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

Girls (Rodgers, 198). The letter, however, is dated “early 1940.” See Selected Letters of John O’Hara, ed. Matthew J. Bruccoli (New York: Random House, 1978), 158–59.

39. Stanley Green, in his Rodgers and Hammerstein Fact Book (217), provides more comprehensive information on Pal Joey’s unusual initial New York run in three theaters: Ethel Barrymore Theatre (December 25, 1940—August 16, 1941), Shubert Theatre (September 1—October 18, 1941), and St. James Theatre (October 21—November 29, 1941). Tryouts were held at the Forrest Theatre, Philadelphia, December 16–22, 1940.

40. Brooks Atkinson, “Christmas Night Adds ‘Pal Joey’ to the Musical Stage,” New York Times, December 26, 1940, 22; reprinted in Block, ed., The Richard Rodgers Reader, 68–70.

41. Burns Mantle, “‘Pal Joey’ Smart and Novel,” Daily News, December 26, 1940, reprinted in New York Theatre Critics’ Reviews, vol. 1, 172.

42. Rodgers, Musical Stages, 201.

43. John Mason Brown, “‘Pal Joey’ Presented at The Ethel Barrymore,” New York Post, December 26, 1940; reprinted in New York Theatre Critics’ Reviews, vol. 1, 172.

44. Sidney B. Whipple, “Pal Joey Is a Bright Gay, Tuneful Novel Work,” New York World-Telegram, December 26, 1940; reprinted in New York Theatre Critics’ Reviews, vol. 1, 173.

45. Brooks Atkinson, “At the Theatre,” New York Times, January 4, 1952, 17; reprinted in New York Theatre Critics’ Reviews, vol. 13, 399.

46. Lehman Engel, The American Musical Theater, 35–36.

47. Ibid. Engel places another four Rodgers musicals with Hammerstein among his top fifteen (Oklahoma!, Carousel, South Pacific, and The King and I).

48. “Plant You Now, Dig You Later,” another duet between Gladys and Lowell in 1940—rendered by Harold Lang (Joey) on the pre-revival recording—is sung solely by Gladys in 1952 (Gladys’s verse is not, however, included in the 1952 published libretto). Consequently, the comically sinister blackmailer Lowell becomes as ineffectual musically as he is dramatically (for example, his confrontation with Vera and her powerful police allies). One final change deprived Gladys of a fifth musical number (one less than Joey’s six songs) when she is excluded from “You Mustn’t Kick It Around.” But unlike Lowell, Gladys as played by Helen Gallagher in 1952 remains as she was when played in 1940 by June Havoc (sister of the famous stripper Gypsy Rose Lee), i.e., third in musical prominence after Joey and Vera and the lead show singer both in Mike Spears’s second-class nightclub in act I (“That Terrific Rainbow”) and the chic Chez Joey in act II (“The Flower Garden of My Heart”). In this last named song the character Louis (the tenor), who sings the verse, first chorus, and recitations, was added in 1952.

49. For example, in O’Hara’s Broadway typescript Joey does not sing the opening song, “Chicago,” the first song of 1952. Similarly, Joey’s audition number is nowhere to be found in the earlier script, only the words, “Joey has just finished singing.” When it appears later in the show, slightly altered as “Morocco,” it is sung by Michael Moore. See Hart and Kimball, The Complete Lyrics of Lorenz Hart, 271. I am grateful to Chicago’s Goodman Theatre for allowing me to see the unpublished typescripts of O’Hara’s 1940s Broadway libretto and the preliminary script.

50. Gone from “Take Him” (act II, scene 4) in 1952 are both Linda’s and Vera’s verses. Vera’s verses appear in the O’Hara Broadway typescript. See also Hart and Kimball, The Complete Lyrics of Lorenz Hart, 275.

Revisions in the 1952 book are more modest than those for the lyrics, although the absence of a reprise of “I Could Write a Book” from O’Hara’s 1940 Broadway transcript must be considered a significant change. The dialogue that separates the refrains in “You Mustn’t Kick It Around” was not present in 1940, and the transition lines to “Plant You Now” and “Do It the Hard Way” would later exclude Lowell. Perhaps the most substantial change in the 1952 book is the deletion of a page of dialogue between Joey and the manager of the apartment house, who dispassionately informs the anti-hero that he has until 6:00 P.M. to leave the building. Other changes in the 1952 book: Vera is now “over twenty-one” instead of “thirty-six,” Gladys’s interpretation of Lowell’s brand of humor is an old lady hit by a trolley car (rather than a truck), and Joey no longer gets a good meal at the home of Linda’s sister.

51. Abbott, “Mister Abbott,” 194–95.

52. In O’Hara’s early typescript Joey meets Linda English, generically named Girl, at Mike Spears’s club where she performs as a singer. Like other performers at the club, Linda is initially repelled by Joey and what he stands for. In the final 1940 libretto, where Joey wins her over in front of the pet store with his fictitious story of his childhood dog Skippy, Linda acquired more sweetness. She also acquired more dialogue as a guest rather than a performer in Mike Spear’s joint in act I, scene 3, and in a telephone exchange in scene 4.

Some additional distinctions: In O’Hara’s original draft Lowell and Gladys actively solicit Linda’s help in their plan to blackmail Vera, which in the later libretto Linda merely overhears. In both versions the generous Linda warns her rival. Nevertheless, the earlier and tougher Vera thwarts the blackmail attempt without the help of Police Deputy Commissioner O’Brien when she reproduces a photograph that shows her husband and Gladys in flagrante delicto. Not present in the earlier typescript are the angry final words between Joey and Vera following Vera’s lie (that Joey frightened away the blackmailers), an exchange that credibly prepares Vera’s reprise of “Bewitched.”

In the preliminary typescript Vera was nine years older (Joey found Vera’s name in the 1910 rather than the 1919 social register; see note 50). Lowell’s racket is more clearly explained, and Lowell participates in the song “Plant You Now, Dig You Later.” The typescript also contains some additional dialogue for Joey, Mike, and Melba to create a smoother transition for “Zip.” Following “Zip,” Melba takes a costume away from a show girl and poses for photographs with Joey and another chorus girl for her newspaper. This scene is