Pipe Dream (musical)
Encyclopedia
Pipe Dream is the seventh stage musical
by the team of Richard Rodgers
and Oscar Hammerstein II
; it premiered on Broadway
on November 30, 1955. The work is based on John Steinbeck
's short novel Sweet Thursday
—Steinbeck wrote the novel, a sequel to Cannery Row
, in the hope of having it adapted into a musical. Set in Monterey, California
, the musical tells the story of the romance between Doc, a marine biologist, and Suzy, who in the novel is a prostitute; her profession is only alluded to in the stage work. Pipe Dream was a flop and a financial disaster for Rodgers and Hammerstein
.
Broadway producers Cy Feuer
and Ernie Martin held the rights to Sweet Thursday and wanted Frank Loesser
to compose a musical based on it. When Loesser proved unavailable, Feuer and Martin succeeded in interesting Rodgers and Hammerstein in the project. As Hammerstein adapted Sweet Thursday, he and Rodgers had concerns about featuring a prostitute as female lead and setting part of the musical in a bordello. They signed operatic diva Helen Traubel
to play Fauna, the house madam.
As the show progressed through tryouts, Hammerstein repeatedly revised it, obscuring Suzy's profession and the nature of Fauna's house. Pipe Dream met with poor reviews, and rapidly closed once it exhausted its advance sale. It had no national tour or London production, and has rarely been presented since. There was no film at the time; the Rodgers & Hammerstein Organization (which licenses their works) once hoped for a film version featuring the Muppets
with Fauna played by Miss Piggy
.
and Ernie Martin decided to start producing musicals together. Feuer was the former head of the music department at low-budget Republic Pictures
; Martin was a television executive. Having secured the rights to the farce Charley's Aunt
, they produced it as the musical comedy Where's Charley?
, with a score by Frank Loesser
. Among the backers of Where's Charley? were Hammerstein and Rodgers, which helped secure additional investment. The show was a hit and helped establish Feuer and Martin on Broadway
—they would go on to produce Guys and Dolls
.
In the aftermath of Guys and Dollss success, Feuer and Martin were interested in adapting John Steinbeck
's 1945 novel, Cannery Row
into a musical. They felt some of the characters, such as marine biologist Doc would work well in a musical, but that many of Steinbeck's other characters would not. Steinbeck suggested that he write a sequel to Cannery Row which would feature the characters attractive to Feuer and Martin. Based on suggestions for the story line by Feuer and Martin, Steinbeck began to write Sweet Thursday
.
Cannery Row is set in Monterey, California
before World War II. In Sweet Thursday, Doc returns from the war to find Cannery Row almost deserted and many of his colorful friends gone. Even his close friend Dora, who ran the Bear Flag Restaurant, a whorehouse, has died, and her sister Fauna has taken her place as madam. A former social worker, Fauna teaches the girls how to set a table properly, hopeful they will marry wealthy men. Doc's friends Mack (Mac in Pipe Dream) and Hazel (both men) are still around. They decide Doc's discontent is due to loneliness, and try to get him together with Suzy, a prostitute who has just arrived in Monterey. The two have a brief romance; disgusted by her life as a hooker, Suzy leaves the bawdy house and moves into an abandoned boiler. She decides she cannot stay with Doc, but tells her friends that if Doc fell ill, she would care for him. The accommodating Hazel promptly breaks Doc's arm as he sleeps, bringing the two lovers back together. At the end, Doc and Suzy go off to La Jolla to collect marine specimens together.
Originally, Feuer, Martin and Steinbeck intended the work to be composed by Loesser, but he was busy with a project which eventually became The Most Happy Fella
. With Loesser's refusal, Feuer and Martin approached Rodgers and Hammerstein with their project, then titled The Bear Flag Café. From the beginning, the prudish Hammerstein was uncomfortable with the setting, telling Feuer "We do family shows." However, Hammerstein found himself attracted to the characters. Doc and Suzy were culturally mismatched but drawn to each other, with Doc rather moody and Suzy somewhat intense. Similar pairings had led to success, not only in the pair's Carousel
and South Pacific
, but in Hammerstein's work before his collaboration with Rodgers, such as The Desert Song
and Rose-Marie
. During early 1953, Steinbeck sent Hammerstein early drafts of the novel. Rodgers was also concerned about the idea of having a prostitute be the female lead, but he eventually gave in. The two agreed to write and produce the adaptation.
As they worked with Steinbeck, Rodgers and Hammerstein, though renowned for such hits as Oklahoma!
, Carousel, and South Pacific, suffered a relative failure with the 1953 musical Me and Juliet
, a tale of romance among the cast and stagehands backstage at a musical. Before agreeing to do the Sweet Thursday project, the duo had considered other projects for their next work together, such as an adaptation of the film Saratoga Trunk
. A proposal made by attorney David Merrick
to adapt a series of works by Marcel Pagnol
to which Merrick held the stage rights fell through when the duo were not willing to have Merrick be an associate producer; Merrick took the project elsewhere, and it was developed into the hit Fanny
. In later years, Hammerstein stated, "Why the hell did we give up Fanny? What on earth were we trying to prove? My God, that's a great story and look at some of the junk we've done!"
. As Hammerstein received new material from Steinbeck, he and Rodgers began to map out the musical, conceiving scenes and deciding where songs should be placed. On January 1, 1954, following the completion of Steinbeck's novel, Hammerstein began to wrote dialogue and lyrics. Sweet Thursday was published in early 1954 to mixed reviews. Steinbeck later commented, "Some of the critics are so concerned for my literary position that they can't read a book of mine without worrying where it will fit in my place in history. Who gives a damn?" By that time, Rodgers and Hammerstein were busy producing the film version of Oklahoma!.
For the part of bordello-keeper Fauna, the duo fixed on the famous diva, Helen Traubel
. There was precedent for such casting—former opera star Ezio Pinza
had starred as suave Frenchman Emile de Becque in South Pacific, and had received rave reviews for his performance. Traubel, in addition to being well-known for her Wagnerian roles
, was also noted for her nightclub singing. In 1950, the new Metropolitan Opera
impresario
, Rudolf Bing, feeling that she was lowering the tone of the house, fired her. Hammerstein had seen Traubel at her first appearance at the Copacabana
nightclub in New York, and afterwards had gone backstage to predict to Traubel that she would be coming straight to Broadway. He saw her show again in Las Vegas several months later, and offered her the part. When offered the role, Traubel eagerly accepted, though she later noted that she had never represented herself as much of an actress.
From the beginning of the project, Feuer and Martin wanted Henry Fonda
to play Doc. The actor put in months of lessons in an attempt to bring his voice up to standard. Fonda later stated that at the end of six months of singing lessons, he "still couldn't sing for shit". Following his first audition for Rodgers, Fonda asked the composer for his honest view, and Rodgers stated, "I'm sorry, it would be a mistake."
Cy Feuer remembered:
The duo eventually settled for William Johnson
, who had played the male lead in a touring company of Annie Get Your Gun
, which they had produced, to play the role of Doc.
There are conflicting accounts of who was the first choice for the role of the itinerant prostitute, Suzy. By some accounts, Rodgers and Hammerstein attempted to get Julie Andrews
, only to find that she had just signed a two-year contract to appear in a musical by Alan Jay Lerner
and Frederick Loewe, tentatively titled My Lady Liza. Andrews's role, as Eliza Doolittle in My Fair Lady
, would launch her to stardom. Another candidate was Janet Leigh
, whom Rodgers admired greatly, but the actress proved to be unavailable. The producers settled on Judy Tyler
, auditioned after Rodgers spotted her on television while watching The Howdy Doody Show, in which she appeared as Princess Summerfall Winterspring.
To direct the play, the duo engaged Harold Clurman
, noted for his work in drama and one of the founders of the Group Theatre. Jo Mielziner
, veteran of several Rodgers and Hammerstein productions, was the stage designer. In contrast to the complex staging of Me and Juliet, Mielziner's sets were uncomplicated, a system of house-frame outlines in front of backdrops representing Monterey. Boris Runanin was the choreographer, Robert Russell Bennett
provided orchestrations, and Salvadore Dell'Isola conducted. The two producers had hoped to hire the prestigious Majestic Theatre, where Oklahoma! had run, but the writing process took too long, and the Majestic was lost to Fanny. Instead, they booked the Shubert Theatre
, in the top rank of Broadway theatres, but not as prestigious as the Majestic. Uniquely for their joint work, they solicited no backers, but underwrote the entire cost themselves. Feuer later said of the deal he and Martin had made with Rodgers and Hammerstein, "And the deal was pretty good: 50 percent of the producers' end. And we thought, We're rich! And we turned it over to them and they destroyed it."
