In my recent report on some art shows I’d seen earlier this
month (“Two Art Fairs & Joan Miró at MoMA,” 16 May), I recounted a
discussion I had with the my graduate schoolmates back in the mid-1970s when I
was an MFA student at Rutgers
University’s School of Creative and Performing Arts (now the Mason Gross School
of the Arts). “I argued with my MFA
classmates at Rutgers that theater for the sake of entertainment isn’t second
rate,” I reported. “Entertainment is a
commendable goal for art.”
A case in point is the largely forgotten Broadway hit of
1947-49, High Button Shoes, a
concert presentation of which I saw at New York City Center on Thursday
evening, 9 May. I’d always heard the
title of the musical comedy (music by Jule Styne, lyrics by Sammy Cahn, and book
by Stephen Longstreet from his 1946 novel The Sisters Liked Them Handsome),
but I’d never seen it or, I thought, heard any of the score—at least nothing
that I identified with the play. When my
friend Diana called me and asked if I’d be interested in seeing the Encores!
Production, I immediately said yes—and was rewarded with a thoroughly
delightful, charming, and entertaining experience in old-time musical
theater.
High Button Shoes was considered a throw-back even in its own time—which was already
three years after Rogers and Hammerstein’s far deeper musical drama Oklahoma!
(1943) and two years after their darker Carousel (1945). The Rogers-and-Hart musical play Pal Joey
was considered so risqué in 1940 that a Broadway ticket broker wouldn’t sell my
grandfather tickets to the show if he intended to take my then-17-year-old future
mother! But High Button Shoes was
old-fashioned musical comedy, all innocent fun, fancy, and farce. New York Times theater reviewer Brooks Atkinson remarked in his
critique of the première, “Eschewing progress to the arts for the moment, the
producers of ‘High Button Shoes’ have put together a very happy musical show in
a very cheerful tradition. . . . Put it
down as excellent family entertainment with no pretensions to show-shop
aesthesia.”
Written in 1947
after Cahn (1913-93) and Styne (1905-94), who’d been writing pop songs together
in Hollywood for several years, wrote their first attempt at a Broadway
show. Glad to See You, about a
USO show touring the South Pacific during World War II, flopped out of town in
1944 and never made it to New York City.
The pair returned to Hollywood and, in 1947, Styne turned to the
semi-autobiographical novel by Longstreet (1907-2002) as the basis for his and
Cahn’s next try for the Great White Way.
The team struck
gold. George Abbott (1887-1995), already
a Broadway legend at 60, was hired to direct and Jerome Robbins (1918-98),
relatively new to musical theater but a major star in the dance world
(including several stints on Broadway with ballet productions), would create
the dance numbers. Comedian Phil Silvers
(1911-85), well-known for his portrayals of scheming con men on screen and a
longtime friend of Cahn’s, was cast as Harrison Floy; Nanette Fabray (1920-2018)
would play Mama Longstreet and Joey Faye (1909/1910-97) portrayed Mr. Pontdue,
Floy’s shill in his flim-flam routines.
Longstreet’s book
was shaky, according to the rumors around Times Square, so Abbott, a play
doctor among his other theatrical talents, took over the book-writing—and
Silvers dipped his pen in as well. (I
quipped to a friend that the character of Floy not only sounded as if it were
written for Silvers, but by Silvers—and apparently it was!)
High Button Shoes opened at the New Century Theatre (Seventh Avenue and West 58th Street; demolished in 1962)
on 9 October 1947 and ran 727 performances through 2 July 1949. (The production moved twice, first to the Shubert
Theatre on 22 December 1947 and then to the Broadway on 18 October 1948.) Robbins won the 1948 Tony Award for
Choreographer and actor Mark Dawson took the 1948 Theatre World Award for his
performance as Hubert “Oggle” Ogglethorpe.
