And now, after 23 years in the works, comes a studio cast album of the 1964 musical Anyone Can Whistle, heralded as the “first complete recording celebrating Stephen Sondheim’s 90th birthday.” Quick answer to the obvious question: Yes, it is every bit worth the decades-long wait and most welcome!
“The brilliance of this recording gives the show more energy and sparkle than it’s ever had.” These are not my words, mind you; they come from the Master himself, who adds that said brilliance, energy and sparkle “made me proud of it.” This fellow is not one to offer undue praise. He says what he thinks, and only that, and only rarely, so his words—and his willingness to allow the dedicated folks at Jay Records to use his quote for promotional purposes—speak for themselves.
Although there’s a good deal more to say.
To call this a “new” recording is at once accurate and deceptive. It is new in that it is just now being released. The majority of the recording sessions were held over the course of three months in 1997, with a final session (utilizing a replacement actor) in 2013. For reasons administrative and financial, though, the 2-CD set is only now edited, finished and released.
We needn’t go into the history of the originally lambasted Anyone Can Whistle, which bravely stormed the citadels of the Majestic—home of South Pacific and The Music Man—in direct competition with the sparklingly new Hello, Dolly! directly across the street, and shuttered in ignominy after nine stormy performances. Or need we?
Sondheim and bookwriter Arthur Laurents had already combined for two instant classics, the first with music by Leonard Bernstein (West Side Story, 1957) and the second with music by Jule Styne (Gypsy, 1959). Here, they valiantly attempted to nudge musical theater out of what we might call the Oklahoma!/Guys and Dolls/My Fair Lady era for good, with what they labeled “a wild, zany comedy even though there is a serious, underlying theme: The madness taking over the world today.” This, from the investment prospectus for what was at that point titled Side Show.
The score did indeed point the way forward, or would have had the show found an audience. Listening to it now—and in some ways we envy first-time listeners who only today discover Anyone Can Whistle—Sondheim’s work is, yes, astoundingly wild. I defy anyone to stumble upon the pyramidic colloquy on madness that goes under the name “Simple” without arched eyebrows and raised ears.
But 1964 Sondheim was a tad too adventurous for some theatergoers, a good chunk of whom still hailed from the World War I era. If the Whistle score sounds phenomenal today—and I say it does—that was not the issue. Laurents’ book is problematic, to say the least. Simply put for those unfamiliar with the show or needing a refresher: Cora Hoover Hooper is mayoress of a town so broke that only a miracle can save it. Said miracle is manufactured in the shape of a rock with water flowing from it, a latter-day Lourdes. This attracts cash-paying pilgrims in search of a cure, but also the non-curable inhabitants (“cookies”) of the local sanitarium (“The Cookie Jar”). Fay Apple, the head nurse, knows the miracle is fake and intends to expose it. Matters grow complicated with the arrival of the enigmatic and fast-talking Dr. J. Bowden Hapgood, who proceeds to set everything straight. Or not.
It didn’t work in 1964, and in infrequent stagings over the years has revealed itself impossibly and irremediably unworkable. A “wild, zany comedy” about “the madness overtaking the world today,” yes; but just what was/is Laurents trying to say? The first act curtain fell on what was seen as a condescending tableau of the cast seated in “theater seats,” holding Playbills, laughing and applauding at the crazies in the audience. Which might well have sent the 1964 crowd huffily to the bar (Sardi’s) across the street.
West Side and Gypsy were forward-looking, certainly, and perhaps offered harsh viewing to some contemporary audiences. But this was different. Compounding the problem was that Jerome Robbins, director of West Side and Gypsy, was nowhere in evidence. The director of Anyone Can Whistle was … Arthur Laurents. Beware the playwright who directs his own musical unless his name is Abbott or Kaufman, or maybe Lapine.
Director Laurents saw fit—purposefully, it seems—to cast his leading roles with musical comedy strangers. “Anyone can whistle, but nobody can sing” offered Walter Kerr in the Herald Tribune, labeling it “an exasperating musical comedy.” It is unclear whether Walter was complaining about the leading characters—one of the heroine’s psychological traits is that she can’t lower her guard, learn to be free, unrestrain herself enough to figuratively whistle—or the actual actors.