After rehearsals began, Steinbeck wrote to Hammerstein to express his delight at the adaptation. He became more dismayed as the play was slowly revised in rehearsal and during the tryouts. According to Traubel, the play was being "cleaned up ... as scene after scene became emasculated". The revisions made Suzy's profession less clear, and also fudged the nature of Fauna's house. One revision removed Suzy's police record for "vagrancy". These changes were sparked by the fact that audience members at the tryouts in New Haven
and Boston were uncomfortable with the setting and Suzy's role; by the times the revisions were completed, the script could be read to say that Suzy was merely boarding at Fauna's.
Steinbeck noted this tendency on a page of dialogue changes:
In another memo, Steinbeck noted that the pathos of Suzy being a prostitute had given much of the dramatic tension to the scene in which Doc rejects Suzy, and later, her rejection of him. "I think if you will finally bring the theme of this play into the open, but wide open, you will have solved its great weakness and have raised it to a high level ... If this is not done, I can neither believe nor take Pipe Dream seriously."
In the end, Suzy's activities at the Bear Flag were glossed over, as Hammerstein concentrated on her relationship with Doc. Alluding to Hammerstein's emphasis on the scene in which Suzy makes Doc soup after Hazel breaks his arm, Steinbeck stated, "You've turned my prostitute into a visiting nurse!"
The Palace Flophouse, where Mac, Hazel, and other locals reside, is a storage shed behind the Chinese store now owned by Joe the Mexican, and the Flophouse residents muse on their awkward path through life ("A Lopsided Bus"). Fauna comes by briefly to tell Hazel that she has run his "horror scope" and that he will one day be President. The Flophouse boys have a problem: Joe the Mexican acts unaware that he owns the shed; he has not appeared to either demand rent or to kick them out. They would like to know whether Joe is aware of his ownership, without tipping him off. The boys come up with the idea of raffling off their shed, with the raffle rigged so that Doc, who would not kick them out, will be the winner. The prize money will allow Doc to buy the microscope he needs for his scientific work. They sound out Joe about the scheme; he offers to sell tickets in his store and displays no awareness that he owns the shed.
Suzy and Doc are attracted to each other; she has in fact been quietly tidying his rooms while he is down at the tide pool catching specimens ("The Man I Used to Be"). Fauna tries to persuade Doc, who is very successful with the ladies, to woo Suzy. When Doc is dismissive, Fauna explains that she wants to get Suzy out of the Bear Flag when it is taken over for the night by a private party. Doc agrees to take Suzy out and treat her like a lady. Fauna goes back to the Bear Flag ("Sweet Thursday"), and works to give Suzy confidence ("Suzy is a Good Thing"). Doc and Suzy's date is the source of great interest to the people of Cannery Row. Both are nervous; Doc wears an unaccustomed necktie, while Suzy tries to act like a lady, but her polish wears thin at times. ("All At Once You Love Her"). At the end of the meal, they decide to continue the evening on a secluded sand dune.
At the Flophouse, a wild celebration takes place. Fauna, at first in the costume of a witch, seems to transform her costume into that of a Fairy Godmother. After some sleight of hand with the tickets, Doc wins the raffle, to the surprise of some. When Suzy comes out in a white bride's dress and sings her lines, Doc is unimpressed, and Suzy is humiliated. As both stalk off in opposite directions, the party disintegrates into a brawl.
Suzy gets a job at a burger joint, and moves into an abandoned boiler, with entry through the attached pipe. Doc is unhappy, and Hazel decides something has to be done ("Thinkin' "). He is unable to come up with an answer, and eventually forgets the question. Some weeks pass, and Joe the Mexican woos Suzy. He has no success, and his attempts irritate Doc. The next day, Doc himself approaches the pipe with flowers in hand ("How Long?"), still uncertain as to why he is seeking a girl like Suzy. Suzy lets him in the boiler, which she has fitted up in a homelike manner. She is doing well at the burger joint, but is grateful to Fauna for giving her confidence. She is confident enough, indeed, to reject Doc, who is unhappy, but philosophical ("The Next Time It Happens"). Hazel sees Doc even more dispirited than before, and asks Suzy for an explanation. Suzy says that she is not willing to go over and be with Doc, but "if he was sick or if he bust his leg or an arm or something", she would go to him and bring him soup. The wheels in Hazel's head begin unaccustomed turnings, and sometime later when Mac passes Hazel on the street, Mac is surprised to see his friend carrying a baseball bat. When the scene returns to Doc's lab, he is receiving treatment from a real doctor and trying to puzzle out how he broke his arm. Suzy comes in, and makes soup for him as Hazel and Mac take turns watching at the keyhole. Doc admits that he needs and loves Suzy, and they embrace. As Fauna and the girls arrive, so do the other Flophouse boys, and Mac gives Doc what was bought with the raffle money—the largest (tele)scope in the catalog. ("Finale")
Act II
as Mac and Mike Kellin
as Hazel. The show had received the largest advance ticket sale in Broadway history to that point, $1.2 million. Some of Steinbeck's ill-feeling was removed on the second night, which he attended and then went backstage to greet the cast. After a celebratory dinner at Sardi's
during which the manager sent champagne to his table, he said to his wife Elaine, "Isn't the theatre marvelous?" The author held no grudge; he later told Hammerstein that he accepted that Rodgers and Hammerstein were ultimately responsible for the show and had the right to make changes.
Rodgers and Hammerstein had not permitted group sales, so-called "theatre parties" for their shows. They lifted the ban for Pipe Dream, and pre-sold theatre party sales helped keep the show going, as there were few sales after opening night given the dismal reviews. More than 70 performances were entirely sold to groups. In March 1956, in a final attempt to save the show, Rodgers and Hammerstein revised it somewhat, moving several musical numbers. Traubel missed a number of performances due to illness, and left when her contract expired a few weeks before the show closed in June 1956—she was replaced by Nancy Andrews
. Traubel's understudy, Ruth Kobart
played 42 of the show's 245 performances.
Pipe Dream was nominated for nine Tony Awards; it lost for best musical to the only other nominee, Damn Yankees
. Alvin Colt
was the sole winner, for Best Costume Design
. Johnson died of a heart attack within a year of Pipe Dreams closing; Tyler died in an automobile accident during the same timespan. These tragedies convinced Traubel that there was a curse attached to Pipe Dream, and she began carrying good-luck charms when she performed.
The poor reviews of Pipe Dream made a national tour or London production impractical. Productions of Pipe Dream have been extremely rare. In 1981, a community theatre production of Pipe Dream was presented by the Conejo Theatre in Thousand Oaks, California
. Los Angeles Times
critic Dan Sullivan admired the small-scale staging, but called the show "the emptiest musical that two geniuses ever wrote" and said of it, "imagine a song ["The Happiest House on the Block"] about a bawdyhouse which describes the goings-on there after midnight as 'friendly, foolish and gay'". In 1995 and 2002, 42nd Street Moon presented it as a staged concert. No film version was contemplated in the authors' lifetimes. The Rodgers & Hammerstein Organization, which licenses the pair's works, proposed a film version with the Muppets
. Humans would play Doc and Suzy; Muppets would play the other roles—with Miss Piggy
as Fauna.
, unusual for Rodgers who rarely wrote them. However, Rodgers biographer William Hyland suggests that "Sweet Thursday" was out of character for Traubel's voice. Hyland also speculates that "The Next Time It Happens", a duet for Suzy and Doc as they decide their love will not work, needed to be more melancholy, and Doc's "The Man I Used To Be" more of a lament rather than having a lively melody. According to Broadway writer Ken Mandelbaum
, "Pipe Dream contains a generally fascinating score." He terms Suzy's "Everybody's Got a Home but Me", a "gorgeous ballad of yearning".
