On Stage
SHIPLEY, JOSEPH T.
On STAGE By Joseph T. Shipley Four New Musicals Open on Broadway Cranks. Written and directed by John Cranko. Music by John Addison. Presented by Richard Charlton and John Krimsky. At the Bijou...
...But we also, rather naturally, hope for a play...
...Lavish again, luxuriant as a tropical jungle, is the decor of Happy Hunting...
...Several of the skits could have been fitted into a fuller revue...
...Which is not happy hunting...
...At the Shubert Theater...
...The critic waits with open arms...
...At the Majestic Theater...
...But music can bring one only part-way back from Hades...
...They offered a wide range of taste and talent...
...Lyrics by Matt Dubey...
...Sydney Chaplin (Charlie's son) is a pleasing newcomer to the musical stage, helping Judy carry the sentiment of the evening...
...Expensive and expansive scenes, attractive girls in many varieties of dress and undress—and, again, a vapid story...
...Presented by Jo Mielziner...
...The burden of the evening falls upon veteran Ethel Merman, whose voice and technique have all their old fortissimo appeal...
...Max Adrian might prove effective as Dr...
...At the Martin Beck Theater...
...Score by Leonard Bernstein...
...for the comedy she needs little help, as she fills the stage with charm and laughter...
...By now the idea has faded, and the development is routine...
...Good voices carry the tunes, often in caricature of opera patterns: Robert Rounse-ville as Candide, Barbara Cook as his loving and frequently loved Cune-gonde, Irra Petina as her bawdy companion...
...Candide Book by Lillian Hellman...
...the four performers spread them somewhat thin...
...Lyrics by Richard Wilbur...
...Happy Hunting...
...Music by Harold Karr...
...The new male star from Argentina, Fernando Lamas, with graying hair and a pleasantly sad smile, brings nostalgia for matinee-idol days...
...Songs, costumes and deftly changed sets, with well-paced dancing (as of the "Mu-Cha-Cha"), add to the frolic...
...There is too little that is spicy and saucy, too much vapid though candied, about this Candide...
...Presented by Ethel Linder Reiner, in association with Lester Osterman Jr...
...Lavishly and beautifully costumed and designed, Candide is the controversial play of the season...
...Book and Lyrics by Betty Comden and Adolph Green...
...entertainment, for values here largely undis-played...
...Hailed as "a triumph" in the Times, as "a spectacular disaster" in the Herald Tribune, it tries in musical terms to convey Voltaire's satire, which sets the naive Candide globetrotting about this "best of all possible worlds" until his sadder but wiser feet touch home soil, to cultivate his own garden...
...Pangloss were he given fit lines...
...With no developed character to enact, Ethel Merman has to dig down into the same old bag of tricks...
...Unfortunately, Lillian Hellman has not turned Voltaire's story into a coherent play, nor do the lyrics in any degree attain the sharp or caustic tone essential to the tale...
...With no intervening strains of sterner stuff—not a straight play in three weeks—four musical offerings came to Broadway during the recent holiday period...
...The clever story of Bells Are Ringing shows the operator of a telephone answering service who, taking an interest in the personal concerns of her clients, finds herself ringing in a husband...
...A wholesome young foursome, three boys and a girl, gaily cavorted in mainly satiric or nonsensical "cranks" and wanton wiles at the Bijou...
...Their songs were sometimes touched with a macabre humor, but it was in the antic posturing of their dancing that their main merit lay...
...Presented by the Theater Guild...
...Soon producers will have to meet the issue squarely, perhaps with repertoire...
...Bells Are Ringing...
...At the Bijou Theater...
...A year ago, it might have seemed funny to picture a woman, in Monaco without an invitation, determined to give her daughter a wedding even more publicity-winning than Grace Kelly's...
...We suspect that Santa Claus delivered lots of TV sets this Xmas...
...Although it ran for nine months in London, Cranks found sooner departure on Broadway...
...Choreography and direction by Jerome Robbins...
...By the second measure of the overture, one is aware that the music of Candide is distinctive, that Leonard Bernstein's contribution to the evening is varied and rich...
...The wrappings are more effective than what they hold...
...Only one song—"Mutual Admiration Society" —carries zest to hit proportions...
...Home entertainment is increasingly a spur and a challenge to the theater, which must for its own survival offer better than routine fare...
...Music by Jule Styne...
...Book by Howard Lindsay and Russel Crouse...
...Satire calls for talents that in this offering are unrevealed...
...The next opening truly launched the holiday season, with Judy Holli-day in the best of the new quartet...
Vol. 40 • January 1957 • No. 2
