Would you like your sound of music with a little less sugar, a bit more spice? With a few songs on the sassier, more sophisticated side? Could you take it with Julie taking the night off, and another winning face being your Maria? And how about a running time clocking in at a lean two hours rather than three?
I may have the ticket for you! I've just discovered The Sound of Music Live, 2015, from the UK. Directed to the point by Coky Giedroyc, this version follows the original script and brings back a couple of great songs that were dropped from the movie. This one will give you a good idea of what the show was really like at the very beginning ... So let's make that the perfect place to start, okay?
A LITTLE BACKGROUND: When the musical opened on Broadway in 1959, it was met with glowing first-night notices from first string critics ---“a show of rare enchantment” ... “An utterly captivating work”' .. “The loveliest musical imaginable.” And derided by sugar-averse anti-sentimentalists. Complained Walter Kerr on this side of the pond, “it becomes not only too sweet for words, but almost too sweet for music.. And on the other side, Kenneth Tynan declared it “Rodgers and Hammerstein’s Great Leap Backward."
A DARKNESS SUBTLY FELT: Its detractors may have missed or overlooked the darkening shadows of Nazi aggression (circa 1938) that do loom a little in the wings, dramatized by Hitler’s underlings pushing for Captain Von Trapp to get with the program. They may also have ignored the contrasting bite of two sophisticated songs, "No Way to Stop It" and "How Can Love Survive."
HOLLYWOOD SUNNY SIDE UP UP UP. On balance, this overworking charmer when it first hit the boards spread good will in shameless abundance, and it only became more relentlessly sweet when Hollywood turned it into a phenomenal success. Today, some call it the world’s favorite movie. Now, in the words of Mr. Tynan, suffering a glucose meltdown, happy talk in the alps was “singing in the syrup.” Incredibly, it left behind those two deliciously worldly songs that provided cynical relief.
TURNING R&H TO SAINTHOOD: This transformation on the silver screen began with the omission of “A Lonely Room” from the 1955 film version of Oklahoma, and continued on in The King & I, whose wittiest song, “Shall I Tell You What I Think of You?, was a blistery rebuke sung by Ana to the domineering King. The number was either banned from the shooting script or left on the cutting room floor. If Dick and Oscar were bothered by their critics, they only stood to antagonize them more by not pushing to keep these sobering songs in tact. Damn those two larks still learning to pray!
RELIEF FROM ACROSS THE POND. To the rescue of score preservation came the Brits. Trevor Nunn’s inspired 1999 staging, of Oklahoma restored “A Lonely Room” to the lineup. Jimmy Johnston, the gifted actor who played Jud, gave it a harrowing rendition for the ages. Possibly the most dramatic moment I’ve ever spent at a musical. My only problem with Nunn’s direction is that he tends to overplay his hand in realism by underlining dialogue and fostering too many reprises of songs and dances. His staging clocked in at a whopping three hours, exceeding the stage version by a at least a good half hour. I grew restless down the final stretch.
A SOUND OF MUSIC, MORE SMARTLY RESTORED: But another set of West End theater gods favored brevity over bloat in this remarkable 2015 live broadcast production of the team’s last work, The Sound of Music, starring Kara Tointon and Julian Ovenden. And I am now elated to be the holder of my own brand new DVD, having belatedly tracked it down in a google dig. It clocks in at a tight and terrific one minute less than two hours.
SOPHISTICATION RETURNS: The two songs left out of the film starring Julie Andrews have not only been restored, they have been blessed with witty choreography that gives each a joyfully satiric edge. The captain’s house servants whoop it up (subtly, of course) in “How Can Love Survive,” slyly self-mocking their fawning over the pampered class in snidely hilarious fashion. So, too, do they make a merry romp out of “No Way to Stop It.”
Ballet of the saucy servants: How Can Love to Survive
Warning to fans of the movie: Songs have been re-positioned to their original order, and his may irate you, as it seems to many Andrews fans.
ONE BIG RESTORATION INSULT: Oddly, the producers did not reinstate a lovely ballad from the original show, “An Ordinary Couple,” but inexplicably retained a dreadfully inane ditty, “Something Good,” composed for the movie. Richard Rodgers without Oscar concocted his own feeble lyric. He was said not to have liked “An Ordinary Couple.” I have message into the producer, ITV, asking why they kept it in. So far, no reply.
Music theater fans should find this Sound of Music a gem to treasure . It is by the far the closest I have seen to the original show, the one Variety in its out of town notice called “a sensational musical.”
HOW TO LIVE FOR A MOMENT WITHOUT JULIE ANDREWS: So, for all of you fans of the film, here is my suggestion on how to give the stage version a decent chance: Let go of the movie for a moment, allow yourself to inhabit the character of Maria as defined by Tointon. You may learn to like her on her own. The Captain, played splendidly well by Ovendon, is another new face to enjoy. The entire cast is essentially spot on. Give the revived songs a chance. You sill have the movie! And Julie Andrews is still in it! And you now have the stage show, too.
How luckily for us that Dick and Oscar's first and last musicals have been lovingly restored in the land where a stiff upper lip can sometimes produce a more uplifting experience.
12.22.22
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