During rehearsals and even during the run of the show, the music was repeatedly revised by Rodgers in an attempt to gear the songs to Traubel's voice. According to Bruce Pomahac of the Rodgers & Hammerstein Organization, "as she began to get cold feet about what her New York fans would think about her as a belter
, the keys of each of her numbers edged upward." One of Traubel's numbers saw three different versions before being scrapped in favor of, according to Pomahac, "something that sounded like an excerpt from Traubel’s Vegas act." "All At Once You Love Her" saw some popularity when recorded, during the run of the show, by Perry Como
; in what Pomahac speculates was an attempt to appease Traubel, a reprise of the song was added for her, and provided "one of the loveliest moments in all of Pipe Dream". A restored score, including variations of songs, will be published in 2012—the existing score reflects revisions made when Nancy Andrews took over the part.
Pipe Dream' s songs have been reused in other works. "The Man I Used to Be" and "All At Once You Love Her" were included in the 1996 stage version of Rodgers and Hammerstein's 1945 film
musical, State Fair
. "The Next Time It Happens" was inserted in David Henry Hwang
's revised version of Rodgers and Hammerstein's later work, Flower Drum Song
. Used during the show's 2001 Los Angeles run, it was cut before the show reached Broadway in 2002. According to David Lewis in his history of the Broadway musical, "The Rodgers and Hammerstein office has, it would appear, given up on Pipe Dream and[ Me and ] Juliet ever finding an audience ... so these songs are up for grabs."
Thomas Hischak, in his The Rodgers and Hammerstein Encyclopedia, stated that the original cast album is well-produced, but many of the songs came across better when other artists recorded them. The New York Times
suggested that the music had echoes of the duo's earlier works, giving it "a disappointing air of familiarity". The Times praised both Tyler and Johnson for their singing on the album, and while acknowledging that Traubel had difficulty making the transition from opera singer to Broadway belter, wrote that "for the most part, she makes the transfer amiably and effectively". The original cast recording was released on compact disc by RCA Victor Broadway in 1993.
of The New York Times
termed it "a pleasant, lazy romance ... Mr. Rodgers and Mr. Hammerstein in a minor key". John Chapman of the Daily News
stated, "Perhaps Hammerstein and Rodgers are too gentlemanly to be dealing with Steinbeck's sleazy and raffish denizens." Walter Kerr
of the Herald Tribune
suggested, "Someone seems to have forgotten to bring along that gallon of good, red wine." John McClain of the Journal American
stated, "This is a far cry from the exalted talents of the team that produced South Pacific. They must be human, after all." Steven Suskin, in his book chronicling Broadway opening night reviews, stated that Pipe Dream received one favorable review from the seven major New York critics, two mixed, and four unfavorable. Louis Kronenberger, in Time
magazine, summed it up as "[p] roficient, professional, and disappointing." Billy Rose
said of Pipe Dream, "You know why Oscar shouldn't have written that? The guy has never been in a whorehouse in his life."
Publicly, Hammerstein accepted blame for himself and Rodgers, and stated that had the musical been produced by anyone else, "we'd say that these are producers we wouldn't like to work with again". According to Cy Feuer, Hammerstein privately blamed him and Martin, telling them, "We believed your pitch and we went and did something we were never cut out to do and we should never have done it.
According to author Frederick Nolan, who chronicled the works of Rodgers and Hammerstein, Pipe Dream "cost them a fortune". Rodgers later stated it was the only one of their works he truly disliked; that if you start with a bad idea, everything is marred by that: "We shouldn't have been dealing with prostitutes and tramps." Rodgers also blamed the casting of Traubel, who he considered wrong for the part. Hammerstein's grandson, Oscar A. Hammerstein, in his book about his family, agreed with Rodgers's view of Traubel—"too much Brunhilde, not enough Miss Kitty[ the barkeeper on Gunsmoke
] ". The elder Hammerstein's biographer, Hugh Fordin, tied the failure of the play to the lyricist's prudery:
nominations:
Musical theatre
Musical theatre is a form of theatre combining songs, spoken dialogue, acting, and dance. The emotional content of the piece – humor, pathos, love, anger – as well as the story itself, is communicated through the words, music, movement and technical aspects of the entertainment as an...
by the team of Richard Rodgers
Richard Rodgers
Richard Charles Rodgers was an American composer of music for more than 900 songs and for 43 Broadway musicals. He also composed music for films and television. He is best known for his songwriting partnerships with the lyricists Lorenz Hart and Oscar Hammerstein II...
and Oscar Hammerstein II
Oscar Hammerstein II
Oscar Greeley Clendenning Hammerstein II was an American librettist, theatrical producer, and theatre director of musicals for almost forty years. Hammerstein won eight Tony Awards and was twice awarded an Academy Award for "Best Original Song". Many of his songs are standard repertoire for...
; it premiered on Broadway
Broadway theatre
Broadway theatre, commonly called simply Broadway, refers to theatrical performances presented in one of the 40 professional theatres with 500 or more seats located in the Theatre District centered along Broadway, and in Lincoln Center, in Manhattan in New York City...
on November 30, 1955. The work is based on John Steinbeck
John Steinbeck
John Ernst Steinbeck, Jr. was an American writer. He is widely known for the Pulitzer Prize-winning novel The Grapes of Wrath and East of Eden and the novella Of Mice and Men...
's short novel Sweet Thursday
Sweet Thursday
Sweet Thursday is a 1954 novel by John Steinbeck. It is a sequel to Cannery Row and set in the years after the end of World War II. According to the author, "Sweet Thursday" is the day after Lousy Wednesday and the day before Waiting Friday....
—Steinbeck wrote the novel, a sequel to Cannery Row
Cannery Row (novel)
Cannery Row is an English language novel by American author John Steinbeck. It was published in 1945. A film version was released in 1982. A stage version was produced in 1995....
, in the hope of having it adapted into a musical. Set in Monterey, California
Monterey, California
The City of Monterey in Monterey County is located on Monterey Bay along the Pacific coast in Central California. Monterey lies at an elevation of 26 feet above sea level. As of the 2010 census, the city population was 27,810. Monterey is of historical importance because it was the capital of...
, the musical tells the story of the romance between Doc, a marine biologist, and Suzy, who in the novel is a prostitute; her profession is only alluded to in the stage work. Pipe Dream was a flop and a financial disaster for Rodgers and Hammerstein
Rodgers and Hammerstein
Richard Rodgers and Oscar Hammerstein II were a well-known American songwriting duo, usually referred to as Rodgers and Hammerstein. They created a string of popular Broadway musicals in the 1940s and 1950s during what is considered the golden age of the medium...
.
Broadway producers Cy Feuer
Cy Feuer
Cy Feuer was an American theatre producer, director, composer, and musician.Born Seymour Arnold Feuerman in Brooklyn, New York,he studied trumpet privately with Max Schlossberg, he became a professional trumpeter at the age of fifteen, working at clubs on weekends to help support his family while...
and Ernie Martin held the rights to Sweet Thursday and wanted Frank Loesser
Frank Loesser
Frank Henry Loesser was an American songwriter who wrote the lyrics and scores to the Broadway hits Guys and Dolls and How To Succeed In Business Without Really Trying, among others. He won separate Tony Awards for the music and lyrics in both shows, as well as sharing the Pulitzer Prize for...
to compose a musical based on it. When Loesser proved unavailable, Feuer and Martin succeeded in interesting Rodgers and Hammerstein in the project. As Hammerstein adapted Sweet Thursday, he and Rodgers had concerns about featuring a prostitute as female lead and setting part of the musical in a bordello. They signed operatic diva Helen Traubel
Helen Traubel
Helen Francesca Traubel was an American opera and concert singer. A dramatic soprano, she was best known for her Wagnerian roles, especially those of Brünnhilde and Isolde. Born and raised in St. Louis, Missouri, she began her career as a concert singer and went on to sing at the Metropolitan...
to play Fauna, the house madam.
As the show progressed through tryouts, Hammerstein repeatedly revised it, obscuring Suzy's profession and the nature of Fauna's house. Pipe Dream met with poor reviews, and rapidly closed once it exhausted its advance sale. It had no national tour or London production, and has rarely been presented since. There was no film at the time; the Rodgers & Hammerstein Organization (which licenses their works) once hoped for a film version featuring the Muppets
The Muppets
The Muppets are a group of puppet characters created by Jim Henson starting in 1954–55. Although the term is often used to refer to any puppet that resembles the distinctive style of The Muppet Show, the term is both an informal name and legal trademark owned by the Walt Disney Company in reference...
with Fauna played by Miss Piggy
Miss Piggy
Miss Piggy is a Muppet character who was primarily played by Frank Oz on The Muppet Show. In 2001, Eric Jacobson began performing the role, although Oz did not officially retire until 2002....
