Face The Music: Ripped From The Headlines

"Ripped from the headlines," may be a familiar phrase for fans of TV's Law and Order, but in the 1930's it could have been the slogan for Broadway's musicals.  In an era when a full-scale show could go from initial idea to opening night in a matter of months, musical theatre in the Depression years was a hotbed of political satire.  One such show, Irving Berlin and Moss Hart's 1932 Face The Music, which just enjoyed a sensational concert mounting at City Center courtesy of Encores!, went so far as to rip its plot from a city-wide scandal while it was still taking place!

Though he's never mentioned by name, Broadway audiences spotted New York Mayor Jimmy Walker's fingerprints all over the musical's setting of a Gotham suffering the height of the Depression while corrupt government officials on the take were living large.  The fact that city cops were accepting graft from bootleggers and that those in charge of an internal investigation were invited dip their hands into the infamous "little tin boxes" was common, though not proven, knowledge.  In real life it wasn't until New York's Governor Franklin Delano Roosevelt stepped in that cops began "living on their salaries" and Gentleman Jimmy resigned and hopped the next liner to France, paving the way for the mayorship of then-congressman Fiorello H. Laguardia.  But in Face The Music the police dodge that bullet by finding the fastest way possible to lose money; investing in a Broadway musical.

Encores! themselves performed an extensive investigation in order to prepare the score of Face The Music for Rob Fisher's 28-piece orchestra.  Musicals weren't exactly regarded as preservable works of art during the 1930's, especially one like Face The Music where the plot and jokes were so contemporary.  For this production, a team headed by Bruce Pomahac, Director of Music for the Rodgers and Hammerstein Organization (which represents Irving Berlin's copyrights) hunted down and carefully pieced together from orchestral parts full of marks and revisions from changes that were made not only in previews, but well into the run and subsequent tour, to provide the most accurate restoration possible of what Berlin and his orchestrators (Frank Tours, Robert Russell Bennett and Maurice DePackh) put before the opening night audience.  Aside from the entertainment value of the production, this preservation of our musical theatre heritage is an applause-worthy effort.  (The concert reading also included four songs not in the original production, three of which have been given period sounding orchestrations by Russell Warner.)

And Berlin's score is quite an interesting one, with lyrics that contain a sharper satirical bite than you might expect from him.  An opening number taking place at the automat, where the formerly wealthy have reserved tables ("Times are not so sweet / But the blue bloods have to eat.") is followed by the hit tune "Let's Have Another Cup of Coffee," mocking optimistic clichés.  ("Just around the corner there's a rainbow in the sky…  Mr. Herbert Hoover says it's now the time to buy.")  A plot centered around a lavish musical revue produced on a budget, The Rhinestones of 1932, gave the composer/lyricist ample opportunity to spoof himself.  Earlier in his career Berlin had contributed songs to several editions of the opulent Ziegfeld Follies before moving on to create the more modest Music Box Revues.  Songs like "My Beautiful Rhinestone Girl" and "Crinoline Days" warmly mock the pageantry of Ziegfeld's spectaculars.

Musically, Broadway's ragtime master seemed to be experimenting a bit with the type of jazz influence more associated with George Gershwin, particularly with the syncopated dramatics of "Manhattan Madness."  Another great number "You Must Be Born With It" has a brief passage that seems to be a send-up of Rhapsody In Blue.  And an extended courtroom sequence, mixing dialogue and recurring musical themes, builds to a climax right out of The Threepenny Opera, except the deus ex machina comes riding in on an elephant this time.

I recall quite a few long, unfunny stretches in Moss Hart's book the last time I attended a concert reading of Face The Music, but they apparently have been axed in David Ives' nicely streamlined concert adaptation which wisely holds on to long forgotten topical references like how nobody wanted an office at the Empire State Building when it first opened.  ("It's so central, yet so far away from everything.")

Director John Rando's cast was aces all around.  Judy Kaye mixed the haughtiness of Margaret Dumont with the innocence of Gracie Allen in her role as the police chief's (lovably gruff Lee Wilkof) wife, being one of the few who, in 2007, can get away with a line like, "We have a grotto in the show?  Isn't that where the Jews live?"

Walter Bobbie was full of show-biz moxie as the slick producer ("The Theatre Guild – now there's a racket… Their shows sell out for six weeks and no one enjoys 'em.") while Jeffrey Denman and Meredith Patterson made for a smooth and classy song-and-dance couple.

Eddie Korbich and Mylinda Hull stopped the show cold with a tap routine that must have sent electric sparks snapping out of their shoes.  Randy Skinner's lively period choreography was a highlight throughout the evening.

As a streetwalker turned showgirl, Felicia Finley brought a loony sex appeal to "Torch Song", a clever number about how she wants to be mistreated by men so she could become a star singing about it.  ("I want to sit upon a piano or an organ / Pouring out my heart like Helen Morgan.")

No doubt few but the musical theatre aficionados in town had ever heard of Face The Music when Encores! announced this production, so it certainly could be considered a bit of a risky venture compared with, say, their previous mounting of Follies.  Hopefully, this sparkling production will encourage more and more audiences to be willing to give lesser-known, unrecorded musicals from the great masters a chance.

Photos by Joan Marcus:  Top:  Lee Wilkof and Judy Kaye

Center:  Meredith Patterson and Jeffrey Denman

Bottom:  Walter Bobbie and Company