Flahooley
Jean Coeur de Lapin
carol extravaganza -- microphones! tinny electric pianos! Ugh ugh ugh!
-- I went to the Harburg & Fain 1951 show Flahooley, revived (through
January 3) by the Harlem Repertory Theater at the Theater for the New
City on First Avenue at 10th Street.
Flahooley is renowned as Barbara Cook’s first show (and only teaming
with Yma Sumac), and is generally considered unrevivable. It's a
Christmas fable ("Not believe in Saint Nicholas? Ridicholas" - welcome
to Yip Harburg-land): A monstrous toymaker (B.G. Bigelow) is hoping to
corner Christmas, but his rivals, A.E.I.O.U. and Sometimes Y and W
Schwartz, have undersold him. Happily, someone rubs a lamp, brought by
a Middle Eastern potentate in crisis ("The Soviets are moving
mountains without Mohammed") and a genial Genii named Abou appears.
(“Imagine! A genii with claustrophobia!”) And the local puppetmaker
("You Too Can Be a Puppet") hopes to win a promotion and the girl of
his dreams (Barbara's role) by inventing Flahooley, a doll that
screams "Dirty Red!" whenever anyone says something disloyal. All very
silly, some charming songs, some amazing performers, delicious,
slight, highly recommended to those who love musicals.
With a great deal of help from multimedia (puppets, marionettes,
projections, cartoons, films, puppets playing people, people playing
marionettes) but no microphones at all, ten performers - nine of them
splendid - put this show on with a straight face, at such a breakneck
pace (90 minutes) that you had no time to notice the plot didn't make
much sense. Lots of jokes about fascist Americanism creeping into our
free society that haven't aged at all. Business is bad and fantasy is
good, and that was all Yip Harburg needed. The tunes by Sammy Fain are
Grade B for 1951, which means they'd be A++ on Broadway now. The
lyrics keep tickling and re-tickling, and reprises are good because
it's a second chance to get the rapid-fire puns and plays on words.
Perhaps best of all, they didn't cut all of Yma Sumac's unsingable
material - they just kept Yma Sumac! A girl in veils wiggles her hips
and pretends to yodel, and Yma is on the soundtrack. Otherwise,
accompaniment was a nifty little combo (no electronics!). A little
social message, yes, but otherwise just a pack-up-your-troubles zany
evening of the sort Broadway hasn't known in fifty years, Off-Broadway
in thirty.
Among the performers I was particularly delighted by Alexandra
Bernard, an amazing singer and actress, as a vicious secretary and,
later, a vamp Flahooley; and by Primy Rivera's delicious camp turn as
Abou the Genii (who gets to sing
"The Springtime Cometh,
hummingbird hummeth,
sugarplum plummeth,
heart
it humpty-dummeth,
and to summeth up
the springtime cometh for the love of thee! ...
Lad and lass
in tall green grass
gaily skippeth,
nylon rippeth,
zipper zippeth..."),
- anyone who has seen Finian's Rainbow lately knows what to expect -
and everyone in New York should run to see Finian's Rainbow anyway -
also, John Wiethorn and Natalia Peguero, charming as the lovers, and
Daniel Fergus Tamulonis as B.G. Bigelow, the practical joker as
dictator - it was evidently Tamulonis who designed the many sorts of
wacky puppet presences in the story, though these included some
manipulation (in a trial sequence sending up the HUAC hearings) in the
manner of Avenue Q. There was just a little dancing, impressive
considering the cramped space. The only weak performer was Yip
Harburg's grandson Ben, who played a puppet and sang so badly it was
hard to say if he or the part was more wooden. I didn't realize his
song was the big tuneful hit till I went home and played the OBC.
And all this was only $18!
Jean Coeur de Lapin
P.S. Can't SOMEONE take over this Group and require recognition or
something in order to post here? I remember when this was a site worth
reading.
Harlett O'Dowd
returning home after the holidays.
It seems to be an odd mix of the re-write (JOLLYANA) and the original.
Any songs in this production that are *not* on the OBC?
BTW - any word on how they got the rights to this?
Jean Coeur de Lapin
wrote:
The Harburg Foundation is listed as a co-producer. (And maybe hiring
Yip's grandson helped.)
Jean Coeur de Lapin
Steve Newport
take over this Group and require recognition or something in order to
post here? I remember when this was a site worth reading.
More posts like yours could help. At this point, I wonder if there are
even 20 people READING this group.
David Levy
> From: atsarisb...@gmail.com (Jean Coeur de Lapin) Can't SOMEONE
I think it's interesting that no one yet has brought up the previous
NY-area revival of Flahooley, which was directed by Alisa Roost, who
at the time was an active RATM participant. (That was in 1998.)
Harlett O'Dowd
> I think it's interesting that no one yet has brought up the previous
> NY-area revival of Flahooley, which was directed by Alisa Roost, who
> at the time was an active RATM participant. (That was in 1998.)
That was before my RATM time and after my time in the NYC area.
Otherwise I would have been there like a shot.
Did you see both the 1998 and 2009 productions? Can you compare and
contrast?
David Levy
wrote:
Sorry, I saw neither. But If you Google for Flahooley 1998 you'll get
some detailed reviews.
Steve Newport
the previous NY-area revival of Flahooley, which was directed by Alisa
Roost, who at the time was an active RATM participant. (That was in
1998.)
I saw it-- and BLOOMER GIRL. Each featured a male actor I had worked
with.
Jean Coeur de Lapin
> From: atsarisb...@gmail.com (Jean Coeur de Lapin) Can't SOMEONE
Of course there aren't.
Who wants to wade through all that shit?
J C de L
David Levy
Honestly, I find it easier to wade through the spam we're dealing with
now than the political bullshit we were dealing with a year ago.
fmomoon
"David Levy" <dl...@post.harvard.edu> wrote in message
news:9b73aec9-92f7-4de8...@s31g2000yqs.googlegroups.com...
---------
Amen to that one!
--
Moni
"Who told you that you should be able to walk on water? You're human, get
used to it."
My mom
David Lawver
With a decent newsreader and service you don't need to wade through
anything. I've never tried it, but I hear that Google groups
doesn't give you that option.
--
------------------------------------------------------------------------
David Lawver la...@charter.net
"Without danger, Mr. Bardolph, there is no theatre." -Peter Shaffer
Steve Newport
through the spam we're dealing with now than the political
I certainly don't miss those who came here to primarily or exclusively
respond to the non-theatre threads.