.
Inception
Following World War II, Cy FeuerCy Feuer
Cy Feuer was an American theatre producer, director, composer, and musician.Born Seymour Arnold Feuerman in Brooklyn, New York,he studied trumpet privately with Max Schlossberg, he became a professional trumpeter at the age of fifteen, working at clubs on weekends to help support his family while...
and Ernie Martin decided to start producing musicals together. Feuer was the former head of the music department at low-budget Republic Pictures
Republic Pictures
Republic Pictures was an independent film production-distribution corporation with studio facilities, operating from 1934 through 1959, and was best known for specializing in westerns, movie serials and B films emphasizing mystery and action....
; Martin was a television executive. Having secured the rights to the farce Charley's Aunt
Charley's Aunt
Charley's Aunt is a farce in three acts written by Brandon Thomas. It broke all historic records for plays of any kind, with an original London run of 1,466 performances....
, they produced it as the musical comedy Where's Charley?
Where's Charley?
Where's Charley? is a musical with music and lyrics by Frank Loesser and book by George Abbott. The story was based on the play Charley's Aunt by Brandon Thomas. The musical debuted on Broadway in 1948 and was revived on Broadway and in the West End...
, with a score by Frank Loesser
Frank Loesser
Frank Henry Loesser was an American songwriter who wrote the lyrics and scores to the Broadway hits Guys and Dolls and How To Succeed In Business Without Really Trying, among others. He won separate Tony Awards for the music and lyrics in both shows, as well as sharing the Pulitzer Prize for...
. Among the backers of Where's Charley? were Hammerstein and Rodgers, which helped secure additional investment. The show was a hit and helped establish Feuer and Martin on Broadway
Broadway theatre
Broadway theatre, commonly called simply Broadway, refers to theatrical performances presented in one of the 40 professional theatres with 500 or more seats located in the Theatre District centered along Broadway, and in Lincoln Center, in Manhattan in New York City...
—they would go on to produce Guys and Dolls
Guys and Dolls
Guys and Dolls is a musical with music and lyrics by Frank Loesser and book by Jo Swerling and Abe Burrows. It is based on "The Idyll of Miss Sarah Brown" and "Blood Pressure", two short stories by Damon Runyon, and also borrows characters and plot elements from other Runyon stories, most notably...
.
In the aftermath of Guys and Dollss success, Feuer and Martin were interested in adapting John Steinbeck
John Steinbeck
John Ernst Steinbeck, Jr. was an American writer. He is widely known for the Pulitzer Prize-winning novel The Grapes of Wrath and East of Eden and the novella Of Mice and Men...
's 1945 novel, Cannery Row
Cannery Row
Cannery Row is the waterfront street in the New Monterey section of Monterey, California. It is the site of a number of now-defunct sardine canning factories. The last cannery closed in 1973...
into a musical. They felt some of the characters, such as marine biologist Doc would work well in a musical, but that many of Steinbeck's other characters would not. Steinbeck suggested that he write a sequel to Cannery Row which would feature the characters attractive to Feuer and Martin. Based on suggestions for the story line by Feuer and Martin, Steinbeck began to write Sweet Thursday
Sweet Thursday
Sweet Thursday is a 1954 novel by John Steinbeck. It is a sequel to Cannery Row and set in the years after the end of World War II. According to the author, "Sweet Thursday" is the day after Lousy Wednesday and the day before Waiting Friday....
.
Cannery Row is set in Monterey, California
Monterey, California
The City of Monterey in Monterey County is located on Monterey Bay along the Pacific coast in Central California. Monterey lies at an elevation of 26 feet above sea level. As of the 2010 census, the city population was 27,810. Monterey is of historical importance because it was the capital of...
before World War II. In Sweet Thursday, Doc returns from the war to find Cannery Row almost deserted and many of his colorful friends gone. Even his close friend Dora, who ran the Bear Flag Restaurant, a whorehouse, has died, and her sister Fauna has taken her place as madam. A former social worker, Fauna teaches the girls how to set a table properly, hopeful they will marry wealthy men. Doc's friends Mack (Mac in Pipe Dream) and Hazel (both men) are still around. They decide Doc's discontent is due to loneliness, and try to get him together with Suzy, a prostitute who has just arrived in Monterey. The two have a brief romance; disgusted by her life as a hooker, Suzy leaves the bawdy house and moves into an abandoned boiler. She decides she cannot stay with Doc, but tells her friends that if Doc fell ill, she would care for him. The accommodating Hazel promptly breaks Doc's arm as he sleeps, bringing the two lovers back together. At the end, Doc and Suzy go off to La Jolla to collect marine specimens together.
Originally, Feuer, Martin and Steinbeck intended the work to be composed by Loesser, but he was busy with a project which eventually became The Most Happy Fella
The Most Happy Fella
The Most Happy Fella is a 1956 musical with a book, music, and lyrics by Frank Loesser. The story, about a romance between an older man and younger woman, is based on the play They Knew What They Wanted by Sidney Howard...
. With Loesser's refusal, Feuer and Martin approached Rodgers and Hammerstein with their project, then titled The Bear Flag Café. From the beginning, the prudish Hammerstein was uncomfortable with the setting, telling Feuer "We do family shows." However, Hammerstein found himself attracted to the characters. Doc and Suzy were culturally mismatched but drawn to each other, with Doc rather moody and Suzy somewhat intense. Similar pairings had led to success, not only in the pair's Carousel
Carousel (musical)
Carousel is the second stage musical by the team of Richard Rodgers and Oscar Hammerstein II . The work premiered in 1945 and was adapted from Ferenc Molnár's 1909 play Liliom, transplanting its Budapest setting to the Maine coastline...
and South Pacific
South Pacific (musical)
South Pacific is a musical with music by Richard Rodgers, lyrics by Oscar Hammerstein II and book by Hammerstein and Joshua Logan. The story draws from James A. Michener's Pulitzer Prize-winning 1947 book Tales of the South Pacific, weaving together characters and elements from several of its...
, but in Hammerstein's work before his collaboration with Rodgers, such as The Desert Song
The Desert Song
The Desert Song is an operetta with music by Sigmund Romberg and book and lyrics by Oscar Hammerstein II, Otto Harbach and Frank Mandel. It was inspired by the 1925 uprising of the Riffs, a group of Moroccan fighters, against French colonial rule. It was also inspired by stories of Lawrence of...
and Rose-Marie
Rose-Marie
Rose-Marie is an operetta-style musical with music by Rudolf Friml and Herbert Stothart, and book and lyrics by Otto Harbach and Oscar Hammerstein II. The story takes place in the Canadian Rockies and concerns Rose-Marie La Flemme, a French Canadian girl who loves miner Jim Kenyon...
. During early 1953, Steinbeck sent Hammerstein early drafts of the novel. Rodgers was also concerned about the idea of having a prostitute be the female lead, but he eventually gave in. The two agreed to write and produce the adaptation.
As they worked with Steinbeck, Rodgers and Hammerstein, though renowned for such hits as Oklahoma!
Oklahoma!
Oklahoma! is the first musical written by composer Richard Rodgers and librettist Oscar Hammerstein II. The musical is based on Lynn Riggs' 1931 play, Green Grow the Lilacs. Set in Oklahoma Territory outside the town of Claremore in 1906, it tells the story of cowboy Curly McLain and his romance...
, Carousel, and South Pacific, suffered a relative failure with the 1953 musical Me and Juliet
Me and Juliet
Me and Juliet is a musical comedy by Richard Rodgers and Oscar Hammerstein II and their sixth stage collaboration. The work tells a story of romance backstage at a long-running musical: assistant stage manager Larry woos chorus girl Jeanie behind the back of her electrician boyfriend, Bob...
, a tale of romance among the cast and stagehands backstage at a musical. Before agreeing to do the Sweet Thursday project, the duo had considered other projects for their next work together, such as an adaptation of the film Saratoga Trunk
Saratoga Trunk
Saratoga Trunk is a 1945 film written by Edna Ferber and Casey Robinson, based on Ferber's best-selling novel of the same name. It stars Gary Cooper, Ingrid Bergman, Florence Bates, and Flora Robson, who was nominated for a Supporting Actress Oscar for her performance.-Plot:Ingrid Bergman played a...
