Pipe Dream

There are echoes or prehaps foreshadowings of typical Rogers and Hammerstein melodies in some of the songs of Pipe Dream, and the always lovely "And All at Once you Love Her." Add to that a couple of rousing saloon-ensemble melodies and you've got a score much, much better than the slender book on which it hangs. You want to like these people--the road girl turned not-too-successful whore, the madam with the heart of gold, the "marine biologist" with the University of Chicago PhD who might have opened a major oceanographic institute but instead goofs around pretty much all day on a level not much different from L'il Abner, and various and sundry inhabitants of a Monterrey flophouse and whorehouse--but they're kind of wasting their lives, and they know it and so do you. It's minor Rogers & Hammerstein, but a major evening of fun. Leslie Uggams, whom we all remember as the little girl on Laurence Welk and Sing Along with Mitch and the Ed Sullivan show--is all grown up and sings up a storm, ably aided by Tom Wopat and company. By all means, go and enjoy yourself. It's the kind of show Encores, one of New York City's major achievements in the popular arts, was made to showcase.

There are echoes or prehaps foreshadowings of typical Rogers and Hammerstein melodies in some of the songs of Pipe Dream, and the always lovely "And All at Once you Love Her." Add to that a couple of rousing saloon-ensemble melodies and you've got a score much, much better than the slender book on which it hangs. You want to like these people--the road girl turned not-too-successful whore, the madam with the heart of gold, the "marine biologist" with the University of Chicago PhD who might have opened a major oceanographic institute but instead goofs around pretty much all day on a level not much different from L'il Abner, and various and sundry inhabitants of a Monterrey flophouse and whorehouse--but they're kind of wasting their lives, and they know it and so do you. It's minor Rogers & Hammerstein, but a major evening of fun. Leslie Uggams, whom we all remember as the little girl on Laurence Welk and Sing Along with Mitch and the Ed Sullivan show--is all grown up and sings up a storm, ably aided by Tom Wopat and company. By all means, go and enjoy yourself. It's the kind of show Encores, one of New York City's major achievements in the popular arts, was made to showcase.