THE GOLDEN APPLE

[LimelightMike]

Posted: 12/9/08 at 4:21am

Hey All -

So, I'm doing some heavy research into this one. My only 'find' (to which I 'own') is the 'Jerome Moross' Windflowers' CD 'cause one of stage heroes/inspirations, Mr. Richard Muenz is a featured vocalist. Anyone know about this show? I know it ran Off-B'way in March of 1954, and was moved directly to Broadway that next month, ran maybe 16-18 weeks. Opened to rave reviews from what I understand. My real questions, I would suppose, are these:

- Did anyone on here catch the original incarnation?
- If so, what (if anything) can you remember of seeing it?

- Tams-Whitmark licenses the show, but apparently, I can't seem to get the 'show page' to open up w/ ordering and licensing information, and it's not featured on the forms either. Any insight as to why that'd be?

- Is the 1954 OBCR any good? Again, I'm only going by the brief bits 'n' pieces of 'Windflowers' - and what I've heard (since having purchased the album on a whim a year or 2 ago), I've seemingly fallen head-over-heels in love with.

Any and all insight appreciated. Per usual.

My apologies for rambling. My brain's restless.

Thanks in advance!

Best,
- Mike

[nobodyhome]

Posted: 12/9/08 at 6:41am

Didn't see the original production (though I did see a production that York did in 1990. Andrew B. Harris's book The Performing Set: The Broadway Designs of William and Jean Eckart. One photo can be found in this review of the book:

http://www.talkinbroadway.com/bookreviews/performingset.html

Tams only bothers to have that information available on its site for shows that it licenses regularly. You can click on the titles in the light blue, but not the titles in the dark blue.

The original cast recording is only about 45-50 minutes, less than half the score. A silly rhyming narration was recorded to link the numbers. What's there is good but it's not nearly enough.

In the 1970s, the half-hour CBS Sunday morning program Camera Three aired a two-part condensation of the show. This can be seen at the Paley Media Center in New York and Los Angeles if you're able to get to one of them. In comparison with the OBCR, somewhat different choices were made as to what to include. This production includes a longer, more complex version of the final Ulysses-Penelope duet.

[Ed_Mottershead]

Posted: 12/9/08 at 12:44pm

I've never seen it, although I've had the recording since . . . . What say that Encores! did it? Or MTC? Or Playwrights Horizon? NOT the Roundabout. It's a smallish sort of show, so probably the Golden, the Hayes or the Booth could be a nice fit, if ever a full-scaled revival was considered. I know the original transferred to the Alvin (now the Neil Simon) for its abbreviated Broadway run but I suspect that a smaller house would be better.

[nobodyhome]

Posted: 12/9/08 at 7:55pm

Except it's really not a smallish show. I've seen it done with a smaller cast (and even that cast wasn't all that small) and I'm convinced it needs a cast of about the size it was done with originally. And especially since the original orchestrations were partly by the composer, I don't want to see it done with a reduced orchestration.

I think it does probably profit from relatively simple settings, but it still does need multiple sets.

[Paul W. Thompson]

Posted: 12/9/08 at 10:37pm

The Original Cast Recording, valuable though it is, does not do the show justice. The narration is simply weird, and many of the tempos strike me as too fast.

I say this because I was lucky enough to be in a production of this wonderful show in 1995, co-produced by Light Opera Works of Evanston (of which I am now on the Board of Directors) and Pegasus Players of Chicago, known for its Sondheim mountings. We were able to use the original William and Jean Eckart scene designs, which were just lovely (I think we had their original watercolor renderings to use to recreate the drops). And we used the full, original orchestrations, which as I recall seem to have hardly been used in the intervening 40 years.

Anyway, I think you need a large cast and an old-fashioned "drop" proscenium stage, in which case the show works beautifully. I remember just how achingly lovely much of it is, and the final scene with the two principals was just remarkable.

[sondheimboy2]

Posted: 12/9/08 at 10:58pm

Yeah, this show is a rare beast. Cast-wise, you everything from operatic sopranos to show belters. The original cast album is less than half the show, but it is a must have. Dismissing it because it's not the entire thing, is like dismissing the Venus De Milo because it doesn't have arms.

Essential reading for you is, of course, Ken Mandelbaum's book on flop musicals, "Not Since Carrie" (his final word on it is that most all of the shows in his book failed the audience in one way or another, but it's the audience that failed "Golden Apple") and Ethan Mordden's study of the '50s musical "Coming Up Roses". But, you really need to read what Ethan Mordden wrote about "Golden Apple" in his first book on the Broadway musical "Better Foot Forward." The way he wrote about "Golden Apple" in that book, I knew that I was going to love it before I ever heard it.

Here's a link to some incredible picture from the show:
Golden Apple OBC:http://images.google.com/images?hl=en&newwindow=1&q=%22golden+apple%22+source%3Alife&btnG=Search+Images

And if you go to www.bluegobo.com you can see a number from the aforementioned "Camera Three" mini-television version.

[nobodyhome]

Posted: 12/10/08 at 12:47am

There's reason to believe that the tempos in the original production were very fast and are pretty accurately reflected on the OBCR.

[Paul W. Thompson]

Posted: 12/10/08 at 1:27am

What reason?

[nobodyhome]

Posted: 12/10/08 at 1:50am

Live recording of most of the show in performance. It's missing a few sections but it's about 85-90 percent of the show. Very fast tempos.

Updated On: 12/10/08 at 01:50 AM

[Paul W. Thompson]

Posted: 12/10/08 at 1:57am

Don't get me wrong--there are plenty of peppy numbers in the show. But speed alone doesn't equal a feeling of "too fast."

And there are so many other factors here--the acoustics of the theater and the recording studio, the timing of both the show and the session to meet union requirements, the length of LP sides at the time, the speed the choreographer wants as opposed to the one the musical director wants or the composer wants, etc.

It just seems to me that the show can't breathe on that LP. And it was issued without bandings, so that there's really no break or breath until the act is over. It sure can breathe in a theater, though.

[TheEnchantedHunter]

Posted: 12/10/08 at 2:17am

The show simply doesn't work. Though there are interesting songs in the score, such as Lazy Afternoon, too much of it is second-rate or esoteric in its appeal. A nice experiment for its time but, ultimately, a failure.



Lola Delaney
A Small Midwestern Town