Theater News

Charitable Memories

Filichia recalls the opening night of Sweet Charity and tells of his personal history with the show.

It was 39 years ago this past weekend — on Saturday evening, January 29, 1966, to be precise — that I attended my very first opening night on Broadway: Sweet Charity at the newly refurbished Palace Theatre. Well, of course, I had to be there, given that I was an investor in the production. It happened after I met a young man who’d already put money in Anyone Can Whistle, Fiddler on the Roof, The Roar of the Greasepaint — The Smell of the Crowd, and Pleasures and Palaces. When he told me that he was investing in this new musical with a book by Neil Simon (who’d already written four good shows), music by Cy Coleman, lyrics by the legendary Dorothy Fields, direction and choreography by Bob Fosse, how could I resist? The story may not have sounded terrific — a dance-hall hostess can’t find the right boyfriend, no matter how hard she tries — but, with all those people involved, it just had be to great.

How much did I invest? Let’s just say that it was a great deal for a 19-year-old who was working his way through college as a $1.10-an-hour hotel desk clerk. Needless to say, I was wildly excited as I entered the Palace in my rented tux with my ticket in hand. Faithful readers will recall that, a few weeks ago, I was mourning the death of the modest-sized tickets of yesteryear and the rise of the big, computer-card monstrosities that replaced them. But the opening night ticket for Sweet Charity was bigger still, and I didn’t mind a bit: It was a handsome, gold-toned piece that, after it was ripped, still measured six-and-a-half inches wide and three inches tall. The words, “Fryer, Carr, and Harris present Gwen Verdon as Sweet Charity, A New Musical Comedy” were on it, bisected by the picture-logo of Verdon in that now-famous stance where she’s looking at us over her left shoulder. “Opening Night, 7 p.m. Front Mezzanine: F-28,” said the ticket, which was stamped with the steep price of $12. This was by far the most that I’d ever paid for a theater ticket — but it was opening night in New York, after all. I already felt that I’d gotten my money’s worth as I ascended the staircase and saw the most glorious portrait of Judy Garland.

The overture began with the six-note vamp that I’d already come to know from Peggy Lee’s rendition of “Big Spender,” which had been permeating the airwaves. Then it segued to a song that I hadn’t heard (“If My Friends Could See Now”) before going into one that I definitely had heard: “You Wanna Bet,” recorded by Barbra Streisand for Columbia and released as a single. But wait a minute; that number had been dropped in Detroit! (We big investors know such things.) Why was it still in the overture? Within two hours, I’d learn the answer: Dorothy Fields had refitted Cy Coleman’s melody with a new lyric that made it the show’s title song.

I knew the next melody, too: “There’s Gotta Be Something Better Than This,” courtesy of Sylvia Syms’ Columbia recording. (On the back of that was another Charity song, “Poor Everybody Else,” which had been dropped in Philadelphia but would resurface seven years later in Coleman and Fields’ Seesaw.) Then came “Where Am I Going?” (on the other side of Streisand’s “You Wanna Bet”). And then, after another unfamiliar tune (“I’m a Brass Band”), the overture came to a close. Hmmm, no “Baby, Dream Your Dream,” which I knew from Tony Bennett’s recording — again on Columbia. No one could accuse that company of not promoting the music that would soon be on its original cast album. (Plugging such songs was still possible in an era when so many radio stations played that kind of music.)

The curtain went up and there, with her back to us, was the great Gwen Verdon, who let us know just from her seductive stance that she was going to be something special in a show that would be equally wonderful. She started dancing as a few LED boards told us that we’d be seeing “The Adventures of Charity: The Story of a Girl Who Wanted to Be Loved.” Well, what else could we give her but love, considering that the out-of-town reviews had pretty much all been raves for her and for the show? So imagine my chagrin when her first song was a dud. Some months later, I came to like “You Should See Yourself,” but on that first night, I feared for my investment. Why was a jazz waltz beginning a Broadway musical?

