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

partner and paramour Vera are acceptable, but he is denied the lead role in the jazz ballet for artistic reasons: “he does not understand American Jazz Rhythm” and “does not know how to dance on the off beat.”16

On Your Toes in 1936 and 1983

In 1983, nearly thirty years after it had previously stumbled in its first Broadway revival, On Your Toes was again revived, this time with a new book from nonagenarian Abbott, the principal contributor to the original book. Echoing Atkinson’s condemnation of the earlier production, Frank Rich of the New York Times wrote that the 1954 failure “was no fluke” and that “its few assets as entertainment are scattered like sweet and frail rose petals on a stagnant pond.”17 With the exception of Rich, the new production received mostly favorable reviews and ran 505 performances, after the 1952 revival of Pal Joey (542 performances) the second longest running Rodgers and Hart production and, like Porgy and Bess, Pal Joey, Candide, and in the 1990s, Guys and Dolls, Cabaret, and the still-running Chicago, one of the relatively few musical revivals to surpass its initial run.

What made the 1983 On Your Toes revival especially newsworthy was the approach of the revivalists. In contrast to the drastic book revisions and interpolated songs of the 1962 and 1987 revivals of Anything Goes, the 1983 On Your Toes in most respects closely followed its 1936 model. And unlike the 1954 revival, which had contained the interpolated “You Took Advantage of Me” (originally heard in Present Arms of 1928) in act II, scene 3, and dropped the first number, “Two a Day for Keith,” soon after opening night, no interpolations or deletions in 1983 disturbed the “authenticity” of the original. That the 1983 production attempted to offer a faithful reenactment of the 1936 show is evident also in the reinstatement of the original dance and vocal arrangements, for the most part uncut and unedited, and the resuscitation of Hans Spialek’s 1936 orchestrations. Although some of the original choreography was lost, “Donald Saddler, who restaged the non-ballet numbers, took care to use only movements that belong to the dance of the time.”18

The considerable success of the 1983 revival prompted the publication of the first complete vocal score two years later with the following introductory remarks from Theodore S. Chapin, President of the Rodgers & Hammerstein Organization:

This score corresponds to the 1983 production of ON YOUR TOES which used the orchestrations and arrangements created for the original production in 1936. A few slight changes were necessary and were made by Hans Spialek, the man who orchestrated the show forty-seven years earlier. Therefore, what you have in your hands is a record of a 1936 Rodgers and Hart score as it sounded when first presented to the public, as well as a documentation of a successful revival. That a score of this nature could be presented as its creators intended, and that those intentions could seem as vital today as they were in 1936, is a testament not only to the timelessness of Rodgers and Hart, but to the dedication and affection lavished on the 1983 production.19

Chapin neglects to mention that the vocal score issued in 1985 by Chappell does not entirely preserve the original order of these authentic 1936 orchestrations and arrangements. The brackets and other emendations in the lists of scenes and songs from the 1936 Broadway production and 1983 revival in the online website reveal, for example, that “The Heart Is Quicker Than the Eye” (sung in 1936 by Peggy and Junior in act I, scene 6) has been transferred to the first scene of the second act to replace “Quiet Night” so that Ms. Porterfield would have something to sing in both acts. “Quiet Night” in 1936 opens act II, sung by a character identified only as Crooner; in 1983 “Quiet Night” is sung one scene later by a named nonentity (Hank J. Smith) and a female trio and reprised in scene 4 by the Russian ballet impresario Sergei Alexandrovitch and an offstage chorus.

Gone also is the act II reprise by Sergei and Peggy of Junior’s and Frankie’s “There’s a Small Hotel.” Even if one refrained from asking how Sergei and Peggy came to know this song, its second act appearance in 1936 seemed somewhat gratuitous. In 1983 Sergei and Peggy sing a reprise of “Quiet Night” instead. Both productions allow everyone to learn “There’s a Small Hotel” well enough to sing it at the end of the show.

The 1983 version also changed the locale of a few scenes. For example, the schoolroom scene in act I, scene 5, originally took place in Central Park at night, a setting for “There’s a Small Hotel” that even the staunchest advocates of authenticity might consider laughable in 1983. But these changes do not contradict Chapin’s assertion that for the most part Abbott & Co. as well as Chappell & Co. remained faithful to their musical source to a degree that was remarkable for a 1980s revival of a 1930s musical.

Thirty years earlier, as a result of his dissatisfaction with director Dwight Wiman, Abbott left for Palm Beach before rehearsals had begun in February, returning after Rodgers reminded him that as co-(de facto principal) author Abbott had an “obligation to come and protect it.”20 In his autobiography Abbott explains his reaction and solution:

Arriving in Boston, where On Your Toes was playing its final week, I found things in better shape than I had expected. Ray Bolger was sensational in the lead, and “Slaughter on Tenth Avenue” remains in my memory as one of the best numbers I’ve ever seen in the theatre, both musically and choreographically. The book, however, was a mess; the story line had been destroyed by experimenting, and the actors were out of hand. I behaved ruthlessly to the cast to force them to play parts instead of fighting for material, and I straightened the book out by the simple device of putting it back the way I had written it in