Questions about ANYTHING GOES
Questions about ANYTHING GOES
zamedy
Broadway Star Joined: 6/27/07
#1Questions about ANYTHING GOES
Posted: 7/4/13 at 10:04pm
My new obsession is the cast recording of the '87 revival w/LuPone. I got it a few days ago and have been playing it non-stop. Love the energy that just pops right off that CD. And while I'm not a HUGE LuPone fan, her rendition of BLOW, GABRIEL BLOW is incredible. Just a fun, fun CD. I definitely prefer it over the more recent revival (which I also have).
Question: Track 1 begins with Cole Porter signing 'Anthing Goes.' Incredible. Did they play a recording of him doing the same at the beginning of every show in the '87 revival before the orchestra began playing?
Also.. ANYTHING GOES debuted in 1934. It's a musical comedy.. yet OKLAHOMA! is often given credit for being the first 'breakthrough musical' that gave us the book musical as we know it today (isn't it?). But ANYTHING GOES is also a strong book musical that debuted nine years earlier.
#2Questions about ANYTHING GOES
Posted: 7/4/13 at 10:37pm
Yup. The show opened with the recording of Cole Porter singing and ended with his picture being lowered during the curtain call.
As for your other question, Anything Goes was kind of a screwball comedy type book. Oklahoma was more of a story story.
Updated On: 7/4/13 at 10:37 PM
zamedy
Broadway Star Joined: 6/27/07
Broadway Star Joined: 12/31/69
#3Questions about ANYTHING GOES
Posted: 7/5/13 at 1:28amI've also always wondered this. Great to finally get an answer!
#4Questions about ANYTHING GOES
Posted: 7/5/13 at 1:46amAlso, didn't they have a new book for LuPone/Foster? What was the book like in 1934?
"You can't overrate Bernadette Peters. She is such a genius. There's a moment in "Too Many Mornings" and Bernadette doing 'I wore green the last time' - It's a voice that is just already given up - it is so sorrowful. Tragic. You can see from that moment the show is going to be headed into such dark territory and it hinges on this tiny throwaway moment of the voice." - Ben Brantley (2022)
"Bernadette's whole, stunning performance [as Rose in Gypsy] galvanized the actors capable of letting loose with her. Bernadette's Rose did take its rightful place, but too late, and unseen by too many who should have seen it" Arthur Laurents (2009)
"Sondheim's own favorite star performances? [Bernadette] Peters in ''Sunday in the Park,'' Lansbury in ''Sweeney Todd'' and ''obviously, Ethel was thrilling in 'Gypsy.'' Nytimes, 2000
#5Questions about ANYTHING GOES
Posted: 7/5/13 at 2:59am
The 1934 "Anything Goes" was basically the same story as the current versions, but with lots more puns for William Gaxton and visual gags for Victor Moore. Gaxton and Moore were the wildly successful Nathan Lane and Matthew Broderick of the 20s and 30s. They starred in "Anything Goes", "Of Thee I Sing" and about a dozen other big hits. Moore made movies but Gaxton never really made the transition. He remained on Broadway and was the President of the Lambs Club.
As for the book question, it's all Oscar Hammerstein. He created the first true musical with a story in the 1920s with "Showboat" and then spent the 30s trying to match that hit - unsuccessfully. When he teamed up with Rodgers for "Oklahoma" they began a string of "musical plays" as opposed to musical comedies and conquered Broadway.
http://www.broadwayworld.com/board/readmessage.cfm?thread=972787#3631451
http://www.broadwayworld.com/board/readmessage.cfm?thread=963561#3533883
http://www.broadwayworld.com/board/readmessage.cfm?thread=955158#3440952
http://www.broadwayworld.com/board/readmessage.cfm?thread=954269#3427915
http://www.broadwayworld.com/board/readmessage.cfm?thread=955012#3441622
http://www.broadwayworld.com/board/readmessage.cfm?thread=954344#3428699
Updated On: 7/5/13 at 02:59 AM
#6Questions about ANYTHING GOES
Posted: 7/5/13 at 6:16am
I haven't seen the original book for ANYTHING GOES, but you can bet it was nothing like what you are seeing today. (I believe the book originally dealt with a shipwreck, but the book was quickly rewritten after a real shipwreck made the subject inappropriate for humor.)
(I have seen a "museum" recreation as well as the 1960s revisal of BABES IN ARMS and the differences are striking!)
Musicals of the 1930s often hired vaudeville comics and invented flimsy excuses for the comics to do their vaudeville routines. The musical comedy was an entirely different form back then (with the possible exception of the Princess musicals of Wodehouse and Kern, which seem to have been a bit more character-based).
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