A national tour opened in Boston on 20 April 1948, playing 13 cities, with Eddie Foy, Jr. (1905-83), as Harrison Floy, Audrey Meadows (1922-96) as Sara Longstreet, and Jack Whiting (1894-1975) as Papa Longstreet. The tour played at least 16 cities in the Midwest and Great Plains, including Chicago, Denver, San Fransisco, and Minneapolis; it closed 31 December 1949, in Kansas City.
A national tour opened in Boston on 20 April 1948, playing 13 cities, with Eddie Foy, Jr. (1905-83), as Harrison Floy, Audrey Meadows (1922-96) as Sara Longstreet, and Jack Whiting (1894-1975) as Papa Longstreet. The tour played at least 16 cities in the Midwest and Great Plains, including Chicago, Denver, San Fransisco, and Minneapolis; it closed 31 December 1949, in Kansas City.
A London production opened at the Hippodrome 22 December
1948 and closed on 6 November 1949, completing 291 performance; Audrey Hepburn
(1929-93) was a chorus girl. A
television adaptation was broadcast live on 24 November 1956 on NBC with Nanette Fabray
and Joey Faye repeating their original roles, Hal March (1920-70) as Harrison
Floy, and Don Ameche (1908-93) as Papa Longstreet. High Button Shoes has never been revived on Broadway,
but the play’s had some minor fame with community and regional groups around
the U.S., including two in nearby Connecticut.
The Broadway revue Jerome
Robbins’ Broadway (26 Feb. 1989-1 Sep. 1990: 1989 TONY, Best Musical; 1989
Drama Desk, Outstanding Musical) recreated Robbins’s choreography for three of
his dances in High Button Shoes: “I Still Get Jealous,” “On a Sunday by the Sea,” and “Papa, Won’t You Dance With Me?” Goodspeed Musicals revived the musical
at the Goodspeed Opera House in East Haddam, Connecticut, from 16 June to 11
September 1982 and again from 13 July to 22 September 2007.
The Encores! two-hour-and-twenty-minute
concert presentation (with one intermission) at City Center (West 55th Street,
east of Broadway) ran from 8 to 12 May 2019; Diana and I caught the 7:30 p.m.
performance on the 9th. High Button
Shoes was the last in Encores!
2019 series (Encores! Off-Center, the 2019 summer season of Off-Broadway
musical concerts, will run in June and July, with Studs Terkel’s Working,
Promenade by María Irene Fornés and Al Carmines, and Stephen Sondheim
and John Weidman’s Road Show); the season was a commemoration of City
Center’s 75th anniversary and a tribute to Jerome Robbins, marking (belatedly)
the 100th anniversary of his birth. (The
two previous Robbins-choreographed shows in the season were Call Me Madam, 1950, with music and lyrics by Irving Berlin and book by Howard Lindsay and
Russel Crouse, and Richard Rodgers and Lorenz
Hart’s I Married an Angel, 1938.)
High Button Shoes was staged at City Center by John Rando and choreographed by Sarah
O’Gleby, with musical direction by Rob Berman; the Encores! orchestrations were
from Philip Lang. The scenic designer for
the concert was Allen Moyer, the costumes were designed by Ann Hould-Ward, the light
design was by Ken Billington, and Scott Lehrer designed the sound.
For ROTters who aren’t familiar with
the Encores! productions, they are stripped-down versions of “rarely produced”
musicals, considered neglected or forgotten, with the focus on the score,
performed in full, rather than the dialogue, which is pared down to a minimum. (Encores! artistic director Jack Viertel does the book adaptations.) The actors carry scripts and the scenery.
lighting, sound, and costumes are simplified, as is the staging.
The orchestra, usually a full ensemble (High
Button Shoes had 27 instruments), is given prominence on stage, not in a
pit, often above the actors’ playing area.
This leaves a relatively narrow strip for action and especially, dancing—though
the choreography is always conceived to reflect the standards of Broadway, just
in a confined area. The current Encores!
season is February through May every year and each show runs five performances
from Wednesday through Sunday; Encores! presents three concerts a season. In 2000, Encores! won a Tony Honor for
Excellence in the Theatre.
