The Apple Tree: A Season's Worth of Orchestrations

A favorite internet topic among New York theatre fans is to discuss what shows Encores! should include in its upcoming seasons. Although Gotham is blessed with two other companies that regularly stage readings of neglected musicals, The York Theatre and Musicals Tonight! (not to mention the occasional rarity we sometimes get from The Medicine Show), it's Encores! that has the budget to hire the big stars and supply a full orchestra, so naturally they tend to generate a bit more interest.

While some may wish to see a favorite star get a crack at a juicy role, or be curious to hear the book to a score they've only heard on cast albums, I'm becoming more and more apt to get excited about an Encores! production based on the lure of hearing outstanding orchestrations, especially for musicals recorded in the days when major cuts would have to be made in order to fit the score on a vinyl LP.

Take, for instance, their latest venture, Jerry Bock and Sheldon Harnick's The Apple Tree, orchestrated by jazz arranger Eddie Sauter. Though Sauter's Broadway career was fairly short-lived, his contrasting works proved him to be a fine dramatic interpreter. Who would have thought the same man who provided It's a Bird... It's a Plane... It's Superman with its campy, rock and roll sound would have also given 1776 its spirited fife and drum and 18th century chamber and orchestral flavors?

The Apple Tree, of course, consists of three one-act musicals, each with it's own distinctive style and sound. Mark Twain wrote two short stories about the Bible's first couple, Eve's Diary and Excerpts From Adam's Diary. But in typical Twain fashion, he whimsically turned Eden into upstate New York, with references to Niagara Falls, the Finger Lakes and Tanawanda. If you didn't know this ahead of time you may have missed how Bock's score cleverly imitates Aaron Copeland's Appalachian Spring in its opening prelude and how Sauter's instrumentation throughout the piece relies on gentle string and woodwind sounds to complete the effect.

But Act II jolts the audience out of paradise with majestic marches heavy with brass and percussion. Frank L. Stockton's The Lady or the Tiger?, the source for story number two, takes place in mythical times in a semi-barbaric kingdom where a spoiled princess must choose between having her lower-born lover marry another woman or be devoured by a lion. Sauter recalls biblical film epics and scores like Elmer Bernstein's over-the-top dramatics for Cecil B. DeMille's 1956 The Ten Commandments for this comic tale of extraordinary lives.

Passionella, the show's third act, was the only episode taking place in what was then contemporary times. Based on Jules Feiffer's story of a chimney cleaner whose fairy godmother transforms her into a glamorous movie star, this Cinderella spoof had the twist that the magic spell only worked from the beginning of Huntley and Brinkley to the end of the Late, Late Show. (For you kids, that means the 11 O'Clock News to the end of the late movie.) Since TV was so instrumental to the plot, it was only appropriate that Sauter used a slick television orchestra sound popular with variety shows and special programs of the 1960's, along with one showcase number that spoofed the over-electrified sound that was creeping into folk and blues.

Such a cavalcade of styles was fitting for Rob Fisher's final production as musical director of Encores!. It'll be interesting to see what Paul Gemignani has in store for us as he's handed the company's baton.