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Feature by David Munro
FRANK Loesser – who he? I hear you ask. Well if this is
your reaction to his name then read on and learn.
In England , Frank Loesser is probably best known as the composer
of Guys and Dolls – shortly to be seen at the Piccadilly
Theatre - he had, in fact, a prolific career firstly
a songwriter, then as a theatre composer and, finally, as a music
publisher under which guise he fostered a lot of neophyte musical
talents, not least the team of Adler and Ross and their great
hit, The Pajama Game.
When Loesser first hit Broadway, in 1948, with Where’s
Charley, a musical version of Brandon Thomas’ farce,
Charlies Aunt, he had been writing lyrics for 17 years, mainly
for Hollywood Musicals with such composers as Arthur Schwartz,
Burton Lane, Hoagy Carmichael, etc.
He did not start composing until the last war when, faced with
having to write songs for Forces shows and having no handy composer,
he began writing his own songs.
The first solo success he had was with Praise the Lord and
Pass The Ammunition in 1942.
Two years later, he was first heard in the London theatre as
co–composer of a US Troop show, Skirts, which came
briefly to the Cambridge Theatre in 1944.
The choreographer of which was, so it is said, one Wendy Toye
who subsequently became a well-known director of British musicals
from the 1950s onwards.
Another reason to remember Skirts was that his co-composer
was one PFC Harold Rome, another well-known Broadway songwriter
and who was responsible for, inter alia, Wish You Were Here
( London Casino - 1953), Fanny (Drury Lane - 1956) and
Gone With The Wind (Drury Lane - 1972 ) with a then very
young Bonnie Langford in her first West End appearance.
Loesser went on to contribute to a number of military touring
shows but after the war he returned to Hollywood writing songs
for various films, graduating to writing the full score for such
films as Neptune’s Daughter (for which he won an
Oscar for Baby, It’s Cold Outside and Let's
Dance - notable for being probably the worst film Fred Astaire
ever appeared in) and Hans Christian Andersen.
Where’s Charley was the work of novices –
untried producers, Feuer and Martin, and composer, Frank Loesser.
It did have, however, the experienced George Abbott to adapt
the book and direct and Ray Bolger to star as the eponymous hero.
The result was, if not a smash hit, sufficiently successful to
ensure the future careers on Broadway of the three novices and
proved to be the first major hit musical of Loesser’s 13-year
Broadway career.
Where’s Charley was produced in London in February
1958 with Norman Wisdom in the title role.
His next show was Guys and Dolls (1950), a musical based
on Damon Runyon’s colourful characters who hang around New
York.
It tells the story of a Salvation Army girl who saves her mission
from closing and, in the process, reforms an inveterate gambler.
Loesser’s lyrics catch the idiomatic speech of the characters
and these are set to a tuneful score with many numbers, such as
I’ve Never Been In Love Before, having a life outside
the show.
It is probably the best known and most revived of all his musicals
and was notably filmed by Samuel Goldwyn in 1955 with Marlon Brando,
Frank Sinatra and Jean Simmons.
It suffered prior to production in that the original book by
Jo Swerling was felt not to be sufficiently Runyon-esque.
Abe Burrows was called in to beef up the script and, it is generally
accepted, he ended up by writing a completely new version although
for contractual reasons joint credit had to be given to Swerling.
Loesser had already written 14 numbers for the Swerling book
and Burrows tailored his version to the written songs - a reversal
of the normal process of show writing where the score is secondary
to the book.
It was first produced in London at the London Coliseum in May
1953 with three of the New York cast, Vivian Blaine (Adelaide),
Sam Levene (Nathan Detroit) and Stubby Kaye (Nicely-Nicely), and
from England, Lizbeth Webb (Sarah Brown).
The last London revival was at the National Theatre in March
1982 with Ian Charleson (Sky Masterson), Julie Covington (Sarah
Brown), Bob Hoskins (Nathan Detroit), and Julia McKenzie (Adelaide).
Loesser now felt it was time he went it alone and took a pre-war
play by Sydney Howard - They Knew What They Wanted -
about wine growers in the Napa Valley and turned it into The
Most Happy Fella (1956) which is a virtual opera in that
it had only about 15 minutes of spoken dialogue, the rest of the
score being sung.
Loesser deprecated the operatic description; he described it
as a 'warm simple love story'. Nonetheless, this did not prevent
the New York City Opera reviving it in 1991.
Whatever it was, it proved once and for all that Loesser was
more than just a Broadway hack composer but a force to be reckoned
with.
It also provided a love story in real life, as Loesser divorced
his wife (who was co-producing the show) in order to marry its
leading lady!
It was produced in London at the London Coliseum in April 1960
with Inia te Wiata as Tony, the elderly wine grower who persuades
a girl to come to California to marry him on the strength of a
picture of his handsome foreman.
Something must have annoyed the gods as his next show (which
he co-produced) was a failure.
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In Greenwillow (1960), he tried to
create a mellow pastoral style musical which sadly turned out
whimsical and dull and a major disappointment to Loesser, who
always considered it one of his better shows. Despite having Anthony
Perkins in the lead, it only ran 95 performances.
However, his disappointment was soon assuaged by How To Succeed
in Business Without Actually Trying which opened in October
1961 and ran for 1,471 performances.
