Larry Hart and 'Blue Moon'

Richard Linklater's film about the superb lyricist Lorenz (Larry) Hart stars Ethan Hawke and is a tour de force for theater aficionados. Hart provided lyrics for a host of Broadway musical shows with Richard Rodgers composing the music. These included The Boys From Syracuse, A Connecticut Yankee, Babes in Arms, On Your Toes, and Hallelujah, I'm a Bum. He's probably best remembered, however, for the many songs for which he penned the lyrics, mostly with Rodgers doing the music:   "Blue Moon"; "The Lady Is a Tramp"; "Manhattan"; "Bewitched, Bothered and Bewildered"; "We'll Take Manhattan"; "Mountain Greenery"; and "My Funny Valentine."

Hart's own story--which is portrayed in the movie--was not all that happy. He and Rodgers met at Columbia where they worked on several college shows and then hit Broadway with The Garrick Gaieties. Hart was short and always had trouble dealing with that: he never married and became an alcoholic, which led to Rodgers dropping him as a partner and then replacing him with Oscar Hammerstein II, who, when paired with Rodgers, produced a series of tremendously successful musicals, beginning with Oklahoma! That opening night in 1943 provides the setting for 'Blue Moon' the movie. Hart has arrived early for the opening night party at Sardi's and takes up his position at the bar, vowing not to drink but eventually having a few.

Hart had become too unreliable to work with Rodgers on Oklahoma! but the book was much too corny and sentimental for his rapier wit and highly sophisticated words. He likely was concealing some jealousy at the party but he had predicted that the show would be a great success and run indefinitely--it ended up capturing the prize of longest-running musical on Broadway, which it held until succeeded by several later blockbusters.

Aside from the book, which suited Hammerstein's somewhat corny and sentimental side--indeed, recent productions of Oklahoma! have returned to the darker theme of the drama which was the musical's source: Lynn Riggs's Green Grow the Lilacs--, the show was the first to advance the plot through the songs as well as dance, choreographed by Agnes DeMille. This kind of show was anathema to Hart--even if he hadn't been drowning in booze. During the movie, Rodgers expresses interest in working on a project with Hart but warns him that he had better be "professional", i.e., come into the office at 9 A.M. like the rest of the working world.

Hart remains a star member of the small group of clever, witty lyricists on Broadway: Cole Porter, Ira Gershwin, E.Y. (Yip) Harburg, but he likely was already feeling that postwar America was more attuned to Hammerstein's comparatively cornball creations. Rodgers was easily able to write his fabulous melodies for either wordsmith; he even produced an instruments-only masterpiece--the background music for the TV series on WWII naval battles, Victory at Sea. 

Cole Porter did come back after the war with a success, Kiss Me, Kate, but he was in a different line because he was, like Irving Berlin, one of the rare Broadway figures who wrote both his own words ad music. He demonstrated with Kate that he could also produce a musical that was more than a string of songs by designing the complicated format of a play within a play, the original of course provided by Shakespeare's Taming of the Shrew. Ira Gershwin was devastated by the early death of his brilliant brother and partner, George, in 1938. But Ira did team up some years later with Kurt Weill to give us Lady in the Dark, which took on the rare topic of psychoanalysis but had room for both Danny Kaye's memorable tour de force, "Tchaikovsky" and Ira's clever "Story of Jennie."

Would Hart have similarly adjusted his focus had he come back from his alcoholism? We'll never know, but one of the later Rodgers & Hart shows as the dramatic Pal Joey, drawn from John O'Hara's New Yorker stories about a total heel, until then not considered a fit subject for Broadway musicals. True, some critics wouldn't buy it, including the Times's Brooks Atkinson showed his limitations by being unable to get past opining that sweet water couldn't be drawn from a poisoned well. Whatever, Pal Joey was no mere string of songs, even if the wonderful "Bewitched, Bothered, and Bewildered" gets more than one reprise.

Hart receives his due in Linklater's film, which is fitting in view of the delight his lyrics brought to the Broadway stage. And we might note that the story of a man who passed on 82 years ago is itself a tribute to his continuing presence in the songs he wrote that we still enjoy. 

 

 

 

 

 

'Andy Warhol in Iran'

To the Atlas Theater last Saturday night to catch Mosaic Theater Company's 90-minute, no-intermission play, Andy Warhol in Iran. Not having known anything about any trip by Warhol to Iran--not that I'm that acquainted with most of the details of his life--I figured this would be something new and different. It turned out to present a conflict between morality and mammon. 

