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Only me and my muse and forty pianos and ten thousand shoes
I have wanted to hear the original television cast of Stephen Sondheim's Evening Primrose (1966) ever since I discovered the musical via a studio recording in 2001, but it didn't occur to me to turn to the internet until tonight. Staticky YouTube came through. Here's Anthony Perkins introducing "If You Can Find Me, I'm Here" and here he is with Charmian Carr for "Take Me to the World." I have to get hold of the rest of this thing. I knew Perkins could sing; I didn't know what he sounded like. Sondheim should have written more roles for him. He's an ideal interpreter: that quick, tensile voice. He's effortless with the patter. And it's not a big voice, but it warms and brightens in the right places and it has the right kind of wire. Imagine him singing "Being Alive." To my knowledge, his only other musical was Frank Loesser's Greenwillow (1960). What happened? Hollywood? There should have been more.
[edit] According to this afternoon's research, Perkins would have sung "Being Alive" if he had stayed with the original Broadway production of Company long enough to see it replace the original closing number "Happily Ever After." The central role of Robert ("Bobby, Bobby baby, Bobby bubi, Robby, Robert darling") was written for him. He departed early in rehearsals in order to direct another show. The good news is, his replacement Dean Jones was soon replaced himself by Larry Kert, who was so good as Robert that he received the rare honor of being Tony-nominated for a role he had technically understudied; I linked to his performance because it's the definitive one. The bad news is, Perkins never got far enough into rehearsals for there to exist even demo recordings of him in the part and certainly none of "Being Alive," which wasn't even written until the tryout in Boston where it became clear that the cynical rejection of "Happily Ever After" would send audiences out hurt and bewildered, not humming. I don't know if there's more to the story. At least I was right to hear the likeness, the ghost of a voice that was never really there. I hope the directing gig worked out. Dammit, Tony.
[edit] According to this afternoon's research, Perkins would have sung "Being Alive" if he had stayed with the original Broadway production of Company long enough to see it replace the original closing number "Happily Ever After." The central role of Robert ("Bobby, Bobby baby, Bobby bubi, Robby, Robert darling") was written for him. He departed early in rehearsals in order to direct another show. The good news is, his replacement Dean Jones was soon replaced himself by Larry Kert, who was so good as Robert that he received the rare honor of being Tony-nominated for a role he had technically understudied; I linked to his performance because it's the definitive one. The bad news is, Perkins never got far enough into rehearsals for there to exist even demo recordings of him in the part and certainly none of "Being Alive," which wasn't even written until the tryout in Boston where it became clear that the cynical rejection of "Happily Ever After" would send audiences out hurt and bewildered, not humming. I don't know if there's more to the story. At least I was right to hear the likeness, the ghost of a voice that was never really there. I hope the directing gig worked out. Dammit, Tony.
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That production was also where I first heard of Evening Primrose with the song “I Remember.” I hadn’t seen it mentioned in any books, and, of course, there was no cast recording at the time. But I found the whole thing on YouTube, with Spanish subtitles, but reasonably good quality. I need to grab that off the web in case it disappears at some point. Sadly, I can’t get the links to work, but it’s there.
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I have been accumulating a wistful alternate history of film for some time now (Robert Newton as Heathcliff in William Wyler's Wuthering Heights, etc.), but this is a pretty serious reason to want at least an original cast recording from the next universe over.
They did, however, drop the ladies singing “A Boy Like That/I Have a Love” in favor of him singing “Something Coming.” Wonderful to get a chance to see him perform the song I’d listened to so many times.
Oh, lovely. I am glad you had that.
But I found the whole thing on YouTube, with Spanish subtitles, but reasonably good quality. I need to grab that off the web in case it disappears at some point. Sadly, I can’t get the links to work, but it’s there.
I've seen it in the sidebar! At the moment I am holding out for tracking down the Archive of American Television DVD, but it's good to know there is at least an option online if my local library system fails me.