benedict — as well as cover art by Donn Crane — takes the story of the Merry Men and throws in a little Chicago-style organizing.

It starts off simply enough: the evil Sheriff of Nottingham is surprised in Sherwood Forest by Robin's gang. Inexplicably, Robin lets him go (!) just before Friar Tuck comes in with Ben Booster.

Now Ben here is a curious sort. He's not really described all that well in the script, but I get the impression that he's supposed to be in a suit and bowler hat, even though how he would have gotten into this play is a mystery better left unsolved.

Nevertheless, Ben has come to Robin with an idea: incorporate! That way, the Merry Men dont have to depend on just waiting for rich travelers to come through Sherwood Forest; they can look into such profit-minded activities as bookkeeping and road paving:

BEN. Fellow shareholders, the slogan of Robin Hood Incorporated is "bigger purses and better cuts!" Instead of a corporation of robbers operating for profit, we are a benevolent society acting under Section 43 to deprive malefactors of great wealth of unearned increment... for charitable purposes.

Problem is, they need start-up capital, which sorta bums everyone out until Ben comes up with the scheme of having Robin marry a rich heiress.

But the problem there is that Robin's heart is already promised to a certain Maid Mariam.

Well, no matter, as far as Ben is concerned. There are four very good candidates (none of which are Mariam) for the position of Robin's Wife, so all he has to do is choose one. Robin considers this for a moment, then says, "Sorry, they're all equally fascinating. I'll have to let my friends decide." — which is great, except that when one his friends chooses one of the fair ladies, the other three beat the crap out of him. So Robin tries Stalling Plan B: whoever brings the largest dowry will get his hand, which sets off the four in a mad dash to get their purses... except that Ben has rigged the contest by providing one of the ladies with a bag stuffed with cash. The crossbow marriage is about to begin when Robin suddenly stops everything with a final request:

ROBIN. I am stepping out of my own life. The president of an important corporation cannot leg it about the greenwood cutting purses! In a few minutes Sherwood Forest will be but a name to me. I shall take up golf and manage my wife's estate if the estate survive the working capital it must raise! Yet before I die — I mean, marry — let me see one more gay and rowdy forest dance!

He's hoping to run off in all the rowdy gay-ness, but unfortunately the Sheriff of Nottingham stops by with his archers and arrests everyone.

They're all hauled off to Westminster, where the Sheriff accuses them in front of Prince John of being highwaymen and "woodland yeggs", but they counter that they're merely "honest businessmen pledged to a more equalized distribution of wealth throughout the kingdom".

P. JOHN. Do you deny that you live by robbery?

ROBIN. I would not call it that, your highness. Words are so relative.

FRIAR. Our articles of incorporation prove...

SCARLETT. That we are making a notable practical effort...

L. JOHN. To show folks the beauty of the old ethical law that...

ALL. It is better to give than to receive.

SHERIFF. Bats fly in their belfries, my leige!

FRIAR. Our attorney, as soon as we get in touch with him, shall sue you for libel.

The Sheriff decides this is all nonsense, and to make his point even further, he tells Friar Tuck to get ready for a wedding, that he's going to marry Maid Mariam right there in front of Robin. Needless to say, this doesnt go over well, and within a half page of dialogue, Tuck has cut through everyone's bonds and Robin has the Sheriff in a headlock, promising to detach that same head if anyone comes any closer. The rest of the Merry Men come in, overpower the guards, and the day is saved. Robin leads everyone off, but Mariam and Ben are somehow left behind — and as a result, find themselves held hostage. Prince John is about to lay claim to Mariam himself when...

... suddenly a tall, knightly figure appears from behind his throne, and it's none other than King Richard himself, returned from the Crusades and not at all pleased at what he's seen. Prince John tries to tell him that Robin and his band have all been found guilty of robbery, but Ben intervenes, stating that Robin "is a member of a corporation and hence not responsible individually for its activities". He adds that Robin is also the Earl of Huntingdon, driven into the forest by Prince John and the Sheriff, who wanted his lands.

Oops.

Well, Richard agrees to free Robin and his men, but Ben reminds everyone that Robin still has a fiduciary obligation to marry Lady Lotta, as agreed by RHInc's board of directors. Robin snaps:

I have one message for you all. I will wed no woman others have chosen for me, but the one I have chosen for myself. Not even my king shall tell me where I must love.

The king, surprisingly, agrees but reassures Lady Lotta as well as the other contenders that all shall have mates -- and then proceeds to pair everyone off. One hopes there were enough Maids of Arden to go around for the Archers of Sherwood, but if not... well, what the heck. As Richard says, "Long live Romance!"

RICHARD. I am an old fashioned romantic, twelfth century king, I am content to take my Merry England as I find it.

And to a stirring (and, given the genre, slightly bizarre) song:

Five centuries from now
Is quite far ahead
For no matter how
We'll all be dead
So we'll be ourselves
While knighthood's in flower
We'll keep our romance
While we have the power
We're sitting pretty
On top of our world
It's the only world we know
Then shall we borrow
One bit of sorrow
For a tomorrow?
Nay, not so!

We're sitting pretty
On top of our world
And this being so, somehow
We'll keep on sitting
No one will care
Five hundred years from now!

... we call it quits.

ROBIN HOOD INC comes from the same composer as IN OLD VIENNA, one of the earliest pieces discussed in this blog, and like that work it has the same anachronistic charm and humour. It's surprisingly (and refreshingly) polished, with a fun-filled score and, at points, a laugh-out-loud book. The characters are all, of course, about as two-dimensional as one can get, but that just adds to the enjoyment: Robin is so very, very good, while the Sheriff and Prince John are so very, very bad. Maid Mariam does little more than throw her hands up in alarm and put her lips into a quivering moué of fear when she's not singing eternal devotion to Robin (even when he's looking at being hanged). And in the midst of all this too too traditionalism, we have the Puck-like Ben, styled after every baggy-pants comedian whose schtick was built around the slippery "businessmen" of the day, sending the obvious plot into a couple of delirious trainwrecks. The satire about 20s-era graft and the legal tap-dancing over "incorporation" are sharply pointed, perhaps a bit too much so for a show designed for high schoolers. Nevertheless, it provides a level of comic maturity you dont see very often in these works. Just as VIENNA took great joy with its pot shots at advertising, ROBIN HOOD INC throws the absurdities of Big Quasi-Legal Business out there and shines them up for everyone to see.

SOUTH IN SONORA

2009-08-04T16:52:00.000-07:00

You know you're in serious trouble when your leading actress isnt allowed to sing...

... because she's specifically written to be so ugly that you cant imagine her opening her mouth to anything other than a moan of despair...

... and yet that's the concept, I suppose, behind SOUTH IN SONORA (1932) by Charles and Juanita Roos and Charles Wakefield Cadman. I've mentioned their work before, the rather unfortunate GHOST OF LOLLYPOP BAY, and yet, here, in a work that should be right up their musical theatre alley, we find again that something just isnt quite right.

SOUTH IN SONORA starts with a fiesta at the Rancho Gomez, where a party is in full swing to celebrate the birthday of the President of Mexico. Don Ricardo Gomez, owner of this spread, is the father of five daughters, four of whom are gorgeous, one of whom is... well... not so gorgeous. In fact, Catalina seems to be all stumbling angles and lines, incapable of ever saying or doing the right thing. But because she's the oldest, tradition says she must marry before any of her sisters, who have long decided they're sentenced to a very long spinsterhood. But the problem there is that three of the sisters have fallen in love with an American engineer and a couple of college boys doing some work on the ranch's property.

Still, all is not totally lost, as Dan (the engineer) and Paquita hit on a scheme to marry off Catalina to a bandit general who's camping near the house. Essentially, it goes like this:

(a) convince the general that Rosita (another one of the sisters, the really pretty one) is in love with the general

(b) wait for him to attack the rancho and take everyone prisoner so he can marry Rosita

(c) substitute Catalina for Rosita by putting the "bride" under a heavy veil

(d) tell the general not to remove the veil until he's off the property because it's a priceless (and therefore invaluable) heirloom

So they do and he does and a priest is summoned and the two are married and the general leaves with his new wife and there is much joy in the Gomez household.

Now, lest you think this is just some weird form of sibling cruelty, let me replay for you one scene, in which the bandit appears and takes control of the house:

GENERAL. (flourishing gun) Hands up! Everybody!

CATALINA (clasping hands over heart and gazing at the general with a fatuously enamoured expression) Oh, what a man! So bold! So brave! So fearless! I never knew there were such! A man indeed!

GENERAL. (fiercely to Catalina) Hands up, you! (threatens her with gun)

CATALINA (continues gazing at him languishingly as she slowly puts up her hands)

So it's not like they were arranging something she didnt want... right?

Two months pass. No one's heard a word from Catalina, and Paquita and Rosita are starting to think this might not have been the wisest of ideas (Gosh, ya think?). Down in Mexico City, a new president has been elected, and he sends word that he would like to be entertained at the ranch for some mysterious reason. Meanwhile, Don Ricardo has heard about what happened to Catalina and has decided to send all four remaining daughters to a convent, where, presumably, they can rot before he's willing to forgive them. He's just about ready to send them packing when Catalina appears.

... with her new husband, the bandit general.

... who just happens to be the new president of Mexico.

El Presidente tells Ricardo that marrying Catalina was the best thing that ever happened to him and asks that he forgive his daughters so they too can marry the men they love. You dont really tell a president no (even if the whole thing smacks of some rather facetious comment on Mexican politics), and it all ends happily as the curtain falls.

Now, what makes this particular work a little odd (aside from the scenes noted above and, well, the plot in general) is that, as I wrote before, this is the first time I've come across a musical where the leading female doesnt get to sing. Everyone else does: the college boys, the engineers, the four sisters, even Don Ricardo and the Bandit General, not to mention the sly Indian housemaid who gets the general there in the first place. But not Catalina — she simply stands there in the first act looking doleful (well, until the general arrives) and smashingly (and inexplicably) wonderful in the third. But she never gets to express it in song. For all we know, the General loves her because of her ability to make really good corn muffins, but the Roos and Cadman never let her say for herself.

Of course, that might not be such a terrible thing. For example, Dan's protestations of love to Paquita:

Without you, my dear
The world is drear
I love you love you love you
Dark clouds disappear
When you are near
I love you love you love you
Dull winter is gone and spring is here
Because I believe you love me dear
The sun shines bright
And the skies are clear
I love you love you love you

... or when Don Ricardo discovers the ruse:

Gone! Gone! Gone!
Look upon my wild and deep despair!

To which the sympathetic chorus replies:

Away! Away!
To the rescue we go
Before the dawn is breaking!
This bandit dog must bite the dust
For the fair maiden's taking, taking!
To horse! To horse!
And away to the hills
With speed we must go riding!
In canyon wild or mountain glen
This bandit bold is hiding!
Gone!
Gone!
Gone!

Now, in all the time they spent singing this somewhat interminable finale, they probably could have captured him, but hey, no one said operetta choruses were especially bright.

Musically, Cadman really overshadows everything else in here with a score that's by comparison to LOLLYPOP BAY bright and sparkling and lush and almost too romantic. It's all very Mexican, but not so much so that it wanders in to parody: he knows just how far to take it. There are a couple of moments when the college boys take a particular song and re-sing in four-part barbershop harmony, but that seems more of a laugh at an American style of revamping things than the Mexican original. Still, it's simply not up to his non-operetta work: he's not quite strolling, but it's damn close.

It's just so frustrating to read this and know what these three were capable of in other areas of entertainment and how scant of their talents were put into these little shows. LOLLYPOP BAY was bad enough, but SONORA seems the more heinous crime, since all three were supposedly heavily inspired in their "serious" work by the American Southwest and Mexico. I have one other work by this team that I havent really looked at yet; perhaps it'll redeem their reputations a little. But on the basis of SONORA, that's starting to seem somewhat unlikely.

THE GYPSY ROVER

2009-07-26T15:47:00.000-07:00

Constructed from the same awkward framework as COLLEGE DAYS, THE GYPSY ROVER (1919), by May Hewes Dodge and John Wilson Dodge, seems to underscore that the mindless charm and fun of CRIMSON EYEBROWS was indeed something of a fluke.

It's the late 18th century, in a gypsy encampment on the outskirts of a country estate held by Sir George Martendale. Rob, our gypsy hero, proclaims to one and all that the gypsy life is for him... which is a pity because he's actually Sir Gilbert Howe, heir to the Howe estate, stolen in infancy by his nurse Meg, who now lives with Marto, the head gypsy. Rob has been raised with the understanding that Meg and Marto are his parents, even though they have typically swarthy gypsy skin tone while he's a typically pale English gentrymen, but we wont bother with the little detail for the moment.

His days are spent going to town and getting the best deals he can in trade, but it seems he's not the best at this. But no matter: the children in the camp love him, particularly for his stories and songs about Fairyland. His best friend is Sinfo, who's in love with Zara, the camp tease. Sinfo's incessantly frustrated by her convenient attentions, but we get that sorted out in good time before the arrival of Lady Constance, daughter of Sir George Martendale, and her fiancé, Lord Craven, who's a bit of a fop. They left the highway to pick some flowers and promptly got lost (well, no one ever said English nobility was especially bright). Craven's a nervous wreck about being in an actual gypsy camp, but Constance relishes the idea of a life without social whirls.

She meets Rob, and, of course, it's love at first sight. Their romance is interrupted by the arrival of Sir George and his guests out on a fox hunt. There's the pesky little problem of Lord Craven, but Sinfo and Marto take that issue in hand, threatening (subtly, of course) Craven at knife point that he should tell Sir George what a swell guy Rob is. Sir George thanks Rob for his kindness to his daughter, and with much happy singing about the return of the prodigal daughter, the first act ends.