Warhol is ensconced in his hotel room, which is neither lavish nor spartan. He's come to Teheran to take photos so he can paint a picture of the Shah's queen. There's also some suggestion that he would be hired to depict the Shah's family in paint as well. He makes no bones about the obviously large remuneration he is receiving for this effort.

So, when he is surprised and made a prisoner in his hotel room by a young man with a gun who could be described as a terrorist since he says he's  part of a group rebelling against the Shah's brutal rule and his vicious secret police (SAVAK) who, with CIA training, maintain his authority and are known to engage in torture and murder to keep him in pwer.

Warhol attempts to talk his way out of being brutalized or killed by this gunman and his cohort. He's just there to take some pictures. The young man recounts how his father was murdered by the Shah's minions and recounts with the assistance of videos flashed on screens the history of U.S. involvement going back to the American and British deposing in the early 1950s of Mohammed Mossadegh, the Iranian prime minister who showed signs of rebelling himself against the Western support of the Shah's authoritarian rule. This murder was carried out, it now is clear, by the CIA.

Warhol's futile attempts to escape are easily frustrated by his captor. There's some development of empathy between the two when their brushes with death are compared--Warhol's major surgery that saved his life after Valerie Solanis shot him, and the gunman's severe injury that also required significant surgery to save him.

While he repeatedly tells Warhol that the details of his life are not germane to the instant situation, he gradually reveals more about his life experience, including time spent in the U.S. The two actors play their characters effectively; Alex Mills as Warhol dons a white-haired wig to re-create Warhol's well-known appearance. He even presents his captor with a similar wig to disguise himself to escape being taken by the police.

There's a surprise that provides a denouement for the play. It is effective in keeping the story believable and suddenly changes the relationship between the two men. All in all, the play was a satisfying dramatic experience that nicely showed how Warhol's status as an artistic rebel was balanced by his commercial focus on maintaining his large art plant, "the Factory", and its employees.

We now know what ultimately happened in Iran, precipitated by the U.S.'s welcoming of the Shah when he abandoned Iran in the face of imminent revolution that generated the Islamic Republic and the taking of the U.S. Embassy and lengthy holding of its personnel as hostages. Iran remains an antagonist to U.S. policy in the Middle East to this day.

The play manages to convey all of this in a well-constructed drama that does not succumb to tedium given we only see two characters for the whole time. Mosaic Theater has a well-deserved reputation in D.C. for creative, edgy theatre; as with the last production we saw there, a bravura tour de force about Louis (Satchmo) Armstrong in which Craig Wallace portrayed Satchmo, his agent, and his wife. 

 

 

 

Revival of 'Gypsy' on Broadway

I've been very fond of the musical Gypsy but somehow never saw the original production. Jule Styne wrote seven songs for the marvelous and unique Broadway singer, Ethel Merman. I did see the movie with Rosalind Russell, who did perform well despite her obviously far less impressive vocal authority. It was fun seeing a tee shirt on sale in the lobby, which listed the actresses who had played Rose, the lead and Gypsy's mother--the most extreme of any stage mother--on Broadway. They were Merman, the original Rose; Angela Lansbury, Tyne Daly, Bernadette Peters, and Patti Lupone. 

Gypsy was the second of only two shows for which Stephen Sondheim wrote the lyrics but not the music. West Side Story was his first. Styne's songs and music overall was marvelous and Sondheim's lyrics superb and clever. Arthur Laurents's book was all right but not in the rarefied realm of the music and lyrics.

Audra Macdonald was Rose in this revival with a totally racially-integrated cast. Macdonald has a fine voice; I heard her as one of the students in Master Class, which portrayed Maria Callas, played by Zoe Caldwell, teaching such a class. Macdonald was good and I would concede that while no one is ever likely to rise to Merman's incredible vocal heights, Macdonald's singing was in a different style but  excellent in its own way. 

The rest of the cast, including Joy Woods as Louise, who of course becomes Gypsy Rose Lee, "the stripper with class" and Danny Burstein as the put-upon Herbie, who is in love with Rose but like everyone else who is close to her --her two daughters--ends up walking out on her. Her daughters--Gypsy and June, who became a successful actress as June Havoc--managed to make it in show business despite their Mom's controlling their early lives up through their teens.

