Dear Old ‘Syracuse’:

By Bert Fink ​

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A musical comedy based on Shakespeare? "The mere fact that it had never been done before," wrote Richard Rodgers in his autobiography, "was reason enough for us to start thinking that it should be our next project." 

The year was 1938. At the top of their game, and still rebounding from a stifling five-year period in Hollywood, composer Richard Rodgers and his partner, lyricist Lorenz Hart, were dazzling Broadway with a series of musical comedies as innovative as they were popular. Their latest, I Married An Angel, promised to merge sleek sophistication with ethereal innocence, but one weekend that Spring work on the new musical was anything but heavenly. So they retreated to Atlantic City for some diversionary r&r and, on the train ride down, discussed ideas for their next show. Reviewing the classics, the men realized that William Shakespeare had never been tapped as a musical comedy source, and they quickly narrowed the field to one ideal candidate: The Comedy of Errors. 

Their interest in Comedy was due in no small part to nepotism. Larry's younger brother, a solid comic actor named Teddy Hart who had appeared on Broadway in Three Men on a Horse and Room Service, was frequently mistaken for another equally comic actor of his day, Jimmy Savo, and invariably collided with Jimmy at auditions. Larry was determined to mastermind a vehicle with parts for both Teddy and Jimmy. "You could see those wheels turning," wrote Dorothy Hart, Teddy’s widow, in her book, Thou Swell, Thou Witty. "To Larry, a Shakespearean nut since childhood, the Dromios from The Comedy Of Errors was an immediate inspiration."

Rooted in ancient farce, the musical version of Comedy called for a director-as-rinsmaster who could handle the door-slammins, girl-chasing shenanigans with finesse. Enter George Abbott, who took to the idea so readily that even though the book was supposed to be crafted by all three men, he trumped his collaborators with "a draft" that was already perfect. 

With Abbott as author, director and producer, the creative team quickly grew to include some of their old pals: choreographer George Balanchine, production designer Jo Mielziner, costume designer Irene Sharaff and orchestrator Hans Spialek. Teddy Hart and Jimmy Savo took on the roles tailored for them, and their masters were, respectively, Eddie Albert and Ronald Graham. Joining the men were Marcy Westcott (as Luciana), Muriel Angelus (Adriana) and Wynn Murray (Luce).

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Loaded with mischief and sly winks (even its title, The Boys from Syracuse, was said to salute two showbiz boys from Syracuse, New York: Lee and J.J. Shubert), the musical romped through New Haven and Boston before opening at Broadway’s Alvin Theatre on November 23,1938, where it received glowing notices. "If you have been wondering all these years just what was wrong with The Comedy of Errors," wrote Richard Watts, Jr., in the New York Herald Tribune, "it is now possible to tell you. It has been waiting for a score by Rodgers and Hart, and direction by George Abbott." 

The Broadway run of 235 performances, substantial for its day, was overshadowed 25 years later by an Off-Broadway revival at Theatre Four, directed by Christopher Hewett and featuring Clifford David, Stuart Damon, and Karen Morrow that ran for over 500 performances. Its success was not replicated in the Bard’s homeland, however, where Hewett’s production at the Drury Lane was coldly received and closed after just 100 performances, despite star turns from Bob Monkhouse and Denis Quilley and orchestrations by Ralph Burns. But London theatregoers redeemed themselves in 1991 by embracing the Open Air Theatre's production in Regent’s Park which, under Judi Dench’s exuberant direction, followed its summer run with a U.K. tour and won the Olivier Award as Best Revival. 

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A 1940 film version starring Allan Jones and Martha Raye eviscerated the score and was soon forgotten (and mavens will note that the culprit was Universal, not that nurturer of musical movies, M-G-M), but on stage the combination of vintage farce and sparkling songs has guaranteed The Boys’ enduring popularity for over six decades. Reviewing the original production in 1938, Sidney B. Whipple of the New York World Telegram predicted that The Boys From Syracuse "will be regarded as the greatest musical comedy of its time." No Seeress’ prophecy ever proved more accurate.

Rodgers and Hart: What Can Time Do?

By Theodore S. Chapin

Every time an opportunity presents itself to restore another Richard Rodgers score, I am reminded of Alec Wilder's comment in his book American Popular Song. In that fascinating and opinionated tome, Wilder wrote of Rodgers: "After spending weeks playing his songs, I am more than impressed and respectful: I am astonished." Those of us involved with this recording were inclined to echo Wilder’s words. The fact that The Boys From Syracuse boasts so many standards isn’t what’s astonishing. What is astonishing is the melodic invention, musicianship, theatricality, harmonic surprises, and even mischievousness to be found in this score and its musical arrangements. Sitting at the orchestra’s sitzprobe for the Encores! performances in May 1997, Mary Rodgers remarked "this stuff is so wonderful - I only wish my old man could see what joy we’re all getting from his music sixty years after he wrote it.” 

