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Berlin’s Legacy Showcased In Academy’s ‘White Christmas’
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| From left, Kerry O’Malley, Stephen Bogardus, Jeffry Denman, Meredith Patterson in the Broadway company of Irving Berlin’s “White Christmas.” (Photo by Joan Marcus) |
By Adam Taxin, For The Bulletin
In his 1999 book Broadway Babies Say Goodnight: Musicals Then And Now, Mark Steyn, whose political columns are frequently featured in The Bulletin, describes Irving Berlin as “America’s songwriter: not a Tin Pan Alley tunesmith, not a Hollywood vehicle man, not an upscale Broadway dramatist — but all those and more.”
Songs written by Berlin will be featured locally when the show White Christmas opens this Tuesday at the Academy of Music for a two-week engagement through Sunday, December 6.
According to Michael Horsley, the traveling production’s musical director, Berlin wrote “White Christmas”, the show’s best-known song, while he was “in Los Angeles, where it was hot and sunny around Christmas time, and he was missing the East Coast and the winter. It is a lamenting song.”
The plot of the stage version is basically the same as that of the 1954 musical film White Christmas which starred Bing Crosby and Danny Kaye as, respectively, Bob Wallace and Phil Davis, two military buddies become a successful and dance team, involve themselves romantically with two sisters and then do their best to save from financial ruin a Vermont inn owned by their former commanding genera. The climax of the film occurs, perhaps less-than-surprisingly, during Christmas season.
Audiences to the traveling production may hear a version of the song “White Christmas” to which they may not necessarily be accustomed. Horsley states: “ ‘White Christmas’ is used as the finale of the show. It goes into an eight-part harmony version, which is spectacular. Everyone joins in from the cast, and you get that famous picture from the end of the movie, in which it looks like a picture postcard. It’s really quite beautiful. In form, it’s traditional old musical theater, but it’s more like a pop song of its time is supposed to be.”
The history of the song “White Christmas” is in one way similar to that, for example, of My Fair Lady’s “On The Street Where You Live,” he added. As with “White Christmas,” “On The Street Where You Live” was recorded and aired well before the show opened. So when My Fair Lady did open, it featured a song already popular with audiences.
Horsley emphasizes a number of changes from the 1954 movie. “Blue Skies,” the show’s second-most-well-known song, and which according to Steyn was composed for Berlin’s first child, Mary Ellin, at her birth, “ends Act I. However, in the movie, it was simply used as underscoring. But it’s been recorded by everyone, it’s incredibly popular.”
In regard to the traveling production’s version of “Blue Skies,” as well as “White Christmas,” Horsley remarks that “well, you’ve never heard these kinds of arrangements. Usually, you hear them done like a pop song or the kind of song that Frank Sinatra or Bing Crosby would do, but these arrangements are developed into these huge dance numbers. There are some great rhythm changes, and there is some phenomenal dancing, in both numbers.”
Mr. Horsley cautions potential audience members not to neglect the show’s other songs.
“There’s a song called ‘The Best Things Happen When You’re Dancing.” In that particular song, there are a lot of styles of dancing. It turns into a rhumba, a waltz and a big band number. The production numbers are such that you experience different dancing styles of the period, and that’s what makes the songs so interesting as well.”
“In the movie, Bing Crosby sang ‘What Can You Do With A General?’ on ‘The Ed Sullivan Show.’ We’ve turned that into a storytelling song with Bill and Bob, as well as Martha Haynes, the innkeeper sister played by Lorna Luft. In that movie, that song just sort of sits there, but in the stage version, it really progresses the story forward.”
Mr. Horsley expresses enthusiasm for the sophistication that Philadelphia audiences bring to traveling productions. “I’ve been through Philly before with shows, and it is, at least in the line of cities we’re in now, I think the most receptive and the most appreciative audience throughout this particular leg of the tour.”
He remarks about the pleasant surprise he recently received in Omaha with “one of the largest responses I’ve ever seen to ‘White Christmas.’ I was just sort of taken aback by how responsive they were to the sentiment of the show. They applauded scene changes. Whenever the lights went out, they would applaud. At the end of the show, when everyone sings ‘White Christmas,” it was a huge response, with the whole entire audience singing ‘White Christmas.’ So is that a ‘heartland of America’ or it it ‘because we love musical theater’? I don’t know. I think it’s more being in the middle of the country, and there’s a certain tradition.”
“But with Philadelphia, I think there’s more appreciation and awareness of the craft and the art. And of course it’s a larger metropolitan city, on the East Coast, and it’s close to New York. We enjoy going there. The audience in Philadelphia is just a little more aware of the craft.”
Mr. Horsley emphasizes the approachability of the show’s songs: “First of all, in ‘White Christmas’, the songs are among Irving Berlin’s most popular songs. But they’re arranged in a way that they’re approachable and easy to listen to and easy to walk out of the theater singing those tunes. They’re great tunes, and I always feel like if you walk out of a theater singing a song from the show, then it’s successful. And certainly when I walk out the stage door after the show, I hear people humming many of the songs, not just ‘White Christmas.’ I hear them singing little tidbits of songs that I’m surprised by because they’re not necessarily popular Irving Berlin songs, but they’re very catchy. All of the music in his shows is very catchy tunes and easy and approachable to listen to and remember.”