The second act takes place in Constance's bedroom, two nights later. Craven, in a jealous snit, has forced the marriage to take place the following morning, and you can imagine what Constance thinks of that. Her misery is transformed to joy when Rob climbs up the ivy outside her window. They plot to run off together, but Sir George and Lord Craven intercept them at the last minute. Rob is sent to prison (for presumption, I suppose). And the second act ends.

Okay, bear in mind that we're 113 pages in on a script that's 134 pages, so you can imagine what Act Three is like. It's two years later. Rob has escaped from prison and been restored to his proper title and lands but has refused to date to set foot on English soil. While in Paris, he fended off an assassination attempt on the Prince and has become his best friend and constant companion. His singing is the hit of the continent, especially his song "Fairyland". For her part, Constance broke off her engagement to Craven and has sworn eternal love to her gypsy and has never married. Finally, the Prince has persuaded Rob — now Sir Gilbert again — to return home to England that very night for a soirée at Sir George's country mansion.

Yes, the same Sir George who threw him into a "bottomless pit".

And we find all this out in about two pages of dialogue between two tertiary characters. As they did in COLLEGE DAYS, the Dodges seemed to realize they only had a little time left and slammed everything they could in the way of necessary exposition in with the speed of a professional baseball pitcher going for a perfect speed ball game. They manage to get it all in just before Sir Gilbert makes his entrance. He's greeted by Sir George as a fellow aristocrat, even though Sir Gilbert, in an aside, remembers (for our benefit) his treatment in George's dungeon.

Constance appears and is introduced to Sir Gilbert, whom she doesnt remember. She fends off his approaches by telling him she's still in love with her gypsy boy — and of course, all he has to do is sing one line from his hit song "Fairyland" to jog her foggy memory. And they live happily ever after.

Now, as with COLLEGE DAYS, there's so much wrong in the plotting. Characters like Sinfo and Zara appear, sing their song, and then are seemingly forgotten. In fact, there's a parallel relationship in the third act between a Captain Jerome and Sir George's other daughter Nina, and that one's no more developed than the earlier one. We have no idea what happened to Meg after Act One; I gather she and Marto pulled up camp and went someplace else, because they're never mentioned again. Craven hangs in there for Acts One and Two, and you'd think he'd be there for Act Three for some final dramatic tension.... but he's not. Instead, he's written out with a casual and convenient knotting of that particular plot thread. It's also left uncertain whether Constance's two years of enforced celibacy are because she really loves Rob or because she's gonna show Daddy who's boss.

Lyrically, it's not very impressive (again, what happened to the wit we saw in CRIMSON EYEBROWS?), with songs that seem shoe-horned with no respect for the character singing. One love song is much like any other, which is sad considering what could have been done with characters like Sinfo, whose easily-threatened masculinity would have made for an amusingly sweet (if awkward) love song to Zara. Instead, it's easily tossed off lines about "sailing hand in hand across our gypsy land". The music too aspires to grand operetta in the Lehar vein, but it just doesnt quite make it: despite some well-intended parts work for each act's finale (Act Two's finale boasts ten vocal lines), the rest is just as treacly as the lyrics — and, for that matter, the script itself.

Again, it's almost bewildering to set this next to CRIMSON EYEBROWS and imagine they came from the same source. EYEBROWS showed wit and style as it poked fun at the conventions of the juvenile operetta. ROVER, on the other hand, ably demonstrates what was so very wrong with the format: shallow characterizations, clumsy plotting, awkward lyrics and music. Granted, ROVER comes from the early years of the high school operetta, and we've already seen numerous examples of works that succeeded where those like ROVER failed. If anything, ROVER demonstrates what we were coming from: the European model of Strauss and Lecoq. It would be a few more years before we would see the transition to what would be more properly described as a musical comedy, as the influences of composers such as Kern and Monckton made their impression on the professional operetta.

The cover art, by the way, is unsigned, but it smacks of the style of "C. Dodge", who provided the illustration work for COLLEGE DAYS and the not-yet-discussed WISHING WELL, also by John and May. I havent been able to find out what his/her relationship is to the authors, but it's clear it was all done in the family. There is the possibility that this is Cynthia Dodge, who wrote WHAT'S THE MATTER WITH SALLY, but I havent found anything yet to confirm that.

YOKOHAMA MAID

2009-07-21T19:16:00.001-07:00

YOKOHAMA MAID (1915) simply adds to my theory that the legacy of Arthur Penn is one of musical theatre's lost treasures. A wonderfully demented work, the play (which precedes CAPTAIN CROSSBONES by a few years) chronicles the results of a social experiment gone very, very wrong.

After an opening number in which a herald fills us in on some completely unnecessary backstory, we're in the garden of Sing-a-Song's house, where everyone has gathered to fete her sixteenth birthday. Unfortunately, the celebrantee isnt quite ready, but that leaves time for the mayor Fateddo to arrive and put everyone in their proper place... on the ground, eating dirt.

Once that's out of the way, Sing-a-Song appears, not caring tuppence that everyone knows she's sixteen. Her enjoyment of the moment is cut short when Fateddo tells her she's his betrothed, thanks to her father's will, which requests that she marry "a real live mayor", and Fateddo is the only single mayor her father knew.

Needless to say, this doesnt go over well with Sing-a-Song, but her misgivings are meliorated by Fateddo's announcement that she's to go to America for two years to become an acceptable, accomplished wife. She will be accompanied by Kissimee, her companion, and Tung-Waga, her nurse. And with a proper Donizettian sextet, the curtain falls in Act One.

Act Two takes us to the Mayor's garden. It's been two years, and he's anxious to see Sing-a-Song again (although he seems slightly more interested in the money and lands her father left her). The three women appear, now dressed in extravagant "American" style, and Fateddo is surprised to see the change in Sing-a-Song: rather than a quiet, demure little maiden, now she's a controlled, "sophisticated" American lady who has a few ideas all her own about this supposed marriage. But the Mayor sets all her objections to the side and starts the ceremony...

... only to be stopped by Harry Cortcase, a lawyer, and his associates Hilda and Stella, because it seems Sing-a-Song has married him. Fateddo dismisses it, pointing out the statements in the will that she "be willing to marry Fateddo" and, of course, the notes about her marrying a "real live mayor". Harry elegantly sidesteps the former by stating that of course she was "willing". The fact that she's married now simply makes it "impossible", which of course the will doesnt address. And as for marrying a real live mayor, Harry throws out the information bomb that he is indeed a mayor, of a town called Dollarsville, and had been a full month before marrying Sing-a-Song. As such, all of the requirements of the will have been met, so Sing-a-Song gets her father's estate. Unable to do anything now, Fateddo decides to commit "social hari-kari" by marrying Tung-Waga instead. And with another sextette, the curtain falls.

As noted, this was written prior to CAPTAIN CROSSBONES, and in some respects it shows. It's not quite as mature a work as CAPTAIN: the humour is a great deal broader, dependent on groaning puns — especially in the character names: Muvon Yu is the policeman, Knogudi is the mayor's secretary, Ah No a laundryman, and so on. Nevertheless, Penn's libretto allows for some great star turns for its secondary characters. For example, Tung Waga's song in Act One on the agonies of growing old:

Dim is my eye and grey my hair
For which misfortunes I hardly care
But had I been born at a later date
No doubt I could have controlled my fate

O powder puff
O sweet cold cream
Without your help
Life a curse would seem
O dainty rouge
O fifty cent massage
Had I but known
The powers you own
I would have begged my parents to
Postpone their marriage a decade or two

Like the libretto, the score is also not quite up to CROSSBONES' virtuosity, but it comes close. In some respects, this is because CROSSBONES is scored more as a full-bolt opera, with more complex choral work, while YOKOHAMA MAID is a chamber work with a smaller cast and therefore lower expectations. Still, there are some dazzling pieces of choral work and two finales that put the singers to their best advantage. It's a very clean work, with no obvious diversions for the sake of adding a musical number: everything builds, which is fairly rare for works of the period. Surprisingly enough, there are no dance numbers, although a few of the songs would lend themselves to adding one.

But Penn's larger goal seems to be in the singing: he arranges his score so that everyone gets an equal amount of face time, whether solo or as part of one of those sextet finales. The chorus works in complete subservience to the soloists: they sing more as an extension of the orchestra, not as a part of the acting company.

Nevertheless, like CROSSBONES, the Gilbert-and-Sullivan antecedents are clearly on display, with wry rhyming schemes and a storyline that speaks to cultural differences in a broadly comic way. While G&S's satire is more pointed and specific, YOKOHAMA MAID is a bit more scattershot, even with its smaller scale approach. Still, it shows Penn's slightly absurdist sense of humour in development, with all the groundwork in place for the more mature works such as CROSSBONES and THE CHINA SHOP.

Note: while in NY this past weekend, I hoped to finally secure the libretto to MAM'ZELLE TAPS, also by Penn. The Library of Performing Arts' computer database said they had one, but no one could locate it. Very frustrating, as you might think. Still, I have a few more options before throwing in the towel on ever finding one for that particular work.

To balance that frustration, I also put in a request for the libretto to PINK LADY, by Ivan Caryll. A hit when it opened in NY in 1911, it too has been almost completely forgotten. But we'll do our part to revive a bit of interest in this utterly charming little show.

THE LADY SAYS YES

2009-07-14T16:59:00.000-07:00

We should never forget that one of the purposes of the high school musical was not only to entertain but also to educate. Now normally that education came in the form of learning how to build scenery or run the mimeograph machine or play second-chair violin (when you should have had first, gosh darn it!). However, running with stories of Dutch flowergirls and Japanese shopowners came the occasional script that was taken from something in American history, although using a historical incident was fraught with peril. After all, you had to have a heroine (because girls are more likely to try out for theatre than boys) and there has to be a romance of some kind... which sorta means Lincoln's assassination probably wouldnt be high on folks' lists of stories that would translate well to the high school musical stage.

Nevertheless, there are a few — amoung them, THE LADY SAYS YES (1936) by Phyllis McGinley and Gladys Rich. I confess that when I first say the title, I expected some kind of Gershwin pastiche — certainly not the triangle of Miles Standish, John Alden, and Priscilla Mullins. Nevetheless, THE LADY SAYS YES does indeed treat us to a quick (very quick, actually) musical retelling of one of America's most famous botched proposals.

We're in Priscilla's living room (which is large enough to accommodate the authors' request for a chorus of 80!). The Maidens of Plymouth are having a little sewing bee, interrupted by the Men of Plymouth, led by local braggart Goodheart Manning, who has come to present Priscilla with a rabbit he shot in her honour. The Men (the italics are all Phyllis' idea, but I'm going to stop now) retire to the Council Room (which, since they dont really leave, I gather is just down the hall), leaving only Miles Standish and John Alden. Standish tells John that he's tired of being a lonely soldier: he'd really like to have someone like Priscilla around. But he's terrible with words, so could John be a really great friend and ask her for him?

Problem is, John really likes Priscilla himself. For her part, Priscilla is pretty gosh darn fond of John as well, and she cant understand why he wont take a little initiative. Still, love comes and goes, but friends are for, like, forever, so John agrees to deliver the message... even though he's none too happy about doing so. Standish is thrilled, so he arranges for John and Priscilla to be alone.

John delivers the message.

Priscilla delivers the classic line.

And we're at the end of Act One.

Act Two is still in the living room. Everyone's gathered for a little bon voyage party for the Mayflower, which sails back to England at high tide tomorrow. Standish is, of course, furious with John, so things are a bit strained. But the tension is broken by the arrival of a bunch of savage heathen Indians, who do a little dance and then tell Standish that we're all going to war. Standish, already pretty POd about the whole Priscilla thing, tells them that if they want a fight, just bring it, after which he launches into a song:

The man with ambition
Owns no inhibition
He need not petition
His friends or the Lord
He's servant, he's master
He mocks at disaster
And goes his own way
With his hand on his sword

Make a thing yourself
If you want it made correctly
Do a task yourself
If you want it done directly
Prime your own musket, boys
Build your own shelf
And this let me advise
Be very, very wise
If you would make love
Do it yourself!

No bitterness there, uh-uh.

At this point, Priscilla none too gently tells him to get a life, that if he wanted her, he should have said so instead of sending a messenger boy. Chagrined, Standish says yeah, maybe he should have — and he decides to be Mister Nice Guy by appointing Alden to be his deputy and take care of the town while he goes off to mix it up with Indians. But he'll be back in time for their wedding...

And on that somewhat alarming note, we end. Now, all things considered, THE LADY SAYS YES is actually a rather sweet little work about a woman who owns a house with a Great Big and Very Busy Room. I suspect that everyone in Plymouth actually lives with her, because everything seems to happen in this lady's living room. Women bring over their spinning wheels and gossip. Men show up with fresh kill. City government is operated from its settees, and Indians use it to call out these rude English people who dont seem to understand the concept of personal boundaries. I wonder how the poor woman sleeps at night, knowing that, even as she blows out the candle in her little bedroom, someone's still using that living room as Community Central, even at two in the morning.

But no matter. THE LADY SAYS YES really is a sweet little work, long on musical charm and just long enough to be entertaining. Ms. Rich's music commands a lot from her young performers, including some fun little pieces of parts work, while Ms. McGinley's script has opportunities for a couple of actors in secondary roles to do a bit of serious scenery chewing. My copy was apparently used by the actor who played Goodheart Manning, and it's quite the treat to see his carefully written notations about blocking and inflections.

THE MERRY WIDOW

2009-07-14T14:16:00.001-07:00

By the 1950s, it seems, we were seeing the demise of the high school operetta: the scripts were for the most part highly abridged (and poorly re-written) classics... such as THE MERRY WIDOW (1952), by Charles George and that musical upstart Franz Lehar. Pronouncing itself "the Greatest Operetta Success in the World", this version takes Lehar's sweeping melody and joie de vivre and reduces it to almost an unrecognizable mess.

