Enchanted Evenings:The Broadway Musical from 'Show Boat' to Sondheim and Lloyd Webber (22 page)

That
On Your Toes
is a musical about Art is frequently evident in the dialogue, especially its original 1936 manifestation. For example, in her efforts to convince the Russian ballet director, Sergei Alexandrovitch, that Sidney Cohn’s ballet is worthy of his company, manager and principal benefactress Peggy Porterfield explains the case for branching out: “Your public is tired of
Schéhérazade, La Spectre de la Rose
—they’ve seen all those Russian turkeys at the Capital for 40 cents—this is something different—it’s a jazz ballet—they can’t understand the music without the story and nobody can understand the story—they’ll say it’s art.”
¹²
Vera considers herself “a great artist” because she has convinced Junior that her “dancing [has] a virginal charm.”
¹³
And when Morrosine tells a gangster that he “must wait till he [Junior] stops dancing” before shooting him, Art takes precedence over jealousy and revenge.
¹⁴

The libretto also explores conflicting attitudes on the relative merits of classical and jazz dance. Frankie questions Junior’s priorities in giving up his
potential as “a headliner in vaudeville” to be a supernumerary in the Russian ballet.
¹⁵
In the 1936 libretto Morrosine’s infidelities and obnoxious behavior toward his partner and paramour Vera are acceptable, but he is denied the lead role in the jazz ballet for artistic reasons: “he does not understand American Jazz Rhythm” and “does not know how to dance on the off beat.”
¹⁶

In 1983, nearly thirty years after it had previously stumbled in its first Broadway revival,
On Your Toes
was again revived, this time with a new book from nonagenarian Abbott, the principal contributor to the original book. Echoing Atkinson’s condemnation of the earlier production, Frank Rich of the
New York Times
wrote that the 1954 failure “was no fluke” and that “its few assets as entertainment are scattered like sweet and frail rose petals on a stagnant pond.”
¹⁷
With the exception of Rich, the new production received mostly favorable reviews and ran 505 performances, after the 1952 revival of
Pal Joey
(542 performances) the second longest running Rodgers and Hart production and, like
Porgy and Bess, Pal Joey, Candide
, and in the 1990s,
Guys and Dolls, Cabaret
, and the still-running
Chicago
, one of the relatively few musical revivals to surpass its initial run.

What made the 1983
On Your Toes
revival especially newsworthy was the approach of the revivalists. In contrast to the drastic book revisions and interpolated songs of the 1962 and 1987 revivals of
Anything Goes
, the 1983
On Your Toes
in most respects closely followed its 1936 model. And unlike the 1954 revival, which had contained the interpolated “You Took Advantage of Me” (originally heard in
Present Arms
of 1928) in act II, scene 3, and dropped the first number, “Two a Day for Keith,” soon after opening night, no interpolations or deletions in 1983 disturbed the “authenticity” of the original. That the 1983 production attempted to offer a faithful reenactment of the 1936 show is evident also in the reinstatement of the original dance and vocal arrangements, for the most part uncut and unedited, and the resuscitation of Hans Spialek’s 1936 orchestrations. Although some of the original choreography was lost, “Donald Saddler, who restaged the non-ballet numbers, took care to use only movements that belong to the dance of the time.”
¹⁸

The considerable success of the 1983 revival prompted the publication of the first complete vocal score two years later with the following introductory remarks from Theodore S. Chapin, President of the Rodgers & Hammerstein Organization:

This score corresponds to the 1983 production of
ON YOUR TOES
which used the orchestrations and arrangements created for the
original production in 1936. A few slight changes were necessary and were made by Hans Spialek, the man who orchestrated the show forty-seven years earlier. Therefore, what you have in your hands is a record of a 1936 Rodgers and Hart score as it sounded when first presented to the public, as well as a documentation of a successful revival. That a score of this nature could be presented as its creators intended, and that those intentions could seem as vital today as they were in 1936, is a testament not only to the timelessness of Rodgers and Hart, but to the dedication and affection lavished on the 1983 production.
¹⁹