Asked about whether it’s harder to hum tunes from contemporary shows than from Berlin’s era, Horsley laughed. “Absolutely, especially with contemporary music. I realize that we’re in a contemporary world now, and we’re built to have electronic ears, so to speak. But the music of Irving Berlin to me is so easy to listen to, whether it’s manufactured electronically or acoustically. And today, I don’t think that a lot of the music is built that way, and melody today has really taken a dive in songwriting. Not that it’s non-existent. It’s just a lot of people are not writing good melodies.”
Songs written by Berlin will be featured locally when the show White Christmas opens this Tuesday at the Academy of Music for a two-week engagement through Sunday, December 6.
According to Michael Horsley, the traveling production’s musical director, Berlin wrote “White Christmas”, the show’s best-known song, while he was “in Los Angeles, where it was hot and sunny around Christmas time, and he was missing the East Coast and the winter. It is a lamenting song.”
The plot of the stage version is basically the same as that of the 1954 musical film White Christmas which starred Bing Crosby and Danny Kaye as, respectively, Bob Wallace and Phil Davis, two military buddies become a successful and dance team, involve themselves romantically with two sisters and then do their best to save from financial ruin a Vermont inn owned by their former commanding genera. The climax of the film occurs, perhaps less-than-surprisingly, during Christmas season.
Audiences to the traveling production may hear a version of the song “White Christmas” to which they may not necessarily be accustomed. Horsley states: “ ‘White Christmas’ is used as the finale of the show. It goes into an eight-part harmony version, which is spectacular. Everyone joins in from the cast, and you get that famous picture from the end of the movie, in which it looks like a picture postcard. It’s really quite beautiful. In form, it’s traditional old musical theater, but it’s more like a pop song of its time is supposed to be.”
The history of the song “White Christmas” is in one way similar to that, for example, of My Fair Lady’s “On The Street Where You Live,” he added. As with “White Christmas,” “On The Street Where You Live” was recorded and aired well before the show opened. So when My Fair Lady did open, it featured a song already popular with audiences.
Horsley emphasizes a number of changes from the 1954 movie. “Blue Skies,” the show’s second-most-well-known song, and which according to Steyn was composed for Berlin’s first child, Mary Ellin, at her birth, “ends Act I. However, in the movie, it was simply used as underscoring. But it’s been recorded by everyone, it’s incredibly popular.”
In regard to the traveling production’s version of “Blue Skies,” as well as “White Christmas,” Horsley remarks that “well, you’ve never heard these kinds of arrangements. Usually, you hear them done like a pop song or the kind of song that Frank Sinatra or Bing Crosby would do, but these arrangements are developed into these huge dance numbers. There are some great rhythm changes, and there is some phenomenal dancing, in both numbers.”
Mr. Horsley cautions potential audience members not to neglect the show’s other songs.
“There’s a song called ‘The Best Things Happen When You’re Dancing.” In that particular song, there are a lot of styles of dancing. It turns into a rhumba, a waltz and a big band number. The production numbers are such that you experience different dancing styles of the period, and that’s what makes the songs so interesting as well.”
“In the movie, Bing Crosby sang ‘What Can You Do With A General?’ on ‘The Ed Sullivan Show.’ We’ve turned that into a storytelling song with Bill and Bob, as well as Martha Haynes, the innkeeper sister played by Lorna Luft. In that movie, that song just sort of sits there, but in the stage version, it really progresses the story forward.”
Mr. Horsley expresses enthusiasm for the sophistication that Philadelphia audiences bring to traveling productions. “I’ve been through Philly before with shows, and it is, at least in the line of cities we’re in now, I think the most receptive and the most appreciative audience throughout this particular leg of the tour.”
He remarks about the pleasant surprise he recently received in Omaha with “one of the largest responses I’ve ever seen to ‘White Christmas.’ I was just sort of taken aback by how responsive they were to the sentiment of the show. They applauded scene changes. Whenever the lights went out, they would applaud. At the end of the show, when everyone sings ‘White Christmas,” it was a huge response, with the whole entire audience singing ‘White Christmas.’ So is that a ‘heartland of America’ or it it ‘because we love musical theater’? I don’t know. I think it’s more being in the middle of the country, and there’s a certain tradition.”
“But with Philadelphia, I think there’s more appreciation and awareness of the craft and the art. And of course it’s a larger metropolitan city, on the East Coast, and it’s close to New York. We enjoy going there. The audience in Philadelphia is just a little more aware of the craft.”
Mr. Horsley emphasizes the approachability of the show’s songs: “First of all, in ‘White Christmas’, the songs are among Irving Berlin’s most popular songs. But they’re arranged in a way that they’re approachable and easy to listen to and easy to walk out of the theater singing those tunes. They’re great tunes, and I always feel like if you walk out of a theater singing a song from the show, then it’s successful. And certainly when I walk out the stage door after the show, I hear people humming many of the songs, not just ‘White Christmas.’ I hear them singing little tidbits of songs that I’m surprised by because they’re not necessarily popular Irving Berlin songs, but they’re very catchy. All of the music in his shows is very catchy tunes and easy and approachable to listen to and remember.”
Asked about whether it’s harder to hum tunes from contemporary shows than from Berlin’s era, Horsley laughed. “Absolutely, especially with contemporary music. I realize that we’re in a contemporary world now, and we’re built to have electronic ears, so to speak. But the music of Irving Berlin to me is so easy to listen to, whether it’s manufactured electronically or acoustically. And today, I don’t think that a lot of the music is built that way, and melody today has really taken a dive in songwriting. Not that it’s non-existent. It’s just a lot of people are not writing good melodies.”
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