. A proposal made by attorney David Merrick
David Merrick
David Merrick was a prolific Tony Award-winning American theatrical producer.-Life and career:Born David Lee Margulois to Jewish parents in St. Louis, Missouri, Merrick graduated from Washington University, then studied law at the Jesuit-run Saint Louis University School of Law...
to adapt a series of works by Marcel Pagnol
Marcel Pagnol
Marcel Pagnol was a French novelist, playwright, and filmmaker. In 1946, he became the first filmmaker elected to the Académie Française.-Biography:...
to which Merrick held the stage rights fell through when the duo were not willing to have Merrick be an associate producer; Merrick took the project elsewhere, and it was developed into the hit Fanny
Fanny (musical)
Fanny is a musical with a book by S. N. Behrman and Joshua Logan and music and lyrics by Harold Rome. A tale of love, secrets, and passion set in and around the old French port of Marseille, it is based on Marcel Pagnol's trilogy of plays entitled Marius, Fanny and César.The musical premiered on...
. In later years, Hammerstein stated, "Why the hell did we give up Fanny? What on earth were we trying to prove? My God, that's a great story and look at some of the junk we've done!"
Writing and casting
Steinbeck continued to write in late 1953 while Hammerstein and Rodgers went to London to produce the West End production of The King and IThe King and I
The King and I is a stage musical, the fifth by the team of Richard Rodgers and Oscar Hammerstein II. The work is based on the 1944 novel Anna and the King of Siam by Margaret Landon and derives from the memoirs of Anna Leonowens, who became governess to the children of King Mongkut of Siam in...
. As Hammerstein received new material from Steinbeck, he and Rodgers began to map out the musical, conceiving scenes and deciding where songs should be placed. On January 1, 1954, following the completion of Steinbeck's novel, Hammerstein began to wrote dialogue and lyrics. Sweet Thursday was published in early 1954 to mixed reviews. Steinbeck later commented, "Some of the critics are so concerned for my literary position that they can't read a book of mine without worrying where it will fit in my place in history. Who gives a damn?" By that time, Rodgers and Hammerstein were busy producing the film version of Oklahoma!.
For the part of bordello-keeper Fauna, the duo fixed on the famous diva, Helen Traubel
Helen Traubel
Helen Francesca Traubel was an American opera and concert singer. A dramatic soprano, she was best known for her Wagnerian roles, especially those of Brünnhilde and Isolde. Born and raised in St. Louis, Missouri, she began her career as a concert singer and went on to sing at the Metropolitan...
. There was precedent for such casting—former opera star Ezio Pinza
Ezio Pinza
Ezio Pinza was an Italian basso opera singer with a rich, smooth and sonorous voice. He spent 22 seasons at New York's Metropolitan Opera, appearing in more than 750 performances of 50 operas...
had starred as suave Frenchman Emile de Becque in South Pacific, and had received rave reviews for his performance. Traubel, in addition to being well-known for her Wagnerian roles
Richard Wagner
Wilhelm Richard Wagner was a German composer, conductor, theatre director, philosopher, music theorist, poet, essayist and writer primarily known for his operas...
, was also noted for her nightclub singing. In 1950, the new Metropolitan Opera
Metropolitan Opera
The Metropolitan Opera is an opera company, located in New York City. Originally founded in 1880, the company gave its first performance on October 22, 1883. The company is operated by the non-profit Metropolitan Opera Association, with Peter Gelb as general manager...
impresario
Impresario
An impresario is a person who organizes and often finances concerts, plays or operas; analogous to a film producer in filmmaking, television production and an angel investor in business...
, Rudolf Bing, feeling that she was lowering the tone of the house, fired her. Hammerstein had seen Traubel at her first appearance at the Copacabana
Copacabana (nightclub)
The Copacabana is a famous New York City nightclub. Many entertainers, among them Danny Thomas, Pat Cooper and the comedy team of Martin and Lewis, made their debuts at the Copacabana. The 1978 Barry Manilow song "Copacabana" is named after, and is about the nightclub. Part of the 2003 Yerba...
nightclub in New York, and afterwards had gone backstage to predict to Traubel that she would be coming straight to Broadway. He saw her show again in Las Vegas several months later, and offered her the part. When offered the role, Traubel eagerly accepted, though she later noted that she had never represented herself as much of an actress.
From the beginning of the project, Feuer and Martin wanted Henry Fonda
Henry Fonda
Henry Jaynes Fonda was an American film and stage actor.Fonda made his mark early as a Broadway actor. He also appeared in 1938 in plays performed in White Plains, New York, with Joan Tompkins...
to play Doc. The actor put in months of lessons in an attempt to bring his voice up to standard. Fonda later stated that at the end of six months of singing lessons, he "still couldn't sing for shit". Following his first audition for Rodgers, Fonda asked the composer for his honest view, and Rodgers stated, "I'm sorry, it would be a mistake."
Cy Feuer remembered:
So finally, after we go through all this, we turn[Fonda] over to Rodgers and Hammerstein and he's out. Oscar didn't want Fonda because Fonda was his son-in-law and besides Dick said, "I have to have singers," and he hires Helen Traubel to play the madam and she turns out to get top billing and Doc is now the second lead!
The duo eventually settled for William Johnson
William Johnson (actor)
William Johnson was an American actor of the stage and screen.-Biography:Born in Baltimore, Johnson began his career as a child actor on the stage. He made his Broadway debut at the age of 8 as Gaffe in the 1924 play Shipwrecked. He returned to Broadway in 1926 to portray the Hangman in Rudolf...
, who had played the male lead in a touring company of Annie Get Your Gun
Annie Get Your Gun (musical)
Annie Get Your Gun is a musical with lyrics and music written by Irving Berlin and a book by Herbert Fields and his sister Dorothy Fields. The story is a fictionalized version of the life of Annie Oakley , who was a sharpshooter from Ohio, and her husband, Frank Butler.The 1946 Broadway production...
, which they had produced, to play the role of Doc.
There are conflicting accounts of who was the first choice for the role of the itinerant prostitute, Suzy. By some accounts, Rodgers and Hammerstein attempted to get Julie Andrews
Julie Andrews
Dame Julia Elizabeth Andrews, DBE is an English film and stage actress, singer, and author. She is the recipient of Golden Globe, Emmy, Grammy, BAFTA, People's Choice Award, Theatre World Award, Screen Actors Guild and Academy Award honors...
, only to find that she had just signed a two-year contract to appear in a musical by Alan Jay Lerner
Alan Jay Lerner
Alan Jay Lerner was an American lyricist and librettist. In collaboration with Frederick Loewe, he created some of the world's most popular and enduring works of musical theatre for both the stage and on film...
and Frederick Loewe, tentatively titled My Lady Liza. Andrews's role, as Eliza Doolittle in My Fair Lady
My Fair Lady
My Fair Lady is a musical based upon George Bernard Shaw's Pygmalion and with book and lyrics by Alan Jay Lerner and music by Frederick Loewe...
, would launch her to stardom. Another candidate was Janet Leigh
Janet Leigh
Janet Leigh , born Jeanette Helen Morrison, was an American actress. She was the wife of actor Tony Curtis from June 1951 to September 1962 and the mother of Kelly Curtis and Jamie Lee Curtis....
, whom Rodgers admired greatly, but the actress proved to be unavailable. The producers settled on Judy Tyler
Judy Tyler
Judy Tyler was an American actress.-Early life and career:Born Judith Mae Hess in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, she came from a show business family and was encouraged to study dance and acting...
, auditioned after Rodgers spotted her on television while watching The Howdy Doody Show, in which she appeared as Princess Summerfall Winterspring.
To direct the play, the duo engaged Harold Clurman
Harold Clurman
Harold Edgar Clurman was a visionary American theatre director and drama critic, "one of the most influential in the United States". He was most notable as one of the three founders of the New York City's Group Theatre...
, noted for his work in drama and one of the founders of the Group Theatre. Jo Mielziner
Jo Mielziner
Joseph "Jo" Mielziner was an American theatrical scenic, and lighting designer born in Paris, France. He is "the most successful set designer of the Golden era of Broadway", and worked on both stage plays and musicals.-Career:He was the son of artist Leo Mielziner, Sr...