Chapin neglects to mention that the vocal score issued in 1985 by Chappell does not entirely preserve the original order of these authentic 1936 orchestrations and arrangements. The brackets and other emendations in the lists of scenes and songs from the 1936 Broadway production and 1983 revival in the online website reveal, for example, that “The Heart Is Quicker Than the Eye” (sung in 1936 by Peggy and Junior in act I, scene 6) has been transferred to the first scene of the second act to replace “Quiet Night” so that Ms. Porterfield would have something to sing in both acts. “Quiet Night” in 1936 opens act II, sung by a character identified only as Crooner; in 1983 “Quiet Night” is sung one scene later by a named nonentity (Hank J. Smith) and a female trio and reprised in scene 4 by the Russian ballet impresario Sergei Alexandrovitch and an offstage chorus.

Gone also is the act II reprise by Sergei and Peggy of Junior’s and Frankie’s “There’s a Small Hotel.” Even if one refrained from asking how Sergei and Peggy came to know this song, its second act appearance in 1936 seemed somewhat gratuitous. In 1983 Sergei and Peggy sing a reprise of “Quiet Night” instead. Both productions allow everyone to learn “There’s a Small Hotel” well enough to sing it at the end of the show.

The 1983 version also changed the locale of a few scenes. For example, the schoolroom scene in act I, scene 5, originally took place in Central Park at night, a setting for “There’s a Small Hotel” that even the staunchest advocates of authenticity might consider laughable in 1983. But these changes do not contradict Chapin’s assertion that for the most part Abbott & Co. as well as Chappell & Co. remained faithful to their musical source to a degree that was remarkable for a 1980s revival of a 1930s musical.

Thirty years earlier, as a result of his dissatisfaction with director Dwight Wiman, Abbott left for Palm Beach before rehearsals had begun in February, returning after Rodgers reminded him that as co-(de facto principal) author Abbott had an “obligation to come and protect it.”
²⁰
In his autobiography Abbott explains his reaction and solution:

Arriving in Boston, where
On Your Toes
was playing its final week, I found things in better shape than I had expected. Ray Bolger was sensational in the lead, and “Slaughter on Tenth Avenue” remains in my memory as one of the best numbers I’ve ever seen in the theatre, both musically and choreographically. The book, however, was a mess; the story line had been destroyed by experimenting, and the actors were out of hand. I behaved ruthlessly to the cast to force them to play parts instead of fighting for material, and I straightened the book out by the simple device of putting it back the way I had written it in the first place.
²¹

When he returned to the script in 1983, Abbott (now ninety-five) had had time to rethink and reinterpret his responses and actions of 1936. He now recalled the situation somewhat differently than in both his and Rodgers’s published autobiographies: “I respected Rodgers and Hart so much in that field … I didn’t do as much as I should have done…. I threw out three sets…. In the old days, if they wanted to sing a song, they set it in Central park or the Palladium. What for? To sing a song like ‘Quiet Night’? I made ‘Quiet Night’ part of the plot.”
²²

In order to further integrate plot and music as well as to establish greater credibility (and, of course, accessibility) for a 1980s audience, Abbott altered his original libretto. In 1936 Sergei and Vera had been several times married; in 1983 Sergei is given some romantic potential with Peggy (as revealed in their reprise of “Quiet Night,” now “part of the plot”) and Vera and Konstantine are lovers both on and off the stage. Also in 1983 the original meeting between Junior and Peggy is made more understandable; Frankie now knows a friend of Peggy’s uncle who can introduce them.

The main changes between the 1936 and 1983 books, however, deal less with plot than with language. The earlier version is more sexually suggestive and, still more surprisingly, perhaps even funnier. Here, for example, is what 1936 audiences heard in the dialogue that precedes Vera’s meeting with Junior in act I, scene 4:

PEGGY
: You’re to be a strip tease girl in a burlesque show.

VERA
: Well, if he’s got ideas like that, why should I bother to dress?