The basic story is still the same: a young widow is romanced by a handsome prince. But that's about all that one would recognize from the original. Under Mr. George's guidance, the setting is a seaside resort that smacks of the Jersey coast. Gathered for the season is a relentless crew of Very Rich People and Their Assorted Hangers-On, not to mention a society reporter only thinly disguised as Dorothy Kilgallen, a quartet of Maxim showgirls, a prince from one of those small yet terribly romantic European countries that one can never quite find on a map... and some guy from Chicago. Something on him later.

For now, we are told in the opening chorus that:

I say to all here assembled
That the season is under way
If for your position you've trembled
You need have no further dismay
For in the Blue Book's new edition
There is no one on condition
E'ry one has been approved to date
Which makes you rate in the social state

With that out of the way, it's time to lay on the exposition... with a shovel.

CLARISSA. Well, Mrs. Talbot's name has figured prominently in several of Miss Killgarden's columns. And Mrs. Talbot is newly arrived.

MRS. R. Which Mrs. Talbot?

CLARISSA. The widow of the fabulously wealthy Ellsworth Talbot.

MRS. R. You mean the late butcher of Chicago?

MRS. VAN. One would scarcely refer to Ellsworth Talbot as a butcher. He founded the great meat-packing concerns.

MRS. R. He dealt in meat, therefore I should classify this Mrs. Talbot as the butcher's widow. Nouveau riche. No background. (stiffen haughtily)

... and so on and so on, through a litany of the play's main characters. Monty Nelson (the guy from Chicago), who's also supremely rich. The mysterious Mr. Popenstein, who's been here for exactly eleven days. And of course, much talk about Adele Talbot, who's not only fabulously wealthy but incredibly young (25) and gorgeous (of course) and charming (natch) and... well, everything these society matrons arent. Therefore, they cant stand her.

Adele finally makes her entrance, encircled by every single man in the place.. and even a couple that arent. She tells them how much she misses Chicago, and I'm sure every single one would drive her there that night had it not been for the inopertune entrance of Monty Nelson, who dashes all their plans by escorting her by himself to the balcony. He makes yet another pass at her, which she pointedly (but charmingly) deflects, telling Monty that there's another man she's interested in... then quickly assuaging his crushed ego by saying Monty's "everything a woman should desire... and yet -- "

The woman just doesnt know when to keep her mouth shut.

... particularly when she finally shares the mysterious man of her dreams is a prince that she met...

... while she and her late husband were on their honeymoon.

Class act, eh? Mooning like a love-sick calf, Adele was apparently only one or two steps from ditching her husband and running off with this guy. Still, she insists nothing happened, that she stayed true to her husband (whom she didnt love: "Marriage to a man you do not love is like buying a napkin when what you want is a tablecloth.") until he conveniently died. Now she's off to find Mr. Mystery Date.

Well, she's no sooner gone than Popenstien appears, "the epitome of all masculine charms". It doesnt take long to figure out that it's Adele's prince, in disguise, on a little getaway. He's all suave charm, a bounder who can draw in women as adroitly as she can men. At this point, the story becomes achingly obvious, save for one plot twist late in the second act when it seems the Prince has a pre-arranged fiancée he sorta forgot to mention to Adele. In tears, she runs to the arms of the happily surprised Monty, who thinks maybe he's gonna get her after all. But only a few pages later, she goes back to the Prince, who decides that, for her, he'll give up his throne and go with her back to Chicago to help her run her late husband's meat packing plants. With one more sniff from the social arbiters at this shocking development, we have a merry celebratory finale, and the curtain falls.

There are so many, many things wrong with this adaption that it's difficult to know where to start. The characterizations are broadly painted with an eight-inch brush, and some of the motivations are... well, it would be less than charitable to call them appropriate. Adele comes across as a Slave to Duty who apparently hated life with her husband. That, coupled with the way Monty comes on to her, makes you wonder just how faithful she really was to the old guy. Then there's her schoolgirl passion for this prince: something she started, as noted, on her European tour honeymoon. Given her apparent treatment of Ellsworth and the Prince's widely publicized reputation as a bon vivant at all the right places in Paris (I mean, when does he rule his little country?), one almost thinks these two are right for each other... for all the wonderfully wrong reasons. Ah, and if you need any more evidence, there's the scene between him and Carlo, his minister in charge of the country's finances. His country is going broke... and he just cant bear to bring himself to return to deal with it, without having seen Chicago first.

Well, no one ever said operetta heroes were all that bright.

Buried somewhere under this mess is Lehar's score, which has been slashed to the point where many of the numbers are completely unrecognizable from their original settings. The combined script and vocal score runs about 150 pages, but the bulk of that is George's tedious, overwritten script. Most of the numbers are a scant few pages, reducing this almost a Coles Notes version. Indeed, Mr. George does to this what he did to the waltz in the previously discussed WALTZ TIME, and you want to throttle him, hard, on both counts.

The "greatest operetta success in the world"? Please. This MERRY WIDOW is a mere pretender, one that aspires to greatness on the coattails of its much more sophisticated ancestor. Pardon me while I sniff... hautily.

THE MAGIC PIPER

2009-06-17T17:21:00.000-07:00

Based on Browning's poem "The Pied Piper of Hamelin", THE MAGIC PIPER (1931), by N. Mitchell Hubrich and Carol Christopher (with beautifully designed cover art by Corina Melder-Collier), is like AT THE RAINBOW'S EDGE in that it's a relatively short work meant to be performed by everyone from first graders through those in middle school.

It's 1225, in the small German town of Hamelin. A town crier starts the proceedings by telling us that he relays all the really important news, like the fact that the mayor has lost his snuff box. Katrina Van Winkle returns from a visit to Hanover to the competing attentions of Hans and Peter. Little Yacob has learned a song about a goat. And Frieda has a new doll.

But the biggest news in town has to deal with, of course, the rats. They're everywhere, even so far as stealing babies from their cradles and dolls from their beds. The mayor (who, by now, has successfully found his snuff box) and the town council are beseiged by everyone to find a solution... and who should appear by a mysterious piper. He tells everyone he'll take care of the problem for the fee of a thousand guilders.

"A thousand?" says the mayor. "Do it and we'll give you fifty thousand!"

The Piper nods his head, takes up his flute, and lures the rats into the river, where they're all drowned. The Piper returns for his fee, but the mayor laughs him off. Furious, the Piper takes up his flute again and charms the children to follow him into a cave at the base of a mountain. The mountain then slams shut.

Now this is where Browning's poem ends, but given that we're dealing with the juvenile operetta here, we cant leave good enough alone... so the story continues. Or, as noted in the script:

In order that the story may have a more pleasing ending, the librettist has added two more short scenes, bringing the children back.

... which, in effect, is like those late-Victorian adaptations of Romeo and Juliet in which the star-crossed lovers dont quite die. At any rate, during the very brief Act Two, we're inside the mountain. The Piper entertains his little captives by providing them with music so they can dance. The Town Crier appears, with a bag of money, and the Piper, his honour assuaged, convinces the kids it's time to go home. The even briefer Act Three shows their return and the general rejoicing as the curtain falls.

As with RAINBOW'S EDGE, this is one of those playlets where the twenty-three musical numbers (over 44 pages!) are connected by the most minimal of dialogue, two or three lines maximum. Whatever side stories there may be, such as Katrina's return, are presented, then immediately forgotten, so we can move on to the next scene, which more or less turns the whole show into a series of star turns: a dramatic reading, a choral intro, a specialty dance, a comic number, a short dramatic ballet, and so on, all thrown together around the most minimal of adaptations of Browning's work.

Granted, you dont come to productions like this looking for depth of character. There's never enough time, after all, not when you have so many musical numbers to drive through. But the Piper is a bit of an odd comedy role here. Remember: the town has ripped him off, so he takes their children as revenge. But he soon finds out that babysitting this pack aint what it's cracked up to be, because only a day or two in, and he's run out of stories to tell them. And they're bored. Mightily, mightily bored. When the Town Crier appears (conveniently through the audience, so no one questions how he got inside the mountain when no one else could) with cash in hand, the Piper cant convince these urchins fast enough that it's time to go home and see Momma. It's interesting that he doesnt even appear during Act Three, save by a distant, off-stage flute solo. Instead, the children run on, everyone sings the finale

Oh we are all happy
Our children have come home
And from our city Hamelin
They never more will roam

... and that's it.

Thing is, the original poem (and the folklore on which it was based) was an object lesson: follow through on your promises. In THE MAGIC PIPER, that lesson disappears into thin air; no one in Hamelin has really learned anything by the theft and subsequent return of their kids, which sorta defeats the purpose of the story.

That's not to suggest that the audience couldnt figure out the message here. When you walk into an adaptation of well-trod material, you're going to bring along whatever moral lesson you obtained with it, so I gather Christopher and Hubrich felt they could just blunder along, provide a "more pleasing" ending, and let the audience do all the moral heavy lifting...

... which feels like even more of a rip-off than the Mayor's bait-and-switch payment for services rendered.

MUSICO-DRAMATIC PRODUCING

2009-06-10T08:10:00.000-07:00

This "manual for stage and musical directors" (1930) by Charles T. H. Jones and Don Wilson (yep, the same Don Wilson) covers much of the same ground as the handbook by Frank Beach discussed earlier in this blog. But while Beach's book goes into a great deal more detail about the specifics of production, Jones and Wilson's has the advantage of photographs and illustrations that give us a real opportunity to see these shows as they were presented during the Depression era.

Wilson (seen here) commands much of the space in the later chapters with discussions about a production of PURPLE TOWERS at the University of Washington. Page after page is devoted to the publicity of the show, in which it seems every single day, from the first rehearsal to opening night, had an article of some kind in the local paper as well the university newspaper. Prior to that, tho, we get to see pictures of CARRIE COMES TO COLLEGE, IN OLD VIENNA (performed by a company in Japan!), THE LUCKY JADE, and countless others as given by high schools, colleges, and community groups — not to mention a score or so of photos of mostly unidentified productions from the Chicago Civic Opera... as, I gather, examples of how the pros do it.

The book carries you through the entire process, from casting ("For the leading lady, an attractive girl with a small voice is preferable to an adipose type with grand opera aspirations.") to vocal coaching ("Singing by people absolutely devoid of vocal prowess is torture for the performer and audience alike."), through the rehearsal period, first dress, and finally opening night, as well as what to do with everything afterwards. As a composer, Wilson puts almost undue emphasis on the music, with page after page of tips and tricks for nascent conductors, chorus masters, rehearsal pianists, and vocal directors, while actual stage direction is relegated to a few common sense points about "creating a pretty stage picture". The sections on building scenery and costumes are woefully thin compared to the Beach book, but Jones and Wilson do have some interesting ideas about lighting, both in colour theory and how to construct the lighting stands themselves. For example, in the discussion about "bunch lights", which are essentially a bunch of lightbulbs inside a wooden box, the authors note the use of coloured gel sheets to create mood:

To change color frame without turning off the lights, place the new frame in front of the old one, then withdraw the latter. If this is not carefully done, there will be an instant of plain white light which spoils the effect.

Note: they're talking about doing this during a performance. Not at intermission or at a scene break. I can only imagine what that pressure must have been like for the kid who got stuck changing the light gels because he couldnt sing or act or dance.

Nevertheless, again, this book is — now anyways — all about the pictures, showing productions from the days when one had to be imaginative with materials because there wasnt a whole lot around to work with. Unsurprisingly, cardboard shows up a lot as a scenic medium, after it's been sized with something called "calcimine", which I gather is something akin to gesso. There's a great deal of reliance on existing stage drapes, such that the scenic design is reduced to a few platforms, some well-placed props, and little more. Butcher paper is another preferred skin for flats. Inexplicably, the authors seem to think exteriors are easier to build and paint by amateurs than interiors.

In the costume section, there's some fun little costume drawings. devoted to various nationalities and "ethnics", from the usual gypsies and omnipresent Dutch to (of all things) apache dancers (Should you not know what "apache dancing" is, this was an "entertainment" craze of the late 20s in which the woman is pretty well assaulted in every way imaginable by her sadistic partner, including being dragged across the dance floor by her hair). The costume notes are just as simplistic as those given scenery: to Jones and Wilson, with the right accessories, virtually everything can come out of the downstairs closet. Unlike the costume book I wrote about earlier, it's almost painfully obvious that in this area, Jones and Wilson are at the mercy of strangers, that they really have no idea what they're talking about. But that's okay, I suppose: one cant be expected to be a master of everything theatrical, right?

All in all, MUSICO-DRAMATIC PRODUCING is worth it solely for the imagery, not the tips and advice (although some of the casting suggestions are howlingly sexist). I get the impression that this book was published as a giveaway (The jacket has no price.), something enclosed for preferred clients at places like Willis or Hoffman. It's an enjoyable read as a period piece, but I honestly wonder how it was viewed at the time. I suspect that the publishers thought Wilson's name would be enough to carry it — and had he restrained himself to talking solely about music, it might have made a difference.

Eccentric dances

2009-06-06T22:51:00.001-07:00

You'll notice that, from time to time, these scripts indicate something called an "eccentric dance". From streetswing.com:

Eccentric dancing was basically anything weird, grotesque or out of the ordinary type of dancing or routine. Earl "Snakehips" Tucker was a very famous eccentric dancer, many people copied his style of moving his hips. Jigsaw Jackson was a contortionist who would dance excellently while doing contortions with his body, he had no imitators.

Eccentric dancers would do things such as the Snake Hips Dance, the Shimmy, dancing on a ball, dancing on your head, Legomania (aka rubberlegs), using whips, doing contortionist movements, dance in a handstand, balancing acts, and some acrobatic dance acts etc. Sometimes when new or unknown dance was being created or introduced, the reporters and critics would list it as an eccentric dance for lack of a proper name.

Today's modern "Hip Hop, The Robot and Vogue" type dancers would be considered eccentric back then as many movements in Hip-Hop actually came from this time. As an example, in 1923, Foots Robinson (Green and Robinson) did a dance where he would drop to the ground while dancing, spin on his back to the music and end in a pose. Usually these dances would be performed in medicine shows, Gille's, Circus, vaudeville and burlesque acts on the stage, or maybe a theme dance for the show.

