On this date in 1957, "The Most Happy Fella," Frank Loesser's musical romp set in Napa wine country, closed at Broadway's Imperial Theatre after a run of 678 well-received performances. Although Loesser's songs were so strong that critics compared the musical to modern opera, "Most Happy Fella" is less remembered today than its contemporaries. This is hardly a source of shame. In 1956 and 1957, theatergoers in New York could choose between legendary musicals such as "My Fair Lady" (starring Rex Harrison and Julie Andrews), "Bells Are Ringing" (directed by Jerome Robbins and choreographed by Bob Fosse), Rodgers and Hammerstein's "Cinderella," Grammy and multiple Tony Award-winning "The Music Man," and of course, the unforgettable "West Side Story."
That timeless tale had premiered in Washington, D.C., at the National Theatre with Leonard Bernstein mingling on opening night with senators, ambassadors and dignitaries ranging from Ethel Kennedy to Justice Felix Frankfurter. Bernstein told people he had had lunch at the White House where "West Side Story" was a source of fascination. Positive reviews resulted in a sold-out five-week run before the show headed to Philadelphia on its way to the Big Apple. "It's only Washington, not New York, [so] don't count chickens," Bernstein wrote to his wife. "But it sure looks like a smash."
"West Side Story" was certainly a hit. It opened on Broadway at the Winter Garden Theatre on Sept. 26, 1957, and ran for 732 performances before going on tour. By that time, a movie project was in the works, aided by the infusion of Hollywood director Robert Wise and film actress Natalie Wood.
Although the star-crossed lovers in "West Side Story" inhabit an iconic American morality play, the story has antecedents that far predate the creation of this country. It is a classic human story, as I wrote a couple of years ago. That was before Steven Spielberg decided to do a remake of the 1961 movie version. Spielberg's "West Side Story" is pretty faithful to the first film, with some nods toward nostalgia and modern sensibility. ("Doc," who owns the drugstore where the Sharks and Jets have their war council, is replaced by his "widow." Her name is Valentina and in a nice touch she's played by Rita Moreno, who starred in the first motion picture.)
It is well-known that the inspiration for "West Side Story" was "Romeo and Juliet," but where did William Shakespeare get his idea? And what, exactly, was the nature of the dispute between the houses of Montague and Capulet?
The answer to the first question, we know: Shakespeare borrowed his idea, characters, plot line -- even the title -- from a narrative poem published in 1562 by a British playwright named Arthur Brooke, who titled his tragedy "Romeus and Juliet."
And though the Bard never really provides his audience an underlying rationale for the Montague-Capulet feud, Brooke did. His story, with its anti-Catholic undertones, is a cautionary tale about how lust leads young people to ignore their elders and pursue love outside their religious caste.
Four centuries later, theater producer and dance choreographer Jerome Robbins (nee Rabinowitz) endeavored to explore that theme in a musical and dance production. Robbins tentatively called his idea "East Side Story" and planned to stage the action in the spring when Passover and Easter expose the underlying tensions between the families of a Jewish girl (Juliet) and her Catholic boyfriend (Romeo).
Robbins approached the talented Arthur Laurents to write the play, and asked world-famous composer and conductor Leonard Bernstein to conjure up the music. This was in 1949, and those who knew of the project were skeptical that three giant talents, with egos to match, could collaborate -- or even whether Robbins' vision would work on stage.
"‘Abie's ‘Irish Rose' to music -- the dance of the garbage cans," scoffed ballerina Nora Kaye. "Your three temperaments in one room, and the walls will come down."
As Laurents himself later conceded, Kaye's wry skepticism came pretty close to the mark. Their temperaments did clash, and the New York apartment building where they first met to discuss the writing was literally torn down before they got anything on paper.
"But Robbins is a man of distinct determination," Laurents wrote later. "In 1955, the three of us met again (in another building that has since been torn down: wreckage proceeds faster these days). Human wreckage, too, and we found ourselves discussing a headline aspect: juvenile delinquency."
A couple of months after that, while in Hollywood working on a film project to pay the bills (pay their tax bills, actually, but that's a story for another day), Bernstein and Laurents continued their brainstorming around the pool at the Beverly Hills Hotel. The Los Angeles newspapers were full of stories about ethnic-based gangs, which, as they say in the movie business, provided the characters with their motivation.
Laurents and Bernstein shifted the action in their play from New York's Lower East Side to the Upper West Side. Robbins' (and Brooke's) religious tensions gave way to the more primal turf fight between a Puerto Rican street gang and a self-described "American" gang. The two men then did something counter-intuitive: They added a fourth virtuoso to their creative group, a young lyricist and composer named Stephen Sondheim.
The musical was a tremendous hit, from D.C. to San Francisco. The movie version was even bigger. Released on Oct. 18, 1961, it was both a commercial and critical success: the top grossing movie of the year and winner of 10 Academy Awards, including Best Picture.
Did we really need a remake now? It seems that a contemporary version could draw on the original story, perhaps with feuding Muslim and Christian (or Jewish) clans. Or perhaps that's too tame. If we really want to ask the audience to suspend disbelief for a couple of hours, shouldn't one of the doomed lovers come from a Republican family and the other be raised by Democrats?
Ah, in that case, you ask: To whom would independents, the nation's fastest growing political cohort, relate? Perhaps with the Mercutio-based character, who could still say, as he does in the Shakespeare original, "A plague o' both your houses! They have made worms' meat of me!"
Carl M. Cannon is the Washington bureau chief for RealClearPolitics. Reach him on Twitter @CarlCannon.
