Happily, I'm more bemused than
chagrined as I consider that in my 2005 book, The Musical Theatre
Writer's Survival Guide, in
the chapter on libretto writing, I went on record as stating categorically that
Finian's Rainbow is largely unproduceable these days.
The
reasons all were valid enough and remain true: its dramatic structure is
flimsy: there are long stretches in which the urgency of story is dropped in
favor of pausing for songs (all of them, granted, delightful) that are
non-progressive interludes, a number of them even revue-style sidebars
(“Necessity” and “The Begat” among others); its fantasy universe doesn’t hold
up under story-scrutiny, as the devices of magic are employed inconsistently;
and the songs themselves don’t always quite connect with the characters’
psychology and backgrounds, occasionally sacrificing internal sense for
wordplay (i.e. would Og, the displaced Irish leprechaun, new to the world of
humans, just beginning to sort out his feelings about encroaching mortality, know enough about
[then] contemporary [1947] American politics to say to a woman,“I might be
Manish-ish or mouse-ish. / I might be a fowl or fish. / But with thee I'm Eisenhowsish” by way of
indicating boldness?).
Though
Rodgers and Hammerstein had already introduced a new level of maturity with Oklahoma!, that had only
begun two years before, in 1945, Finian’s was likely
already in progress by then or close to it. Perceived in the immediate wake of Oklahoma! it’s very much a
transitional musical, and transparently so, a strange blend of elements that
keep missing integration, congruence and fluidity by small but bumpy degrees.
It’s therefore
easy to explain why it failed in a 1960 revival (too close to the original, too
quaint next to other musicals pushing the envelope) and to theorize why a 1999
reworking closed out-of-town (the new take came off to some as having limited
regard for the original, sacrificing innate charm for interpolated
self-awareness); but the most interesting question is, why does it seem to be such
a rousing success in revival now?
All
one can do is guess, but here’s my best: Enough time has passed that audiences
are prepared for the quaintness of Finian’s Rainbow—there’s
enough perspective that they’re not prone to weigh it in negative contrast to
other shows close to its own generation. And with that obstacle gone, director Warren
Carlisle and cohorts have been able to do something extraordinary.
Notwithstanding mild tweaking by playwright-librettist and credited “book adapter” Arthur
Perlman to remove obsolete “contemporary” references and
jokes, Carlisle & crew have simply presented Finian’s Rainbow as was. As is. Straight up. No
apologies, no soft-pedaling, no revisionist thinking. As the street kids say, “What it is.”
With
many musicals of that general era—the Cole Porter shows come to mind
especially—this isn’t possible: the era’s trendiness and different comic
sensibility was often very deliberately reflected in musical libretti that
doubled as a kind of social commentary. (It’s not a coincidence that this began
to vanish right as television variety shows began showing up; musical theatre
no longer needed to provide that service in so overt a manner, with TV giving
it up for free.) But because Finian’s Rainbow tackles the timeless theme of
racial prejudice within the locale of a set-off, and suddenly magical, Southern
country township; because unlike, say, the Porter shows, the romance is very
low on sly suggestiveness and very high on innocence; it somehow keeps its
charm intact—even in our more jaded new millennium; and that simple
thing—charm—and our back-of-the-mind acknowledgement that Finian’s is very much a
period piece—buy it a whole lotta leeway and a passel of forgiveness.
Serving
it up pure extends here to making it all look old fashioned
too (despite any high tech stuff surreptitiously employed): the scenery is
conspicuously painted, the costumes unapologetically sport happy patterns and
bright pastels; anything meant to be a special effect clearly isn't, but is
delivered so hokily that it virtually dares you not to be a willing conspirator in
the illusion.
And
the casting, in this anything-but-rock musical simply rocks; the cast doesn't
so much play their roles as embody their iconic essence: there is no more
authentic and fetching a trilling colleen than Kate Baldwin, no more
strapping a leading man than Cheyenne Jackson, no more
cunning an old duffer cum colleen's lovin' father than Jim Norton, no more
impish an Oggish leprechaun than Christopher Fitzgerald, no more hiply
wailin' a matriarch than Terri White, no more
blustery a bigoted senator than David Schramm, nor a more
soulful ego for his transformed, RE-formed self than Chuck Cooper, and..…well,
you get the idea.
Add
the original orchestrations by Robert Russell Bennett & Don
Walker as delivered by musical director Rob Berman and his superb
orchestra and the answer to the musical question is unequivocal:
Things
are just fine in Glocca Morra, thank you very much. And in Rainbow Valley,
Missitucky. And at the St. James Theatre. Where they are likely to remain so
for a long, long time...