First-tier actors and singers, as well as
directors and designers, are hired for the productions—some of which have been
transferred to commercial runs on Broadway (the current production of Chicago,
which was presented in concert in May 1996 and then opened at the Richard
Rodgers Theatre in November and is still running after 9347 performances as of
12 May, is the most prominent example).
The concerts have proved an
excellent way to see—and hear—some of Broadway’s less-well known musicals, some
going back to the earliest decades of the American musical (No, No, Nanette,
1925, the oldest produced, and Strike up the Band, 1927, for example). Encores! has been a feature of City Center
since 1994, and Jack Viertel, the Encores! artistic director, has led the
program since 2000, and Rob Berman (who also conducted the Encores! Orchestra
for High Button Shoes) has been musical director since 2008.
It’s 1913 and con man Harrison Floy (Michael Urie) and his shill
Pierre Pontdue (Kevin Chamberlin) have made a living hustling “genuine
Pantagonian diamonds,” knock-off watches, and other frauds in cities like
Washington, D.C., and Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania—real snake-oil salesmen. They hang around just long enough to be
chased out of town by the cops (“He Tried Make a Dollar”).
They skip to the next town until they literally run out of
safe places to go—until Floy remembers time spent in New Brunswick, New Jersey,
years ago . . . and off they go to the town on the banks of the Raritan (where
yours truly went to grad school!). Floy
sets up a real-estate scam, selling lots for future McMansions on New
Brunswick’s undeveloped outskirts in a development called Longstreetville.
(He also sells a couple of Model T’s at a promotional discount as the
personal representative of Henry—that’s Ford, of course. The cast all sing the delightful “There’s
Nothing Like a Model T” while driving about the stage in a model . . . ummm Model T! It’s a hoot.)
The upstanding Longstreet family (yes, they’re named for the
novel’s author; 11-year-old Stevie Longstreet, played here by peppy young Aidan
Alberto, is Stephen Longstreet as a child), consisting of Mama (Betsy Wolfe),
Papa (Chester Gregory), Mama’s younger sister, Fran (Carla Duren), and her
college boyfriend Oggle (Marc Koeck), are the central targets of Floy’s land con.
After the scam is revealed, Floy and Pontdue try to escape to
Atlantic City with their ill-gotten booty (or, as Hawkeye Pierce says in a 1972
episode of M*A*S*H, “his ill-booten
gotty”) and also take Fran—who’s become romantically attracted to Floy—with
them. As the con men flee to the
Atlantic City beach while carrying a satchel full of stolen money, the beach-goers
dance around them in “The Bathing Beauty Ballet,” staged before a row of
cabañas. Among the crowd are bathing
beauties, lifeguards, other criminals, identical twins—and a gorilla.
When the folks from New Brunswick arrive in AC (little
Stevie overheard Floy and Pontdue’s plans and ratted them out), they get the
police to go after the flam-flam team and there’s a wonderful chase à la the
Keystone Cops right out of a Mack Sennett silent comedy! (This is “Bathing Beauty Ballet,” one of two dances for which choreographer O’Gleby has recreated Robbins’s original choreography. The other is “I Still Get Jealous,” a soft-shoe with Mama and Papa Longstreet.)
Meanwhile, Floy has entrusted the bag of loot to Pontdue and
instructed him to put it all on Princeton in the big football game against
Rutgers—which hasn’t won the annual rivalry in years. Oggle is, of course, the star player on the
Rutgers team and Floy tries to distract him and his Scarlet Knights teammates
by advising them that “Nobody Ever Died for Dear Old Rutgers.” Nonetheless, Big Red wins and Floy has lost
everything.
Until, that is, after he’s captured by the police and learns
that Pontdue had bet not on the Princeton football team . . . but a filly named
Princeton. Floy gives the swindled citizens
their money back, but before he leaves, he tries to sell the audience one more
item of “great worth.”
