Leonard Bernstein
     Wonderful Town

Kim Criswell (Ruth)
Audra McDonald (Eileen)
Thomas Hampson (Robert Baker)
Brent Barrett (Wreck)
Birmingham Contemporary Music Group/Simon Rattle
EMI CDC 7243 5 56753 2 3 Total time: 66:46

Karen Mason (Ruth)
Rebecca Luker (Eileen)
Ron Raines (Robert Baker)
Gregg Edelman (Wreck)
National Symphony Orchestra/John Owen Edwards
Jay CDJAY2 1281 Total time: 59:09 + 40:17

Summary for the Busy Executive: Wonderful show.

It all began when Ruth McKenney wrote a series of short stories about
her and her sister's adventures in Greenwich Village, when they moved
from Ohio to New York.  Ruth was the "smart, serious one," Eileen the
"pretty and naive one." Actually, in reality they were probably both
fairly smart.  After all, Eileen married the novelist Nathanael West.
Ruth married humorist S. J. Perelman.  In 1938, she collected these
stories under the title My Sister Eileen.  Joseph Fields and Jerome
Chodorov adapted the work for the Broadway stage in 1940, and the play
duly became a movie.  Fields and Chodorov then decided to turn it into a
musical.  The history of the project's start is a tangled one, with various
producers, stars, and songwriters considered and either dropped or fallen
through.  Comden and Greene and Bernstein all came in at the last minute,
with any where from four to six weeks (depending on who counts) to write
the score.  Comden and Greene were initially less than enthusiastic, but
when they pitched the idea to Bernstein, he immediately lit up.  As their
earlier On the Town was initially "about" the Forties, Wonderful Town was
"about" the Thirties, essentially their adolescence.  One resists the times
of one's own youth with difficulty.  They strongly attract most of us.
Bernstein reminded Comden and Greene of the heady combo of social fervor
and swing and thus galvanized all three into some of their best work.

They wound up writing the show as a vehicle for Rosalind Russell.  The
musical also introduced Edie Adams as Eileen.  It ran a respectable number
of performances and then sank into oblivion, with the curious exception of
the song "Ohio," one so out of the run of what Bernstein normally wrote
that you'd be hard pressed to associate it with him.  Still, like all of
Bernstein's Broadway stuff, it's so much better than even the acclaimed
classics you have to wonder about the level of public taste.  Because of
the speed required, the team fell back to some extent on their cabaret
style.  All three had worked during their salad days in night-club reviews.
The show overflows with hilarious musical skits and comic songs.  On the
other hand, they also came up with three beautiful ballads - "A Little
Bit in Love" (my favorite), "A Quiet Girl," and "It's Love" - all in
Bernstein's pop-kicked-up-several-notches style.  None of these songs made
it, and the CDs are worth having for these alone.  I've known most of the
score for many years, having owned the original cast LP.  This has
reportedly appeared on CD, but I can't find it now.

