Anyone Can Whistle

The seemingly impossible happened in 1964 when two genius writers, namely Arthur Laurents and Stephen Sondheim, wrote a most random and bazaar failure of a musical called ANYONE CAN WHISTLE. The New York City Center, Encores! has revived the oddity, but rather than thinking, “This is great! Why don’t people revive this lost gem more often,” there is a swift recognition of exactly why the show only ran nine performances. If it weren’t for the super talents of the current cast, there would be very little to recommend. To start with there was Donna Murphy in the role originated by Angela Lansbury, Cora Hoover Hooper the Mayor. Murphy got the show going with a bang as she belted out “Me and My Town” supported by four male dancers. For some reason she looked like Debbie Reynolds in the first act with her pink early sixties suit and blonde hair. In the second act she morphed into Lucille Ball during the “Here’s Lucy” period (either of those ladies might have worked in the role). Murphy also scored with an effective singing of “A Parade in Town” and kept the show buzzing with a manic comic energy. Next there was Sutton Foster as Fay Apple. She stopped the show with her vocal trumpeting of “There Won’t Be Trumpets” and was delightful during her impersonation of a French soubrette. Foster sang the title song with a charming sweetness and reprised it later on in an exciting up tempo version that was exhilarating. Finally there was Raúl Esparza as J. Bowden Hapgood, the impostor of a doctor. His quirky dancing character, with a willowy Dick Van Dyke quality was immediately ingratiating and he triumphed with his singing of “Everybody Says Don’t.” An ensemble dance, “The Cookie Chase,” showed the crazy people escaping from the funny farm and thanks to Casey Nicholaw’s inspired direction and choreography the number was the biggest success of the production. Yes the score contains, “There Won’t Be Trumpets”, “Everybody Says Don’t” and “Anyone Can Whistle,” but that ends the greatness of the material. The story is silly and outlandish and none of the characters are believable as actual people. The real success of the show is the current cast and creative team and even these top talents of the business can’t save ANYONE CAN WHISTLE.

Fanny

Nothing in my experience with James Snyder, which goes back to him playing Harold Hill in his high school production of MUSIC MAN, prepared me for the voice that came out of him in FANNY at City Center Encores! Certainly nothing in the short lived Broadway production of CRY BABY told us that James should be singing the Harold Rome score of FANNY. However, there he was on that City Center stage, with the first song out, soaring vocally with a kind of thrill in his voice that one gets from Brent Barrett (I once went to see Brent Barrett in GRAND HOTEL four times in one week for that thrill). His father is played by the legendary George Hearn and the Fanny of the title is played by a glorious newcomer, Elena Shadow, who sings with a lovely soprano. The other leading character, Panisse, is played with superb comic subtlety by Fred Applegate. Supported by a generous collection of supporting players, including Priscilla Lopez, FANNY is a rich romantic story with an absolutely gorgeous score. As always, a major featured player in an Encores show is Rob Berman’s orchestra, which is big and lush. It is a wonder that FANNY is not produced more often, for it is no more challenging than any Rodgers and Hammerstein show and those are over done. FANNY is a treat––a serious dramatic love story with a French seaside setting and beautiful music. Marc Bruni directed a clean, no nonsense production adorned with Lorin Latarro’s folksy choreography. John Lee Beatty gave this concert production a set that would be welcomed by any regional civic light opera company, while Martin Pakledinaz’s costumes did just enough to define character and finish out a unified look for the production.