Nurse Fay was played by Hollywood’s Lee Remick, just off her Oscar-nominated performance in Days of Wine and Roses, got through her parts of the score satisfactorily, although her big first act solo (“There Won’t Be Trumpets”) was cut in Philadelphia. Dr. Hapgood was Harry Guardino, a familiar-enough face from stage and screen who talked the score in a gruffly non-musical voice and appears to have done well enough. (Someday, when we have absolutely nothing else to discuss and a suitably responsive audience, we might expound upon the several linkages between Anyone Can Whistle and The Music Man.)
Cora, the universally hated mayoress, was cast with a London-born former contract player at M-G-M who had recently stunned audiences with dramatically lacerating performances on stage (A Taste of Honey, 1960) and screen (The Manchurian Candidate, 1962). Angela Lansbury wasn’t by any stretch of the imagination a singer. At the time, anyway. To everyone’s surprise, including apparently her own, she was to almost immediately blossom into quite the musical comedy star with assured and altogether dazzling Tony-winning performances in Mame (1966) and Dear World (1969). Opportunities which likely would not have occurred without Anyone Can Whistle.
Julia McKenzie, who sings Cora on the new recording, might be seen as Sondheim’s British muse. Her first Sondheim role was in 1972 as April, the Barcelona-bound stewardess, in the London production of Company. She then served as one of the three singers-on-stools who comprised Side by Side by Sondheim in 1976 and on Broadway the following year. When Follies first made it to London in 1987, she was Sally; next came The Witch in Into the Woods (1990). McKenzie devised (with Sondheim) and directed the second Sondheim revue, Putting It Together, at Oxford in 1992 and in New York—starring Julie Andrews—in 1993. She then returned to London to play Mrs. Lovett in Declan Donnellan’s superb National Theatre production of Sweeney Todd (1993).
McKenzie sings the role with crispness, attitude, and self-awareness. If she was England’s reigning Sondheim interpreter when Jay Records went into Abbey Road Studios to start recording Anyone Can Whistle in 1997, Maria Friedman was a close second. She introduced London to such characters as Dot in Sunday in the Park with George (1990), Mary in Merrily We Roll Along (1992) and Fosca in Passion (1996). Friedman knows, and already knew, how to sing Sondheim, and easily makes sense of the conflicted Fay and her way-too-seductively-French alter ego.
They were joined by John Barrowman, who is—or at least, in 1997 was—not quite up to the demands of Hapgood. He had thus far served as a replacement in leading roles in several West End musicals (Sunset Boulevard, Miss Saigon, Anything Goes). Barrowman later earned Sondheim credentials, in the 1999 Carol Burnett/non-Julia McKenzie version of Putting It Together and as an altogether charming Robert in Company at the 2002 Kennedy Center Sondheim Festival. But those came after his initial exposure to Sondheim at the Whistle recording sessions.
If Hapgood is an enigma, we should mention that the riddle was splendidly solved by Raúl Esparza in 2010 at City Center Encores. He was altogether matched by his estimable costars, Sutton Foster as Fay and Donna Murphy as Cora, and in a perfect world we’d have a recording of that production (but we don’t). As strong as the leading women were, Esparza made the difference by combining acting talent and singing ability to fashion Hapgood into the neurotic and perhaps insane miracle man likely intended by the authors.
But a less than compelling Hapgood is a minor weakness compared to the riches of this altogether splendid “new” recording. Musical director John Owen Edwards does an excellent job, leading the National Symphony Orchestra in a spirited and expert playing of the score. Don Walker’s orchestrations stand out bright and brilliant. Yet Sondheim has, over the years, expressed reservations over the charts. Listening to this new recording, one can begin to see precisely what he means.
Walker was an expert in the field, with credits ranging from Carousel and She Loves Me to Fiddler on the Roof and Cabaret. But his process—based on his unshakable confidence that he knew precisely what to do and precisely how to do it—was to take the piano copies and use his own musical imagination without the participation of the writers. This was fine with such clients as Rodgers, Porter, Berlin, Styne, Loesser, Bock, and even Bernstein.
The Anyone Can Whistle orchestrations perfectly express the off-kilter nature of the show, with straining brass, clattering percussion, insanely chirping flutes and piccolos. Flavorful, yes; but the flavor is Walker’s, not Sondheim’s. Don—with a curmudgeonly seen-it-all demeanor and the full backing of the show’s producer (for whom he’d done The Most Happy Fella and The Music Man) and musical director—simply ignored suggestions from the inexperienced young composer. Sondheim and Jonathan Tunick, the orchestrator of his next musical(s), amply demonstrated just how collaborative the process can and should be.
