The Cavalier daily :: Thursday, April 16, 1970 :: University of Virginia Library

NEW YORK - As the theatre
season swings into its homestretch,
Broadway is being bombarded by
one new musical after another.
From the standpoint of musicals,
the season has been incredibly
off-balanced; the number of tuners
which opened in the last half of
March equaled the total output of
the previous six months.

One of the recent arrivals is
"Minnie's Boys," a show which
reportedly had extensive trouble
during its two month preview
period. It deals with the Marx
Brothers - Groucho, Chico, Harpo,
and Zeppo - before they became
famous, when they were just Julie,
Leonard, Adolph, and Herbie, four
rambunctious kids growing up in
New York City.

While we view their adolescent
antics, we keep reminding ourselves
of their comic destiny. Thus, when
they bungle a straight act - their
own or somebody else's - they
look upon it as a disaster while we
see it as the beginnings of their
trademarked screwball comedy.
This is the fun of "Minnie's Boys;"
the characters, for the most part,
take themselves and their futures
seriously whereas we, since we
know what their futures will be,
dismiss their troubles with a laugh.

Arthur Marx (Groucho's son)
and Robert Fisher's libretto contains
much humor, all of which is in
a delightful Marx Brothers vein.
This is quite fortunate since the
story of their rise to stardom is a
bit too familiar; in fact, in many
ways "Minnie's Boys" is a poor
man's "Gypsy," especially when
one considers that in both we are
presented with mothers who are
domineering and virtually broke.
But then those rib-tickling Marx
Brothers routines more than make
up for the weaknesses in the
narrative.

One other problem "Minnie's
Boys" has is a slightly disappointing
second act. With but one exception,
the Hal Hackady-Larry Grossman
score reaches its peaks before
intermission. Three of their songs -
"Rich is," "Mama, A Rainbow,"
and "Be Happy" - deserve to
become hits while several others
sacrifice musical distinction for
comedic purposes. But the act two
letdown isn't really the songwriters'
fault. In fact, it is difficult to
pinpoint the cause, for there are
two fine comedy bits in the last
segment. So let's just say it doesn't
jell as well as the first act and leave
it at that.

The boys' mother, Minnie Marx,
is the central character of the
musical, as well as one of the
weakest. Shelley Winters, despite
obvious physical strain, plays the
part satisfactorily. However, our
interest isn't in this stage mother,
it's in her talented sons. And while
talented is an appropriate adjective
to describe Irwin Pearl as Chico,
Daniel Fortus as Harpo, and Alvin
Kupperman as Zeppo, it becomes
an insufficient carrier of praise
when we focus on Lewis J.
Stadlen's marvelous impersonation
of Groucho. Mr. Stadlen, crouch
walk and all, contributes generously
to the evening's humor, dominating
most every scene he's in. There is
one hilarious number in which he
and his brothers are doing a
song-and-dance act which requires
four people, but in which he is
forced to play two persons' parts,
his own and that of Chico, who is
off gambling with a chorus girl.

Director Stanley Prager and
choreographer Marc Breaux have
wrapped this all into a slick, though
not truly distinguished, musical
package. "Minnie's Boys" hasn't rid
itself of all its faults, but it is good
entertainment nonetheless.

The same does not hold true for
"Look to the Lilies," the musical
adaptation of the 1963 film, "Lilies
of the Field." Here I think the
fundamental error lies at the show's
lose. I question whether the simple
story of a Negro fugitive who helps
a group of immigrant German nuns
build a chapel in the desert could
possibly stand being blown-up into
a full-scale Broadway musical.
Assuming it could be done, however,
then would the story - the
sole main attribute of which is its
simplistic charm - be better
transcribed into a musical drama or
a musical comedy? Since it offers
neither the dramatic power necessary
for the former or the nonschmaltzy
humor and the "click
your heels" energy needed for the
latter, we're buck where we started,
leaving it as a nice little 1963 film
with a nice little understatement
about the humanistic unimportance
of one's color.

Unfortunately, the creators of
"Look to the Lilies" refused to do
this. It's not so much that their
show is bad as that it's pedestrian.
For the most part, the action flows
between the nuns' farm and a joint
called Juan's Cafe, which is the
hottest spot in Casmagordo, New
Mexico. The cafe scenes, incidentally,
seem forced into the proceedings,
probably done in order to
widen the scope of the tale.

Jule Styne and Sammy Cahn's
score is perhaps a cut or two above
average, but it is far below these
men's proven capabilities. Leonard
Spigelguss' book is disturbingly
shallow, indulging itself in too
many irrelevancies instead of giving
real depth to the relationship
between Homer Smith and Mother
Maria.

Shirley Booth competently
plays the head nun and she
admirably tries to compensate for
the story's lost charm. The only
reservation I have about her portrayal
is that her authoritativeness
seems more Hazel-ish than Catholic,
more Broadway than German. What
moments of life the show has can
be most directly attributed to Al
Freeman, Jr., whose finger-snapping,
hand-clapping, robust
performance as Homer indicates
that he's a personable performer
with a contemporary gift for
musical theatre.

Occasionally, Mr. Freeman and
Miss Booth are able to give the
material a modest appeal. Their
efforts, however, are restrained and
ultimately offset by Joshua Logan's
totally uninspired staging. And as a
sad result, "Look to the Lilies"
never leaves the ground.

I know of at least a couple of
people who are going to think I'm
being very unfeeling in my judgment
of "Look to the Lilies." In
defense, all I can say is that late in
the evening when a cute little five
year old girl led the company in a
prayer, I felt something. I felt it
was past her bedtime. Past mine,
too.