It is twelve years since I last saw the 1964 Stephen Sondheim musical ANYONE CAN WHISTLE; I came out of that production thinking "great score, lousy book". I came out of the Southwark Playhouse this week thinking "Great score. lousy book".
Well it's consistant.
After reluctantly writing the lyrics for two now-classic Broadway musicals WEST SIDE STORY (1957) and GYPSY (1959), Sondheim finally had his debut sole Broadway composing credit with A FUNNY THING
HAPPENED ON THE WAY TO THE FORUM (1962) but was disappointed that despite it's success - and Tony Award for Best Musical - his score was largely overlooked, not even getting nominated for the Best Score Tony.
Ironically, he always cited his first good notices as being the London critics who pointed out the quality of his FORUM lyrics. However back in New York Sondheim teamed up with Arthur
Laurents, who had written WEST SIDE STORY and GYPSY, and started work on
a new musical ANYONE CAN WHISTLE.
As writer and director, Laurents was probably too close to it and following a disappointing out-of-town try-out, it opened on Broadway after twelve previews to mostly negative reviews and closed after nine performances. The show's one good luck was that the original cast recording was released so the marvellous vocal performances of Angela Lansbury, Lee Remick and Harry Guardino could be enjoyed while Sondheim's 1970s elevation to Musical Genius status made the record a cult success, with individual songs gaining an independant life in cabaret setlists.WHISTLE
has never been revived on Broadway but has appeared in semi-staged
concert performances; in London it has been bravely staged in off-West
End theatres but in all it's incarnations the book has not been touched -
and while Sondheim's score is of it's time but still worthy, Laurents'
book has dated badly.
Laurent's
clunky satire is set in a small US town, bankrupted by the corrupt
mayoress Cora Hoover Hooper and her administration - sounding familiar? They fake a 'miracle' - water spouting from a rock - to get the tourists in. But there is uproar when the inmates
from the town asylum or 'Cookie Jar', led by the head nurse Fay Apple, escape into the crowd while
visiting the shrine. Unable to tell who is insane, a stranger. Hapgood, appears and is assumed to be the new head doctor; but his theory that everyone is mad and all authority is to be mistrusted has the politicians suspicious. Another stranger, "The Lady From Lourdes" appears to report on the
new miracle but Hapgood quickly unmasks her as head nurse Fay who
also refuses to identify her 'cookies' to the authorities. Their obvious attraction is
compromised however by Fay's inability to be impulsive, to "whistle". The show culminates in Hapgood being revealed as a new patient for the asylum, the politicians still
in power, the 'cookies' locked up again and Fay finally able to "whistle".
The last production at the Jermyn Street Theatre played up the political angle, making the corrupt mayor and her cronies a rising fascist state while here director Georgie Rankcom has gone for a more brightly-coloured, happy-clappy approach as if the cookies had taken over the asylum. I guess with Laurents' hopelessly twee book of ham-fisted political satire
which sugars it's pill by calling the insane 'cookies' it's up to the director what choices are made but I had quite forgotten Laurents' jaw-dropping climax where the patients are rounded up by head nurse Fay calling out there names: Brecht, Kirkegaard, Engels etc. Like... THUNK. The whole approach that the mad are the sane ones is grindingly dated too.
It's a show which at least has two good roles for women and Alex Kelly is unstoppable as Mayor Cora, giving a very big performance on Southwark's small traverse stage. No opportunity is missed to make her a comedy villainess but she does it with great timing and a voice that is still travelling when it hits the Playhouse wall. Chrystine Symone is appealing as Fay and sings her famous numbers "There Won't Be Trumpets" and the always-affecting title song with clarity and conviction, she has a directness in the book scenes which cuts through the campness but she seems wary of playing the character's more vulnerable moments. But as I said, they were both so good vocally I longed for the cut-on-the-road song "There's Always A Woman" between the two characters to be reinstated.
The supporting cast are all there and seem to be enjoying each others company but a little eccentricity can go a long, long way. I did however want to mention the undeniable presence of Danny Lane as Cora's head crony Comproller Schub who played it like he secretly knew we were all there for him but gave a good performance and was adept enough to be able to ride over several prop mishaps. Also snapps to Nathan Taylor who played the tiny role of Dr Detmold and various other characters but played them all with a big grin - and mohawk - which was infectuous.
I am sure there was a designer but they were hardly taxed while Natalie Pound's out-of-sight musicians are dangerously over-amplified. Of course the cast all have headmikes - for the 240 seat space - which ruined "With So Little To Be Sure Of" one of Sondheim's most beautiful ballads, with ear-shattering cracks and crunches, like eggs were being thrown at a metal plate.
Despite all this, ANYONE CAN WHISTLE is not adapted from a film, a tv show, a book, and is not cobbled together from someone's CD collection; and is the only Sondheim show in London so... worth seeing for that alone.
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