If nothing else the movie gave one of Streisand’s greatest moments: clad in a white beaded gown seductively singing Love With All The Trimmings. Classy Babs! A total Land O’Lakes moment.
I saw it last night. It was light and delightful and the cast was wonderful, all the way. Who cares if it's strange? And there are still a few hummable, memorable songs. So forget the snarky review (above), even lesser Alan Jay Lerner is still worth seeing.
If this seems simplistic, so be it. I worked in the theater for decades, am not acquainted with anyone in the production, and finally, think shows which are merely entertaining (is anyone complaining about"Hello, Dolly?") can be glorious.
As a comment below mentioned, the original version received much of its impetus from the still-fresh sensation over "The Search for Bridey Murphy," which appeared in 1956. The original cast included, in addition to Harris and Cullum, the always excellent William Daniels (as the Harris character's unpleasant boyfriend). He and Cullum, of course, made big bits in 1776 a few years later, and Cullum was still going strong as the villain in Urinetown in this century.
While the need to limit budgets is understandable, the wholesale slicing and dicing of a show -- even one with a quite unbelievable plot -- strikes me as a theatrical sin. There may be situations in which a number or moment cannot be played to a current audience (e.g., "I'm an Indian Too" from Annie Get Your Gun or the instant race change in Finian's Rainbow), there are less drastic means than wholesale surgery of an entire book to deal with the problem.
1
I saw a preview of this show in Boston with Barbara Harris and, I think, Louis Jourdan, who left before it got to New York. She was unforgettable because she was incomparable. But as shows go, they don't get much stranger.
1
The Original Broadway Cast Album of 'On A Clear Day...' has always been one of my favorites. Barbara Harris and John Cullum put across Lerner and Lane's songs powerfully. The score is a gem despite the often incoherent , paper- thin story line : 'My Fair Lady' this isn't. But the songs have a lilt that is hard to resist with witty lyrics to match. The overture is stunning, leading one to think this had to be one of the great Broadway shows. However, that is Broadway's mystifying but rewarding legacy, a treasure trove of magnificent songs from countless shows that flopped.
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I always get goosebumps whenever On A Clear Day gets another
shot in New York .
Like Merrily the score 's the thing no matter how clumsy the book. With stars like Errico, Bogardus, and Cudia this is a hot weather Gem.
Also in the chorus are two standouts : William Bellamy and
(no joke) Florrie Bagel .
3
I'd almost forgotten this VERY exclusive interview by a Vassar student with the ghost of Alan Jay Lerner, nervously haunting the rehearsal of the 2010 iteration, before he started loving what they were doing to preserve his score in that Vassar tryout.
"What Did it Lack That It Has Now?" sung by the very nervous late Alan Jay Lerner, Vassar 2010 (channeling Jack Jones)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Lt9VtE_1TY8
(yes, it was a joke!)
I fell in love with the title song when I heard the cast recording back in the sixties, and I've found it only more beautiful through the years.
2
It has been several years since I last saw the 1970 movie with Barbara Streisand, but there a few differences between the movie and this play.
In the movie the previous incarnation of Melinda/Daisy, she was not highborn. There are scenes in which she is in a workhouse. In a scene in which she is revisiting her previous life, she spills something on her dress. The servant that goes with her to clean up turns out to be her mother.
The mother, who is also psychic, warns Melinda/Daisy against using her power to benefit the man for whom Daisy will leave her husband. She tells her that she will pay over the course of lifetimes for misusing her powers.
The previous lifetime of Melinda/Daisy ended because she was convicted of witchcraft. She had used her power to predict which ships would be lost at sea and which her new husband should insure. In Regency England, where the previous lifetime was set, it may have seemed as if witchcraft was at work as to how he could so successfully avoid loss.
The movie script, as fanciful as it may seem, did not include someone being able to physically travel back to a previous time. It also seems to have made more narrative sense than this revival. Perhaps a better narrative will add, not detract from the score.
The score was always appealing and the direction of Vincente Minnelli made it an enjoyable movie to watch.
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That is such an interesting analysis you did, Maria, and it sounds like the type of story changing that these days potentially gets done in the many (some think endless, LOL) invited-audience readings and presentations every Broadway-minded musical seems to go through . And looking at this Barbara Harris Phoenix New Times interview from 2002 (she’s been living in Scottsdale, AZ), it sounds like Ms. Harris would have totally reveled in, embraced and enjoyed the more modern workshop-it-until-it’s-there process, that she’d have loved exploring and exploring until the kinks were smoothed out, maybe even never tired of it.
http://www.phoenixnewtimes.com/arts/barbara-harris-knew-bill-clinton-was...
