All in Theatre Time Machine
At one point in time, Man of La Mancha was a very popular musical that was produced with frequency and with great reverence. Based on the book Don Quixote by Cervantes, the tale of the knight errant who travels an ugly and bleak world and refuses to see anything but optimism and beauty has been an inspiration to many. Man of La Mancha also includes a score that features one of theatre's most-beloved anthems of hope, "The Impossible Dream".
A musical that is rarely performed anymore, but one that was once a theatregoer favorite, is Frank Loesser’s Where’s Charley? The musical is based on the once-popular farce Charley’s Aunt written in 1892 by playwright Brandon Thomas. This comedy of errors includes cross dressing and wildly ridiculous situations of a performer playing two characters.
One of the most durable musical comedies of all time is the nutty and tuneful Anything Goes. Written in 1934, this one owes its shelf-life to the champagne and cotton candy score of Cole Porter, chock full of many of his greatest ear worms, to mention his clever use of internal and arch rhymes. The musical has no definitive script or song list because, with each inception, the book has been altered and different Cole Porter songs have been substituted for others in the score. What has been always consistent is that Anything Goes is a screwball comedy full of great music and loads of synchronized tap dance, set aboard an ocean liner making its way across the Atlantic from New York to London.
With the recent closing of the Lincoln Center production of The King and I, I thought it would be an appropriate tribute to this lovely production to look back on this oft-revived musical.
Rodgers and Hammerstein had just enjoyed another major success with the Pulitzer Prize-winning South Pacific and set about the find a new property for musicalization. Margaret Landon's novel Anna and the King of Siam would be their source. Based on a true story, the novel told the story of a British governess brought to the royal palace of the King of Siam to teach his wives and children in the Western philosophies and contemporary thought. The musical followed the complicated professional relationship between the monarch and his new employee (and perhaps friend), and their struggle to find a middle ground where tradition and change could coexist.