Many dancers would be labled as Eccentric dancers at sometime during their career. Dancers like George M. Cohan, Leon Errol, George White, Joe Frisco, Harland Dixon, Ray Bolger, James Barton, Hal Leroy, Buddy Ebsen, and many more would carry this label, but most of them were so much more.

Later the category Eccentric dance name would change to Cabaret dance.

AND IT RAINED

2009-06-05T20:52:00.001-07:00

Okay, deep breath, everyone. It's another one of those works by you know who...

AND IT RAINED (1934) comes from the inestimable Estelle Merrymon Clark, so be prepared. Music for this venture comes from Adele Bohling Lee (edited by Estelle's husband, Palmer John Clark), but when approaching something by the Clarks, the music is about the last thing you think about. These shows are all about Estelle's rambunctious plots, and truly AND IT RAINED is no exception.

We start with a storm, a real whopper that left "Lightning flashing/Tall trees crashing/Rent by unseen hands!", as the opening chorus sings while everyone dries out on the lawn of the not-quite-ready-for-business Wise Hotel "somewhere out West". People have arrived on the local train, the last one to make it before the storm hit — including the cabaret performer Mademoiselle Caráy, her small dog Mitzi, and her tap dancing chorus... although Mlle. Caráy's accent has a way of sliding in and out in a rather suspicious way. Because Mr. Wise's wife doesnt approve of "actors", he tells them that the troupe will have to assume the roles of teacher and students.

They're no sooner sorted out than we see Dennis Black and his sister Maizie. Dennis is furious Maizie is there, because apparently she risked life and limb to get across a bridge that connects the hotel with the mainland... and, thanks to the storm, the bridge no longer exists. For some reason, Dennis insists that they not even acknowledge that they're brother and sister, because he was on board the very same train and overheard a girl and her father talking in a not-very-nice way about his father, and he wants to know who she is and why these two have it in for Dad.

Now, you're probably wondering what this has to do with him and Maizie deciding not to act like brother and sister. Not much. We go on.

The chorus rushes back on, demanding service, and we now get to meet the overbearing and linguistically-challenged Mrs. Wise:

Please have patience, you are more than welcome to my hostility. Now that the storm is over and the humidity cleared up, the bridge will soon be assimilated, and I shall be glad to speed the parting guest.

Yep, virtually every line the woman has contains a malapropism. And some are true groaners. The rest are even worse. At any rate, while she's becalming the assembled guests, John Rich, his daughter Maibelle, and his son Curly arrive. John and Maibelle are the two that Dennis overheard last night on the train, so he immediately sidles up to them and introduces himself as Dennis White.

His real last name is Black, remember? Yuk-yuk-yuk.

John says he's there to meet a man named Steele Black, an old boyhood friend (This is Dennis' father, remember). Maizie, who's been eavesdropping over by the ornamental peonies, interrupts:

Black? Oh isnt that funny? Your name is White, his name is Black, black and white make gray and that is my name. Grey, Maizie Grey.

What a colourful family. She then continues on, telling John that she knows Steele Black:

I know all about him. He has the fiercest temper you ever saw: cant keep a bit of help on the place, and he uses a gun like a bandit. Why, his only son wouldnt stay at home, and his only daughter ran away one dark and stormy night, and he hasnt heard from her since. Oh, he's terrible, Mr. Rich. I wouldnt waste my time on him if I were you.

Mlle. Caráy (whom John seems to know as Mary Carey from back in the day) and her troupe rush in and perform an "allegory". It seems to have something to do with a king and features a slave dance, and then some war is over, and everyone dances a victory dance, after which they leave and the play proper continues.

Now you're probably asking, Okay, just what the Hades was that? That, dear reader, is just another of Estelle's surreally inconsequential little scenes, usually indicative of nothing whatsoever. It's just her way of making sure everyone gets plenty of face time onstage, even if it has zero to do with the plot. While she doesnt layer them on quite as heavily as she did in LAZY TOWN, Estelle made sure that AND IT RAINED has its own bloated share.

Back in the play, Dennis tries to find out why Maibelle has it in for his father, but she wants to keep her peace about it: after all, she's just met Dennis, which is hardly enough time for a young lady's future ex-beau to know all her secrets. Still, he perseveres, and we find out that this has to do with a looking glass, an heirloom given Maibelle by her great-great-great grandmother (longevity apparently runs rampant in the Rich family). Steele had at one time borrowed it and never returned it, the cad. But no matter, Dennis and Maibelle have found each other as a result, and for our immediate purposes, that's all that matters, because it gives them an opportunity to sing a little love song and then clear out just as Curly and Maizie come on with Mr. Wise and cajole him into loaning them his car so they can go see what's going on with the bridge. He agrees (ah, such a different time), but tells them that his wife can never know. He goes to get the keys. Curly and Maizie dance a tango (dont ask, just remember who wrote this).

They sorta kinda make it to the still-down bridge in time to see Maizie's father coming across the river in a flying machine. A glider? A small aeroplane? An early helicopter? Estelle, that woman of mystery, never says for certain. Steele and John have a slightly awkward reunion, Dennis's issues with his last name are revealed, Maibelle becomes absolutely furious with Dennis for his little colour switch, Curly is arrested and thrown into jail for speeding (at 25 mph!), Mlle. Caráy's dog has gone missing, and... no, I think that's everything — as the curtain falls on Act One.

Act Two is later that night. There's a big festive dinner to celebrate Opening Day, even though the menu is limited to beans and cod fish balls. The tap dancers perform an "air de ballet". Maibelle is still mad at Dennis, and he tries to calm her down by telling her the story of the Moonflower, an old legend that seems to work just fine for the purpose of cuing up a Native-style dance. Curly, who seems to have escaped from jail, appears with the boys' glee club, and everyone performs an "eccentric dance" before he decides to make himself scarce...

... and so it goes, on and on and on. Inside the next few pages, previously wimpy Curly stands up to his father so he can help rebuild the bridge and returns not ten lines later with a broken arm; Mlle. Caráy is revealed to have been fond of both John Rich and Steele Black when they were all younger; and the fathers decide they've done enough meddling in the lives of their children and from now on are going to sit on the sidelines while Dennis and Maibelle do some serious courtin'. Mrs. Wise is tricked into believing that her keys (and her car) never left the property, and Maizie and Curly... well, you know: usual operetta ending, with everyone getting paired off somehow.

Oh, the mirror? Mentioned in passing at the very end. We wrap up this little work still not knowing what the big fuss was about with the mirror, but given how Estelle writes her plays, that probably shouldnt be surprising. Still, AND IT RAINED, with its ten — count 'em, ten! — story lines that interweave around and through each other, is relatively sanguine for Ms. Clark: if she doesnt quite get around to finishing them all neat and tidy, well, she just ran out of time, probably.

Lyrically, it's down there with her usual efforts:

Oh little Mary Carey
She went away one day
She went to France
To learn to dance
And speak the French they say
But no amount of coaching
Could change the brogue of Mary
She's still the same little Irish girl
And her name is Mary Carey.

I honestly cannot explain why the Clarks got so much work published, save that possibly it was because the scripts were so big that they guaranteed everyone in class a pretty decent part. Or more likely the publishers were more interested in Palmer's musical skills as composer and editor than they were in Estelle as an author. It must have been a package deal, from what I can figure, because her work is arguably some of the overdone out there, with so many plots running at the same time that the audience had to have taken notes just to keep everyone's storylines straight. Her model seems to have been the mechanical farces of writers like Feydeau, except she's not manic enough. And she never quite figured out that Feydeau works because he treats the utterly implausible as completely acceptable: Estelle, on the other hand, has to underscore it all with page after page of let's-shove-it-in-at-the-last-minute exposition to explain everything in the smallest detail... even if it means forgetting about the thing that started it all — like, in this case, the mirror.

The cover art, by the way, is a stunning piece of post-Deco, pre-Moderne-era styling. Shamefully, it's uncredited.

ENCHANTED ISLE

2009-05-30T17:46:00.001-07:00

Much in the vein of every musical biography ever presented, ENCHANTED ISLE (1935) by Marion Wakeman and Ira Wilson presents little bit of fictional history regarding Frederic Chopin's visit to the island of Mallorca in 1836.

Okay, history first. Chopin did indeed travel to Mallorca, when he was twenty-six. While there, he wrte some of his most famous works, such as the first concerto in E minor op. 11. But that's about as far as history goes in ENCHANTED ISLE.

Instead, this little piece begins with the happy villagers doing their happy villager thing: mending fishing nets, weaving baskets, and other "homely tasks". Their benign happiness at how pretty the day is is interrupted by the return of Ramon, Juan, and the rest of the boys from the big city of Palma, where they apparently partied pretty hard with the local girls... much to the distress of Elena, who's in love with Ramon, and the undisguised jealousy of Maria, who's in love with Juan. But more importantly, Ramon has brought back a letter for Elena's father, telling him someone named Chopin is coming to stay at their inn... and that he's arriving — today!

No sooner have they brushed things up a bit than Chopin's boat arrives. The man himself is frail and a bit sickly from the voyage: he hopes that his stay on Mallorca will remedy whatever's wrong with him before he has to return to Paris. But Ramon certainly doesnt take well to Elena's sudden interest in this foreigner, particularly when Chopin offers to sponsor Elena's singing career. Things are getting tense as the curtain falls...

In the next scene, it's three months later. Chopin's piano has arrived, Elena is entranced by descriptions of life in Paris, and Ramon shows up with a new boat — not for fishing, however. It turns out that he's gone into smuggling. He's delighted that he's now going to make enough money to fnally marry Elena... but suddenly she's not so interested in him anymore. Ramon thinks she's fallen for Chopin, but that's not entirely the case: she wants to try her wings at this singing thing, and she wants to do it big-time... in Paris.

Ramon is devastated, but Elena tries to assure him that she's only doing it for them. But her own happiness is short-lived when Chopin tells her he's decided against taking her to Paris... not because she cant sing well enough, but he's afraid Paris will corrupt her. She leaves in tears, and Chopin realizes that not only is she in love with the idea of being a famous singer, she's in love with him as well -- and he knows that cant work. After all, she's so young and he's so old (at twnety six!). He doesnt want to stand between her and Ramon's happiness, so he decides to cut out quick and asks Ramon to take him to Palma, where he'll take a boat headed for France. He says his goodbyes to Elena and her parents, then Ramon tells Elena he's off to Palma... to stay. But that too turns out to be a bit of red herring, because he's not, and they're getting married (he and Elena, that is, not he and Chopin), and everyone sings about their enchanted isle, and the curtain falls.

If anything is working for ENCHANTED ISLE, it's, of course, Chopin's music, which has been lightly edited and slightly re-arranged to serve the vacuous — and, at times, downright purple — lyrics:

Star of the sailor, guide once more
To this enchanted peaceful shore
Fair haven of dreams
Brightly it gleams
Mid waters blue
We gladly will share
All of its charm with you

ENCHANTED ISLE isnt the only operetta that appropriated music from a famous composer, but it's arguably one of the thinest in terms of plot. Chopin is little more than a big city boy who's decided to go native for a while, and Elena and Ramon are barely a step above Spanish hillbillies with great voices. Ramon's turn to smuggling doesnt go anywhere whatsoever, and you'd think such a dangerous career move would create something in the way of a plot development. Instead, it's little more than "oh you were a fisherman now you're a smuggler EVERYBODY SING!" — and then it's forgotten.

But even the failed romance between Chopin and Elena fails to muster even the slightest bit of chemistry: she's dazzled by him; he's clueless. And that's as far as we go. It's all just played on the same emotional plane from beginning to end, without even a slight detour into some much-needed comic relief. In fact, the one couple that you think would provide that — Juan and Maria — are pretty well forgotten after the boys' return from Palma. Whatever storyline they might have had was derailed quickly and vanished.

At the very least, it has Chopin's music. The selections are well known works, with the possible exception of a couple that skirt with obscurity. Still, they work well for their placement in the score. It's a sad consolation, but about the only one we get.

TULIP TIME

2009-05-28T14:58:00.001-07:00

It's been a while since posting here, and for that I apologize. So let's get this puppy back on track with something that will hopefully make it all well worth the wait.

It continues to strike me as a little odd that the Netherlands should command so much attention of the authors and composers behind the early high school musical — and yet it does. Right now, I have about a half dozen works that all take place in that region of Europe, some pretty awful, others — like TULIP TIME (1927) — actually not so bad.

But then again, it comes from the team of Morgan and Johnson (with arrangements by the inevitable Don Wilson and cover art by Donn Crane), whose work never seems to fail in terms of its sheer entertainment value. While the plots are never much more than facile, Morgan and Johnson both deliver nicely in not only appeasing their audiences as well as their amateur performers.

So... we're in the little Dutch village of Osendorf, and it seems everyone is somehow connected with the flower trade, either as a grower or as a seller. Despite the angry denials of the town's Burgomaster, Hendrick Van Ooster, everyone's enjoying a holiday... for no real reason than they just want to. And in the midst of this spontaneous frivolity arrives a party of American tourists, most notably Professor McSpindle, an expert in botany, and two of his students, Ned and Dick, whose scientific attentions to flowers are utterly and completely lost when they see Christina and Katinka.

But Christina in particular has no time for a summer romance, even with a cute American. Her mother is ill, and they're poor as the proverbial churchmice. The burgomaster has offered to buy what he says are worthless stocks and bonds Christina's father sent from America before he died, but Christina promised she'd keep them, worthless or not, for ten years, as her father requested. Still, she could really use the cash now, so the burgomaster's offer is severely tempting.

But Ned, who's seriously infatuated, questions the burgomaster's intentions: if these things are as worthless as Van Ooster claims, why would he buy them? Ned offers to take a look at them, because he suspects they're worth far more than the hundred guilder currently on the table.