There already exist two substantially full recordings of the show. The original Broadway cast album is indispensable; while it does not include the entire score and the leads can’t quite sing, it demonstrates just what the excitement was about in 1964. What’s more, the existence of this album—coming at a time when recording companies had learned that it was more profitable to cancel releases of instant failures than plunge ahead—has in itself kept Anyone Can Whistle from fading to oblivion.
The second recording comes from a one-performance charity benefit in 1995 at Carnegie Hall. While admirable in intention and attended by fans clamoring to see this virtually unseen Sondheim musical, it was haphazardly assembled and woefully under-rehearsed. Bernadette Peters was winning as Fay—how could she not be?—but the evening was pretty much scuttled at the outset by an underprepared Madeline Kahn as Cora. Lansbury served as narrator, which only accentuates what was missing. The stars were joined by a pleasant-enough Scott Bakula, although it is not enough for Hapgood to be pleasant enough. The ensuing recording—which I immediately salted into deep storage after a quick couple of listens—reflects the presentation. It does, though, include “There’s Always a Woman,” a duet for the two leading ladies which didn’t work and was quickly deleted in Philadelphia. This is not included on the new Jay recording, and not missed.
The song highlights of the score remain as before: “Me and My Town,” the opening number for the Mayoress with her four “boys”; the anthemic “There Won’t Be Trumpets”; the plaintively lovely “Anyone Can Whistle”; and the closing duet, “With So Little to Be Sure Of.” More to the point—or shall we say pointing toward Sondheim’s future place at the forefront of the Broadway musical—are two extended musical sequences. “Simple” is altogether astounding, musically and lyrically; it turns out to have been the first of those fascinating multi-part musical scenes—incorporating complexly layered vocal parts—that can be found, with increasing frequency, in the Sondheim canon. The musical climaxes with “The Cookie Chase,” a demented showpiece in exaggerated waltz-time which encompasses nearly 10 minutes. I count seven distinct song sections from the composer, mixed in with dialogue and daffy ballet pastiche. This piece—as well as the “Everybody Says Don’t” ballet—lead us to salute dance arranger Betty Walberg, to whom the new album does not give credit although Sondheim likely would.
For those familiar with the score, let us point to what makes this recording “complete.” The brief opening number, “I’m Like the Bluebird,” is a simplistic ditty sung by the Cookies. This is heard several times during the show, although it was not included on the 1964 album. The opening tracks also include narration recorded by bookwriter Laurents in 1997. As the album progresses, though, the narration all but disappears.
Fay’s first act monologue (“Now Point One”) is included, leading into “There Won’t Be Trumpets.” This cut song was recorded by Remick with the rest of the original cast album but not included on the LP; it was added to the 1989 and 2003 CD reissues. Act Two includes the “A-1 March.” This will be familiar to listeners, as an abbreviated version is incorporated into another Act 2 song, “A Parade in Town.” Let us tangentially point out that within a 12-week period, there were not two but three new thematically tied leading lady songs: Carol’s “Before the Parade Passes By,” Barbra’s “Don’t Rain on My Parade,” plus the Sondheim entry. On Broadway in early 1964, there was indeed a parade in town.
Act 3 includes the complete 5-minute version of “I’ve Got You to Lean On,” rather than the truncated 2 minutes on the 1964 album. Lansbury’s valiant original cast album performance is permanently memorialized by a flubbed entrance in this song. This should not be held against her; she was understandably confused by the last moment alteration at the recording session. Given the likelihood of slim sales in competition with the newly released, best-selling Hello, Dolly! and Funny Girl, there was apparently no budget for costly additional takes. “The Cookie Chase” is heard in a slightly extended version; and along with numerous instrumentals, we get the previously unrecorded nine-minute “Everybody Says Don’t” Ballet that ends Act 2.
Recording industry economics and other matters point to a definite difference between 1964 and now. The original Broadway cast album was recorded on April 12, following the closing performance of the show on the 11th; and released five days later, on April 17. This new recording went into the studio in 1997 and is only now in our hands.
No matter, although we feel a twinge of regret for the numerous now-departed folk, including Laurents (who died in 2011), who would have lavishly enjoyed this recording. For today’s listeners, it supplements that marvelous original cast album, and brings us the opportunity to hear Sondheim’s Anyone Can Whistle—finally—in all its supreme glory.
The new studio cast recording of Anyone Can Whistle will be released on December 4, 2020. Information: jayrecords.com
