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It's also the stuff of Broadway legend: a nine-performance flop in 1964 despite music and lyrics by Stephen Sondheim and a book by Arthur Laurents, who only a few years earlier had collaborated (with composer Jule Styne) on one of the greatest musicals of all time, "Gypsy."
But you're probably never going to see a better production of "Anyone Can Whistle" than the concert version Encores! opened Thursday at City Center for a four-day run that's become one of the hottest tickets in New York. Under the imaginative direction and choreography of Casey Nicholaw and featuring an exemplary cast headed by Donna Murphy, Sutton Foster and Raul Esparza, the show is fascinating in its wild ambition.
It's an ambition not realized in Laurents' unwieldy book, a bizarre fable about a destitute town looking for financial salvation and a bogus miracle it hopes will bring in the dough. The plot is hatched by the town's conniving mayor, played by the indefatigable Murphy. The actress, who seems to be channeling a mixture of Kay Thompson and Angela Lansbury (the show's original star), throws herself into the role with an abandon that's beyond fierce.
Pilgrims flock to the miracle site, a rock that spouts water. The crowds include Nurse Apple, played by Foster, and her charges, patients from Dr. Detmold's Asylum for the Socially Pressured, otherwise known as the Cookie Jar.
But are they really disturbed? Placed in charge of finding out who is a real pilgrim and who is a Cookie is Detmold's newly arrived assistant, J. Bowden Hapgood, played by Esparza. The role is perfect for Esparza, who plays Hapgood with just the right amount of manic slyness.
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Even though the show's first production quickly expired, Sondheim buffs know the score, thankfully preserved back then by Columbia Records and producer Goddard Lieberson. Sondheim's music takes extraordinary chances, particularly in the deceptively titled "Simple." It's Hapgood's musical explanation
- using the principles of logic - of how he will determine which of the pilgrims are real and which are residents of the Cookie Jar.
The song also encapsulates one of the themes of the show: "No one's always what they seem to be." That quest for identity percolates throughout "Anyone Can Whistle," particularly later in the evening when Nurse Apple pours out her insecurities in the lovely title song, delivered by Foster with a touching simplicity.
That simplicity is reiterated in "With So Little to Be Sure Of," one of Sondheim's most heartfelt declarations of love. Anyone who says the master's music and lyrics are cold and emotional distant hasn't been listening.
[Associated
Press; By MICHAEL KUCHWARA]
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