“Does that mean you've left acting?
Harris: Well, if someone handed me something fantastic for 10 million dollars, I'd work again. But I haven't worked in a long time as an actor. I don't miss it... And all I really wanted to do back then was rehearsal. I was in it for the process, and I really resented having to go out and do a performance for an audience, because the process stopped; it had to freeze and be the same every night. It wasn't as interesting.”
PS One wonders if Ms. Harris would have loved helping explore in the modern workshop process, and the O'Neill Center, Vassar, etc, and then at times said: now that you've got it, who don't you get [so-and-so} and I 'll go have fun doing another show's workshops. (assuming money isn't crucial)
5
Freddie,
Good points all. After I wrote my comment it occurred to me that the Irish Repertory Theatre adapted the story line to reflect a more Irish sensibility and history.
The 1970 movie had some interesting highlights. By the end of the movie, after the story of Daisy had leaked out to the press, Daisy tells Walter that she is the "nut" (his wording) and dumps him. The psychiatrist, Marc Chabot, was played by Yves Montand. Walter was played by Larry Blyden. The dean of the school where Marc Chabot worked was played by Bob Newhart. And Daisy's new boyfriend, Tad was her former stepbrother. The actor who played Tad would have an illustrious career (playing a joker among other roles) was Jack Nicholson.
In terms of the musical's provenance, I have two words: Bridey Murphy. Theatrical reviews really benefit from a knowledge of the cultural moments in which cultural products are created.
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Reading this review, I had been thinking: aren't Irish Rep productions supposed to have some connection to Ireland?
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Maybe in a prior life, Daisy/Melinda was Irish. Bridey Murphy notwithstanding, the source for Lerner's show was John Balderston's "Berkeley Square," which itself was loosely based on an unfinished Henry James work. Also, BTW, Daisy's now-absent boyfriend was Warren Smith, not Walter. David Gamble's boyfriend in the revival was also named Warren Smith. William Daniels played the character on Broadway, Larry Blyden in the movie.
This is a fine example of an estate that keeps allowing (despite varied success levels) attempts at making a writer's catalog live and live, and here at Irish Rep a great example showing that when a revisal like the Peter Parnell "gay Daisy Gamble" version is allowed. it doesn't mean the unrevised concept disappears. The original stays in the canon in this case.
I liked the adventure of the Parnell-Mayer version so much more than so many people did, felt some got lost with s famous megastar playing the doctor and an unknown excellent actor playing the patient, so I hope that version is allowed another shot. But the Lerner estate motives feel so right, as they do with "My Fair Lady" and the new budget "Camelot." The motives were good too with "Gigi," like reassigning "Thank Heaven For Little Girls" from Honore to the aunts. It seems they think: Don't throw out the real version, don't really replace it; but let the scores have a chance at survival, while keeping a very watchful eye. It feels like it's about much more than money to the Lerner estate.
If the estate is reading, though I can't imagine - "Carmelina," please! A score that really should live on. "Mamma Mia" showed the three-possible-dads concept can be managed. Maybe make a rights deal and embrace the "Buona Sera Mrs. Campbell" connections, rather than pretend they weren't there for all of us who saw that then-recent movie.
The problem with the Parnell-Mayer version was that the gender switch needed to be reversed. Marc should fall in love with "Malcolm," not Melinda. THAT would have been cool, but also apt. And also makes "What Did I Have that I Don't Have" funny and sad. But I also advocate for Curly in Oklahoma should be a woman that Laurie falls for. That also would be cool.
1
The unknown excellent actor was David Turner, now understudying several parts in The Boys in the Band. He played the poet Ezra Chater in the Broadway revival of Arcadia, toured with Spamalot, and was hilarious in The Butter and Egg Man at the Atlantic.
PK, that works - since I found out Curly in OKLAHOMA!'s full name is Curly McLain, he sometimes brings to my mind Shirley MacLaine, who would not become famous until years later, and therefore should bring to mind reincarnation.
So it all fits, at least as well as it seems the original "Clear Day" plot did! In my own time-space continuum, I knew the expression "On a clear day you can see forever" from the radio and Merv Griffin Show long before I ever heard the weather expression (as in "On a clear day you can see Catalina"), so when I was young, I thought the weather expression was derived from Lerner's title rather than vice versa.