Gwen Verdon in Sweet Charity
Gwen Verdon in Sweet Charity

Truth to tell, Sweet Charity turned out to be a bittersweet evening and far less than what I’d expected it to be. Lord knows, there were glorious highs. Let me count them: 1) “Big Spender,” in which Charity’s colleagues at the Fandango Ballroom stopped the show — pretty remarkable, considering that the dancers did virtually no dancing in it. 2) “Charity’s Soliloquy,” which Ms. Verdon delivered while dancing with various Fandango clients. (It had a great then-topical joke, too: Charity complained that her boyfriend wanted “to go to Florida — come on down!” This echoed an Eastern Airlines TV commercial.) 3) “The Rich Man’s Frug,” an astonishing trio of dances performed at the disco to which Italian film star Vittorio Vidal took Charity before bringing her home — and then putting her in a closet when his girlfriend arrived. There was a great sight gag here when Charity lit a cigarette but then didn’t know what to do about the smoke. Luckily, there was a garment bag in the closet, so she unzipped it and exhaled the fumes into it before zipping it closed, repeating the process until Vittorio and his inamorata were in the sack. 4) The lyrics to “There’s Gotta Be Something Better Than This” that weren’t in the pop version, which suggested that if you took the girl out of the dance hall, there’d still be a lot of dance hall in the girl. 5) The elevator scene, in which Charity got stuck with a guy who turned out to be frighteningly claustrophobic. Charity tried to calm him down: SHE: “What’s your name?” HE (bravely, trying to keep calm): “Oscar Lindquist.” SHE: “Where do you live?” HE (suddenly wildly out of control and banging the walls): “In an elevator!” 6) The heavenly “Rhythm of Life” mock-new age church service, in which we had another topical reference, this time a musical one: The cast went “doobie-doobie-do” in the style of the then-popular Swingle Singers, who never sang lyrics and only scatted. 7) The extra lyrics in “Baby, Dream Your Dream,” which occurred after Charity’s friends mocked her budding romance with Oscar and predicted doom, only to admit: “But, come to think of it, how happy I would be if I could find the kind of guy who’d say to me, ‘Baby, dream your dream.” 8) Though there were no extra lyrics in “Where Am I Going?”, Verdon made every line that I already knew sing anew.

But there were lows, too, in addition to the aforementioned 1) “You Should See Yourself.” 2) The device where Charity asked Vittorio for souvenirs of her visit with him was fine in theory but clunky in its specifics. Wasn’t it all too convenient that, of all things, he’d drag out a hat and cane for use in the number that Verdon would be doing? 3) I couldn’t understand why Oscar said he’d marry Charity, only to change his mind the next day. Now I do — but, remember, I was very young then. 4) The ending! If you’ve only seen the film, you’ve been spared the conclusion of the stage show, where — I swear it — Charity’s fairy godmother came out to greet her. Then this supernatural visitor spun around and showed the sign board on her back: “Watch The Good Fairy on CBS tonight at 8pm.” Charity shrugged and smiled but, by that point, we’d come to care deeply about this woman, so it wasn’t at all satisfying for the show to end with her smiling winsomely.

In his review dated Sunday, January 30, 1966, Walter Kerr did some counting up, too: “There are at least six things that will interest you in Sweet Charity — the dances, the scenery, the songs, Gwen Verdon, Gwen Verdon, Gwen Verdon.” Indeed; and yet, when the show was revived 20 years later, it did quite well even without Ms. V. In fact, the piece itself seemed stronger to us. (That’s because we’d been through a number of shows that weren’t nearly as good). For that production, the show still under the reins (and reign) of Bob Fosse. Now we’re going to see a new Sweet Charity on Broadway. I recently attended the press preview and I have a few opinions on what I saw and heard, but they’ll keep till next time.

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[To contact Peter Filichia directly, e-mail him at pfilichia@theatermania.com]