Hang around the theatre long enough and you grow accustomed to hearing the word "problematic" applied primarily to two things: a Shakespeare play that's not one of his better efforts or the book of a musical that's rarely revived, despite an excellent score.
Since opening in 1965 as Alan Jay Lerner's first musical after the retirement of his long-time partner, Frederick Loewe, On A Clear Day You Can See Forever's book has been unfairly slapped with the label "problematic." Lerner's original story of a psychoanalyst who falls in love with a woman who exists in the subconscious of his hypnotized patient has been nicknamed the musical about ESP he wrote while on LSD.
I beg to differ. Look at Lerner's previous classics. Is a musical about a possible reincarnation any less believable than one about a Scottish town that disappears every hundred years? Or one about two men who spend weeks living together playing dress-up with a pretty young girl without at least one of them coming out of the closet?
And compared with what's currently on Broadway? Please, for craft, intelligence and imagination I'll take the original book of Clear Day over the books of Sister Act, Mamma Mia, The Book of Mormon and most of the current crop. It may not be a great show, but in the world it creates the story makes perfect sense and a good production can give you a swell night out.
But the dollars and cents truth is that, despite a gorgeous score that has Lerner's typically upscale lyrics matched with Burton Lane's typically entrancing melodies, the show is rarely performed nowadays. So when a director with the track record of Michael Mayer says he has an idea about reconceiving the show, the people who own the rights listen. And when a star with the drawing power of Harry Connick, Jr. shows interest, plans for a limited Off-Broadway engagement are scrapped in favor of an open-ended Broadway run.
The supposedly unrevivable chamber musical of 1965 involved Mark Bruckner, a doctor and college professor seriously immersed in the study of hypnosis, who is approached by goofy young Daisy Gamble, who, trying to conform to the wishes of her conservative fiancé, asks to be hypnotized into quitting smoking. While under the doctor's spell, Daisy begins speaking in the cultured British tones of Melinda Wells, a privileged 18th Century lady whose wit and elegance fascinates Mark as a doctor and seduces him as a man. His suspicion that Daisy may be faking it is countered by the fact that, before being put under, she was able to read his mind, sense where a lost book was located and hear a phone before it rang. Not knowing of the past life she's been revealing, Daisy misinterprets Mark's interest in her to be romantic, coming from a man who, unlike her intended, seems perfectly willing to accept her as she is.
The nearly completely new book by Peter Parnell is set in post-Stonewall 1974, shortly after the American Psychiatric Association discontinued its classification of homosexuality as a mental disorder. Dr. Mark Bruckner (Connick) now narrates the show as a presentation about a recent case for the benefit of an audience of his colleagues. His topic is still hypnotism but now the patient who wants to quit smoking is a gay florist named David Gamble (David Turner), who wants to please his perfectly loving, commitment-minded boyfriend, Warren (Drew Gehling). While under, David still turns into Melinda Wells, but now she's a 1940s jazz singer, played by Jessie Mueller, who captivates the doctor with her sensational vocals.
This new approach proves to be... what's the word...? Problematic. Aside from taking away the opportunity for the audience to enjoy watching a talented actress transform herself from the hyper-neurotic Daisy to the cool and sensual Melinda (The general consensus is that Barbara Harris was a sensation in the role.), the double casting and the choice to make Melinda a singer make the plot less believable.
Parnell has Mark entranced by Melinda's singing voice, and though Mueller does supply the evening with its musical highlight, a whip-smart jazz rendering of "Ev'ry Night at Seven" (written by Lerner and Lane for the film Royal Wedding), the audience is left wondering what exactly the doctor is hearing, since the voice that he should actually be listening to is David's.
Later confusion is caused by the staging of one of the show's catchier numbers, "On The S.S. Bernard Cohn," a song originally sung by Daisy to her friends describing how attentive Mark was to her while taking her out on a tour boat. The new mounting has David doing the same, only now, over to the side, there's the added silent presence of Mark keeping company with Melinda on the boat while David wears an ignored expression. Exactly what was going on is as unclear as the first act curtain scene, showing the three of them in some kind of dance together, ending with a blackout just before Mark seems to be about to kiss David. (This moment is explained in the second act, revealing what appears to be a reluctance to show the two men kissing on stage.)
The book makes a valiant attempt to flesh out Mark a bit more by making him a widower still mourning for his wife, with Kerry O'Malley wasted in the throwaway role of a friend who carries a secret torch for him. But the new plot needs to be propelled by a new score. There are perfunctory rewrites given to many of the original's songs (uncredited, making Lerner look bad to the unaware), plus a pair from the Clear Day movie (One of which is introduced with, "I wrote a song for you.") and a few more Royal Wedding tunes, but there's nothing to approach Mark's major conflict; the fact that he, while supposedly heterosexual, is falling for someone that he only sees in the body of a man. Connick spends most of the evening in lethargic gloom, pepping up somewhat when he sits to the side watching other people perform and, since he really has nothing to act, sings like Harry Connick, Jr. in concert.
Similarly, there are no songs left in the score that were written specifically for Melinda, so Mueller, though sounding great, barely has a character to play. Turner's best scenes were lost with the decision to split the role in two, along with any empathy for the fellow he portrays, making his torcher "What Did I Have That I Don't Have?" carry little weight. The character's ability to read minds and hear phones before they ring has been cut, along with the ability to make flowers bloom to miraculous volumes by talking to them, making a great Lerner character lyric, "Hurry! It's Lovely Up Here," superfluous, and the moment is chopped into bits that bridge together book snippets.
"Wait 'Til We're Sixty-Five," a snazzy jazz waltz with a very funny lyric, was originally sung by the stuffy, asexual Warren, whose idea of marital romance was the great retirement benefits he and Daisy will have to look forward to. But the number makes little sense now, squeezed into the plot by a reference to the possibility of gay marriage someday being legal, and shared by Warren, David and their friends. Likewise mangled is the comic song, "When I'm Being Born Again," originally sung by an eccentric Greek millionaire who funds Mark's research, now twisted into an East Indian arrangement and given to his students. At least both songs feature Sarah Stiles, whose energetic comic performance as David's mod friend sparks every moment she's on stage.
Aside from the hacking and misplacement of Lerner's lyrics, Lane's melodies suffer from being encased in Doug Besterman's faux-70s orchestrations that reduce a truly beautiful, romantic score to middlebrow funk. Equally headache-inducing is Christine Jones' scenic design, which sets the piece behind cutouts of psychedelic optical illusions, occasionally lit by Kevin Adams with swirling hypnotic spirals.
Oh, and if you're going to set your musical in June of 1974, it might not be a good idea to add a line that gives the impression the Mets are a lousy team, since they were the defending league champions at the time.
Photos by Paul Kolnik: Top: Jessie Mueller and Harry Connick, Jr.; Bottom: David Turner and Drew Gehling.
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