The Saga of Unsinkable Molly
SHIPLEY, JOSEPH T.
On STAGE By Joseph T. Shipley The Saga of Unsinkable Molly The Unsinkable Molly Brown. Music and Lyrics by Meredith Willson. Book by Richard Morris. Directed by Dore Schary. Presented by The...
...After Ethel, who will bring us that hearty, bouncing, fresh-from-the-farm, innocent-impudent quality...
...The sentimental music fits the mood...
...For some seasons folks around Broadway have been wondering and waiting, hoping for someone to rise to the challenge of Ethel Merman...
...The stodgy boy who wants the girl and the happy-go-lucky boy who enjoys her are sons of the same father...
...When the girl asks: "What do two people do when they're in love...
...Then, via a rowboat from the sinking Titanic, Molly eventually comes back to triumph and to her Johnny...
...When she gets to the little mining town of Leadville, J. J. (Johnny) Brown, with "the Brown luck," comes upon and marries her...
...It's July, but Johnny comes home with a chill and burns the $300,000 to warm his backside...
...Tucker Grogan, father of the two boys, is married to a bored and cynical woman and finds himself, after a long separation, still attached to his old mistress...
...She batters her boredom with bright remarks: "I hate the sea...
...Contrasted with the lady who has "arrived" and finds society empty, played with superb condescension and control by Eileen Heckart, and the lady who is still trying to climb, played with charm and a fetching Southern accent by Madeleine Sherwood, is Mrs...
...The plot lends itself to lively and colorful scenes, which are profusely offered...
...In one particularly heart-warming scene, Molly, with superb ease and insouciance, in the center of the society folk who are snubbing her, bullies and shames them into contributing for the new church...
...And it goes on shining through its sentimental but always amusing scenes...
...There is not merely an American success story in Molly Brown's career...
...By Arthur Laurents...
...To dance is to swing off by yourself, taking what steps you choose, bound by no restrictions save the rhythm of your own life...
...At the Winter Garden...
...Grogan, a bright creature in blue hair, tight pink pants and sequins...
...there are color and contrast and grit and—especially—fun...
...Invitation to a March...
...Growing up in the small town where Mark Twain once played, Molly determines to forge a fine life for herself...
...Do YOU march through life, or do you dance...
...Directed by the author...
...Here she comes, the unsinkable Tammy Grimes...
...Arthur Laurents, with the books of Gypsy and West Side Story also to his credit, is looking toward the laurels of Clyde Fitch, who once had five plays on Broadway at the same time...
...Chief voice to the author's wit is given by Mrs...
...To march is to walk in line, to identify yourself with the rest of men, to conform...
...Rich again—who cares how?—Molly is snubbed by Denver's Pennsylvania Avenue society, but she makes it in a big way in Paris—and "when one has the Champs Elysees, who cares for Pennsylvania Avenue...
...This is the "invitation" engagingly set forth in Arthur Laurents' new play, Invitation to a March...
...Grogan, played with a bouncing heartiness and delightful vigor by Celeste Holm...
...With brighter dialogue than is usually heard, this Invitation will be accepted by audiences for a long time to come...
...The girl, Norma Brown, falls into a deep slumber whenever weddings and Westchester are mentioned...
...He's a young person...
...It never listens and it's always interrupting...
...Presented by The Theatre Guild and Dore Schary...
...The dances in the Leadville bar, the society folk in Denver, the debutante slouches at Monte Carlo all are brightly costumed and amusingly choreographed...
...The stodgy boy gives the answer the girl wants: "They get married...
...Molly waits five empty days to see her husband and when he finally arrives with $300,000 in cash, she hides it in the pot-bellied stove for safety...
...Presented by the Theatre Guild...
...Laurents weaves these complications into a bright, sophisticated comedy that seems to be in favor of freedom—free spirits making free choice of free love...
...the carefree lad says, "We've done it...
...That easy way of taking us into her arms, that sure sense of timing, that confidence, that informal offhand way of putting things across...
...Of a 10-year-old: "There are no children any more...
...IT DOESN'T TAKE two minutes of romping by tomboy Tammy Grimes (young Molly Tobin) outside her father's shack in Hannibal, Missouri, to show that The Unsinkable Molly Brown is a shining hit...
...The story is the familiar triangle, with unusual angles...
...Chick-a-Penn," "Belly Up to the Bar, Boys"—"and let yourselves be seen/Only drink in the day or night, or somewhere in between"—and other songs will soon be whistled around...
...Herve Presnell, as Johnny Brown, is a welcome recruit to Broadway—tall, smiling, easygoing and richly voiced...
...At the Music Box...
Vol. 43 • December 1960 • No. 49