Problem is, he cant find any quality time with Christina because the well-leaning professor has declared this to be a "flirting-free" trip. But opportunity comes knocking when news hits of an international tulip bulb thief at large, complete with a detailed description of the robber's clothing. Ned and Dick hit on the scheme to have the professor dress up like the thief and have him arrested, which would free them up for a little time with their girls.

So the professor unwittingly gets himself landed in jail, Ned finds out that the stocks are worth close to a million dollars (in 1927 money!), the boys get their girls, the professor is released and finds his own cutie, the burgomaster is thwarted, and we all sing the praises of tulips as the curtain falls.

Now, taken for what it's worth, TULIP TIME is actually a charming little show, one of the better I've seen thus far from Morgan and Johnson. It's not quite as rollicking as CROCODILE ISLAND, but no matter. While the affected Dutch accents are pretty severe, the play doesnt seem as rife with stereotypes as you might expect: the Hollanders are all well-drawn characters, even the not-quite-so-evil Burgomaster, who's not so much a villian as an opportunist. The professor is slightly more than a two-dimensional part, with opportunity — especially in the second act — for some great comedic moments when he appears dressed exactly like the international bulb thief. While everything about the show is, of course, eminently predictable, it still travels along some agreeable roadways, like the little song for the Burgomaster and his young apprentice Hans:

BUR. I hold a lot of other jobs
I am der health inspector
As county clerk I sometimes work
Or safety-first director

HANS. Sometimes he acts as traffic cop
Ven he says 'Go', ve never stop
Keeps everybody on the hop
All hail the burgomaster!

There's also a delightful little number in which Hans conducts the girls' chorus in a dancing lesson. Bearing in mind that everyone would be wearing wooden shoes, you cant help but laugh at the possible choreographic moments attendant to:

First mit der left foot and den mit der right
Stamping der feet down mit all of your might
Ach, such gracefulness makes a delight

But arguably the best number in the show is a duet for the burgomaster and Anna, a woman of "a certain age" who's Christina's guardian during her mother's illness.

ANNA. Dont you think that they would like a word from you?

BUR. Maybe und maybe not.

ANNA. Dont you think to make a speech is just the thing to do?

BUR. Maybe und maybe not.

ANNA. Dont you think when strangers from aboard come into town
They should have a welcome from a man of your renown
You should be a cordial host and do the thing up brown

BUR. Maybe... und maybe not.
There are two sides to every question

ANNA. And you have to watch your step when you reply

BUR. Ven I hear interrogations
I bust out in perspirations

ANNA. For it means you have to frame an alibi

BUR. Politicians must be magicians

ANNA. Or they'll find the water getting mighty hot

BUR. So to questions such as Vont you/Vill you/Are you/Aint you?
I say
Maybe... und maybe not

Like so many others from this team, TULIP TIME could endure a little brushing off and some minor musical rewrites and then stand quite nicely on its own once more. In addition to its charm and humour, TULIP TIME is one of those works that speaks volumes about its creators, a words-and-music team that never gave less than its best effort. I wish we knew more about these men... as well as the many others who devoted their lives in service to this artform. I have a suspicion that there are some equally great stories lurking in the shadows of these little musicales.

AT THE RAINBOW'S EDGE

2009-04-29T18:10:00.001-07:00

This has been a week of kiddie shows, it seems: all three of the new acquisitions are aimed squarely at the lower grades, and so you get things that are simple to stage and easy to sing. These rarely have any real star turns but rather implement choruses that can range from a few to a few hundred.

At the same time, as with LAZY TOWN, there's something a little disorienting about them when you read them, as if even though the authors' intent is clear as glass, the work still lends itself for productions that meander into the somewhat bizarre.

For example, AT THE RAINBOW'S EDGE (1931), by Douglass and Virginia Whitehead, with music by G. A. Grant-Schaefer (who, incidently, also wrote the score for LAZY TOWN). I should mention at the outset that the title page assures you that these three are indeed more than qualified to write this — Douglass, at the time of publication, held an MA from Columbia and worked as the Supervisor of Drama at San Francisco's State Teachers' College, while his wife Virginia, not to be outdone, got her BS from the University of California, with subsequent graduate work at Columbia, and (at the time) served as director of rhythm at the Brantwood Hall School and Payson School and was formerly the head of Physical Education at the same State Teachers' College.

Poor Grant-Schaeffer was just the Head of the Voice Department at Northwestern, but he made up for it by writing tons of stuff — operettas, cantatae, and "musical plays" — for grade schools, published mostly by the Arthur P. Schmidt Company, which seemed to have specialized in this sub-genre.

Now, with resumes as impressive as this, you'd think, Wow! These guys really know their game! This is gonna seriously rock! — and then you'd be severely disappointed. A celebration of spring, AT THE RAINBOW'S EDGE is an interesting, almost psychedelic mosh of unborn flowers, polar bears, and Aunt Jemima. The story in brief:

We're in some kind of cave, where the unborn flowers blissfully sleep as they wait for the call of Spring. Guarding them are Nurse Nature (who's to be costumed as a "mammy" for absolutely no reason whatsoever), her faithful dog Bow Wow, and the Dream Fairy. The Rainbow Elves come to tint the flowers' new dresses, then depart, leaving behind the rainbow colours. But, dont you know it, that night Jack Frost and the Snow Flakes steal the rainbow colours and the new dresses — and, thanks to information from Robin Red Breast and a very doleful Raven, we find out that the Frost King plans on stealing the flowers as well. The Brown Bears are roused from their hibernation to help Nurse Nature, but the Frost King is prepared for that and brings his Polar Bears, and the Brown Bears get their rear ends handed to them.

The Frost people are just about to depart with their prisoners for the Ice Palace when "conquering Sunbeams" arrive and turn back the Frost People, thus saving the flowers. Bow Wow then clues everyone in on where to find the Rainbow Colours and the flowers' new dresses. And it all wraps up with a huge finale that reprises everything in the score, with a final chorale welcoming Spring.

Wow. It sounds pretty straight-forward, but when you read it, it moves with lurching rapidity: elves and fairy folk and bears appear and disappear with near-bewildering speed. You can tell that the pacing on this is meant to be fast and pointed: fully half the score is allegro, while the rest moves from a smattering of andante to a whole whack of vivace and animato. The fact that this was intended for kids in early grades makes you wonder how much the authors pre-supposed about their little performers. It didnt stop onstage, by the way: in addition to the piano, the orchestra consists of several rhythm instruments, such as drums and a triangle and two kinds of tambourines. This was no doubt intended to be the school's Big Spring Production, involving as many students from as many grades as possible, with fanciful, relatively orate costumes (This was written during the Depression, remember) and a somewhat involved set. For the most part, the ensemble numbers are written in two-part harmony, which is a little surprising, considering most lower-grade works are written with unison singing in mind. There's also opportunities for the little ballerinas to show their burgeoning talents, while everyone else's dance opportunities seem to consist of marching in line or in a circle.

But it's the speed at which the involved plot moves through this hour-long work. With so many characters and so many ensemble groups, the Whiteheads knew they had to get everything moving if Mom and Dad were going to see their little darling perform Third Rainbow Elf from the Right. As such, the songs are short and to the point. For example, the Snow Flakes' opening number, given here in toto:

Dart dart
Whirl
Dart dart dart
Whirl
Dart dart
Dart dart dart
Whirl

— or Jack Frost's "slumber spell":

The spell of the ice
The spell of the snow
Into the dreams of flowers we throw

Then sleep you deep
And do not wake
Sleep you deep
And do not wake

Granted, you cant have anything too complex for the kids to memorize, so it's not surprising that any one song runs longer than 24 bars. But with 33 music cues in 54 pages, the Whiteheads simply dont give you enough time to think beyond 24 bars, not when there's six or seven lines of dialogue and another music cue coming right on their heels.

With its myriad posses of performers, AT THE RAINBOW'S EDGE must have been exhausting to stage. But it also has this undeniable weirdness that seems tailor-made for a high-concept approach for a modern-day performance. As I was reading it, I kept flashing on the thought, "What would Julie Taymor do with this material?" — and the response was something big and bright and colourful and strange, with puppets and gigantic props and all the other signature parts of a Taymor production, perhaps even production design inspired by Peter Max. There arent many works in the high school operetta canon that suggest Ritual Theatre, but AT THE RAINBOW'S EDGE comes damn close.

IN GAY HAVANA

2009-04-22T18:16:00.001-07:00

Revolution, gunfire, and officials out looking for bribes... it's just another day at the hotel office in IN GAY HAVANA (1942), by Sibyl Evans Baker.

We're in the enclosed patio of the Isla de Cuba, a newly-opened hotel under the management of Señor Alvarez, who's been forced to hire an itinerant troupe of ballet dancers to function as serving girls and maids. His first guests, all from the US, consist of the Beadle sisters (one of whom is there to do a study "the life of the Cuban natives"), the newlyweds George and Luella Potter (of Potter's Plumbing and Pipes), and a group of college boys from Alma Mater on spring break. Later, they're joined by Margot and her mysterious companion Señora X. Naturally, no sooner has everyone registered than revolution breaks out... yet again... and everyone's confined to the hotel.

Stan, one of the college boys, falls in love with Margot, while Tom zeroes in on Carmen, the daughter of Señor Alvarez. Problem there is that she's constantly accompanied by her ubiquitous chaperons, a gaggle of ladies "of a certain age" dressed mantilla-to-foot in black.

Valdez, a Cuban patriot, takes refuge in the hotel as he seeks some government documents, the bearer of which is to make himself known by saying "Cuba libre!" Unfortunately, one of the Beadle sisters makes the mistake of saying it and finds herself pursued relentlessly by Valdez, much to her mounting confusion and the consternation of her sister. And if that werent confusion enough, Margot disappears and George Potter is kidnapped.

In due time, we find out that (1) Margot is a double-agent, (2) Señora X is actually her father and the real bearer of the documents Valdez wants, (3) George was kidnapped because the patriots thought he was a spy, (4) Sister Beadle likes what she sees in Valdez, (5) Carmen's chaperons win the lottery and buy a house in the suburbs, (6) Margot and Carmen are to be sent to the States to be educated, which makes Tom and Stan pretty happy, and (7)... no, wait, I think I got everything.

IN GAY HAVANA is almost surreal in its combination of things: as noted, there is a revolution going on, but it breaks periodically so everyone can party down a bit. Then, just as quickly, the police show up and arrest the band, there's gunfire in the streets, and someone sings a love song, all within a very few pages. But everything is so highly absurd: the ballet troupe is constantly on the lookout for a way out of their contracts, the joined-at-the-hips duennas that make up Carmen's chaperons break into an "eccentric dance" when they come to retrieve their wayward charge, Señor Alvarez's operating licence is valid one minute and not the next, depending on which government is in control. And, if you needed more, there's a Chinaman who sells lottery tickets. It's very much in tone like LES MAMMELLES DE TIRESIAS by Satie, where absurdist incident piles on absurdist incident to the point where revelations that one of the women is a man seems perfectly ordinary. The romances that usual propel the plots are swamped by all the manic exchanges that should be relegated to subplots: after a while you really dont care about Tom and Stan and Margot and Carmen, because they're just not as much fun to watch as Valdez's nonstop pursuit of Sister or the omni-present ballet troupe's series of auditions that shift out of thin air.

Truly, I'm not sure what to make of this one, because it's so much at odds with itself. Baker seems to be approaching her material with an almost affectionate humour, but it's also marginally insulting in its depiction of Cuba during a time of turmoil. We're not talking about the blackface-as-slapstick gimmick here: instead, la revolucion is played more for laughs than anything else, as almost a running giggle. The visiting Americans make no bones about being bored, bored, bored when they're confined for their own safety: indeed, the gun battles in the streets are mere inconveniences ruining their vacations.

And what makes this all the more curious is that Baker provides extensive descriptions of how to make Cuban musical instruments like a guiro, as well as an exacting pronunciation guide for the many Spanish words and phrases used throughout the show. Her characters are never maliciously drawn in their humour — granted, Señor Alvarez is a facile stereotype portrait, but it's a gentle one. The crow-like duennas are, in the end, just as happy to be relieved of Carmen as she is of them. The newlyweds are pretty much comic relief and little more, but at the same time there's a wonderfully nervous edge to George, who wants his new wife to see him in all his seemingly-secure, masculine glory. You even find yourself liking the Cuban soldiers who arrive to shake down a few bucks from Alvarez. It's just what you know that's going on outside the walls around all these perfectly nice people that makes IN GAY HAVANA seem not quite so gay after all.

Lyrically and musically, IN GAY HAVANA is thinner than even most of the musicals discussed in this blog. Songs only go on for a page or two, with no real development, although there's a surprising amount of dance music. But for the actual sung pieces, nothing quite prepares you for this ditty in the third act:

Señores
Will you listen well?
Señores
I have something to tell
Señores
I'm a singer of songs
Señores
I'm a vendor of bombs

You will find them good

They go off when they should

I'm a singer of songs
I'm a vendor of bombs
If you like my songs
Please buy my bombs

I suppose that, if anything, "Please Buy My Bombs" crystalizes everything so terribly wrong with this show -- something deadly serious treated as a joke. And it begs the question: were we, as a society, truly this blind?

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This post, by the way, is a bit of milestone in this blog: IN GAY HAVANA is the fiftieth operetta to be discussed here. I hope you're enjoying these as much as I.

THE GHOST OF LOLLYPOP BAY

2009-04-19T20:44:00.001-07:00

The sort of show that would appeal to those who believe that men and women should have no contact until the age of 40, the unfortunately named GHOST OF LOLLYPOP BAY (1926) has, as its sole redeeming quality, music by Charles Wakefield Cadman. And it's frustrating because its authors should have done so much more with this opportunity.

Let's get the minimal story out of the way. On opposite shores of Lollypop Bay are two schools, one for young ladies, one for young gentlemen. The two have a very strict non-fraternization policy that, as you can imagine, is circumvented at every possible chance by its students.