In Rando’s staging for Encores!, the whole thing was a
terrific time in the theater. I can’t
for the life of me see why the play’s never been remounted in New York City in the
70 years since it closed. It’s not like
the only plays revived successfully in New York have been meaningful, significant
dramas—a lot of nonsense has been brought back and done well. High Button Shoes is such fun, I can’t but believe it
could be made into a hit—especially with some
really good choreography (there are lots of dance numbers). The Times’
Ben Brantley said the songs aren’t memorable—and maybe they’re not, but they’re
delightful and up-beat and can easily be performed and staged to great
entertainment effect!
(There’s one possible dramaturgical fault, but it shouldn’t
be a problem with a bit of fluff like this.
There’s no real romance involving the central character, Harrison Floy,
and any of the women. Mama Longstreet
obviously has a little thing for the con artist, but it doesn’t lead to
anything—the play’s too innocent for an extramarital affair. Fran is attracted to Floy—and he strings her
along for the sake of his land scheme, making her treasurer because the
townspeople he’s fleecing trust her—but it’s hardly a real musical comedy
romance. The love match in High
Button Shoes is between Fran and
Oggle—and they do pair up in the end—but he’s a secondary character in the
plot. The best love song in the score,
incidentally, is “I Still Get Jealous,” a duet between Mama and Papa
Longstreet.
(The reason for this apparent oversight, by the way, is that
in the original book for the musical, Floy isn’t the central figure. When Phil Silvers got the role, his part was
enlarged and the play’s perspective was shifted so that Floy became the main
character. That’s what Abbott was
rewriting for—and Silvers had a hand in the revision as well. But in the end, this deficiency doesn’t
really have an effect on the farcical fun High Button Shoes provides.)
The acting in the
City Center production of High Button Shoes was perfect for what the
play is. I swear Michael Urie (whom I
saw do a wonderful physical comedy turn in the Red Bull Theater’s 2017 mounting
of Nikolai Gogol’s The Government Inspector—see my report for Rick On Theater on 12 June 2017) was channeling Silvers (whom Urie’s really
too young to know); he even found Silvers’s black-framed eyeglasses somewhere.
Urie sings more than passably and can hoof
enough to get by, but when it comes to verbal and physical humor, he’s no
second banana. He had less physical
comedy here than in the Gogol, but when he and Chamberlin got going in their
flam-flam routines and other two-hand scenes, you’d think they were old hands
at playing off one another. (The
Encores! concerts have very little rehearsal time, so this kind of work must
have come naturally to both actors.
Kudos to them both!)
The rest of the
company was fine, but the real stars of Encores! High Button Shoes were Sarah
O’Gleby’s charming and spritely dances and the cast’s rendering of Hugh Martin’s
vocal arrangements. I also have to
compliment Allen Moyer on his designs for the Atlantic City beach scenes in act
two; the surf and the cabañas were wonderfully depicted—and the cut-out Model
T, which came early in act one so that it set a marvelous tone for the rest of
the show, was a terrific sight gag.
The press coverage
of the concert was small. Show-Score tallied just 15 published reviews as of 17
May, and the average score was only 56.
The highest score was 75 for Theater Reviews From My Seat,
followed by two 70’s (Broadway
World and New York Stage Review); the lowest-rated reviews were five
45’s, including amNew York, TheaterMania, Talkin’ Broadway,
and New York Theatre Guide.
Twenty percent of the notices were positive, 47% were mixed, and 33%
were negative. My survey will include 10
reviews.
In a review entitled “Skip this clunky musical revival” in amNew York, Matt Windman characterized
the Encores! production as “lumbering and tiring,” proving why, he asserted, High
Button Shoes “is hardly ever
performed nowadays.” Windman does add
that High Button Shoes does have “a madcap vaudeville spirit running
through it” (and “may be the only musical ever set in New Brunswick, New Jersey”),
but he argued, “Much of the plotting is clunky and outright baffling, and the
so-so score lacks any songs that are well-remembered today.”
