Enchanted Evenings:The Broadway Musical from 'Show Boat' to Sondheim and Lloyd Webber Block, Geoffrey (large ebook reader .txt) 📖

out of the girl’s life. With his newfound wealth Doolittle recognizes that he must subscribe to middle-class morality by marrying, so he urges his friends to “Get Me to the Church on Time.” But Higgins has no objections to rich, lovesick Freddy Eynsford-Hill (John Michael King) courting Eliza. So lovesick is Freddy he is happy merely to be “On the Street Where You Live.” Nevertheless, Eliza recognizes she is too intelligent for the charming but vacuous young man, so casts her lot with the reluctant Higgins, who is appalled but admits “I’ve Grown Accustomed to Her Face.” When Eliza returns Higgins can only respond, “Where the devil are my slippers?”

On Your Toes

Junior Dolan (Ray Bolger), music professor and former child vaudeville star, presents his student’s jazz composition, “Slaughter on Tenth Avenue,” to the Russian Ballet. Prima Ballerina Vera Barnova (Tamara Geva) takes a fancy to Junior and sees to it that the ballet is produced with Junior dancing the male lead. Vera’s former partner and lover, Konstantine Morrosine (Demetrios Vilan), becomes extremely jealous, and during a performance, tries to turn a stage killing into a real one. At the last minute, Junior is warned by his devoted student, Frankie (Doris Carson).

One Touch of Venus

Rodney Hatch (Kenny Baker), an unassuming barber, has come to shave Whitelaw Savory (John Boles). The latter, a prominent eccentric art collector, has recently acquired a statue of the Anatolian Venus for his Foundation of Modern Art, because it reminded him of a lost love. When Hatch is left alone, he foolishly puts the ring intended for his fiancée Gloria Kramer (Ruth Bond) on the statue’s finger, and the statue of Venus (Mary Martin) comes to life ready to love the man who summoned her. After some initial resistance, Venus wins Hatch’s affections and disposes of the shrewish Gloria. She also easily evades Savory’s agents, who want to “Catch Hatch” for allegedly stealing the statue. When Venus comes to realize the quotidian nature of her monogamous future with Hatch, she returns to Mount Olympus and her statue returns to stone. As a parting gesture she arranges the descent of a more suitable partner for the prosaic but endearing barber.

Pal Joey

Joey (Gene Kelly), a handsome, small-time dancer, begins his courtship of innocent Linda English (Leila Ernst) by proclaiming about [“about” in original Bordman summary quoted here] her virtues, “I Could Write a Book.” Joey himself is notably short on virtues, so when Vera Simpson (Vivienne Segal), a rich, callous, past-her-prime matron, finds herself “Bewitched” by him and offers to set him up in luxury with his own nightclub, he all but drops Linda. In time, Joey’s selfishness and egotism pall even for the tolerant Vera. Matters come to a head when Linda tells Vera of a plan to blackmail her by threatening to tell Mr. Simpson of the liaison. The women agree that as far as Joey is concerned they no longer want him, and the other can “Take Him.” Having lost both women Joey wanders off into the night to find another romance.

The Phantom of the Opera

We’re at an auction of items from the Paris Opera House. Here is a musical box, there a chandelier that featured in a famous accident. Suddenly it rises up to the top of the theater, and the action moves back several decades. Christine Daaé (Sarah Brightman) is a young member of the chorus of the Paris Opera. Unbeknown to all, she is helped by a Svengali, a vocal coach whom she has never seen. She believes him to be the spirit of the Angel of Music, promised to her as a guardian by her late father. The voice belongs to a phantom, the Phantom of the Opera (Michael Crawford), a facially disfigured genius who lives in the hidden passages of the opera house. He has fallen in love with his young student. He terrorizes the theater’s administrators into mounting a production of the opera Don Juan Triumphant. He also frightens the leading soprano, Carlotta, and causes the gigantic chandelier to crash into the auditorium. But the Phantom cannot accept the mutual affection between Christine and a young nobleman, Raoul de Chagny. He kidnaps Christine, taking her down to his secret apartments beneath the theater, on its underground lake. By this time he has committed murder, as well as terrorizing the theater and its inhabitants. A party of avengers, led by Raoul, is searching for him. Christine tears off the Phantom’s mask and, though appalled by the wreck of his face, shows him compassion and tenderness. The Phantom now has it in his power to kill Raoul, but her action has melted his spirit and he disappears, leaving Christine safely reunited with her lover as the show ends.

Porgy and Bess

When Clara (Abbie Mitchell) fails to lull her baby to sleep with a lullaby about the languorous virtues of “Summertime,” her husband, Jake (Edward Matthews), tries with “A Woman Is a Sometime Thing.” One reason the baby has trouble sleeping is that Catfish Row is a noisy, dangerous place, where the menfolk are drinking and gambling. The men tease the crippled Porgy (Todd Duncan), who rides around in a goat-cart, about his love for Crown’s girl, Bess (Anne Brown). Crown (Warren Coleman) himself gets into a fight with his fellow gambler, Robbins (Henry Dobbins), and stabs him to death. Robbins’s wife, Serena (Ruby Elzy), is left to wail “My Man’s Gone Now.” Crown flees, leaving Porgy, who has been content to boast “I Got Plenty o’ Nuttin,’” free to court Bess. Arranging for her to get a divorce, he tells her, “Bess, You Is My Woman Now.” The neighbors all go on a picnic where a glib drug peddler, Sportin’ Life (John W. Bubbles), tells them of his cynical ideas about the Bible, insisting, “It Ain’t Necessarily So.” Crown suddenly appears, and he and Porgy fight, with Porgy killing Crown with Crown’s own knife. Porgy is sent to jail. When he is released he learns that Sportin’ Life