During one summer afternoon, rumours pop up that a ghost has taken up residence at the Bay. It's first been seen by Dinah, a "coloured maid", and, of course no one takes that seriously. But when the headmistress Jemina Steel sees it, then everyone gets real concerned, not the least of whom is Professor Flint, a "bashful bachelor" who runs the boys' school. But the ghost — whatever its origins — serves to allow our minimalist plot to propel forward by pushing Jemina into the protective, semi-manly arms of Flint... as well as give the kids the opportunity to run off in just all directions... some of them in couples... and not same-gender couples at that.

But it's for good reason that no one takes Dinah seriously because, as it turns out, she was the "ghost" seen by Ms. Steel. Why, you ask? Because her boyfriend works for Flint and she and he had a spat which sent her to work for Steel and now she misses him but she cant go back to him until the two schools merge (I'm not sure about why on that one, but whatever...) so she put on this sheet and scared herself and her boss and... Oh, and did I mention that one of the girls thought it would be fun to play ghost and is now running around in her own sheet and winds up scaring Dinah for real?

Now, just as in any good 80s era slasher film, instead of going home and staying there, the various residents of these schools decide, in a moment of blind stupidity, that, even though everyone's scared out of their wits, they're staying for the night. The boys are sent to their school to get blankets, while the girls stay behind to set up camp (an interesting piece of proto-feminist thought, in a weird kind of way). Dinah and Mary, unbeknownst to each other, try to pull off a second scaring, which results in a near-miss of an unmasking by Flint... but before he can do it, a third ghost appears, and the sudddenly-macho Flint runs off in pursuit of this new interloper. In the excitement, Mary and Dinah escape unrecoginzed. They've no sooner done so than our third ectoplastic friend returns, carrying an unconscious Flint. As Steel lovingly "administers restoratives" to our hapless would-be hero, this third ghost unmasks, revealing himself to be Marcus, Dinah's on-again-off-again boyfriend. The whole ghost ruse was to scare her, with the intent that the real Marcus would "rescue" her, thus ensuring she'd come back to him. The headmasters announce their intention to marry and "blend" their schools, and the curtain falls.

Okay, it's the usual high school musical twaddle, which, were it by folks like the Clarks, might be acceptable: the synopsis certainly seems to embrace the nonsensical plots Estelle so dearly loves. But here's the thing: Charles and Juanita Roos were nothing like Palmer and Estelle Clark.

Charles Roos was from Los Angeles, but he'd grown up in the St. Croix River region with a skillset that included not only woodworking and raftmanship but also an intense curiosity about local native tribes. He met Juanita, and the two became professional as well as personal partners: Juanita was a gifted lyricist and composer in her own right. The two wrote several song cycles that spoke from the Native experience, and they also collaborated with composers such as Cadman and Thurlow Lieurance (who himself visited some 30 reservations and made some of the first recordings of Native music), on songs that celebrated Hispanic and Native culture.

I've already written about Cadman's background, which likewise had a strong foundation in Native musical forms... so how did these three enlightened souls come to write something as embarrassingly awful as LOLLYPOP BAY? It's not so much that BAY has the usual nonsense about people falling in love under a full moon and deciding, without so much as day's courtship, to run off and get married. It's that here you have a woman who was Hispanic and Native, her husband who was sensitive to the political realities of the time, and a composer who actively promoted the cultural contributions of other American-based cultures... and the three of them collaborate to create a thin little work that takes all of that and shoves it out the door in favour of something that's just as sexist and racist as anything else the genre produced in the 20s and 30s. In the world of LOLLYPOP BAY, everyone's white and privileged (except for those subservient darkies, of course) and more obsessed with finding a good marriage match than anything else. The people who wrote "Eight Songs from Green Timber", which was roundly hailed by both critics and performers, give us such stirring lyrics as:

It seems that I'm always in the wrong
That I'm bound to be misunderstood
The things that I do
I am quite sure to rue
Try hard as I will to be good

or:

Oh dear oh dear
Can this be real
You know what happens
When Flint meets Steel

or:

I suah feels somethin' in ma bones
Such as ma name is Dinah Jones
Boo! Dis am a spooky place!
Wish it had nebber knowed ma face!
When de dark'nin' shadders fall
"Whoo-oo-oo" I hears an old owl call
Og goodness gracious glory-be
Dis am no place foh a gal lak me

Gads.

Because I write about these as I receive them, it's a little surprising to see the saccharine LOLLYPOP coming after the bleak reality of TWILIGHT ALLEY. As I wrote there: as a general rule, you dont come to these things looking for deep political insight. But it's still saddening to see something that has "sell out" all but written into the cover artwork.

TWILIGHT ALLEY

2009-04-09T18:38:00.000-07:00

Once you left the object lessons of the works for primary grade, the high school operetta, as you've probably figured out by now, wasnt really long on social consciousness. National politics, even for satire, rarely entered into the plot lines. Women's suffrage — as demonstrated in WILD ROSE and COLLEGE DAYS — was something more to be laughed at than anything else, and racial inequity... well, you've seen plenty here to know how that was handled. That's why TWILIGHT ALLEY (1919) by Mrs. Henry Backus and Paul Bliss (unsigned cover art, but something on that below) is a bit of a shocker. Surprisingly enough, TWILIGHT ALLEY is concerned with the plight of the poor, particularly those living in the crowded tenements of big cities like New York, and it approaches the problem with sensitivity and grace.

The story deals with Dame Needy, who, with her eight daughters and one son, lives in a run-down tenement building called "The Old Shoe". The kids are taught from an early age to work and work hard, and not to expect anything more from life. We see the daughters put through their paces of cleaning the Old Shoe, which is a near daily task because of the choking smoke (also known as the Black Bogie). The air is rarely clear; hence the neighbourhood is known as "Twilight Alley".Into this comes Lily, daughter of the rich property owner who holds the deed on virtually all of Twilight Alley. She's wandered there by mistake but takes pity on the daughters and invites them all to her home out in the country. So while Mom is asleep, the girls steal away for a party.

They're no sooner gone than the boys, who've finally had enough of life in the tenements, resolve to burn it down, but they're stopped just in time by Lily and the girls. Instead, the boys turn their wrath on the Black Bogie. After a furious play-battle (paralleled with an offstage action on the part of the residents involving an airplane that I gather seeds the clouds to make it rain and thus clean the air), they return with his wings (a black umbrella), his tail (an old rope), one of his ribs (a barrel stave), and his armour (a battered old dishpan). To tandem with their achievement, the city council passes a law that mandates a smoke consumer on every chimney, thus ensuring that Twilight Alley will see the sunlight yet again. Lily invites everyone back to her house to celebrate, and we're done.

The opening chorus sets us straight about the characters and exactly who and what they are:

Cleaning and sweeping
Oh the weary work
Must we ever be cleaning up
Then do it all again?
This is all we remember
This is all we remember
Every day, every day
Every day the same...

Dame Needy has little patience for her daughters' wish to see something green during the springtime:

Where do you see any green? I dont! Everything's grey, grey like the clouds, black like the smoke. No wonder they call this Twilight Alley.

Taken in all, it's a pretty sad (but never cloying) portrait of a family forced to move into such desperate conditions because of an unspecified financial problem. The father is no longer with the family, which just heightens Dame Needy's desperation and concern for her children, but she also helps other single mothers in the neighbourhood by taking some of them in while their parents are at work. One, Angelina, is apparently sick with a lung infection from the incessant smoky air; it's too dangerous to let her run around outside, so she's transfered that concern to her dolly.

My dolly is sick, my dolly is sick
It makes her cry
She comes from the land where sunshine is bright
And so, so do I

Hush little baby, dont cry
Hush little baby, dont cry
We will go out where the sun shines bright
You will be well by and by

But frankly, I cant imagine that TWILIGHT ALLEY was a big seller for Willis: it is so relentlessly bleak: almost every song until the finale is a sad commentary of some kind -- little Angelina only wants to see a butterfly once more. Eldest daughter Meg only wants to breathe clean air. The boys see their lives as living in a cave to hide from robbers; their best solution is to just burn down the whole filthy mess. And lurking in the background of the piece is a second, very big reason why this probably didnt do well: fear and suspicion between the rich and the poor. The kids are innocently past that, as you might expect — when Lily invites the girls up for the afternoon, they dont worry about the consequences. But, on their return, Dame Needy reminds them of who they are and who the rich people are and why the two should never meet.

In some respects, TWILIGHT ALLEY is arguably the RENT of its day, a musical snapshot of people that you dont even see as they pass you on the street, people that you probably would prefer not to see. So that would leave the question: who was this written for? The early 20th century was still a time of regimented class structure, with no real middle class to speak of. You were either rich or poor. And I can easily see parents from both social worlds up in arms about presenting a play like this, either out of shame or guilt or both.

The cover art artfully plays with the look of the "Old Shoe". As noted, it's unsigned, but the style smacks of the work of Percy Crosby, the artist behind the "Skippy" series of books, about a young boy who was, coincidentally enough, from the slums of New York. Crosby was quite the celebrated artist in his day — "Skippy" made him as much as $2400 per week (in 1921!) — but his work was out and out stolen by Rosefield Packaging Company, the originators of... (wait for it)... Skippy Peanut Butter, in 1933. Crosby tried to have the trademark annulled in 1934, but the courts have consistently continued to grant it to whomever manufactures the peanut butter. The litigation continues to this day.

COLLEGE DAYS

2009-04-05T06:06:00.000-07:00

Okay, now that I had my April Fool's Day fun (You didnt really think SPRINGTIME FOR HITLER was a real operetta, did you?), it's time to get back to the real thing.

COLLEGE DAYS (1921), by May Hewes Dodge and John Wilson Dodge, is interesting in the fact that it has a bit of an odd construction and it's one of the first I've come across that deals with the First World War and its impact on the young people of the time.

Set (initially) in 1917, COLLEGE DAYS starts with a school baseball game. It's the bottom of the ninth in a real nail-biter, and fortunately for Brinkdale, the star player, Davey Carson, slams in a home run that puts the college in the lead and wins the game. After celebrating his win. Davey gets some "quality time" with his girlfriend, Dot, who's also the daughter of the college president.

But it seems that someone else is after Dot's affections: Chauncy de Forest (also known as "Dude", although I'm not sure why). Chauncy's a local bad boy who, through a somewhat complicated plot, manages to frame Davey as the player who throws the next game with archrival Fairfield College. Because (1) he gave his word and (2) he's apparently not very bright, Davey leaves Brinkdale at the end of Act Two with his head still high -- even though he's been thrown out of school. Instead, he's going to prove his worth to Brinkdale by going off to war.

Oddly, no one seems to care. Dot breaks their engagement, the college president acts like he's scum -- even his old teammates abandon him.

Act Three is 1919, and Davey returns a war hero. But before he can, Dot's best friend Helen gives us a full page of exposition:

As sure as you're sitting there, he's coming back a hero, First Lieutenant, medals and everything, and all cleared of that old affair. This letter and telegram came from Tubby today. I'll read you part of the letter first. "Dude de Forest dies in my arms at Chateau Thierry - he may have been a four-flusher back in school days but he fought and died like a hero. Before he "went West", he confessed he framed Davey because he couldnt bear the thought of Dot's marrying him. Davey didnt even tell me, his best pal, why he kept silent until after Dude died. Davey said Dude told him that his aunt had heart trouble and if she should learn of his connection with Foxy and he should be expelled from school it would kill her, so Davey like the hero he is took the blame. There's lots more but you can read it later.

It's actually even more complicated than that, with money going one way and then coming back from somewhere else -- but I gather the Dodges hoped the audience was taking notes. At any rate, Davey comes in, Dot forgives him (Huh?), and we move into the finale, a sprightly four-part, twelve-page hymn to Brinkdale and college and being in love.

The biggest problem with COLLEGE DAYS is the third act, which really just slams on the exposition so the story is trapped with nowhere to go. Reduced to a mere three pages of dialogue, there's no time for development, because the authors seemed almost rushed to resolve the plotlines. As a result, everything's top heavy with Act One (which is fully half the script), leaving Act Three to be nothing more than a coda at best. And that's a pity, because certainly enough would have happened to these folks (especially the ones that went off to war) to give the proceedings a bit more depth. But as it is, there's no time: Davey's the same guy we saw in Act One. If the death and destruction that was World War One impacted him at all, you'd never know it. For her part, Dot never seems much concerned about his safety as much as what he'll think of her when he returns.

The characters are the usual two-dimensional creations of the time: Dot, her father, her best friend Helen, Tubby (Davey's pal and Helen's boyfriend) are all easily sketched-out and march through their paces with no surprises. But Davey is a frustrating quandry -- he just never seems to get it that he's being had, even though it's pretty obvious from the outset. Between Chancey suddenly becoming his best friend in the whole world and the preposterous story about the aunt, not to mention the money that somehow moves out of his hands and back in in the space of fifteen minutes without him having the slightest clue what's going on... well, truly, it's a wonder the boy can tie his shoes without assistance. He's very much the epitome of the "dumb jock" in a self-sacrificing, heroic way. The fact that he makes it to First Lieutenant in two years is... well, pretty scary on one hand and not terribly surprising on the other.

Musically, there's a lot to like about COLLEGE DAYS. The first act has some fun little numbers for the secondary characters, including a barbershop quartet with a jazz gloss called "The Old Tom Cat".

There was an old cat sat on a fence
And howled the whole night long
He sang to his love neath the moon
What he thought was a tender song

Meow, meow, meow, meow, meow, meow
Oh tabby cat I love but you
Please come down from yonder tree
Down to the ground and stroll with me
I will build you a little house
Every day I'll catch a little mouse
Every night beneath the moon
Tabby cat we'll sit and spoon.

Upon finding out that Helen likes him as much as he likes her, Tubby gets "Tis a Grand Old World", a love song that's surprisingly celebratory and fitting for the guy who thought he'd never get the girl of his dreams.

