| “At the Roxy Music Hall” | |
| Posted by: showtunetrivia 11:20 am EDT 06/16/22 | |
| In reply to: re: I Married An Angel - Musicals54 09:16 am EDT 06/16/22 | |
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| When Rodgers and Hart were writing the score for I MARRIED AN ANGEL, their young director, Joshua Logan, objected to the “At the Roxy Music Hall.” The show was set in Budapest, so it made no sense to have, all of a sudden, a big dance number set in NYC. “Oh, we’ll just bring up the subject of New York and she’ll start singing it,” said Hart. “It has nothing to do with anything!” Logan protested. “We’ve got to do something different, and give the people a little fun. They’ll forgive anything that’s good,” said Hart. “But how do we explain it?” said Logan. (Side note: Logan was also an uncredited librettist for ANGEL, as Hart’s drinking was getting out of hand.) “The less you explain, the happier they (the audience) are. Just do it,” said Rodgers. Logan did manage to get a bit of rhymed dialogue about New York, and there was some underscoring leading into the ballet, but that was all the audience got to help them transition from Budapest to the Roxy. The Balanchine surrealist ballet stopped the show. Logan’s fears that the critics would complain about its irrelevance as he had done were unfounded. Every major critic praised the number. He said afterwards he realized this provided “an astounding lesson for me. When you have no reason for putting something in a musical show, then for Christ’s sake, don’t give a reason. Just do it.” A rather fascinating object lesson, I’d say, given the way the book musical was to develop in the next few years. But the other point is that this was one aspect of the original show that I’d wager was impossible for Encores to replicate. It was huge, extravagant, clever, funny, and it knocked people’s socks off. So everyone involved at the time realized it logically didn’t work, but the skill of the creative team and the performers, led by Vera Zorina, made them not care at all. Laura in LA |
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