PEGGY
: Darling, he thinks you are an actress. He doesn’t know we are casting to type.

In 1983 Vera is cast as a primmer prima ballerina who has the
potential
to play a striptease character when given time to consider such an outrageous thought. Abbott is clearly no longer casting to type:

PEGGY
: You’re going to love the part—it’s a striptease girl in a burlesque show. It will shock the dance world. It will show us as the progressive ballet company I want us to be.

VERA
: What about Sergei Alexandrovitch? He will say no.

PEGGY
: First you have to like it. This young man who is coming will play the music and tell you all about it.

VERA
(
Begins to play the part
): Sure, a striptease girl—why not?

As a sexually liberated goddess of the ballet world, the original Vera is allowed to conclude the scene in her apartment with a risqué punch line that indicates her desire to see more of Junior. After the foreplay of dancing to the “Zenobia” ballet with Junior, they climb on her bed and she takes his glasses off. When Junior tells Vera his real name and his nickname, Vera replies with a line that could have been stolen from a Mae West film: “But I’ll call you Phillip. I can’t call you Junior. For very soon you will be a great big boy.”
²³

The original book of
On Your Toes
had fewer Groucho Marx–Margaret Dumont–type exchanges than the 1934
Anything Goes
, but those that remained were carefully expurgated. Thus in Abbott’s 1983 revised book (act 1, scene 6) Sergei learns of the glitch that will pave the way for Junior to escape from his role as a supernumerary to become a star of the “Zenobia” ballet: the dancer Leftsky has been detained in jail. This change obscures the politically topical nature of the 1936 version which finds Lefsky (less obviously named than his 1983 counterpart) in a hospital.

SERGEI
: He got in fight with union delegates—All afternoon we are waiting and waiting for him—

PEGGY
: Waiting for Lefsky!
²⁴

Theater audiences in 1936 would not have had any trouble relating this reference to Clifford Odets’s then widely known union play produced the previous year,
Waiting for Lefty
, in which members of a taxi drivers’ union are waiting in vain for their leader, who has been killed.

A comparison between the 1936 and 1983 versions of the first classroom scene, act I, scene 3, further demonstrates evolving social attitudes. In 1936 Junior not only derogates as “cheap” the musical ditty Frankie has composed, but he also displays a favoritism toward his “serious” jazz (and, not incidentally, male) student composer Sidney Cohn. In fact, he is so engrossed in his protégé that he is oblivious to Frankie’s feelings. Although Frankie is
still the one who will return to apologize for leaving so abruptly, by 1983 Junior has learned something from the feminist movement of the intervening years. At least he realizes that he has hurt her feelings.

Gone from both the lyrics and the vocal score of “The Three B’s” in 1983 are Hart’s virtuosic and delectably absurd rhymes in 1936 that called attention to their brilliance: “Who are the three ‘B’s’ of music? / Name the holy trinity / Whose true divinity / Goes stretching to infinity / No asininity / In this vicinity / Who are the three “B’s” of music?”
²⁵

In 1983 Junior offers the following interpretation of romantic lieder: “And thus we note the painless transition into the next phase. The early 19th century brought forth a renaissance of what we could term singing composers. The great music of that period was idealized folk song. Chopin, Schumann, Mendelssohn, and, last but not least, Franz Schubert.”
²⁶

The following dialogue from 1936 (abandoned in 1983) introduces “The Three B’s” from quite a different perspective:

JUNIOR
: You will notice I am careful of the pronunciation, Schu-
bert
, not Shubert [a reference to the organization which, then as now, owned a considerable number of Broadway theaters]. (
Walks to piano
) Let us take this lovely melody. (
He plays the
Ständchen
and sings
) “Dein ist mein Herz” which means “Yours is my heart.” We are all familiar with that melody but I wonder is there anyone who can tell me what life force may have inspired Franz Schubert? (
Hands are raised by some of the class
) Yes, Miss Wasservogel?

MISS WASSERVOGEL
: A beautiful girl.

JUNIOR
: Miss Frayne?

FRANKIE
: A handsome young man.