Tis a good old world, tis a jolly place
Tis a kind old world with a smiling face
Tis a dear old world, tis a dream come true
Tis a paradise where I'll be with you

The college president and his dean of women (who, despite the fact that she loves romance, is actually more modern in thought than her students) have two charming turns about growing old and missed opportunities. These more than make up for the contrastingly flat (albeit typical) love songs our main characters get to sing.

It's difficult to believe this is from the same team that wrote CRIMSON EYEBROWS, which was the work of people who know the format well enough to take a few shots at it with tongue firmly locked into cheek. That earlier piece may be a string of bad jokes, but it never takes itself seriously: everything from the characters to the script to the music seems purposely written as vaudeville-esque as possible. On the other hand, COLLEGE DAYS, while purporting to be a "musical comedy", is an all-too-typical example of the very thing they were lampooning.

FRUHJAHR FUR DER FUHRER

2009-04-01T05:23:00.000-07:00

Now this, gentle reader, was a find.

I think you can imagine my amazement when I tripped over a copy of FRUHJAHR FUR DER FUHRER (1938) by Eduard Klen (possibly Kley, I cant quite make out the pencil notation), from a European used book site I sometimes frequent. The title roughly translates as "A Spring Day for the Fuhrer".

A Germen operetta for upper grade schoolchildren, this admittedly-now-flabbergasting piece of work attempts to cast the Third Reich in the same mode as we've seen with Holland and England and even ancient China: a magical Bavarian Neverland where folks in brown shirts and leiderhosen sing songs about love and animals on parade, as well as going to South America and dancing the tango.

The story is typical thin operetta fare: "Adolph", a very transparent portrait of Hitler, decides on a spring walk about the countryside and meets "Eva", the daughter of a rich landowner. She doesnt realize he's the Furher, so most of the complications (many of which would have served Estelle Clark well, by the way) arise when his friends from Berlin arrive to join him in a merrymaking time. By the end of the second act, it's all been sorted out, and it appears wedding bells are in Adolph and Eva's future, leaving Act Three to be a series of musical numbers provided as some kind of festival entertainment. I say "some kind of entertainment" because, to be honest, my German isnt very good, so I'm guessing a lot. There doesnt seem to be any sort of online translation for FRUHJAHR, and, as usual with these ephemera, not much information period. Nevertheless, Act Three has eight musical sequences, fully half the score. None are sung by the main characters until the finale, which brings everyone back on (with one exception, noted below) for something called "Eva, My Beautiful Eva":

Eva, my beautiful Eva
Let my arms enfold you
Like the mist around the mountain

However, what's somewhat surprising about FRUHJAHR is two fold. First, it features a strong leading role for a male, a rarity in this format. Then we also get its rather sensitive portrayal of Hitler as a young man. His anguish over whether or not to tell Eva who he really is actually comes across as the genuine plight of a lovelorn young man, even though his biggest concern seems to be her background rather than how to share his own. One of the secondary characters, a school chum named Beni (Mussolini, maybe? He's not given a last name, but it seems expected that the audience would recognize him), offers to check her out, so to speak, and proceeds to do so in a comic scene that's almost shocking, considering the times, in its suggestive bawdiness. But whatever test he gave her, she apparently passes, thus removing any roadblocks for her and Adolph's union.

The songs in FRUHJAHR are not particularly rich, although you can definitely see Klen's antecedents: the obligatory waltz is in a Strauss mode, and the second act finale has ever-so-gentle hints of TRISTAN UND ISOLDE. I imagine the orchestrations were especially daunting for schoolchildren musicians, because the piano reduction is fierce. As with most of these works, songs come pretty much out of nowhere, with production numbers introduced at the drop of a helmet. For example, the tango mentioned above (and please forgive my translation):

The gentle breezes go through the palms
As you and I watch the waves
The sun winks goodnight as it sets beneath the horizon
And a thousand stars wink good day

Not especially inspired, but not as terrible as it could have been, I'm sure. There's also an anthem to the Fatherland that matches any of the patriotic verve of LIBERTY LANE, a rousing six-part chorus in a fervent martial beat that I'm sure was a real showstopper.

And just as US operettas had their blackface characters, so does FRUHJAHR have its own stereotype, and yes, it's a little Jewish man who works in the employ of Eva's father as (what else?) an accountant. I wont even try to translate his song, because it seems to be written in some mock Jewish accent, but it looks to be something about how much he loves money, complete with a little jig-like dance. His scenes are mercifully brief, with his last halfway through Act Two when he discovers who Eva's beau is. But it's a soft-focus caricature, much like his counterpart in THE PENNANT, one that was probably tamed down for schoolchildren performances. Inexplicably, he's led about on a chain, like some kind of dancing bear, and his song does have a slightly Russian flavour.

I've read enough of these now to see that Klen was trying to go for a German styling of the show's American counterparts, almost to the point where it looks like he might have ripped some of them off wholecloth. I havent done any note-by-note or line-by-line comparisons, but it appears Klen had no problem "appropriating" from other countries' works when he felt it necessary.

Perhaps one of these days I'll find someone who can provide a good translation of FRUHJAHR FUR DER FUHRER. If anyone else has come across this strange little work, please let me know.

THE RADIO MAID

2009-03-30T07:14:00.000-07:00

High school operettas, as far as I've found thus far, generally fall into three very distinct categories. First, you have the shows like UP IN THE AIR and ROSE OF THE DANUBE, which are charming enough and sufficiently well written to merit another look for production.

Then you get the mis-fires like CARRIE GOES TO COLLEGE and BETTY LOU: works so astoundingly awful in that train-wreck kind of way that you wonder what the authors really had in mind, and yet they sit there daring you not to keep reading.

Then you get the ones that are really neither here nor there because they're so vacuous. There's no story to speak of, no real characters, no score — in other words, the kind of work that has "contractual obligation" all but painted across everything with a 3" brush. So it is with THE RADIO MAID (1930) by VM and CR Spaulding.

The story, such as it is, is a weekend in the country for a crew of college students, three young ladies who serve no other purpose but to provide a little vocal variety. They have no names. They're always together. Apparently they're friends with Robert, the son of their hosts, but, as with so much else in this work, that's a guess because the script never says one way or the other. The curtain comes up, everyone appears in car coats and luggage, the hosts sing a song of welcome, and we're off.

But one guest coming later is Robert's girlfriend (maybe? or maybe she's just a schoolboy infatuation?) June, who sings on a radio show that will be broadcast that night. They pick up the signal, and there's June, singing everyone's favourite song, "Just a Cottage for Two":

Just a wee little home
I can call my own
That's the dream I long to see
Just a cottage for two
With a pal like you
And life would seem so dear to me

Next we meet Joe and Mabel, the farm's "hired hands", who've had a long-running, somewhat tempestuous relationship. He wants to "propose", but she'll have none of it -- and in this context, "propose" doesnt mean propose, it means something else entirely. Take a wild guess. A really wild guess. The fact that you can see through this in such short order is indicative of the level of depth RADIO MAID aspires down to. To top it off, this is a running gag, and it wears out its welcome in pretty short order.

June finally shows up — I gather the radio station was down the street someplace because it takes her all of three pages to arrive behind everyone else — and Robert doesnt waste a moment getting close to her. They have a little love song and they're just about to kiss... when our chorus bursts in and sing a spirited little anthem to their friend-maybe-classmate-maybe-adored-star. And with that, Act One ends. Okay, so all the story threads seem resolved... well, with the exception of the Joe/Mable one, but that's hardly enough reason to return for the second act. Nevertheless, there is one, so you return your seat, hopeful that something interesting will happen.

But nothing does. Everyone's been out for just the most wonderful walk to a neighbouring farm, and there's a few giggles and winks at Robert making sure June is accompanied every step of the way. Meanwhile Joe's headed out to the cornfields in advance of the husking bee planned for the evening to find a red ear of corn, which gives him the right to ask anyone for a kiss. But again, Mabel turns him down, even more adamantly than before (What does it take for this guy to get the hint?).

June and Robert return and, for absolutely no reason whatsoever, sing a reprise of "Just a Cottage for Two". The kids leave. His parents sing a little song about when they were young. The kids come back, with the information that Robert found a red ear and (shockingly) kissed June. Everyone dives into the finale, at the end of which Joe brings Mabel on and shouts "WE PROPOSED!" And the curtain falls.

The authors say this little gem runs an hour and a half, but I'd bet more like an hour, even taking in account applause and an intermission, which itself seems gratuitous considering the work's brevity. But "pointless" really sums up this work: there's a song, then a dozen lines of dialogue, all of it exposition laid on with a shovel: everything just this side of the French maid picking up the ringing telephone and telling the caller (and us) who everyone is and where they are and why things are so... 'ow you zay, screw-ee... At the end of this, one wishes there was a French maid, just for a little comic relief. There's nothing funny or even vaguely humorous in RADIO MAID. At the end, we're no closer to knowing who these people are than we were at the beginning, and the songs they sing are so meaninglessly vapid that you simply dont care. You cant even call this Chekovian-style minimalism: it's not really much of a slice of life so much as it is a few crumbs. And you really dont want a second helping.

About the time this was published, there were maybe four companies providing these works, with Raymond A. Hoffman and Willis commanding the pack. Witmark was close behind, but Ditson, the company that published RADIO MAID, just never seemed to get the concept. Ditson also provided us with the previously mentioned GYPSY TROUBADOUR, but that work seems to have been an anomoly, because everything else out of this company in my collection is as simple-minded and thin as RADIO MAID. Most of it appears to be one-shots by writers and composers who went nowhere after this one kick at the operetta can, which suggests that Ditson was the equivalent of a pulp-novel printer.

There's also something peculiar about the cover art, which looks like it was taken from something else and chopped off to fit. The trellis, for example, just stops, and the artist didnt even try to trim it off with any symmetry. I'm not sure who the woman in the middle is supposed to be or why there are two couples shown, since the play is really only about one (Joe and Mabel, being black, dont figure into this graphically). My guess is that this was intended for something else and then cobbled onto this work at the last minute, but that's only a guess.

WINDMILLS OF HOLLAND

2009-03-29T07:15:00.001-07:00

American merchandization and modern technology get their come-uppance in WINDMILLS OF HOLLAND (1913) by Otis M. Carrington.

Myncheer Hertogen is a rich Dutch farmer whose mill is the pride of the area. His one daughter Wilhelmina is in love with a poor songwriter named Hans, while the other daughter Hilda has the good sense to fall in love with Franz, who's the son of an equally rich farmer. Into this comes Bob Yankee, an American entrepreneur who's trying to convince Hertogenbosch to mechanize his mill and make it more profitable.

The problem with that, however, is that Hertogenbosch's employees are earnestly protective of the mill as it is right now: because of it, they have a job, sure, but it also becomes a matter of personal pride that their mill is the best in the region. So between his daughyer's romantic complications and this, poor Hertogenbosch is getting slammed on all sides.

For a piece written by an American, though, WINDMILLS isnt exactly the most complementary when it comes to its solo US character. Bob is a shyster of the first order, pretending to be anything in order to win the good graces of the farmer and, subsequently, his wife, his daughters, and Hans. When he finds out that the farmer is part of a local band, suddenly he's a volunteer bandsman too. When he thinks the way into the farmer's wallet is through his daughter, suddenly he's in love with her. And in the end, when the farm staff has told Hertogenbosch they're not letting this American screw around with their windmill, the farmer tells Bob Yankee that he's still welcome back anytime, an invitation Bob essentially snubs off as he exits in search of another gullible Dutchman while everyone else wishes continued success to the two couples and Hertogenbosch's windmill. Oh, and by the way, Hans gets a last-minute letter from a music publisher in London that's buying his songs... so now he's not poor anymore.

WINDMILLS is a pretty facile piece, but it has some great moments, mostly in the songs. For example, Wilhelmina's mother Vrouw, tries to deflect her growing infatuation with the American:

There was a wise old spider
And he made a little cider
Out of rose and violet leaves
And he set a tiny table
Just as good as he was able
'Neath some broad and shady leaves
Then he saw a fly a-flying
So he set up such a sighing
That she stopped to hear him say
"I'm so love sick and so lonely
Wont you stay and be my only
And we'll drink the hours away"

... and you can imagine the lesson coming out of that. Or Hilda and Franz's spat, sung to a terse little allegretto:

HILDA. Dont think I'll be lonely
Or that I'll be sad
Dont think I'll be grieving so

FRANZ. I'll be only happy
Gee but I'll be glad
I'll soon find another beau

HILDA. I'm so tired of seeing nobody but you
And listening to your silly prat

FRANZ. That's just the way I'm feeling too
So why not let it go at that

I mean, cant you tell these two are just made for each other?

Every year from 1912 to his retirement in 1949, Carrington wrote an annual operetta custom-order for his theatre classes at Sequoia High School in California, which allowed him to work out any problems before publishing and distributing them from his own company, Myers and Carrington. He was the first to use an "orchestra chorus": singers in the pit whose sound supports the singing onstage. WINDMILLS was his very first attempt and, while it shows a certain amateurism (Almost every song is introduced with a variation of "Here, let me sing a little something about that"), the music is simple enough for untrained voices but clever enough that it doesnt stall in repetition.

THE PALACE OF CARELESSNESS

2009-03-27T10:39:00.001-07:00

From Ivine, Laurene, and Hattiebell Shields comes THE PALACE OF CARELESSNESS (1928), which isnt so much an operetta in two acts as it is two one-act operettas joined at the hip.

Act One is a room in the Lost and Found Building in London, home to discarded and lost items such as umbrellas, watches, dolls, even pieces of candy that sit waiting for their owners to come and reclaim them. Every night at midnight, the objects come to life for one hour, and our first act is essentially a revue of singing and dancing Then, precisely at one AM, everything is returned to its place on the various shelves, and it's quiet once more.

