The author discusses the enduring love for Lerner and Loewe's "Brigadoon" and Rodgers and Hammerstein's "Flower Drum Song" musicals, which have been revived on Broadway. The author shares their personal experience of falling under the spell of their scores and the reasons why these musicals should live again.
Few would contend that Lerner and Loewe’s "Brigadoon" and Rodgers and Hammerstein’s "Flower Drum Song" represent the best work of these legendary duos. Unlike Lerner and Loewe’s eternally popular "My Fair Lady," "Brigadoon" hasn’t had a Broadway revival since 1980.
"Flower Drum Song," relegated to the shadows of Rodgers and Hammerstein’s "Oklahoma! " and "South Pacific," didn’t last long when it received its first and only Broadway revival in 2002. I assumed nostalgia was fueling the desire to give these Golden Age musicals a makeover. But when I sat in the audience for these shows and fell immediately under the spell of their scores, I had a different answer.
The music makes a case for why "Brigadoon," now in a soaring revival at Pasadena Playhouse, and "Flower Drum Song," making a less assured reemergence at the Aratani Theatre in Little Tokyo, should live again. I was particularly skeptical of "Brigadoon," with its airy-fairy book and heavy dose of romantic hokum, but the Broadway-level production at Pasadena Playhouse may be the best local staging of a musical I’ve seen in my 20 years covering the scene for The Times.
I knew both musicals principally from their film adaptations. I missed David Henry Hwang‘s original rewrite of "Flower Drum Song," which was a storied success at the Mark Taper Forum in 2001 but fared less favorably when it moved to New York the following year. I suppose I first saw "Brigadoon" as a kid at my grandmother’s house, amused at the way she goofily sang along.
When I recently watched both movies again, it was like falling into a musical comedy time warp. The enduring love for these Broadway shows isn’t just about the standards they have bequeathed to the American songbook. It’s also about the yearning for a more optimistic era of musical storytelling, when goodness could be counted on to prevail and a happy ending might be delayed but only rarely denied.
"Brigadoon," a romantic fantasy about two Americans who stumble upon a mystical Scottish village that magically comes to life for a single day once every 100 years, might seem to be irredeemably old-fashioned. The show, which premiered on Broadway in 1947, was Lerner and Loewe’s first hit after a string of flops and fizzles. Without the success of "Brigadoon," "My Fair Lady," "Camelot" and the movie musical "Gigi" might never have happened.
But how do you solve a problem like Alan Jay Lerner’s book, written for a sensibility markedly more wholesome than our own? Enter playwright Alexandra Silber, whose fresh adaptation works for the most part remarkably well. There are a few lumpy patches, moments when the revision over-explains itself or belabors a point. But the way Tommy Albright (Max Von Essen) and Jeff Douglas (Happy Anderson), the accidental American intruders, have been modernized is a fizzy delight.
Imagine if Vincente Minnelli’s screen version of "Brigadoon," starring Gene Kelly and Van Johnson, was remade with Paul Rudd and John Goodman, and you’ll have some idea of the comic chemistry here. But I should preface this thought exercise by first extolling the musical theater prowess of Von Essen, who received a Tony nomination for his work in "An American in Paris" and has a voice that could make the angels swoon.
Less is required of Anderson’s jaded, booze-sodden Jeff, but this smart-alecky sidekick is re-imagined with crackling comic vitality. The production, directed and choreographed by Katie Spelman, saves its most assertive interventions for its female characters. Fiona MacLaren (Betsy Morgan), the unmarried heroine who catches Tommy’s amorous eye, still falls heedlessly in love but not before correcting some of her American suitor’s chauvinistic assumptions.
Morgan might overdo Fiona’s fiery streak when she sings "Waitin’ For My Dearie," but the driving impulse is to bring the musical’s out-of-time female characters into the 21st century. Meg Brockie (Donna Vivino), no longer the town floozie single-mindedly out to bed Jeff, is now the proprietor of Brockie’s Pub and the keeper of Brigadoon’s traditional language and culture. She’s still a sensual wrecking ball, but she’s too formidable to be treated as comic relief.
Silber has transformed Mr. Lundie, Brigadoon’s schoolmaster and moral guide, into Widow Lundie. The casting of the great Tyne Daly in the role is reason enough to make the gender switch, but it’s all part of a recalibration of the values of this theatrical world. The dynamism of the singing and dancing smooths out some of the adaptation’s rough edges.
Spelman puts her own stamp on Agnes DeMille’s original choreography, which was as integral to the storytelling as the book, lyrics and music. When Charlie (a phenomenal Daniel Yearwood), a genial groom readying himself for the big wedding day, performs with his buddies "I’ll Go Home With Bonnie Jean," Pasadena Playhouse erupts in a stomping frenzy of Celtic ecstas
Musical Revival Golden Age Lerner And Loewe Rodgers And Hammerstein \Brigadoon\ \Flower Drum Song\ \My Fair Lady\ \Camelot\ \Oklahoma!\ \South Pacific\ \An American In Paris\ \Flower Drum Song\ \Brigadoon\ \My Fair Lady\ \Camelot\ \Gigi\ \Brigadoon\ \Flower Drum Song\ \My Fair Lady\ \Camelot\ \Oklahoma!\ \South Pacific\ \Agnes Demille\ \Katie Spelman\ \Tommy Albright\ \Jeff Douglas\ \Fiona Maclaren\ \Meg Brockie\ \Mr. Lundie\ \Widow Lundie\ \Charlie\ \I’Ll Go Home With Bonnie Jean\ \Celtic Ecstasy\ \Revival\ \Golden Age\ \Musical\ \Revival\ \Golden Age\ \Musical\ \Revival\ \Golden Age\ \Musical\ \Revival\ \Golden Age\ \Musical\ \Revival\ \Golden Age\ \Musical\ \Revival\ \Golden Age\ \Musical\ \Revival\ \Golden Age\ \Musical\ \Revival\ \Golden Age\ \Musical\ \Revival\ \Golden Age\ \Musical\ \Revival\ \Golden Age\ \Musical\ \Revival\ \Golden Age\ \Musical\ \Revival\ \Golden Age\ \Musical\ \Revival\ \Golden Age\ \Musical\ \Revival\ \Golden Age\ \Musical\ \Revival\ \Golden Age\ \Musical\ \Revival\ \Golden Age\ \Musical\ \Revival\ \Golden Age\ \Musical\ \Revival\ \Golden Age\ \Musical\ \Revival\ \Golden Age\ \Musical\ \Revival\ \Golden Age\ \Musical\ \Revival\ \Golden Age\ \Musical\ \Revival\
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