Time may not change everything: Check the eternal human craving for stories. It can, however, change some things – and for the better. This is certainly working in the American musicals category. Only last week, thanks entirely to director Maria Friedman’s snappy finagling, Merrily We Roll Along, regarded since its 1981 bow as an unforgettable flop, is now listed in altered theater annals as a classic.
Tuner lightning strikes again this week with the Classic Stage Company revival of I Can Get It for You Wholesale. The 1962 Harold Rome-Jerome Weidman show, smartly retooled by Weidman’s son John Weidman from his dad’s 1937 bestselling novel, was generally welcomed by the critics at the time. Unfortunately, the production, toplined by Elliott Gould and Lillian Roth, only ran 300 performances and may be best remembered for introducing 19-year-old Barbra Streisand, prominently singing “Miss Marmelstein” with Brooklyn-accented frustration and thereby copping her first Tony nomination.
The current bittersweet backward glance, as directed by Trip Cullman and choreographed by Ellenore Scott, is so keen-eyed that it instantly qualifies as a rediscovery to reckon with. That’s not only because it looks like a billion bucks when compared to some of the low-standard musicals unfurled these days but because it has the musical goods by the clothing-rackful.
[Read Frank Scheck’s ★★★★☆ review here.]
The Garment District clothing-rack allusion is apt because that’s where the elder Weidman, then 24, placed his Depression-era bestseller. He covered the devious rise and ignominious fall of one corrupt manufacturer in the thriving, Jewish-dominated women’s wear business. He’s crafty Harry Bogen (the chops-solid Santino Fontana this time around).
Initially, Victor de Paula is young Harry, whom his mom Ida (always remarkable Judy Kuhn, a CSC staple) calls Heshie. He’s the one earning money by busily delivering fabric bolts who’s accosted by a local tough with an especially vile epithet. The incident is convincingly sufficient to send him on a climb guaranteed to wrench him from Bronx squalor and Garment District anonymity, no matter how many friends and associates he betrays along the nasty way.
Few are spared other than Ida, who knows Harry well enough to understand what he’s up to but is unable to stop him. She can only attempt to enjoy the fur and other increasingly extravagant gifts he plies. Longtime girlfriend Ruthie Rivkin (Rebecca Naomi Jones), who believes in Harry so much she hands over capital, is strung along for years with no wedding band in sight.
Indeed, anyone close to the goniff (Yiddish for nogoodnik) suffers. Showgirl/mistress Martha Mills (Joy Woods) is prepared to deal with Harry’s commitment hang-ups, at least temporarily. Harry’s Apex Modes, Inc. partners, trusting Meyer Bushkin (Adam Chanler-Berat) and eventually more suspicious Teddy Asch (Greg Hildreth) are mercilessly conned. The only one somewhat spared is Maurice Pulvermacher (Adam Grupper), Harry’s onetime boss, for whom the enterprising lad broke a delivery men’s strike during the first of his increasingly underhanded forays.
Harold Rome couldn’t have been a righter candidate for a musicalized I Can Get It for You Wholesale. By happy 1937 accident he supplied most of the numbers that year for Pins and Needles, the International Ladies’ Garment Workers’ Union revue that wowed Broadway and closed only after 1,108 performances.
For sure, Rome (Fanny his biggest credit in a career deserving more attention these days) knew the then tightly bordered midtown Manhattan Garment District territory. In addition to “Miss Marmelstein,” which Julia Lester gorgeously trumpets, the words-and-music man hands the characters abundant songs of charm and heart – or, in Harry’s instance, of cheating heart. No inclusion is more winning than when Meyer and wife Blanche (Sarah Steele) duet on “Have I Told You Lately?”
In act two , Rome fires off “What Are They Doing to Us Now?” a protest anthem, sung by Miss Marmelstein and company. It noticeably reflects the influence Kurt Weill and Bertolt Brecht were wielding on the gloomy 1930s stage. (Was it added to the score in rehearsals as Rome realized what political depths could be plumbed with Streisand’s pipes at hand?)
With this revised and rethought version – played while cast members diligently push set designer Mark Wendland’s several tables and chairs around the thrust stage to indicate changing locales – explosive book elements emerge. Chief among them is Harry’s character. He’s unquestionably an anti-hero, a Jewish anti-hero at that.
As Merrily We Roll Along and I Can Get It For You Wholesale happen to be simultaneously on view, it’s worth noting that there’s a similarity beside their being so positively reconsidered. They feature two coldly, if smiling, ambitious men – Harry and Merrily’s Franklin Shepard – fully prepared to throw others under the bus.
Incidentally, there’s an act-two Rome song of much sentiment, “A Gift Today,” that could be a companion to the Sheldon Harnick-Jerry Bock “Sunrise, Sunset” from Fiddler on the Roof. Anyone hearing the former for the first time could instantly think Rome lifted the inspiration from the latter. Only, the latter came first. Which raises a possible helpful thought: Since Fiddler is so often revived, producers may want to think about scheduling I Can Get It for You Wholesale as an appealing change.
A last question: Nowadays does anyone get anything wholesale, or have discounts totally superceded the pursuit?
I Can Get It for You Wholesale opened October 30, 2023, at the Classic Stage Company and runs through December 3. Tickets and information: classicstage.org