The amNY
reviewer, whose notice received one of Show-Score’s low-score 45’s, determined that the
Encores! revival “suggests that without an ace comedian like Silvers, ‘High
Button Shoes’ lacks the substance to justify a professional revival . . . . Then again, with more inspiration and better
comic ingenuity, ‘High Button Shoes’ might have at least been more fun.” He reported that Urie “appears to be
impersonating Silvers’ antic disposition the entire time” and the “actors
playing the local community’s straight-laced characters . . . seem ill at ease
and unsure whether to approach the material from a standpoint of sincerity or
satire.”
Obviously, from what I’ve already said, I don’t agree with Windman’s conclusions, but Ben Brantley was cool on the
show as well, his New York Times review scoring only
55 on the survey website. He suggested
that theatergoers looking for “a revival that lets a cheerful old American
musical remain its cheerful old self, with any inner darkness undisclosed”
might be happy with High Button Shoes, which he labeled “a nearly forgotten frolic” with “the approximate
fizz and flavor of a vanilla egg cream.”
Brantley condensed the theatrical experience as summoning “the high
jinks of vaudeville, burlesque and peppy college-themed fare of yore.” “That’s not an assessment to make the heart
beat faster,” wrote the Timesman, and “the charms of this ‘Shoes’ are of
a hazy strain.”
Brantley summed the
“entire production” up as seeming “to take place under a double glaze of
nostalgia—of remembering a more innocent time’s remembrance of a more innocent
time.” The review-writer added that “the
production creates a bright, daytime world in which sunshine comes in shades of
ice-cream parlor pastels,” praising the work of set designer Moyer, costumer
Hould-Ward, and lighting designer Billington.
Though saying that Urie “offers a bright, tooth-flashing facsimile of
the Silvers grin here” and “has the rim-shot-inspiring vaudeville delivery down
cold [while] he remains as Gumby-like as ever,” Brantley continued, “It must be
said that he has only a touch-and-go relationship with a melody line” and “he lacks
the streak of shiny malice that gave an edge to Silvers’s clowning.” The reviewer’s final assessment was, “Mr.
Urie gives a characteristically skillful performance, but it feels pasted on.”
Aside from “Bathing
Beauty Ballet,” Bratley asserted, “none of the musical numbers land with the
impact that makes audiences clap their hands raw.” He went on to adjudge that the “music is
genially, forgettably melodic” and that “score for ‘Shoes’ is rendered here
with a swoony lushness by the wonderful Encores! orchestra.” Brantley concluded, however, that “it seems
to evaporate even as you listen. Like
the production as a whole, it somehow reminds you of a generic host of
golden-age musicals without ever staking a claim to its own unassailable
identity.”
In the New York Observer,
Robert Gottlieb dubbed Encores! High Button Shoes “pretty terrible” and
a “mess” except for a few highlights.
Gottlieb said the first act was “endless” and had “no coherence, no
charm, and lots of puerile jokes.” The Observer
reviewer continued: “The Jule Styne-Sammy Cahn score is derivative and
second-rate. The Encores! performances
were efficiently shticky,” with the exception of Kevin Chamberlin, who alone was “three dimensional.” “As for the Bathing Beauty Ballet itself,”
the one dance number Gottlieb liked, “it lived up to its huge reputation, even
though the stage of the City Center was too small for it: it looked reduced.”
TheaterMania’s David Gordon, in
another notice that scored only 45, pronounced, “The only reason to see” the
Encores! High Button Shoes was the
“Bathing Beauty Ballet,” which the review-writer labeled “10 or so fleeting
minutes of heaven.” “Until that moment,”
observed Gordon, “John Rando's production of this 1947 tuner lurches from tepid
to tiresome: an assortment of enthusiastic actors lost in a sea of passé jokes
and just-OK songs.” The TM
reviewer declared, “I'd . . . encourage Encores! to just present this sequence
and cut the rest of the show.”
