Reviews

No longer neglected
Experimental Allegro affected a young Sondheim
he 1947 musical Allegro is probably known today as much for Stephen Sondhcim's "gofer" production summer job while a 17-year-old Williams College student as an early Richard Rodgers and Oscar Hammerstein II collaboration. So when Sondheim delivers a speech in the first complete Allegro recording (Sony Masterworks), it is no mere cameo role. In a larger and more satisfying sense, it's Sondheim coming full circle. Allegro tells the story of Joseph Taylor .Jr., who follows in the professional footsteps of his small-town doctor father only to be lured by the glamour of a big-city practice. Catering to the whims of his neurotic, wealthy patients, he becomes oblivious to his wife Jennie's infidelities and his ideals. At the end of the show, he turns down a promotion and leaves his wife to return to his hometown with his college buddy Charlie and loyal nurse Emily. The importance of Allegro in musical theatre history was less in its plot than its presentation, which owed much to Our To-icn. An ensemble of performers function as a Greek chorus, singing Joseph's thoughts. His grandmother and mother appear onstage after their deaths to comment on the action. And director Agnes de Mille and set designer Jo Mielziner achieved an almost-cinematic staging with rear projections, moving platforms and a serpentine, S-shapetl curtain. The era of brief "in-one" scenes in front of the curtain to set up elaborate production numbers was coming to an end. Allegro's lack of widespread appeal also has much to do with a brief (33 minutes of material) 1947 original cast album on RCA Victor. This has been rectified with an outstanding new twodisc recording, offering 95 minutes of music, plus a fully illustrated book that includes a brief essay by Sondheim. "I think I might not be attracted to experimental musicals," he observes, "if I hadn't wet my feet \vithAllegro.'' Indeed, many songs in the Allegro score reveal parallels with later Sondheim compositions. The "Yatata" cocktail sequence, comprised of harsh chords and abstract lyrics ("Broccoli, hogwash, balderdash/Phony baloney, tripe and trash") sung by insincere society folk, presages the similar "Blob" party scenes in Merrily We Roll Along. (Tellingly, Joseph's wealthy patients sing of their prescription shots, while Merrily's showbiz people medicate themselves with cocaine.) Allegro's brisk title song, with Joe, Charley and Emily commenting on the relentlessness of modern life ("Don't stop whatever you do! 'Do something dizzy and new'Keep up
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REVIEW BY ANDREW MILNER

the hullabaloo!") anticipates Pacific Overtures' finale "Next." The anthem-like "Come Home," sung by Joseph's ghostly mother, is evocative of "Sunday" and "Move On" from Sunday in the Park with George. On the other hand, the thoroughness of the recording brings out some of the thematic weaknesses in the story. As much as Rodgers and Hammerstein tried to avoid a simplistic smalltown-vs.-big-city conflict, the overall theme seems to be that big cities represent insincerity while small towns embody all-American ideals. It's significant that in Rodgers and Hammerstcin's next work. South Pacific (1949). characters from the big cities and small towns are united by both World War II and the larger enemy of prejudice. Y\"hile Allegro''s score has many strengths (including a clever ''One Foot. Other Foot" motif throughout Joseph's life), it seems Rodgers and Hammerstein were more comfortable writing musicals based on existing sources, taking place in highly specific settings, than from totally original ideas. Allegro is set in a generic Midwestern small town and a generic big city: Joe and Charlie attend "State U." By comparison, Carousel is explicitly set in 1870s Xew England, which informs the music as well as the lyrics. Patrick Wilson, who has already played heroes in two Rodgers and Hammerstein stage revivals (Billy in the 1996 national tour of Carousel and Curly in the 2002 Broadway staging of Oklahoma!) is in excellent form as Joseph on this recording. Laura Benanti is an effective foil as Jennie, and Audra McDonald is superb as Joseph's mother (with a radiant "Come Home"). Marni Nixon (of the soundtracks to The King and I, West Side Story and Gypsy) is equally poignant as Joseph's grandmother. As Emily. Liz Callaway offers a definitive rendition of the show's best-known song, "The Gentleman Is a Dope." Other inspired casting touches include two of the severe college professors portrayed by veteran theatre critics Howard Kissel and John Simon. Hammerstein himself provides a cameo: a 1950s-cra Dictabelt recording of his reading the dialogue has been incorporated into the college sequence. This comprehensive recording does justice to a neglected piece of American musical theatre. Sondheim provided the voice of Rose's father on the original east album of Gypsy some 50 years ago. Perhaps his appearance on this Allegro recording suggests we can look forward to another cast-album cameo sometime around 2059. [rSR)
ANDREW MILNER reviews books and CDs for Philadelphia's City Paper.