What is it about Richard Rodgers that made Alec Wilder astonished? On the surface Rodgers’ songs sound straightforward and tuneful. There are hummable melodies and familiar-sounding harmonies. But take a careful listen. Is it possible to be tuneful and astonishing at the same time? Yes, indeed. "The Shortest Day Of The Year", for example. The lyrics for the first four lines of the refrain form one complete thought - which needs your attention all the way through to make sense. So Rodgers tricks you by taking the melody where you don’t feel it will go. The notes he chose for the end of each of the first two lines - "The shortest day of the year, Has the longest night of the year.” are not the notes for which the preceding phrase has prepared you. Both notes have an unexpected and "blue” quality that Rodgers used so cleverly ("Oh, what a beautiful mornin”’ for example) throughout his career. 

The way Rodgers harmonized his melodies is equally surprising. Listen to how he created the descending feel of "You Have Cast Your Shadow On The Sea" - and then what he did on the line "on both the sea and me." It catches us, and leaves us where we didn’t expect to be. And then there is the sheer emotional pleasure of the harmony rising from beneath the last notes of the verse of "Falling In Love With Love" ("Wives can only sew and weep.") When the waltz melody begins (and no one wrote better waltzes) it's hard not to smile. 

All this invention was, by the way, totally instinctive. Stephen Sondheim recounted that he once told Rodgers how much he admired "...the way in "People Will Say We’re In Love" the middle section was an exact musical inversion of the beginning. [Rodgers] blinked at me as if I’d been speaking Eskimo... He did the right thing, but he couldn’t begin to analyze why." 

Another right thing Rodgers did was to hire a very young Hugh Martin to create vocal arrangements. Martin’s arrangement of "Sing For Your Supper” has not only proven to be a show stopper since 1938, but is perhaps the most imitated vocal arrangement in theater history. Bringing that "down-town" vocal feel to the uptown world of Broadway was a stroke of genius. 

And what of Lorenz Hart? Here was a nimble witted, naughty, and sometimes cynical songwriter who also happened to be an erudite scholar. Only he would gleefully turn an esoteric Greek myth into a song about a man-grabbing woman ("Oh, Diogenes"), and reduce the story of Romeo and Juliet to two verses sung by confused would-be lovers. (He: "...my late cousin Romeo, .fell in love and then he died of it. Poor half wit!" She: "Some poor playwright wrote their drama just for fun. It won’t run!") In "Dear Old Syracuse" he found subtle ways of describing distinctly different lights: those at home where "there’s a light that’s burning in the patio" and those where a man goes when he’s lonely - "there’s a red light burning in the patio." (The first red light district?) This is the kind of humor that can whiz right past in performance - if you’re not careful, you’ll miss it on the first listen. He also found such breeziness, humor, and just plain fun in: "Some men wear half pajamas, I took a chance. I bought the guy pajamas, he wears the pants.’ On the other hand, he was capable of pure poetry: "Caring too much is such a juvenile fancy". One of the songs from this show (this is its first known recording) is "Big Brother", sung by the Dromio of Ephesus, played in the original production by Lorenz Hart’s younger brother Teddy. It provides the introduction to the ballet in which one brother searches for his lost twin. But it may have had a personal resonance as well - maybe Larry was offering a homage to his own brother? No cynicism here, just pure resonant sibling sentiment. 

Hart and his fellow wordsmith George Abbott may have been the progenitors of the Broadway Musical as sitcom. The Boys From Syracuse is an ideal specimen. The situation comes from Shakespeare, the comedy comes from the 1930s (lots of vaudeville-inspired schtick). And since the show opened on Broadway six months after Rodgers & Hart’s previous effort (I Married An Angel) it was obviously put together quickly, much in the way television sit-coms are cranked out today. Jokes abound - from the Gilbert and Sullivan police line-up (who are, this time, sending one of the leading men off to jail with a rousing march) to three distressed wives who sing in the style of the swing band "canaries" about how to keep their husbands (the afore-mentioned "Sing For Your Supper".)

There is always a danger in lavishing too much praise on people who just did what they loved to do. Were Rodgers & Hart aware of the artistic superiority of their work? Maybe. Alan Jay Lerner said of Lorenz Hart: "Whether he cared or not, he was as close to being (a genius) as lyric writing has produced." Rodgers and Hart were two guys who loved the musical theater and were devoted to giving every show their best. They wanted to keep writing, and write they did - contributing to 47 shows and movies over 22 years. Thanks to the pieces of paper left behind and to some of today’s more enlightened theater artists, we can once again revel in Rodgers & Hart’s astonishing The Boys From Syracuse.