Despite praise for
Moyer’s sets, Hould-Ward’s costumes, Billington’s lighting, Berman’s
musical direction, and Lang’s orchestrations as “traditionally superb,” Gordon
reported that “Rando’s staging is, in a word, rudderless.” The reviewer asserted, “The production just
isn’t ready for prime time, and that extends to the actors.” He explained, “The jokes land with a thud,
the pacing is lugubrious, and the whole thing has a very strange aura of
melancholy about it.”
On Theater Reviews
From My Seat, the lone 75 in Show-Score’s round-up, Joe
Lombardi described High Button Shoes as “Broadway musical comedy filtered through a vaudeville lens. Slapstick humor given a burlesque styling.” He continued, “Some of the comedy is silly
and dated but I still chuckled” and added, “The humor verges on titillatingly
naughty.” Lombardi reminded us, “The big
reason to revisit High Button Shoes, however, is for the choreography of the ‘Bathing
Beauty Ballet.’”
The Theater Reviews
writer pointed out, “There are some very good songs including the forgotten
hit, ‘Papa, Won’t You Dance With Me?’” (a pop hit for the late Doris Day), but
demurred that “I find it hard to make an argument for High Button Shoes as a
great musical.” The review-writer
concluded, “If you care to take a swim in musical theater history where
football and vaudeville could amusingly coexist on stage, High Button Shoes is
worth the plunge.”
Michael Dale of Broadway World (a 70 on Show-Score) acknowledged that High Button Shoes “is not exactly a forgotten gem,” but it’s
still “a worthy selection for Encores! to explore” as “a great example of the
type of star vehicle shows that remained popular on post-OKLAHOMA! Broadway.” Then Dale asserted that “the main reason for
Encores! to bring back the smash hit 1947 musical comedy” was the “Bathing
Beauty Ballet,” that “madcap mayhem of the Mack Sennett-inspired” display of “crazy
cacophony of choreographic chaos.” The
reviewer reported that “the talented company of dancing comedians brings down
the house.”
Except for “I Still Get Jealous” and “Papa, Won’t You Dance with Me,”
Dale noted, the “rest is a pleasant, though not especially distinguished
collection of generic ballads and novelty numbers.” Dale also found that Urie’s channeling of
Silvers “didn't seem a comfortable fit,” but acknowledged that with Encores!
short rehearsal schedule, the opening-night performance might not have been
quite fully baked.
On Theater Pizzazz, Brian Scott Lipton (in another 55-rated
review) pointed out that “our tastes in musicals have evolved so much over the
past 70 years, it can be a little hard to understand why this 1947 romp ran for
nearly two years. Still,” he continued, “that’s
not to say there aren’t enough enjoyable moments in John Rando’s production to
merit a visit if you keep your expectations in check.” The songs, with the exceptions of the two
numbers mentioned already, is “less-than stellar . . . made to sound a bit
better than they are by Rob Berman and the Encores! orchestra.” Lipton concluded, “In the long run, ‘High
Button Shoes’ won’t go down as a high mark in the history of musical theater—or
even Encores! presentations–-but I was happy to have a chance to see it.”
Talkin’ Broadway’s Howard Miller proclaimed, “High Button
Shoes . . . has not withstood the test of time in the seven decades since
its initial run, at least not by the evidence of the deflated Encores!
production.” Like other reviewers,
Miller found that “Urie does his best here to sell us in the same manner, but
despite all the charm he can muster, Silvers’ checkered suit simply does not
fit his shoulders.” The plot, said the TB reviewer, “makes little sense” and
“[u]nder John Rando’s direction, almost every flaw is emphasized, while the show’s
strengths (and there definitely are some) are downplayed.”