Act Two shifts things to a courtroom, where the judge and jury convene to pass sentence on those who come in search of his lost belongings. An organ grinder comes looking for his lost monkey. A sad clown is in search of laugh. A Boy Scout does his good deed by helping an old man into the chambers to find his umbrella. A little girl and her nurse arrive in search of a doll she left on the streetcar. The sight of all these people reunited with their lost things returns the clown's laugh. With a solemn promise to NEVER BE CARELESS AGAIN, court is adjourned.

Aimed more at grade school performers than high school, PALACE is a morality play on the importance of keeping track of one's possessions, but, in the beginning at least, it's not like it hits you over the head with it. Rather, the first act is more a party atmosphere, with the toy solders marching about and a teddy bear dancing for peanuts. The dolly is a bit too self-important for her own good, but she too soon enters into the spirit of things — after all, she too has been left behind.

But it's Act Two where the lesson is whacked over your head like a cudgel. The judge makes it plain from his entrance that he will brook no nonsense:

In this court strange matters are decided
To this judge strange doings are confided
Oft by me the foolish are derided
For stories told a trifle one-sided

I am the Judge, the Judge am I
My station in life is very high
Yet I must listen to tear and sigh
Of careless people, oh my

... and the careless begin to arrive, each with his or her own story of how something was lost. As you might expect, it's quite never the owner's fault. The monkey was there, now it's gone! I know I had the umbrella in my hand just a moment ago! and so on and so on. The jury's inclined to be lenient, but the judge seems to lose more and more patience. At the end of the day, he commands all of them to swear:

I promise that careful as careful I'll be
This day and henceforth evermore I do swear
To keep my belongings I'll take the greatest care

— as the found objects jubilate:

Of course we were quite panic stricken
On finding we were lost
With a terrible queer sick feeling here
And our minds were torn and toss't.

But here in the Palace we made good friends
Now we all agree
Wherever you are in this great wide world
Some friendly souls you'll see

Friends, indeed. The Shields were careful themselves to make their animated objects endearing to the extreme, from the portly alarm clock to the haughty doll to even the old umbrella lady.

I'm old and I'm rusty
My poor ribs all crack
Whenever I'm opened
By Jill or by Jack
I'm always passed 'round
From this hand to that
And when the rain's over
I'm left on the mat

There's even a sack of vegetables:

What jolly vegetables are we
We make you well and strong
We're popped into a cooker pot
And cooked the whole day long
The funniest thing about us
We're always in a stew
You'd think we'd never laugh or sing
But that's just what we do

When the kettle is hot
We sing and we shout
To the whistle of old man Steam
We skip and we prance
To a gay bubble dance
We all make such a jolly good team

Much like THIRTY MINUTES WITH THE MIKADO, the choreography is all explicitly spelled out in text to the measure numbers of the songs. None of it is especially difficult — this is for junior grades, after all — but it's still fascinating to see the movements the authors had in mind for their songs and how much conveys the character, whether candy stick or ravenous bear.

As usual, there's not much to be found about the Shields. A net search didnt unearth anything, which isnt so surprising. Reading the script, I suspect they were British: everything feels authentically English — except for the Boy Scout, whom I suspect was inserted by the American publisher. I wonder if this was initially a European script (like WILD ROSE) that was resold to the larger American market and given only a bare gloss of a translation to make it attractive to schools over here.

The gorgeous cover is uncredited, but the initials CMC are in the top centre vignette, indicating it's the work of Corina Melder-Collier, who, like Donn Crane, was an artist frequently employed by these companies for either cover art or interior illustration (I suspect, but cannot verify, that she did the cover for CROCODILE ISLAND as well: it looks to be the same style). Most of her work consisted of interior drawings for books of songs or games for children, but she made the occasional foray into operettas as well. As with so many others in this collection, the typography is all hand drawn.

CROCODILE ISLAND

2009-03-24T17:07:00.001-07:00

Another movie-musical pastiche, CROCODILE ISLAND (1930) comes from Geoffrey Morgan and Frederick Johnson, the same team that wrote BELLE OF BAGHDAD, and it carries the same wacked-out sensibility as its sibling.

Crocodile Island, which might be in the South Pacific (or might not — and in truth it doesnt matter), is ruled by the cheerful King Bongazoola and his chamberlain Nitwit. Everyone's all happy — except for the evil sorcerer Coco Orinoco, who wants to rule the island himself. He pretty well does anyway, courtesy a supposed "oracle" (which is really just a wooden ventriloquist's dummy) that tells him the wishes of the island's sacred crocodiles. His latest scheme demands that the king and the chamberlain offer themselves as sacrifices and be thrown into the croc pit at sunset.

As you might think, that idea doesnt go over real well, so the king spends a good chunk of subsequent time figuring out how to avoid this rather unpleasant fate. His daughters, Pearl and Petal, are brazen enough to say that they think the sorcerer is full of hot air, but their words are tempered by the royal nurse, Mammy Lu, who doesnt want to upset the "oracle".

Meanwhile, a ship from the States has pulled into port, bearing a party of American tourists. Among them are the hypochondriac gem collector Amos McSnoozer; the near insufferable Miss Abagail and her nephews Thomas and Jefferson, and a black porter, Hopalong Simpson, who makes no secret of the fact that he wields a mean razor.

Pearl and Petal ask Tom and Jeff to help them save the king, and they hit on a plan to have Hopalong replace the king at the last moment, under the assumption that his skill with the razor will help keep him alive. Hopalong overhears this and, since he has no real confidence that the crocodiles prefer white meat, resolves to hide until the danger has passed. Fortunately for him — and unfortunately for Coco — he hides in the shrine that bears the dreaded oracle. When the sorcerer calls on the oracle for one final pronouncement, Hopalong is able to change the course of events by demanding the sacrifice of the sorcerer instead of the king. The sorcerer confesses all, the king gives his daughters to Tom and Jeff, Hopalong gets Mammy Lu, and it all ends happily.

As with BELLE, this is essentially a fun little show, but it has one noteworthy advantage over its companion (as well as several others in this genre) in that the songs, in the main, actually propel the plot. Rather than stopping everything for a musical number, the authors have rewritten some of the dialogue into song lyrics. For example, once the king and chamberlain are told of the sacrifice they're supposed to make, they respond in song:

We have to think of a plan
To baffle the sorcerer man
If he is a winner
The crocodile's dinner
Will never come under the ban

We're certainly far from gay
This isnt a time for play
The quicker we scurry
And hurry and worry
The quicker we'll find a way

Even the mandatory love song has a loopy little charm:

You're just the kind of girl my mother used to be
When mother was a girl like you
She had the same sweet wonderful smile
Changing to laughter once in a while
Now is it any wonder
She should win the praise of all who came to woo
I can only hope I'll have the luck my daddy did
When mother was a girl like you

There's also a couple of small-scale patter songs, a quasi-Mozartian quartet, a paean to vitamins, and a "dramatic" solo in which Coco outlines his plans when he becomes king, as well as a large-scale first act finale that involves just about every major character.

But this is the thing about CROCODILE's score: it's a complex little construction, with leitmotifs just about squandered all over the place. I pity the music director that tackles this one, because just looking at it, you can tell that it's not for the timid of heart. The overture is six pages of heavy allegro work, and the first act finale is twelve pages that are even more demanding. It gives its singers opportunities to demonstrate their acting as well as singing skills, and it requires their best attempts at both.

Like BELLE OF BAGHDAD, CROCODILE ISLAND is a cute little show-off piece that could be mounted today, with a few minor changes. I suspect it was a big seller within the high school operetta canon (My copy is a 1942 reprint), because it is so mindlessly challenging. I'm really starting to like Morgan and Johnson's work, and I'll certainly be on the outlook for more.

The other thing to note here is the cover art, something I've been meaning to discuss for some time now. If you havent noticed by now, some of the covers for these little works were pretty impressive pieces of art. Donn Crane, of course, created some real stunners, but the uncredited artist for the cover of CROCODILE ISLAND did a wonderful job of evoking the sheer ditziness of the play. The characters are portrayed with a gentle yet outlandish humour, and the use of three colour printing is put to its best advantage. When you look back at these images, you have to remember that full-colour printing wasnt as viable as it is today: the artists had to be clever in their use of tint breakdowns as well as skilled in layout and rendering typography (The type for most is hand-drawn, not typeset). As with so many other truisms of the late 20s and 30s, one had to make the most of little, and these covers prove that.

HULDA OF HOLLAND

2009-03-23T14:19:00.001-07:00

As I wrote once before, you never quite know what you're going to get when you receive one of these. It might be the published screenplay/score to a now-lost Vitaphone movie. It might be a Broadway show from the turn of the last century that has music so gorgeous it deserves a remount.

Or it might be HULDA.

On the surface, HULDA OF HOLLAND (1925), by May Hewes Dodge and John Wison Dodge (cover art by Doris Holt Hauman), is hardly different from any of the hundreds of high school musicals of the period. The story is simplicity itself: a young girl, betrothed to someone when they were both infants, has fallen in love with someone else. The resolution of this typical triangle is eminently predictable, but my fascination with HULDA comes from a very, *very* different source.

Let's breeze through the story first, okay? Hulda and her father Peter are awaiting the arrival of Hulda's fiancé Jan Steen, whom Hulda has never met because the Steen family moved to America shortly after the engagement was settled. But now the grown-up Jan is on his way, and Hulda's a mess, because she met another American while visiting Paris, a certain Jerry Heyden, and the two are madly in love. Jerry convinces Hulda to tell her father that he's Jan.

Meanwhile, the real Jan has arrived: not only is he an acquiantaince of Jerry's, but he really has no interest in getting married, so he's more than happy to play along in the charade. However, once he meets Hulda, he inexplicably falls in love with her and tries to expose Jerry... but no one believes him, because "Jan" has introduced Jan as his mentally-deficient cousin Billy. Everything's going just fine for Jerry and Hulda until Adrian Steen, Jan's father, appears on the scene and exposes the deception. So at the end of the second act, things arent looking too good.

Act Three is a week later, and Peter has figured out that Hulda will never be happy with Jan. He and Adrian have a meeting of the minds and figure it's best to butt out and let Hulda and Jerry have their way. After a minor bumps in the roadway, our little lovebirds get together, and everything ends happily ever after.

Okay, pretty simple stuff, right? Oh, just you wait... See, here's the thing. Hulda's intended, Jan? According to the notes, Jan's "effeminate" and "eccentric", and you can probably bet what those are code words for. In case you havent figured it out, here's Jan's opening lines:

Goodness mercy me! I'm simply exhausted after my walk up those dusty roads. Mercy! Just look at my shoes. I just dont care! It was horrid of Daddy forcing me here to see this Dutch person that he says I must marry. He hasnt any appreciation for my sensitive, artistic temperment. I really never could tolerate those awful farm persons. Bourgeois, I call it, simply bourgeois. My sensitive soul shrinks at such an alliance.

Yep, after seeing how the high school operetta treated blacks and Chinese and Jews, now we get a very rare sight: the 1920s perception of homosexuals. And what a sight it is:

JERRY. I want to take your name and be accepted into the Cats household as the fiancé of Hulda.

JAN. Mercy! Do you know her?

JERRY. Of course I do, you idiot!

JAN. Idiot! Jerry Heyden, you have such a vulgar way with you.

JERRY. That's nothing to what I'll do if you dont agree to what I ask.

JAN. Jerry Heyden, you great big brute, you always did pick on me. Is it because my white soul wanders in fields of beauty where yours never treads?

If that's not bad enough, hang on:

PETER. Yah, come right in de house, Myncheers.

JAN. Thank you so much, you sweet old man. (hippity-hops into house)

JERRY. Dont mind Billy. He's not at all dangerous. Just a little queer... (taps head) you know.

... or when Jan tries to convince Peter that he's really Jan:

JAN. I just tell you, Mycheer Cats, you'll be sorry for the way you're treating me. Hulda is my fate, my white rose on a barren widlerness of unrequited love.

PETER. (to Jerry) Yah, he's yust like dot Romeo.

JAN. (melodramatically) Romeo! Oh, wasnt he just too sweet for words?

And when Jerry's deception is exposed, how does Jan react?

JAN. Goody, goody, goody!

I'm sure that this part was approached as the operetta equivalent of a "trouser role": a male played by a female. One can only imagine the parental outrage if little Johnny had to mince on stage and say those lines and then face the football team the next morning. Even as a character, Jan is easily intimidated, threatened by the smallest of gesture, and verbally (and sometimes physcially) pummeled by everyone including the romantic male lead, who's supposed to be — in theory anyway — the good guy. So what then are we to think about Jan?

Okay, to tell the truth, despite the fact that Jan is... well, to say he's a "stereotype" is being kind, I suppose. Still, when he's not onstage, this play takes a nosedive into predictable pablum, which gives rise to the long-standing fact that the villain always gets the best lines. This villain sweeps them up and carries them offstage in a rhinestone-studded dustpan. Even the deus-ex-machina ending (As a child, Peter was saved from drowning by a boy who grew up to be Jerry's father) cant make HULDA rise above the mediocre.

But Jan? For all his "you big brute!"s, he gives this musical the same lift that some of the blackface characters have done in other operettas described in this blog. To be sure, it's hardly the most complimentary portrait of gays, but we're talking 1925 here... and something for high schools at that, which would make it certainly shocking, to say the least. Jan's is definitely the plum role in this piece, complete with his own solo turn:

My thoughts are like the butterflies, they float
On the waves of fancy, like a boat
Gliding onward like clouds that float above
My soul is filled with beauty, rapture, ecstacy, and love!

I'm aesthetic, so aesthetic, my!
At the mooing of a calf, I sigh!
When the mourning dove begins to mourn, I cry!
There is no one so aesthetic as I!

... at which point he goes into an "eccentric" dance.

So I say Jerry can have Hulda, and vice versa. No doubt they got married, settled down in Scheveningen, had a bunch of screaming kids, and raised tulips. But Jan? I wanna know what happened to him when he got back to New York. Now there's a 20-era high school musical, complete with Gershwin tunes, just waiting to be written...