, veteran of several Rodgers and Hammerstein productions, was the stage designer. In contrast to the complex staging of Me and Juliet, Mielziner's sets were uncomplicated, a system of house-frame outlines in front of backdrops representing Monterey. Boris Runanin was the choreographer, Robert Russell Bennett
Robert Russell Bennett
Robert Russell Bennett was an American composer and arranger, best known for his orchestration of many well-known Broadway and Hollywood musicals by other composers such as Irving Berlin, George Gershwin, Jerome Kern, Cole Porter, and Richard Rodgers. In 1957 and 2008, Bennett received Tony Awards...
provided orchestrations, and Salvadore Dell'Isola conducted. The two producers had hoped to hire the prestigious Majestic Theatre, where Oklahoma! had run, but the writing process took too long, and the Majestic was lost to Fanny. Instead, they booked the Shubert Theatre
Shubert Theatre (Broadway)
The Shubert Theatre is a Broadway theatre located at 225 West 44th Street in midtown-Manhattan, New York, United States.Designed by architect Henry Beaumont Herts, it was named after Sam S. Shubert, the second oldest of the three brothers of the theatrical producing family...
, in the top rank of Broadway theatres, but not as prestigious as the Majestic. Uniquely for their joint work, they solicited no backers, but underwrote the entire cost themselves. Feuer later said of the deal he and Martin had made with Rodgers and Hammerstein, "And the deal was pretty good: 50 percent of the producers' end. And we thought, We're rich! And we turned it over to them and they destroyed it."
Rehearsals and tryouts
When rehearsals opened in September 1955, Rodgers assembled the cast and told them that he was going into the hospital for a minor operation. In fact, Rodgers had been diagnosed with cancer of the jawbone. He spent the weekend before the operation writing one final song for Pipe Dream. The surgery required removal of part of the jawbone and tongue, and some of the lymph nodes. The operation took place on September 21, 1955; within ten days of the operation he was back in the theatre watching rehearsals, though for some time only as a spectator.After rehearsals began, Steinbeck wrote to Hammerstein to express his delight at the adaptation. He became more dismayed as the play was slowly revised in rehearsal and during the tryouts. According to Traubel, the play was being "cleaned up ... as scene after scene became emasculated". The revisions made Suzy's profession less clear, and also fudged the nature of Fauna's house. One revision removed Suzy's police record for "vagrancy". These changes were sparked by the fact that audience members at the tryouts in New Haven
New Haven, Connecticut
New Haven is the second-largest city in Connecticut and the sixth-largest in New England. According to the 2010 Census, New Haven's population increased by 5.0% between 2000 and 2010, a rate higher than that of the State of Connecticut, and higher than that of the state's five largest cities, and...
and Boston were uncomfortable with the setting and Suzy's role; by the times the revisions were completed, the script could be read to say that Suzy was merely boarding at Fauna's.
Steinbeck noted this tendency on a page of dialogue changes:
One of the most serious criticisms is the uncertainty of Suzy's position in the Bear Flag. It's either a whore house, or it isn't. Suzy either took a job there, or she didn't. The play doesn't give satisfaction here and it leaves an audience wondering. My position is that she took the job all right but she wasn't any good at it. In the book, Fauna explains that Suzy's no good as a hustler because she's got a streak of lady in her. I wish we could keep this thought because it explains a lot in a short time.
In another memo, Steinbeck noted that the pathos of Suzy being a prostitute had given much of the dramatic tension to the scene in which Doc rejects Suzy, and later, her rejection of him. "I think if you will finally bring the theme of this play into the open, but wide open, you will have solved its great weakness and have raised it to a high level ... If this is not done, I can neither believe nor take Pipe Dream seriously."
In the end, Suzy's activities at the Bear Flag were glossed over, as Hammerstein concentrated on her relationship with Doc. Alluding to Hammerstein's emphasis on the scene in which Suzy makes Doc soup after Hazel breaks his arm, Steinbeck stated, "You've turned my prostitute into a visiting nurse!"
Plot
The action of the play is in the mid 1950s, and takes place on Cannery Row in Monterey, California. In the Steinbeck book which forms the basis for the musical, the Bear Flag is a bordello and Suzy a prostitute. This is alluded to in the musical, but never expressed outright.Act 1
In the early morning hours, marine biologist Doc is already at work in his one-man Western Biological Laboratory, getting an order of starfish ready to be shipped to a university. His unintelligent friend Hazel (a man) comes in to chat with him ("All Kinds of People"). Millicent, a wealthy young lady, enters from the next room, where she has been spending (part of) the night with Doc. Mac, another friend of Doc, brings in Suzy, who has injured her hand breaking a window to steal some donuts. Doc, whose lack of a medical degree does not stop the denizens of Cannery Row from seeking him out for treatment, bandages her hand, as the irritated Millicent leaves. Suzy, new in town, is curious about Doc's work ("The Tide Pool") and tells about her journey from San Francisco ("Everybody's Got a Home but Me"). Fauna, who runs the nearby Bear Flag Café—an establishment open even at this hour—had heard that a new girl in town had injured herself, and has come to talk to Suzy. Fauna is initially reluctant to invite Suzy into the Bear Flag, but when Jim, the local plainclothes cop gives Suzy a hard time, Fauna takes Suzy in. Suzy is fully aware of what kind of a place it is.The Palace Flophouse, where Mac, Hazel, and other locals reside, is a storage shed behind the Chinese store now owned by Joe the Mexican, and the Flophouse residents muse on their awkward path through life ("A Lopsided Bus"). Fauna comes by briefly to tell Hazel that she has run his "horror scope" and that he will one day be President. The Flophouse boys have a problem: Joe the Mexican acts unaware that he owns the shed; he has not appeared to either demand rent or to kick them out. They would like to know whether Joe is aware of his ownership, without tipping him off. The boys come up with the idea of raffling off their shed, with the raffle rigged so that Doc, who would not kick them out, will be the winner. The prize money will allow Doc to buy the microscope he needs for his scientific work. They sound out Joe about the scheme; he offers to sell tickets in his store and displays no awareness that he owns the shed.
Suzy and Doc are attracted to each other; she has in fact been quietly tidying his rooms while he is down at the tide pool catching specimens ("The Man I Used to Be"). Fauna tries to persuade Doc, who is very successful with the ladies, to woo Suzy. When Doc is dismissive, Fauna explains that she wants to get Suzy out of the Bear Flag when it is taken over for the night by a private party. Doc agrees to take Suzy out and treat her like a lady. Fauna goes back to the Bear Flag ("Sweet Thursday"), and works to give Suzy confidence ("Suzy is a Good Thing"). Doc and Suzy's date is the source of great interest to the people of Cannery Row. Both are nervous; Doc wears an unaccustomed necktie, while Suzy tries to act like a lady, but her polish wears thin at times. ("All At Once You Love Her"). At the end of the meal, they decide to continue the evening on a secluded sand dune.
Act 2
The next morning, the girls of the Bear Flag are exhausted; the members of the private party tired them out. They wonder how Suzy's date with Doc went. Although it is only July, Fauna is busy ordering the Bear Flag's Christmas cards ("The Happiest House on the Block"). Suzy comes in and tells Fauna of the date; that Doc made no pass at her, and that Doc confided how lonely he is. She is convinced Doc "don't need nobody like me"; he needs a wife. Fauna is encouraging, but Suzy believes that Doc, knowing what he does of her history and work, will not want her. The Flophouse is to host a fancy dress party the following night, at which the raffle is to take place—Fauna proposes that at the party, Suzy sing "Will you marry me?" to Doc. Suzy is still nervous; Fauna reminds her that the previous night, Doc did not treat her like a tramp, and she did not act like one. As word spreads of the celebration, the community becomes enthusiastic about the get-together ("The Party That We're Gonna Have Tomorrow Night")At the Flophouse, a wild celebration takes place. Fauna, at first in the costume of a witch, seems to transform her costume into that of a Fairy Godmother. After some sleight of hand with the tickets, Doc wins the raffle, to the surprise of some. When Suzy comes out in a white bride's dress and sings her lines, Doc is unimpressed, and Suzy is humiliated. As both stalk off in opposite directions, the party disintegrates into a brawl.
