What a show, what a situation
Can you conceive it?
If you saw it on the stage
You wouldn’t believe it
That quatrain, from Ira Gershwin, more or less applies to Lady in the Dark, the fantasia whipped up by Moss Hart, Kurt Weill and Gershwin in 1941. This certainly falls into the “what a show!” category. And the “if” in “if you saw it on the stage” has proven pertinent, in that audiences across the world have had close to no opportunity to see it on stage since the original production closed midway through the Second World War.
There are reasons for this, and we’ll get to them. The news of today, though, is not only that Ted Sperling and MasterVoices have masterfully presented Lady in the Dark as a full-cast/full orchestra concert version at City Center, if for a far-too-short three-performance run; but that due in great part to the performance of Victoria Clark as the lady of the case, we can vehemently exclaim: “What a show!”
[Read Michael Sommers’ ★★★★★ review here.]
In the annals of smash hit Broadway musicals, Lady in the Dark stands out as one of the least revivable. That stems in great part from the circumstance that it was written for Gertrude Lawrence, whom we are told emanated magical and indescribable star quality. Very few performers have been up to the demands of the role. The two prior New York attempts have been woefully unconvincing concert performances, with Angela Lansbury in 1969 and Christine Ebersole in 1994 (and don’t blame the stars). There were also highly abridged versions with Ginger Rogers (on screen, 1944) and Ann Sothern (on television, 1954), as well as a not-very-successful 1997 reduction at London’s National Theatre.
Yet here is Victoria Clark, who established herself beyond question with her Tony-winning performance in The Light in the Piazza. That she can sing every bit as well as the best of them is no surprise; nor is her facility at comedy, as evidenced in Sister Act and Cinderella. What was not to be assumed was the star quality Clark here displays. Liza Elliott is a drably plain business executive whose fantasy life displays her as the most glamorous being on the planet. When Clark enters during her first dream in a high-style gown by Zac Posen, she is not only convincingly glamourous as a performer; we see Clark’s Liza believing her glamour. Clark demonstrates unquestioned allure in the “Glamour Dream,” charming innocence in the “High School Dream,” and altogether slays the house in the “Wedding Dream” with her knock-out delivery of “The Saga of Jenny.” (Which might, now that we think of it, have entered into the thinking behind Sondheim’s “The Story of Lucy and Jessie.”)
The second star of the evening is Sperling, who directs and conducts Weill’s own expert orchestrations. He is justly celebrated for his musical direction of Rodgers & Hammerstein musicals at Lincoln Center Theater; but he has long demonstrated a fierce passion for Weill. The production is musically impeccable. Being that the show is produced by MasterVoices, we get their full chorus of 100+, which would likely startle the composer.
Also seizing the attention of the audience and not letting go is the ever-versatile David Pittu. Here he takes the role of the photographer/ringmaster created by Danny Kaye, who famously seized the material in his jaws and almost stole the show from Lawrence (although she easily and craftily managed to steal it back). This is perfectly-contrived if over-the-top comedy material, and Pittu hits every high note.
The principal cast is rounded out by Ben Davis (as movie star Randy Curtis), Ron Raines (as publisher Kendall Nesbitt), Christopher Innvar (as advertising editor Charley Johnson), Montego Glover and Ashley Jini Park. Also on hand is Amy Irving as a female version of the analyst Dr. Brooks, which actually helps temper what might otherwise nowadays be deemed sexist. The concert is handsomely dressed and staged, although Doug Varone’s choreography—featuring barefooted boys who “act out” thoughts while other actors say the corresponding dialogue—is, shall we say, questionable.
Lady in the Dark was, almost from the start, a non-classifiable whatnot. Hart, after six plays and a Pulitzer as junior partner to the great George S. Kaufman, was determined to prove that he could do it alone. Thus, he conceived a drama for grande dame Katharine Cornell, the plot built around the then-novel subject of psychoanalysis. Hart was famously if perhaps secretly neurotic, and it seems that he not only conceived the project to please his analyst but included him as a character. Dedicated the script to him, too.
The leading lady’s “dreams” in the not-yet-written play suggested musical sequences, and from there it inevitably grew into such a full-scale musical that the non-singing Cornell was out of the running. Lady in the Dark did, actually, remain a play with music (or what the authors called “a musical play”); the music and songs came almost exclusively in three dream sequences sprung into action while the protagonist Liza was on the analytic couch.
These sequences were fancifully remarkable, to say the least, based on perhaps primitive psychological notions. Weill and Gershwin were perhaps the perfect pair for this, in that both were accustomed to devise their own ground rules as they rolled along. Weill, after six years in the United States, had thus far earned respect but not Broadway success. He lured Ira out of a self-imposed retirement/depression, following the 1937 death of brother/collaborator George.
(Among other Ira Gershwinesque touches, there is a full-scale Gilbert & Sullivan parody; and let us add—for no reason other than our amusement—that in the glamour dream world of Ira, Liza has a maid named Sutton and a chauffeur named Beekman.)
Unlike other major hit musicals, Lady in the Dark was so unique in form and scope that it did not lead to a string of similar attempts. It can be said, however, that it was a seed from which sprung what we call the concept musical. That the show has itself remained pretty much in the dark is based on two circumstances. As the musical sequences necessitated the withdrawal of Cornell, the authors enlisted Lawrence, and so closely tailored the show to her store of talents and her musical keys that she was all-but-irreplaceable in the role. Over the tryout, Broadway and tour, the show played a total of 777 performances; Lawrence, who did not have an understudy, played them all.
Revival requests were regularly rejected by the authors and their estates, to the point that producers eventually stopped asking. (Was the true problem that Kitty Carlisle Hart, who tightly controlled the performance rights following her husband’s death in 1961, had played the role in a stock production and determined that no one else could do it as well as her?)
The second problem, which usually goes unmentioned, is that Hart’s book (i.e. the “play” sections) is unworkable; he started out determined to write a dramatic masterpiece, and too much of the non-musical play remains. A glance at the mostly rave reviews from 1941 shows that even then, the book was widely trounced, with several critics suggesting it be cut in half at least. While we don’t know just how much of the book has been trimmed for this occasion, my guess is that the cuts are judicious. The script adaptation is credited to Christopher Hart (son of Moss) and Kim Kowalke (president of the Kurt Weill Foundation). If made available for license, it might well enhance the possibility of more frequent productions.
Given the three-performance run, this review is practically after-the-fact. No matter. Sperling, Clark and MasterVoices have delved into the highly respected but almost vanished Lady in the Dark and demonstrated that it remains very much alive, with proper handling; and that yes, “What a show!”
Lady in the Dark opened April 25, 2019, at City Center and runs through April 27. Tickets and information: mastervoices.org
