Coco

I have been listening to the cast recording of Coco and though I was not around to see the wonderful Katharine Hepburn perform this, I have seen the Tony Clip and I find this musical very interesting. The music is fun and even if Katharine Hepburn doesn't have a terrific voice like Julie Andrews she finds a way to make the material work. Anyone have thoughts or appreciation for this musical?

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Regardless of what anyone thinks of the show, Coco was an exciting evening in the theatre for me. Anyone who has the chance to listen to the full-length live recording of the show will appreciate the show much more than by just listening to the OBC. As I recall, Danielle Darrieux was very well received when she replaced Hepburn in the NY company.

I remember reading a story, I wish now I could remember where, which described the difficulty Hepburn was having during Wednesday matinee performances of COCO.

Construction was taking place on the Paramount Plaza tower, on 51st & Broadway, across the street from the Mark Hellinger Theatre, where COCO was playing. It seems that during her first act solo, the noise from the construction was drowning out her voice (this is the years before today's current over-amplification).

So La Hepburn decided to take matters into her own hands and personally visited the construction site on day. Explaining to the awestruck workers the situation, and confessing that the poor matinee ladies up in the balcony had trouble hearing her under the best of circumstances, let alone over the din of construction work, she asked the workers to take their afternoon break between 3:15 and 3:30, just when she was performing her solo. And they did!

If I'm not mistaken, she also took COCO on the road, something stars today rarely do.

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I think they should revive COCO with Miss Coco Peru.

I've always been fascinated by this show for what it did for the development of Michael Bennett as a great director and choreographer. The many lavish costume sequences, use of mirror effects and most importantly the seemless use of montage to suggest rapid movement in time and place and mood were all to be seen again in one form or another in a more perfected form in his later shows -- FOLLIES, A CHORUS LINE, BALLROOM and DREAMGIRLS. COCO was the first place where he was able to experiment with these techniques so I wish I'd been around to see this show -- by all reports it was quite dazzling.

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The story of Kate and the construction crew is told in Tracy and Hepburn by Garson Kanin along with a few other tales.

I second that the star of the show was Michael Bennett. This was a show that moved far more than it danced and that was all Michael's. Many of the 'chorus' were actual models and the others had to look like models. Michael also encouraged each dancer/model to assume a personality of her own.

The unit set was deceptive since it was three sets on a single revolve that went from one room in the salon to the other. However there was a second outer revolve that moved independently of the large inner one. Several times the revolves moved in different directions giving the illusion of speed.

The book construction was weak but Lerner got off a few zingers that I remember to this day ("There's no bitch like a man."). Some of Kate's songs worked well enough but almost everyone else's fell flat. The notable exception was Rene Auberjenois singing Fiasco with a terrifically clever lyric.

Kate didn't want anyone in the wings to be visible during the title song so the velours were pinned shut. A friend who was in the national tour however unpinned the blacks one night and watched and said it was riveting especially since you had an actress who couldn't sing hold an audience spellbound.

Coco closed in NY at a loss, but the investors got their money back and a slight profit from the road tour. Later a stock tour went out starring Ginger Rogers and the original costumes. It played one week stands in places like Westbury and Sacramento and everywhere in between.

There was a definite sapphic subtext between Coco and her protege. Coco had a fit when this pretty young thing 'gave it all up for the love of a man'. Why?

As for an Encores presentation, don't hold your breath. The show is a collector's item, but not very good. It also needs a huge costume budget. There was a red collection during Always Mademoiselle that was easily 30-40 pieces alone. It is visible in the Lost Treasures excerpt.

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