Suzy gets a job at a burger joint, and moves into an abandoned boiler, with entry through the attached pipe. Doc is unhappy, and Hazel decides something has to be done ("Thinkin' "). He is unable to come up with an answer, and eventually forgets the question. Some weeks pass, and Joe the Mexican woos Suzy. He has no success, and his attempts irritate Doc. The next day, Doc himself approaches the pipe with flowers in hand ("How Long?"), still uncertain as to why he is seeking a girl like Suzy. Suzy lets him in the boiler, which she has fitted up in a homelike manner. She is doing well at the burger joint, but is grateful to Fauna for giving her confidence. She is confident enough, indeed, to reject Doc, who is unhappy, but philosophical ("The Next Time It Happens"). Hazel sees Doc even more dispirited than before, and asks Suzy for an explanation. Suzy says that she is not willing to go over and be with Doc, but "if he was sick or if he bust his leg or an arm or something", she would go to him and bring him soup. The wheels in Hazel's head begin unaccustomed turnings, and sometime later when Mac passes Hazel on the street, Mac is surprised to see his friend carrying a baseball bat. When the scene returns to Doc's lab, he is receiving treatment from a real doctor and trying to puzzle out how he broke his arm. Suzy comes in, and makes soup for him as Hazel and Mac take turns watching at the keyhole. Doc admits that he needs and loves Suzy, and they embrace. As Fauna and the girls arrive, so do the other Flophouse boys, and Mac gives Doc what was bought with the raffle money—the largest (tele)scope in the catalog. ("Finale")
Musical numbers
Act I- All Kinds of People – Doc and Hazel
- The Tide Pool – Doc, Hazel, Mac and Suzy
- Everybody's Got a Home but Me – Suzy
- All Kinds of People (Reprise) – Jim Blaikey
- A Lopsided Bus – Mac, Hazel, Kitty, Sonya and chorus
- Bums' Opera – Fauna, Joe, Pancho and chorus
- The Man I Used To Be – Doc
- Sweet Thursday – Fauna
- Suzy Is a Good Thing – Fauna and Suzy
- All At Once You Love Her – Doc, Suzy and Esteban
Act II
- The Happiest House on the Block – Fauna and chorus girls
- The Party That We're Gonna Have Tomorrow Night – Mac and company
- Thinkin' – Hazel
- All At Once You Love Her (Reprise) – Fauna
- How Long? – Fauna, Doc, and chorus
- The Next Time It Happens – Suzy and Doc
- Sweet Thursday (Reprise) – Entire company
- Finale – Entire company
Productions
Pipe Dream premiered on Broadway on November 30, 1955 at the Shubert Theatre, with Helen Traubel as Fauna, William Johnson as Doc, Judy Tyler as Suzy, George D. WallaceGeorge D. Wallace
George Dewey Wallace was an American stage and screen actor.Wallace co-starred with Mary Martin in the Broadway musical Jennie and was nominated for a New York Drama Critics' Circle Award for playing the male lead in New Girl in Town opposite Gwen Verdon...
as Mac and Mike Kellin
Mike Kellin
-Early life:Kellin was born Myron Kellin in Hartford, Connecticut, the son of Sophia and Samuel Kellin, Russian Jewish immigrants. He was educated at Boston University and Trinity College...
as Hazel. The show had received the largest advance ticket sale in Broadway history to that point, $1.2 million. Some of Steinbeck's ill-feeling was removed on the second night, which he attended and then went backstage to greet the cast. After a celebratory dinner at Sardi's
Sardi's
Sardi's is a restaurant in New York City's theater district at 234 West 44th Street in Manhattan. Known for the hundreds of caricatures of show-business celebrities that adorn its walls, Sardi's opened at its current location on March 5, 1927....
during which the manager sent champagne to his table, he said to his wife Elaine, "Isn't the theatre marvelous?" The author held no grudge; he later told Hammerstein that he accepted that Rodgers and Hammerstein were ultimately responsible for the show and had the right to make changes.
Rodgers and Hammerstein had not permitted group sales, so-called "theatre parties" for their shows. They lifted the ban for Pipe Dream, and pre-sold theatre party sales helped keep the show going, as there were few sales after opening night given the dismal reviews. More than 70 performances were entirely sold to groups. In March 1956, in a final attempt to save the show, Rodgers and Hammerstein revised it somewhat, moving several musical numbers. Traubel missed a number of performances due to illness, and left when her contract expired a few weeks before the show closed in June 1956—she was replaced by Nancy Andrews
Nancy Andrews (actress)
Nancy Andrews was an American stage and film actress and singer.- Biography :Nancy Andrews was born in Minneapolis on December 16, 1920. Her parents were James Currier Andrews and Grace Ella Andrews . She attended Beverley Hills High School and the Los Angeles City College...
. Traubel's understudy, Ruth Kobart
Ruth Kobart
Ruth Kobart was an American performer, whose six-decade career encompassed opera, Broadway musical theatre, regional theatre, films, and television.-Life and career:...
played 42 of the show's 245 performances.
Pipe Dream was nominated for nine Tony Awards; it lost for best musical to the only other nominee, Damn Yankees
Damn Yankees
Damn Yankees is a musical comedy with a book by George Abbott and Douglass Wallop and music and lyrics by Richard Adler and Jerry Ross. The story is a modern retelling of the Faust legend set during the 1950s in Washington, D.C., during a time when the New York Yankees dominated Major League...
. Alvin Colt
Alvin Colt
Alvin Colt was an American costume designer. Colt worked on over 50 Broadway shows.His first job was in a theatrical fabric house, he also worked on painting scenery during the summer. On the Town was the first Broadway show he worked on in 1944...
was the sole winner, for Best Costume Design
Tony Award for Best Costume Design
These are the winners and nominees for the Tony Award for Best Costume Design. The award was first presented in 1947 and included both plays and musicals...
. Johnson died of a heart attack within a year of Pipe Dreams closing; Tyler died in an automobile accident during the same timespan. These tragedies convinced Traubel that there was a curse attached to Pipe Dream, and she began carrying good-luck charms when she performed.
The poor reviews of Pipe Dream made a national tour or London production impractical. Productions of Pipe Dream have been extremely rare. In 1981, a community theatre production of Pipe Dream was presented by the Conejo Theatre in Thousand Oaks, California
Thousand Oaks, California
Thousand Oaks is a city in southeastern Ventura County, California, in the United States. It was named after the many oak trees that grace the area, and the city seal is adorned with an oak....
. Los Angeles Times
Los Angeles Times
The Los Angeles Times is a daily newspaper published in Los Angeles, California, since 1881. It was the second-largest metropolitan newspaper in circulation in the United States in 2008 and the fourth most widely distributed newspaper in the country....
critic Dan Sullivan admired the small-scale staging, but called the show "the emptiest musical that two geniuses ever wrote" and said of it, "imagine a song
The Muppets
The Muppets are a group of puppet characters created by Jim Henson starting in 1954–55. Although the term is often used to refer to any puppet that resembles the distinctive style of The Muppet Show, the term is both an informal name and legal trademark owned by the Walt Disney Company in reference...
. Humans would play Doc and Suzy; Muppets would play the other roles—with Miss Piggy
Miss Piggy
Miss Piggy is a Muppet character who was primarily played by Frank Oz on The Muppet Show. In 2001, Eric Jacobson began performing the role, although Oz did not officially retire until 2002....
as Fauna.
Music and recordings
Despite the poor reviews of the musical, Rodgers was given credit for an imaginative score. "Sweet Thursday" is a cakewalkCakewalk
The Cakewalk dance was developed from a "Prize Walk" done in the days of slavery, generally at get-togethers on plantations in the Southern United States. Alternative names for the original form of the dance were "chalkline-walk", and the "walk-around"...
, unusual for Rodgers who rarely wrote them. However, Rodgers biographer William Hyland suggests that "Sweet Thursday" was out of character for Traubel's voice. Hyland also speculates that "The Next Time It Happens", a duet for Suzy and Doc as they decide their love will not work, needed to be more melancholy, and Doc's "The Man I Used To Be" more of a lament rather than having a lively melody. According to Broadway writer Ken Mandelbaum
Ken Mandelbaum
Ken Mandelbaum is an American columnist, critic, and author whose primary field of expertise is musical theatre.Born and raised in Brooklyn, New York, Mandelbaum was introduced to Broadway musical theatre by his parents and grandparents at an early age...
, "Pipe Dream contains a generally fascinating score." He terms Suzy's "Everybody's Got a Home but Me", a "gorgeous ballad of yearning".
