Michael Unger: Recreating The Happy Time

Re-creating a show is a challenge for any director, but when that show is a nearly-forgotten flop by one of Broadway's greatest teams, it's doubly demanding. Fortunately for fans of John Kander and Fred Ebb, Michael Unger, the director of Signature Theater's recent revival of The Happy Time, not only had the bravery to take on a challenging show, he had the patience and dedication to give the 40-year-old musical a new lease on life.

John Kander and Michael Unger had worked together on the Broadway production of Steel Pier, and on a revival of The Rink at the Cape Playhouse. "I substantially reworked the script with Terrence McNally and John Kander," he recalls of the latter experience, "and created a new version that had never been seen before." After the production earned positive reviews, John Kander had only one director in mind when Eric Schaeffer selected The Happy Time for Signature's Kander and Ebb Celebration. "Whenever I call John to thank him, he'd just say, 'I'm just taking care of myself,'" Unger says. He has nothing but praise for Kander, who was involved in the remounting of this early work. "He is the most selfless, generous, down-to-earth, lovely human being you'll ever meet in any business anywhere. He's a very special person, and I was so honored to have that experience to work on The Rink with him. When he was in the room, I never wanted those rehearsals to end. And here I am getting a second chance!"

Perhaps the greatest hurdle in remounting The Happy Time is the fact that it has yet to enjoy a successful commercial run. "This is not one of Kander & Ebb's biggest hits," Unger admits decorously, calling the story "intimate," "tender" and "personal." Based on a play by Samuel Taylor, the musical follows the impact a photographer's return home has on his family, community, and the girl he left behind. "The heart of it is family," Unger says, noting that in many scenes, three generations of the central family are onstage at once. "Everyone can relate to the tension in this family," he says. "The prodigal son returns, and not without conflict... We all can relate to that."

While the original 1968 Broadway production earned several Tony Awards, Kander, Ebb and librettist N. Richard Nash were not happy with director Gower Champion's vision for it. "He made the show a little larger than they wanted it to be," Unger recalls. "The production concept was based on projections-- as is ours, but back then, when you had no video or digital photography and computerized this 'n' that, you'd have to project from behind on an RP screen, you'd have a lot of distance, which pushes the set very far downstage, and coordinating it would have been a technical nightmare without the digital age. So back then, it seemed like the projections took over the production, Kander felt, to the production's detriment." Modern technology was able to help realize that original vision in a way that was impossible 40 years ago. "In the version of the script that we got, there are no projections," Unger says, "and I said to John, 'This is the story of a photographer; will you allow me to use projections if I promise not to let it overwhelm the production?' And he said yes. So we have put that back in the show, but I think in a very integrated way."

The Signature production also restores three songs that were, metaphorically speaking, lost in Boston, and adds the song "Running," written for the recent Goodspeed Opera House production. "And the three songs that Gower had cut, John very much wanted back in the show," Unger says. "It spreads the wealth of musical material among the supporting players." In combining the original Broadway script with the Goodspeed version, Unger and Kander brought out the best moments in each. "I was looking for a scene that would help solidify Jacques' commitment to stay," Unger recalls, "and he had forgotten that the Broadway version had that exact scene. And my music director David Holcenberg was flipping through the script, and he says, 'Hey, wait, isn't this what you were looking for?'"                 

Of the 17 cast members, only two are from Broadway. The leading roles of Jacques and Grandpere went to Michael Minarik and David Margulies, respectively. "I always feel pleased when people I bring in do well, and I brought in both David and Michael," Unger says happily. "There was something about Michael's connection to the character that was very authentic. And I always try to cast someone who has a lot of the role in them so that they're not reaching to create a character." And while David Margulies is not famous for musicals, "he's actually got incredible pitch," Unger says. But more than that, he was the right actor for the part, able to balance the joie de vivre and disappointment of the character. "You've gotta cast the actor, especially in a piece like this," Unger says, "'cause there are some major scenes, and there's a lot of book material, and he was absolutely hands-down the actor for this role."

The remaining fifteen actors are all from Washington's admirable pool of talent, which led to some unique casting. Rob McQuay, for example, who plays the protagonist's brother Louis, is well-known as a fine musical theatre performer in DC, having starred in such musicals as Evita, Ragtime, Godspell and Jesus Christ Superstar. He has also been paraplegic for eighteen years. "This guy comes in in a wheelchair, and he's incredibly talented," Unger says, remembering McQuay's audition. "I said to John, 'This guy is the best man for the role. He's a very strong actor; he's a great singer. Would you approve these little rewrites to make it work for a person in a wheelchair?' And he said, 'Absolutely!'" With Kander's blessing, all references to the character walking were removed, and the role was reconfigured for McQuay to play. "It was so enlightening for me, because it's not a role written for that kind of actor, and he brought such a complete performance, I can't really see it done any other way. When the understudy goes on, he'll be in a wheelchair."

Ultimately, Unger says, re-creating The Happy Time was "a matter of just finding the temperature of the piece." Had Nash and Ebb been alive, he admits, he would have liked to have refined the script further and continued to polish it. "There are very few perfect musical books in the world," Unger says with a laugh. "This is not one of them, but we did a lot of work to improve it. It's hard to write a musical!"