The first act ends with that fabulous act-closing number, "Everything's Coming Up Roses" and the whole show winds up with the always amazing "Rose's Turn" during which she seems to be on the verge of a total breakdown but you know she will persevere. I've always thought that the wretched song that Rose included in every awful act she put together when she was trying to make June a star from her earliest moments in kiddie shows to vaudeville--"Let Me Entertain You"--was perfectly brought back late in the second act to be rendered in a wildly different tempo and style to serve as Gypsy's stripping number.

It should be recalled that although burlesque was on its way to theatrical burial following the demise of the "classier" vaudeville, Gypsy Rose Lee lasted on its stage as long as she did because she really was a different kind of burlesque queen. As Wikipedia notes, she "earned her legendary status as an elegant and witty striptease artist. Initially, her act was propelled forward when a shoulder strap on one of her gowns gave way, causing her dress to fall to her feet despite her efforts to cover herself; encouraged by the audience's response, she went on to make the trick the focus of her performance.

"Her innovations were an almost casual stripping style compared to bump & grind styles of most burlesque strippers (she emphasized the "tease" in "striptease"), and she brought a sharp sense of humor into her act as well. She became as famous for her onstage wit as for her stripping style, and—changing her stage name to Gypsy Rose Lee—she became one of the biggest stars of Minsky's Burlesque, where she performed for four years." In her later life, Gypsy had a long career in live theater, movies, and TV. She developed enough learning despite never attending school when her mother was taking the sisters on the road aiming for vaudeville fame to conduct a talk show successfully and succeed in several fields of entertainment. She also wrote several mystery novels and her own memoirs, on which Styne, Sondheim, and Laurents based their musical. 

This musical was Ethel Merman's final success, lending her powerful pipes to the seven songs written with her as the intended singer. The revival confirmed that the show still attracts and pleases audiences, even with the singing, especially Macdonald's as Rose, much more stylized and satisfying in its own way than Merman's marvelous belting. If you've never seen it, it's worth heading for the Majestic on 44th St. west of Broadway.

 

 

 

 

 

New Year's, Maui, and 'Wicked'

We've traveled a good deal of the time this past month or so: first, the Taiwan trip at the beginning of November, then to California--Cupertino, to see my daughter and her family--and after they joined us at San Francisco airport, literally at the departure gate, we all spent Christmas week in Maui. My son-in-law Dave had been offered a house for the week by a friend from one of his professional associations. Eileen and I had been to Maui before but that merely reinforced our overall enjoyment of a wonderful place: great weather, so much natural beauty to enjoy, the chance to enjoy six different beaches--five had great swimming and sand, while the sixth, on the other side of the island, boasted huge waves and a few surfers on them on an overcast day there.

We found the places that also are frequented by the locals to be most enjoyable: for traditional Hawaiian, the outdoor seating with a great view at Aloha Mixed Plate was superb, and was even do-able with two young children--my grandsons; Joey's Kitchen Napili had a down-to-earth air and terrific Asian fusion menu; Leota's Kitchen and Pie Shop in Olowahu had amazing sandwiches and yes, pies and bread pudding; Seascape at Maalaea was delightful outdoors for lunch at the Maui Ocean Center, a fascinating aquarium with so many specimens that are unique to Hawai'i; and getting coffee most mornings at the Coffee Store in the Napili Center, near where we stayed, which had not only great coffee, Kona as one choice, but marvelous croissants, which were delicious without seeming at all French.

We did find that much progress had been made in rebuilding Lahaina after the awful 2023 fire. We'd stayed in Lahaina on our previous trip and while some of it is back in action, there's still much left to be done. 

The New Year's house party to which we've traveled in Richmond and Manassas was hosted by another of our four couples as our hosts for all these years truly had too much on their plate this time and we'll just hope they'll be with us to celebrate next year. Since we were driving home that night, it was slated for an early pre-New Year's wrap, but sure enough, we all were having such a great time courtesy of Maureen and Vic Stone that we weren't home till after the ball fell.

Eileen and I did take in the movie "Wicked" which was definitely good entertainment, had great production values, and decent performances too. It didn't need to be almost three hours long, so it did drag, and especially since theres to be a Part Two at the end of 2025. I remember being surprised at how I enjoyed the musical seen in New York a few years ago, as this much more recently written prequel to The Wizard of Oz worked on Broadway. Yet, in the atmosphere is always the 1939 film, close to perfection. I almost thought that in addition to the novel from which the show and movie were drawn, perhaps some of the film's story drew on the many sequels that L. Frank Baum produced. When I saw the show, it had enough heft that I didn't miss Judy Garland, Ray Bolger, Bert Lahr, Margaret Hamilton, and Frank Morgan; this time I did, a bit.