When I was about 12 or 13, growing up in San Francisco in the early 70's, having grown bored with my parents' collection of the usual cast recordings (MY FAIR LADY, SOUTH PACIFIC, OKLAHOMA!), I started prowling the shelves at the local library for something different and found DO I HEAR A WALTZ?
Instead of the usual liner notes on the back cover, here was a slightly out-of-focus, full-page color photo of a middle-aged woman, her hairdo looking frighteningly like something my mother would wear, dancing alone, her dress swirling around her, while a handsome man sat and watched her, seemingly entranced, a big grin on his face. I knew Richard Rodgers, of course, and Sondheim and Laurents from GYPSY and WEST SIDE STORY, but who was Elizabeth Allen? Sergio Franchi I had seen on The Mike Douglas Show, and wasn't Madeline Sherwood the Reverend Mother from 'The Flying Nun? I gotta take this home and listen to it.
From the very first bells chiming, and the opening notes of 'Someone Woke Up' (how modern of them to open without an overture, I thought), I was immediately smitten. I played it over and over again, returned it to the library, and bought a used copy at The Record House on Polk Street so I could play it whenever I wanted. When the CD was released, I reveled in the few extra snippets that had been added. I was ecstatic when I saw SIDE BY SIDE BY SONDHEIM, and learned that there were original, much more cynical lyrics to 'We're Gonna Be Alright' (and gleefully told my friends about the line 'Sometimes she drinks in bed, sometimes he's homosexual'). This was not a musical my parents would like. Nobody returned happily from the war, nobody gave up gambling to become a missionary with the woman he loves, nobody escaped from the Nazis. Leona and Renato parted company at the end of the play, nobody lived happily every after.
I don't know what it was about this show that I loved so much. Was it because it was one of the rare musicals that was set in contemporary times and featured people I felt I could relate to (as opposed to Jews in Russia or sailors in World War II)? As a little gay show-queen-in-training, did I identify with Leona's inability to find love and the fact that she couldn't handle it when she finally did find it? Did I just like the fact that I was mad about a show that nobody knew anything about? (A few years later, after a trip to New York, and a week-long fling with another show-queeen, I wrote a note thanking my host for a 'little but lovely time'. He never replied back).
Fast forward to 2001. I am in the audience at the Pasadena Playhouse. The lights go down and the bells chime, and the first notes of 'Someone Woke Up' start to play, and tears just start streaming down my face. For the first time, I was going to see, on stage, the show that got me through so many nights alone in my room, the show that nobody ever talked about when discussing Sondheim, the show that Sondheim, Rodgers, and Laurents themselves all dismissed.
I loved that production ('Take the Moment' was a breathtaking Act I finale). I still love the score. I still cry at the end when the music swells up, and Leona and Renato go their separate ways, and I hope someday before I die, I get to hear it again live.
BTW: for the Pasadena production, they cut 'Bargaining' and reinstated 'Everybody Loves Leona' and used the original lyrics to 'We're Gonna Be Alright'
'Our whole family shouts. It comes from us livin' so close to the railroad tracks'