Except for “Bathing
Beauty Ballet,” asserted Miller, whose notice also scored the low 45, “the
dancing . . . is a mishmash of styles.” The
reviewer felt, “There are some very good songs scattered here and there,
including ‘Can’t You Just See Yourself in Love with Me?’ and ‘You’re My Girl’ .
. . . But neither the toe-tapping ‘Papa,
Won't You Dance With Me?’ nor the appealing soft shoe tune ‘I Still Get Jealous’
. . . manage to soar.” With the
exception of Marc Koeck (Oggle) and Carla Duren (Fran) and Betsy Wolfe (Mama) and
Chester Gregory (Papa), the “rest of the cast try to rev things up with lots of
frenzied mugging, but snake oil is still snake oil, no matter how you package
it.”
Austin Yang of New
York Theatre Guide, who rated yet another low of 45, explained the Encores!
“formula”: “ A gossamer-thin plot, a charming but forgettable score, and
dialogue that may fail to land even with New York City Center’s chief
demographic of the affluent, elderly, and Caucasian.” (Yang must not have seen some of the concerts
I have. Several have been quite
substantial.) “High Button Shoes is this formula at its most underwhelming,” he
affirmed. The NYTG reviewer found that “with no timeless standards, the score
falls flat, and even at its best with the upbeat ‘Papa, Won’t You Dance With Me[,]’
. . . it comes off as silly and dated.”
Yang asserted, “The lifeline of the show, in classic Encores! tradition,
is its dance.”
On New York Stage Review,
one of the 70’s on Show-Score, Steven Suskin declared
that “until the start of act two,” High Button Shoes “is revealed to be what we’ve always been
told: not much of a musical.” The moment
of the turn-around is, of course, the “Bathing Beauty Ballet” when “the
audience is whipped into a frenzy of musical-comedy delight.” It was Suskin’s opinion that “[m]any in the
audience at City Center, in fact, would probably have preferred that they run
the ‘Bathing Beauty Ballet’ three times . . . .” His description of
the play was a “ragtag, pasted-together, decidedly non-ambitious, old-fashioned
affair.”
On top of
deficiencies in the book, the dances, the songs, and the supporting cast, Suskin
found that “the current staging . . . falls flattest . . . in the star
performance. . . . Michael Urie . . . is an impressive comic actor, and does
adequately in the role; but he is not a low-comedy clown, and the Silvers gibes
. . . don’t land.” The NYSR
writer went on: “Without a strong star
performance, all that’s left in this High Button Shoes is the ‘Bathing
Beauty Ballet.’ And that’s not enough to
support the evening.” The reviewer did
have one superior compliment to express as a final comment: “The music, at
least, is impeccably handled. Rob Berman
leads the Encores orchestra with such flair that during the rambunctious
overture the show sounds like a hit. But not for long.”
[Steven
Suskin’s remark about the overture reminds me of a comment I made to Diana as
we were leaving the theater after the show: I miss the traditional overture
before the performance—and even after the intermission. I’m sure there’s a reason it’s mostly
disappeared from musical theater, that composition of snippets from the show’s
score, but I’d forgotten how it sets us up for the musical play we’re about to
see. It puts me in the mood for what’s
coming, it draws me into the world of the play before the actors, singers, and
dancers make their entrances. At the
start of the second half, the second overture reacclimates us to the musical
environment from which we’ve taken a real-world break.
[The
overture sets the tone (if you’ll pardon the pun) for the performance by giving
us a preview of the style of music we’ll be hearing—and, after all, that’s the
foundation of the classic musical. The
dialogue from the book carries the plot line, the story, but the music carries
the emotional line, the feelings the play’s meant to generate. The overture gives us a little taste of that
and puts our psyches in the right mode for receptivity. It primes the pump, if you will. I miss that, and I’d forgotten how much until
Rob Berman and his Encores! Orchestra struck up those first notes at the top of
High Button Shoes. What a
little joy that was!]