Both CDs have their glories and their problems.  On EMI, Simon Rattle,
that superb musician, not only has Broadway pop down but the ability to get
tremendous playing from his musicians.  Each note crackles and sparkles.
Rattle swings naturally.  Jay's John Owen Edwards leads a professional
performance, but one typical of what you hear from a Broadway pit band.
Compared to Rattle, he's pokey and stiff.  You really notice the difference
in the number "Swing!" Rattle does and Edwards doesn't.  In fact, Edwards
and his band sound as if they learned the score phonetically.  On the other
hand, the EMI has serious casting problems.  There's nothing wrong with
anyone's voice - Hampson, McDonald, and Criswell all sing very well indeed.
On the other hand, the score really demands comedians who can sing.
Rosalind Russell, after all, had a baritone croak, and her Ruth Sherwood
blows both Criswell and Mason out of the water.  Mason does better than
Criswell, mainly because she knows how to tell a joke, read a line, and
sell a song without overkill.  It amazes me that Bernstein compromised very
little, even when dealing with a non-singer like Russell.  Ruth's numbers
are rhythmically and harmonically quite tricky.  It somewhat spooked
Russell, according to the liner notes.  She ran to her friend Joshua Logan
in high panic ("Help!  I can't sing!").  Logan advised her to get "lots of
words," under the theory that the audience would be too busy with the words
to make out the music.  Indeed, Ruth's numbers have as many words as a G &
S patter song - especially "Conga," which runs through a list of Thirties
monuments, fads, and 15-minute celebs (Helen Wills, NRA, TVA, Charles G.
Dawes, Harold Teen, Dizzy Dean, and even "Stokowski's hands").  It seems to
have worked and given Russell the confidence she needed.  She came through
in spades.  Hampson is no more than okay in his numbers, and his acting is
more enthusiastic than deft.  Ron Raines has a much better sense of theater
style, although he too is no Phil Silvers.  Audra McDonald as Eileen has a
more beautiful voice than Rebecca Luker, and she really needs only her
voice.  The minor characters - essentially vaudeville clowns - really
disappoint.  EMI's Brent Barrett affects an amateur theatrical All-Purpose
Dumb Guy voice for the football player Wreck.  His counterpart, Gregg
Edelman, does slightly better, with a professional theatrical All-Purpose
Dumb Guy.  Both miss the massive egotism and sweet amazement of the
original, Jordan Bentley, in his lovely paean to himself, "Pass the
Football":

  Couldn't spell a lick,
  Couldn't do arithmetic;
  one and one made three,
  thought that dog was C-A-T,
  but I could pass that football
  like nothin' you have ever seen.

  Couldn't write my name,
  couldn't translate "Je vous aime,"
  Never learned to read
  "Mother Goose" or Andre Gide ...

- a lovely vernacular update of the Penzance Major-General's song.
Overall, even the Jay cast lacks the comedic sharpness of performances
honed by lots of evenings and matinees in front of a live audience, as in
the original cast album.

Comden and Greene at their wittiest make a strong case for this show.
Bernstein's score makes it a marvel.  He contributes at least as much wit
as his lyricists.  When one considers how little time he had, the unity and
surprises of the score turn all the more amazing.  From the Eddie Duchin
vamp that heralds the opening number, "Christopher Street," the score
immediately transports us to the Thirties.  "Swing!" evokes Louis Prima's
"Sing, Sing, Sing" and Fats Waller without ever a direct quote.  There are
several musical tags.  "Pass the Football" opens with the refrain from the
number "What a Waste," thus commenting on Wreck's college career before we
ever hear a word.  "Conversation Piece," depicting an impromptu pot-luck
thrown by Eileen where every conversational gambit crashes to the floor
like a sash weight, includes the opening phrase of Eileen's innocent "A
Little Bit in Love." "What a Waste" opens with the leading man's advice
to Ruth to go back home, to a phrase which later blossoms into his ardent
"It's Love." Best of all are the narrative dance numbers, a genre that runs
through all of Bernstein's shows:  "Conquering the City" (not included in
the original cast album) and "Ballet at the Village Vortex." If you listen
hard to "Conquering," you can hear a phrase that found its way into
Bernstein's concert tribute to swing, Prelude, Fugue, and Riffs.

Overall, I'd give Rattle the clear edge as far as the music goes, Edwards
the better cast.  However, the Jay recording also includes just about
everything, including instrumental reprises, instrumental covers of scene
changes, the curtain-call music, and the exit music that played while the
audience left the theater.  Most, if not all of this, is probably by the
orchestrator, Don Walker, rather than Bernstein.  Not a theater historian
myself, I could care less about any of it except for the bit called "Ruth's
Stories." Ruth wants to be a writer and submits her serious short stories
to a literary editor.  What we get are hilarious parodies of Hemingway, Dos
Passos, and the school of Philip Barry.  It's hard to choose.  Ideally, you
really want all three performances:  the original cast, the EMI, and the
Jay.

Steve Schwartz