How To Succeed…. is based on a comic novel by
Shepherd Mead which sets out the ploys for successful advancement
in the corporate world.
Again, Abe Burrows was called in to doctor the book and the Guys
And Dolls authorship saga was reprised; book by Burrows with
co-authorship credits.
The show follows the progress of J. Pierrepoint Morgan from window
cleaner to president with no qualifications but his wits and,
in so doing, takes a satirical look at big business including
nepotism, blackmail, false pretences , selfishness; all as part
of the worship of Mammon and makes this malodorous mix extremely
funny.
Loesser rose to the challenge and produced what turned out to
be his last great score.
Witty, original and imaginative, he gave urbanity to this very
urban musical.
Burrows and Loesser were awarded the Pulitzer Prize for Drama
and the show garnered a clutch of Tony Awards although Loesser
lost out to Richard Rodgers that year, for the best score.
How to Succeed was produced in London at the Shaftesbury
in 1963 with Warren Berlinger and Billy de Wolfe in the leads.
The film version followed, in 1966, with Robert Morse and Rudy
Vallee. It is now playing at the Festival Theatre, Chichester,
with Joe McFadden and James Bolam.
His final musical never reached Broadway but closed during its
pre-Broadway tryout.
Pleasures And Palaces was based on a unsuccessful comedy
by Sam Spewack about the intrigues of Catherine of Russia with
Potemkin and John Paul Jones but, despite the presence of Hy Hazell
and Alfred Marks (or perhaps because of them) it proved to be
an unwieldy, unfunny costume operetta, and was consigned to oblivion
in Detroit.
Loesser died on July 28, 1969, at the age of 59 of lung cancer,
leaving one last musical, The Wisdom of Tepaningo (aka
The Wisdom Of The Heart or Senor Discretion Himself)
which, apart from a workshop production in 1985, has never been
produced.
Although his roster of shows in minimal in comparison to some
of the greats, such as Rodgers and Hammerstein, or Cole Porter,
his craftsmanship and quality of writing ensure his place in the
pantheon of the great musical comedy composers – small is
good indeed.
His three major shows, Guys and Dolls, Most Happy Fella and
How to Suceed… . are revived constantly in the
States where his reputation is jealously preserved, and elsewhere.
Perhaps it is no coincidence that two of them are now to be revived
in the UK which is a chance not to be missed.
And I hope I may have persuaded you to catch up on two of the
classics of American Musical Theatre. With luck, I shall be reviewing
them both within the coming month, so watch this space!
GUYS AND DOLLS
On Wednesday, June 1 (following previews from 19 May) Ewan McGregor
will be making his West End musical debut as Sky Masterson in
GUYS AND DOLLS at the Piccadilly Theatre.
He will be joined by Broadway star, Jane Krakowski, following
her appearance in Grand Hotel as Miss Adelaide.
Douglas Hodge appears as Nathan Detroit and Jenna Russell as
Sarah Brown. The director is Michael Grandage.
The cast also features Martyn Ellis as ‘Nicely Nicely’,
Niall Buggy as ‘Arvide’, Gaye Brown as ‘General
Cartwright’ and Sevan Stephan as ‘Big Jule’.
Also in the cast are Norman Bowman, Patrick Brennan, Lyndsey
Britton, Darren Carnall, Ben Clare, Matthew Cole, Elizabeth Cooper-Gee,
Cory English, Charlotte Gorton, Zoe Hardman, Madeleine Harland,
Nicola Keen, Graham MacDuff, Andrew Playfoot, Kelly Price, Jo
Servi, Spencer Soloman, Summer Strallen, Suzanne Toase and Sebastian
Torkia.
The Designer is Christopher Oram, with choreography by Rob Ashford,
musical supervision by Jae Alexander, lighting by Howard Harrison
and sound by Terry Jardine and Chris Full.
Performance times: Mondays-Saturdays at 7.30pm, with Wednesday
and Saturday matinees at 2.30pm.
Tickets, priced from £20-£55, are available until
March 2006. Box Office: 0870 060 0123.
Buy
tickets
HOW TO SUCEED IN BUSINESS WITHOUT REALLY TRYING
I have already written about this production under the title
How to Succeed …..in
Chichester, but just to remind you of the salient points -
James Bolam returns to the musical stage, in the footsteps of
Rudy Vallee and Billy de Wolfe, as J.G. Biggley, the president
of the company.
Joe McFadden (fresh from Aladdin at the Old Vic) steps
into the shoes of Robert Morse and Warren Berlinger as the faux
naïf J Pierrepont Finch.
The love interest is supplied by Fiona Dunn as Rosemary, the
secretary who loves him and is 'happy to keep his dinner warm',
while Sophie Louise Dann plays Smitty, the hard-boiled secretary
who watches the office manoeuvres with a cynical eye.
The director is Martin Duncan, while the choreographer is Stephen
Mears – (Olivier Award winner for Mary
Poppins)
How To Succeed …. plays in repertory at the Chichester
Festival Theatre from April 29 to September 10. Evenings 7.30pm,
Thursday matinee, 2pm.
[There are reductions of prices in May, when 1/3rd of the tickets
for all performances are £10.]
Box Office: 01243 781312. |
