I saw Morse in Sugar at one of those big regionals, and it was unimpressive.
The big problems with the show were summed up perfectly by Dan Sullivan in his review in the Los Angeles Times of Sept. 5, 1974:
"... this is nowhere near as good a musical as 'Some Like It Hot' was a movie. Jule Styne's tunes and Bob Merrill's lyrics are dreadful, lacking charm, wit, style, texture - lacking everything, in fact, but insistence. (Kert's 'People in My Life' is the most promising song, but it turns into melted ice cream after after about eight bars).
"Peter Stone's book is larded with jokes like: 'Do you play the market?' 'No, the ukulele,' which are not charming-because-dumb, but just dumb.
"Not only is 'Sugar' labored, it is sometimes downright unpleasant, as when Gordon and a pack of arthritic crocks chug about the stage after a bevy of bathing beauties cackling that even 'naughty old men need love.' ...
"But 'Some Like It Hot' was a personal pictture and 'Sugar' is an assembly-line, least-common-denominator musical, and that's the difference.
"See it, by all means, for Morse and the other good people in it ... But don't expect a whole lot. When they are in it only for the sugar, this is usually the kind of show that comes out."
As Ethel Merman said to columnist Earl Wilson after the Broadway opening: You'd think they could have come up with one good song! |
