Richard Seff on PAL JOEY

[hockeynut2]

Posted: 1/7/09 at 11:45am

One of the more quoted critical quotes of the last century is Brooks Atkinson’s conclusion to his review of the original production the Rogers-Hart-O’Hara collaboration Pal Joey in 1940. The terminal sentence was: “Can you draw sweet water from a foul well?” Well, no, you can’t, but that’s just the point of the startling and effective revival brought to us by Roundabout at Studio 54. The authors never intended a “sweet water” musical. But in 1940 that was all that was allowed. Yes, a Carousel was on the horizon, but Billy Bigelow had to die and get redeemed after death. The Music Man and How to Succeed in Business were still a decade away, but their central characters, both con men (charming of course), would see the light, or be so charming that no one minded his stepping on everyone in his race to the top....
RICHARD SEFF ON PAL JOEY

[Bettyboy72]

Posted: 1/7/09 at 12:02pm

THANK YOU RICHARD! Finally someone who agrees with me. Stockard's delivery of her songs is haunting and heartbreaking. She is such a fine actress. I also feel Matthew is stellar. Martha is a revelation. If you havent seen it, go.

[CurtainPullDowner]

Posted: 1/7/09 at 1:26pm

Hoff broke his foot?

I agree with a lot of this review.

[nobodyhome]

Posted: 1/7/09 at 1:27pm

No one ever mentions Billion Dollar Baby! I know why, but I do think it's an historically important show (as well as an interesting one) when discussing shows with anti-heroes, or an anti-heroine in this case. And an anti-heroine next to whom most of those other guys look like Florence Nightingale.

[PalJoey]

Posted: 1/7/09 at 2:32pm

He's kinder to Greenburg and Mantello than I would be, but he's on-target about the show always having been a bitter pill to swallow.

I keep saying that about the original O'Hara stories themselves: Joey is odious in them. O'Hara had fun with that. Rodgers and Hart and George Abbott had fun with that too. If they hadn't found Gene Kelly's once-in-a-century charisma, the original production would never have run for 300-some performances.

But Joey has always been unlikable and Pal Joey has always been a "problem musical."

[nobodyhome]

Posted: 1/7/09 at 2:49pm

"I keep saying that about the original O'Hara stories themselves: Joey is odious in them. O'Hara had fun with that. Rodgers and Hart and George Abbott had fun with that too. If they hadn't found Gene Kelly's once-in-a-century charisma, the original production would never have run for 300-some performances."

I haven't read the stories. Maybe Joey is worse in them. But I wouldn't say he was odious in the 1952 script. More pathetic. He's not bright, and he lets his dick and his ambition lead him. But odious? Not to my mind. Sympathetic? No, but not odious. More deserving of pity than anything else, at least in what we see of him in the show.

[PalJoey]

Posted: 1/7/09 at 2:56pm

Oh, you should read them! They're wonderful. They're all letters to "Dear Friend Ted" signed "yr Pal, Joey." (Hence my signature.)

O'Hara makes all of Joey's over-inflated egotistical boasts and artistic pretensions painfully clear to the reader--and probably to Friend Ted too. Their friendship sours toward the end, and you get the impression that Joey has done this to everyone in his life.

The charm in the stories is the voice that O'Hara created for Joey--a kind of grittier Damon Runyon style, with lots of invented slang.

[nobodyhome]

Posted: 1/7/09 at 3:18pm

Thanks for the recommendation. I should read them. I've never read any O'Hara, except for the show's published script, which does have some great dialogue (along with some dramatic problems).

[wonkit]

Posted: 1/8/09 at 8:30pm

In the book, Joey is heel, and he don't write so good neither.

[PalJoey]

Posted: 1/8/09 at 8:59pm

Finally! Someone else who's read the stories!