Theatre Review by Ron Fassler . . .
Of all the brassy Broadway musicals that blew through town in the 1960s, Skyscraper is one of the few to receive an original cast recording and then sink into total oblivion. It starred the great actress Julie Harris, which assured a healthy advance sale due to devoted fans intrigued to see her in what turned out to be the only time she sang and danced in a musical. The fact that she couldn’t do either didn’t deter the creators, or Harris herself, from continuing on when it was clear while out of town that things looked dismal. In spite of poor reviews in Detroit and firing one of its co-stars there, the show limped into New York in November of 1965 managing to squeeze out a run through June, mostly on pre-sold theatre parties (once upon a time a very big deal). In the end it closed at a loss of $400,000 on its $500,000 investment.
When this bare bones, limited engagement was announced a short while ago, I knew it was something I wanted to see as I’ve been listening to Skyscraper’s cast album for years. Loosely based on Elmer Rice’s Dream Girl (1945), which starred the playwright’s then-wife, Betty Field, it had a year’s run on Broadway. Its heroine is a daydreamer in the mold of James Thurber’s Walter Mitty and producers Cy Feuer and Ernest L. Martin chose to musicalize it with James Van Heusen and Sammy Cahn writing the music and lyrics. Upon coming aboard to write its book, Peter Stone suggested it be merged with another property the producers had optioned about a woman who refuses to sell a building she owns to developers. It was that angle more than the day dreaming aspect of Georgina that defined a more militant leading character dead set against an impending wrecking ball. Naturally, the architect with whom she is first at odds, develops into her love interest.
After that preamble, sadly, what’s on display at Urban Stages in this production is something of a shambles. In spite of an attempt at rewriting, with some numbers dropped and cut songs added, its story remains thinner than one-ply toilet paper. The jokes are particularly unfunny and sexist and the whole thing suffers from the Mad Men-era of women being treated by men as addlebrained. The architect woos Georgina by calling her “a kooky broad” who needs to “loosen up.” There’s a lot of cringe here. And it overall it plays like a show out of town that still needs too many of its kinks ironed out, which is probably just how it arrived on Broadway back in 1965.
Director Avital Asuleen has staged it on the tiny stage adroitly, though her choreography is awfully simplistic (lots of box stepping). Originally, the score’s big Broadway sound, highlighted by Fred Werner’s orchestrations, made the songs sound better than they are. Musical director Matthew Stern has done a nice job re-arranging for the four-person band, but the songs aren’t good enough to stand up without all the razzmatazz that make the Van Heusen tunes a good deal of fun on the recording. As for Sammy Cahn’s lyrics, they tend to be simplistic rhymes like “mine” and “fine” and “air” and “rare,” as in the song, “Delicatessen,” which also offers the lyric: “ Once I was stranded in Lima Peru, where for salami they have no use. If you’re stranded in Lima, Peru, you’ll know why we take this abuse!” Somewhere Sondheim is rolling his eyes.
Only four of the thirteen onstage performers are members of Actors’ Equity and though all are up for the game, only a few manage to pass the finish line with flying colors. The two leads, Rachel Lauren James as Georgina and Travis Murad Leland as Tim, the architect, acquitt themselves nicely with strong singing voices and enough charm to make their poor dialogue bearable. I also enjoyed Katryna Marttala as the construction site foreperson done here with a gender switch.
As demonstrated over the last few years by the J2 Spotlight Musical Theatre Company under the leadership of Jim Jimirro and Robert W. Schneider, big musicals can be resurrected on small stages with mini-choruses successfully. Finding worthy properties is the key and bigger isn’t always necessarily better. The issue in this case is that dressing up garbage, even if millions were to be spent, almost always winds up smelling terrible anyway. It probably seemed like a good idea on paper to bring this old clunker back for those Broadway types (like me) who’ve always wanted to see a production of it. And now that I have, if I were to make up a personal list of sixties musicals that deserve a new lease on life, Skyscraper would strictly be at the ground floor level.
Skyscraper is playing at Urban Stages, 259 W 30th Street, NYC now through November 17. For further information visit https://combustioncollective.org/skyscraper/.
Photos by Brian Goldfarb.
Headline photo: Ensemble of Skyscraper; Katryna Marttalal, front and center.
