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ON THE RECORD: Mitch Leigh's Cry For Us All Comes to CD, Plus Kitty's Kisses
By Steven Suskin
25 Oct 2009
We listen to the first CD release of the original cast album of the 1970 musical Cry for Us All, along with the world premiere studio recording of the obscure 1926 musical Kitty's Kisses.
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CRY FOR US ALL [Kritzerland KR 20013-6]
My recent column on Broadway LPs that still needed to be transferred to CD ranked Cry for Us All, Mitch Leigh's 1970 follow-up to Man of La Mancha, high among the pack. As soon as the column was posted I received an e-mail from Bruce Kimmel of Kritzerland Records telling me that the contract for Cry for Us All was sitting awaiting signature, and that with any luck he'd have CDs ready to mail out within a month. Good things do come to those who wait.
Cry for Us All was — or let us say was intended to be — a steamy story of political skullduggery in turn-of-the-century Brooklyn. Hogan's Goat, William Alfred's 1965 blank-verse play, caused a considerable stir when it opened at the American Place Theatre while Man of La Mancha was previewing over by Washington Square. La Mancha composer Mitch Leigh and director Albert Marre both saw, no doubt, a worthy successor to their ground-breaking masterpiece. Marre's wife Joan Diener, the Aldonza of the occasion, no doubt saw it as a show in which she could have the full spotlight without some Don Quixote coming on occasionally to take your mind off the leading lady. (Diener also saw, presumably, how a 24-year-old actress with little experience named Faye Dunaway stole the show and was immediately wafted from Hogan's Goat to Hollywood stardom in "Bonnie and Clyde," while Diener was still playing Aldonza.)
The new musical based on Hogan's Goat had strong operatic overtones, along with a strong operatic star in Robert Weede of The Most Happy Fella and Milk and Honey (which had been directed by Marre). The other male lead in this triangle was undertaken by John Reardon, but he was quickly replaced; perhaps too much competition for Mrs. Marre? In any event, the role was taken up by newcomer Steve Arlen, who did well enough under the circumstances. And Weede, as the grasping Mayor of the city across the bay, did exceptionally well. The tale has oft been told how Diener's role expanded, at the expense of her castmates, so we won't reiterate it here.
Leigh's lyrics came from poet/playwright Alfred and advertising genius Joan Robinson, who was the copy chief and co-creative head at Doyle Dane Bernbach. (A brief search on the Internet found a pair of 1965 commercials for the Polaroid Swinger featuring Ali McGraw — and, on the second spot, Grover Dale — set to a jingle by Leigh and Robinson.) Leigh appears to have worked smoothly with Marre over his Broadway career, but he used different lyricist and librettists for each of his eight musicals.
Whatever the problems of the show, the score is well worth our attention. Colorful, sweeping, melodramatically overwrought, and overstuffed with melody. "Who to Love If Not a Stranger?" and "That Slavery Is Love" are grand, if perhaps overly florid and awkwardly set to words; two waltzes, "The Verandah Waltz" and "Aggie, Oh Aggie" (which has the feel of a waltz, although the tempo varies), are both beauties; "How Are Ya, Since?" another song with a staggered tempo, is a winner; and there are a couple of flavorsome jingles ("The Wages of Sin" and the delicious "Cruelty Man") for a trio of street ragamuffins.
Singing honors are shared by Weede, Arlen and — yes, Ms. Diener, who is quite something. Also on hand, though with their chores all but vanished during the tryout, are Helen Gallagher and Tommy Rall, both of whom deserve better. Orchestrations come from Carlyle Hall, and they are good ones. Hall, an orchestrator for the Archie Bleyer Orchestra and the Arthur Godfrey Show, found his way in the mid-1960s to the staff of Leigh's jingle production company, Music Makers. Music Makers was credited for the highly effective orchestrations of La Mancha, although it is my understanding that they were mostly by Hall. The Cry for Us All orchs were officially credited to "Carlyle Hall of Music Makers, Inc." Herb Grossman, of Roar of the Greasepaint and Walking Happy, conducts.
Kritzerland offers its wares in limited edition quantities, this one numbering 1,000. The official release date is November, although they have already started shipping the preorders. These items do sell out — as did Kritzerland's recent Anya and Illya, Darling — and I'm told Cry is already past the halfway point. The album includes liner notes by Kimmel, in which he describes a memorable encounter with the warm-hearted Weede. The original artwork by Fay Gage is reproduced, a purple Rorschachian blob featuring a grand lady in a hat and little else that is clearly identifiable. Maybe Ms. Diener, while she was having the authors build up her part, took a bottle of white-out and obliterated the other figures? Continued...
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