On Stage
SHIPLEY, JOSEPH T.
On STAGE By Joseph T. Shipley Pleasant Musical And Mad Mixture First Impressions. From Jane Austen's Pride and Prejudice. Book and direction by Abe Burrows. Music and Lyrics by Robert Goldman,...
...The exaggerated antics of her brash vulgarity are the perfect foil for the middle-class snobbery of her cousin Collins and the down-the-nose hauteur of the arrogant aristocrats...
...It is a workmanlike piece, welcomed in a season that has given us Goldilocks and Juno, and it deserves to last...
...The bad taste—and there's a good measure of that—is not in the telling but in the tale...
...One part woman and one part mule...
...At the Orpheum Theater...
...because only a male may inherit the estate: but in five tries they have had five misses...
...Cousin Collins, who as the nearest male relative will inherit the Bennett estate, condescends to bestow himself upon Elizabeth in a song that starts as a pompous proposal and ends playing patty-cake...
...THE MAKING OF MUSICALS from novels and plays has become routine...
...Bennett dominates the fun...
...But the proper pride of Elizabeth Bennett and the charm of her sister Mary quietly teach two of the gentlemen involved how love can level all ranks...
...Musicals today are so costly—the minimum seems to be $300,000—that no one wants to take a chance with a story that hasn't been a success in another form...
...noisy and wholly unsubtle social climber, must make good matches for her daughters...
...They had wanted a son...
...singing or strutting, coarse and cocky...
...The drama, however, is too agglomerate...
...Lois Bewley as Mary brings much to the evening's charm, and Ellen Hanley as Charlotte, the neighbor who catches Collins on the rebound, adds another excellent voice to the ample evening...
...who'll have no relative of hers marry a commoner, is amusingly ugly...
...Especially distinctive is the front curtain, a great golden fan that rises and closes over the scene to reveal the gardens or salons and other settings behind...
...Several songs add to the fun...
...The magic incantation is amusing, with its summons of impossible ingredients: "Beard of babe and tooth of crone...
...Instead of the gourmet's delight more restraint might have provided, the too eager cook has given all but the toughest minds more than they can digest...
...Her graces give added contrast to "I'm Me" and "This Really Isn't Me," with its confession "I'm an obstinate fool...
...Jingles and slang, with three thrusts of unexpected Yiddish, alternate with realistic, poetic, even philosophic dialogue...
...It would now be a surprise to have one come along with an "original" book...
...First Impressions, which just opened, is taken from the novel, Pride and Prejudice, by Jane Austen...
...It is in spite of her that at the end of the play her eldest three girls are safely within sound of wedding bells...
...By Bernard Exstein...
...Directed by David Brooks...
...Presented by New Drama Productions...
...Set in 1813, the musical does not aim at the swirly pace of contemporary stories...
...The Geranium Hat...
...Bennett, proud of her own efforts...
...And if it did, it would probably have trouble finding financial backers...
...Music and Lyrics by Robert Goldman, Glenn Paxton and George Weiss...
...Hermione Gingold, as Mrs...
...The lonely lover sums up life's trick: "Loss is the price of love...
...Costumes by Alvin Colt...
...Presented by George Gilbert and Edward Specter Productions...
...Now Mrs...
...which has a folksong quality...
...It cannot be said that First Impressions has the joyous lift, the fresh vigor, of a truly great musical...
...At the Alvin Theater...
...Farley Granger and Donald Madden give appropriate swagger to the two involved gentlemen...
...sets off a sparkler of self-praise...
...It's as though the author felt this were his only chance and he had to pour all his talents into one jug...
...A puppet show leads to scenes half realistic, half burlesque, followed by a science-fiction story...
...chorused by her obedient children...
...Song, dance and fun are woven around this story with unusual good taste...
...The lonely scientist (female) quips: "A girl should save not for rainy days but for dry nights...
...It has no bounding ballets...
...As Long as There's a Mother...
...First impressions in this case are most pleasant as we follow the fortunes of the middle-class Bennetts in 19th-century England...
...Sets by Peter Larkin...
...There's a deft satiric presentation of the seven deadly virtues...
...Elizabeth I Polly Bergen I sings "Love Will Find Out the Way...
...its dances depend upon grace, not speed...
...One may pluck a few plums from the pudding, but there s much too much in the mixture...
...The home of Lady Catherine de Bourgh...
...Downtown, The Geranium Hat buries its thought in a bushel of excrescences...
...Bennett, a vulgar, conceited...
...Still coming this spring are Destry Rides Again, from the hit Western, and Gypsy, from the best-selling autobiography of ecdysiast Gypsy Rose Lee...
...In this, an essence—half formula, half incantation—dwindles mortals to the size of a walnut...
...They fit the period, as do the tasteful costumes and sets...
Vol. 42 • April 1959 • No. 16