During rehearsals and even during the run of the show, the music was repeatedly revised by Rodgers in an attempt to gear the songs to Traubel's voice. According to Bruce Pomahac of the Rodgers & Hammerstein Organization, "as she began to get cold feet about what her New York fans would think about her as a belter
Belt (music)
Belting refers to a specific technique of singing by which a singer produces a loud sound in the upper middle of the pitch range. It is often described as a vocal register although some dispute this since technically the larynx is not oscillating in a unique way...
, the keys of each of her numbers edged upward." One of Traubel's numbers saw three different versions before being scrapped in favor of, according to Pomahac, "something that sounded like an excerpt from Traubel’s Vegas act." "All At Once You Love Her" saw some popularity when recorded, during the run of the show, by Perry Como
Perry Como
Pierino Ronald "Perry" Como was an American singer and television personality. During a career spanning more than half a century he recorded exclusively for the RCA Victor label after signing with them in 1943. "Mr...
; in what Pomahac speculates was an attempt to appease Traubel, a reprise of the song was added for her, and provided "one of the loveliest moments in all of Pipe Dream". A restored score, including variations of songs, will be published in 2012—the existing score reflects revisions made when Nancy Andrews took over the part.
Pipe Dream
State Fair (1945 film)
State Fair is a 1945 film directed by Walter Lang. The film a musical adaptation of the 1933 film of the same name, with original music by Rodgers and Hammerstein. The film starred Jeanne Crain, Dana Andrews, Dick Haymes, Vivian Blaine, Fay Bainter and Charles Winninger...
musical, State Fair
State Fair (musical)
State Fair is a musical with a book by Tom Briggs and Louis Mattioli, lyrics by Oscar Hammerstein II, and music by Richard Rodgers.Rodgers and Hammerstein originally adapted the Phil Stong novel of the same name for a 1945 movie musical, which was remade in 1962...
. "The Next Time It Happens" was inserted in David Henry Hwang
David Henry Hwang
David Henry Hwang is an American playwright who has risen to prominence as the preeminent Asian American dramatist in the U.S.He was born in Los Angeles, California and was educated at the Yale School of Drama and Stanford University...
's revised version of Rodgers and Hammerstein's later work, Flower Drum Song
Flower Drum Song
Flower Drum Song was the eighth stage musical by the team of Richard Rodgers and Oscar Hammerstein II. It was based on the 1957 novel, The Flower Drum Song, by Chinese-American author C. Y. Lee. The piece opened in 1958 on Broadway and was afterwards presented in the West End and on tour...
. Used during the show's 2001 Los Angeles run, it was cut before the show reached Broadway in 2002. According to David Lewis in his history of the Broadway musical, "The Rodgers and Hammerstein office has, it would appear, given up on Pipe Dream and
Thomas Hischak, in his The Rodgers and Hammerstein Encyclopedia, stated that the original cast album is well-produced, but many of the songs came across better when other artists recorded them. The New York Times
The New York Times
The New York Times is an American daily newspaper founded and continuously published in New York City since 1851. The New York Times has won 106 Pulitzer Prizes, the most of any news organization...
suggested that the music had echoes of the duo's earlier works, giving it "a disappointing air of familiarity". The Times praised both Tyler and Johnson for their singing on the album, and while acknowledging that Traubel had difficulty making the transition from opera singer to Broadway belter, wrote that "for the most part, she makes the transfer amiably and effectively". The original cast recording was released on compact disc by RCA Victor Broadway in 1993.
Reception and aftermath
The musical received moderate to poor reviews. Brooks AtkinsonBrooks Atkinson
Justin Brooks Atkinson was an American theatre critic. He worked for The New York Times from 1925 to 1960...
of The New York Times
The New York Times
The New York Times is an American daily newspaper founded and continuously published in New York City since 1851. The New York Times has won 106 Pulitzer Prizes, the most of any news organization...
termed it "a pleasant, lazy romance ... Mr. Rodgers and Mr. Hammerstein in a minor key". John Chapman of the Daily News
New York Daily News
The Daily News of New York City is the fourth most widely circulated daily newspaper in the United States with a daily circulation of 605,677, as of November 1, 2011....
stated, "Perhaps Hammerstein and Rodgers are too gentlemanly to be dealing with Steinbeck's sleazy and raffish denizens." Walter Kerr
Walter Kerr
For the RN admiral see Lord Walter KerrWalter Francis Kerr was an American writer and Broadway theater critic. He also was the writer, lyricist, and/or director of several Broadway plays and musicals.-Biography:...
of the Herald Tribune
New York Herald Tribune
The New York Herald Tribune was a daily newspaper created in 1924 when the New York Tribune acquired the New York Herald.Other predecessors, which had earlier merged into the New York Tribune, included the original The New Yorker newsweekly , and the Whig Party's Log Cabin.The paper was home to...
suggested, "Someone seems to have forgotten to bring along that gallon of good, red wine." John McClain of the Journal American
New York Journal American
The New York Journal American was a newspaper published from 1937 to 1966. The Journal American was the product of a merger between two New York newspapers owned by William Randolph Hearst: The New York American , a morning paper, and the New York Evening Journal, an afternoon paper...
stated, "This is a far cry from the exalted talents of the team that produced South Pacific. They must be human, after all." Steven Suskin, in his book chronicling Broadway opening night reviews, stated that Pipe Dream received one favorable review from the seven major New York critics, two mixed, and four unfavorable. Louis Kronenberger, in Time
Time (magazine)
Time is an American news magazine. A European edition is published from London. Time Europe covers the Middle East, Africa and, since 2003, Latin America. An Asian edition is based in Hong Kong...
magazine, summed it up as "
Billy Rose
William "Billy" Rose was an American impresario, theatrical showman and lyricist. He is credited with many famous songs, notably "Me and My Shadow" , "It Happened in Monterey" and "It's Only a Paper Moon"...
said of Pipe Dream, "You know why Oscar shouldn't have written that? The guy has never been in a whorehouse in his life."
Publicly, Hammerstein accepted blame for himself and Rodgers, and stated that had the musical been produced by anyone else, "we'd say that these are producers we wouldn't like to work with again". According to Cy Feuer, Hammerstein privately blamed him and Martin, telling them, "We believed your pitch and we went and did something we were never cut out to do and we should never have done it.
According to author Frederick Nolan, who chronicled the works of Rodgers and Hammerstein, Pipe Dream "cost them a fortune". Rodgers later stated it was the only one of their works he truly disliked; that if you start with a bad idea, everything is marred by that: "We shouldn't have been dealing with prostitutes and tramps." Rodgers also blamed the casting of Traubel, who he considered wrong for the part. Hammerstein's grandson, Oscar A. Hammerstein, in his book about his family, agreed with Rodgers's view of Traubel—"too much Brunhilde, not enough Miss Kitty
Gunsmoke
Gunsmoke is an American radio and television Western drama series created by director Norman MacDonnell and writer John Meston. The stories take place in and around Dodge City, Kansas, during the settlement of the American West....
South Pacific, Carousel and[Hammerstein work] Carmen JonesCarmen JonesCarmen Jones is a 1943 Broadway musical starring Muriel Smith in the title role, later made into a 1954 musical film; the play also ran for a season in 1991 at London's Old Vic and most recently in London's Royal Festival Hall in the Southbank Centre in 2007. It is an updating of the Georges Bizet...
have stories that rest on the power of sexual attraction. As long as the sexuality was implicit, Oscar could treat it with the same understanding that he brought to other aspects of human behavior ... His problem was with dealing openly with sexual material; because of this reticence, Pipe Dream was not what it might have been.
Awards and nominations
1956 Tony AwardTony Award
The Antoinette Perry Award for Excellence in Theatre, more commonly known as a Tony Award, recognizes achievement in live Broadway theatre. The awards are presented by the American Theatre Wing and The Broadway League at an annual ceremony in New York City. The awards are given for Broadway...
nominations
- Best Musical
- Best Actor (musical) – William Johnson
- Best Featured Actor (musical) – Mike Kellin
- Best Featured Actress (musical) – Judy Tyler
- Best Director – Harold Charman
- Best Scenic Designer – Jo Mielziner
- Best Choreographer – Boris Runanin
- Best Costume Design – Alvin Colt (Winner)
- Best Musical Direction – Salvadore Dell'Isola