Review By Myra Chanin. . . .
I arrived in New York recently to see Ricky Ritzel’s latest Broadway at my home away from home, Don’t Tell Mama. Fortunately, some of the leading lights of Ricky’s Repertory Company, The More than Ready for Prime Time Players, were on hand, and a few newbies sang out with them. But first, Ricky dished the dirt on three Broadway musicals — a hit show with an immortal score, a hanger-on with a great score and an awful plot, and one loser that turned into a film.
Which of Ricky’s regulars were no-shows because it was a holiday week-end? The manly Jon Satrom and the golden-throated Tommy J. Dose! Lest you accuse me of misogyny, I also pined for Laura Pavles and Meg Flather.
Bringing three musicals a month – with no repeats ever! – to brilliant life ain’t easy, but Ricky does it well enough to fill the big showroom at Don’t Tell Mama and win the Mac Award for a Recurring Series for five successive years. We all hoped it would go on forever, even though it might require Ricky to explore Sigmond Romberg’s musical sepulcher, but, alas, late last year Ricky discontinued these monthly shows, but still ended up on the Mac Award stage in a brilliant scarlet suit and a big smile, cradling a well-deserved Mac Lifetime Achievement Award in his arms.
Fortunately, he soon came to a portion of his senses and returned with a limited schedule of three performance a year. I was in the audience for November’s big three: Rogers and Hammerstein’s revised Cinderella, Jerome Kern’s Never Gonna Dance, and Yokel Boy which immortalized the name of Sam H. Stept.
Rodgers & Hammerstein’s Cinderella, the only musical written by them for Television, was originally broadcast live and in color on CBS in 1957, It starred Julie Andrews and was seen by 100 million viewers. Several remakes later, playwright/play doctor Douglas Carter Beane gave it a new libretto. He turned the scullion into a strong-willed girl with enormous faith. She’s aware of the social and emotional limitations of her stepfamily but knows her day will someday come. The Prince is now an insecure orphan, duped by his villainous Prime Minister, until the beautiful and vocally gifted Tara Martinez’s Cinderella sets him straight. Ricky also has a few tricks up his sleeve, like turning Rabbi Debbie Zecher, an actual Rabbi who sings the Great American songbook, into the town lunatic who becomes Cinderella’s Fairy Godmother. The 11 o’clock showstopper was the duet by the two mean stepsister, Messrs. Sidney Myer and Aaron Morishita who don’t understand why the Prince preferred Cinderella to them.
She’s a frothy little bubble With a frilly sort of air,
And with very little trouble I could pull out all her hair!
Why would a fellow want a girl like her, a frail and fluffy beauty?
Why can’t a fellow ever once prefer a solid girl like me?
2003’s Never Gonna Dance was based on the 1936 Fred Astaire, Ginger Rogers film, Swing Time, with a very melodic and rhythmic score by Jerome Kern and lyrics by Dorothy Fields plus some added Kern tunes with lyrics by Ira Gershwin, Oscar Hammerstein II and Johnny Mercer. The plot was awful. Lucky is a hoofer, who is determined to convince his fiancé’s father that he can support his daughter if he doesn’t dance. To prove it, Lucky takes his lucky quarter to New York and makes a bet with it, hoping to win $25,000. Never Gonna Dance barely lasted two months after the New York Times called it “pleasant but spiceless,” and another critic said the second act spun out of control. The most memorable moment of the evening for me was Aaron Morishita’s delivery of a haunting tune I’d never heard before with poignant Dorothy Fields lyrics called “Remind Me.” It was not a hit until it was revived in the late 1940’s by Mabel Mercer in her night club act, then recorded by Peggy Lee, Tony Bennett, and Margaret Whiting. How cleverly it explores the bittersweet emotions of love, longing, and nostalgia in its final quatrain:
So, when your charm begins to blind me, I’ll simply tie my hands behind me.
Don’t let me kiss you, please remind me, Unless, my darling, you forget.
Ricky’s closing choice, 1939’s Yokel Boy, lasted about a year on the great white way. The head of a film studio puts a Yokel, the world’s record holder for attending movies, in charge of production as a publicity stunt to bolster his sagging business. The Yokel hires a gangster, “Buggsy” Malone, to play “himself” in a film based on his life. “Buggsy” holds on to his old habits like taking control of a whole studio and also falls in love with the Yokel’s sister, quickly curing the head of the studio, forevermore, off publicity stunts.
I would think this plot would doom it, but no, it got it made into a movie. What I found even more curious was that credit for the melody of this familiar refrain, “Comes love, nothing can be done,” belongs to Sam H. Stept, who I have never heard of. Well, Sidney Myer, was curious about Sam and ran barefoot over the super-information highway and discovered, that Stept also had a hand in “Don’t Sit Under the Appletree with Anyone Else but Me,” and “Beer Barrel Polka.” Sidney came back on stage, told us the grand news, and let us join him in a rousing chorus or two of both.
Ricky Ritzel’s Broadway returns to Don’t Tell Mama at 7 pm on Friday night April 26th 2024
Photos: Maryann Lopinto
