Joseph Wilkins and Holly Dale Spencer in Holly Golightly at the Lilian Baylis Studio, London
Bob Merrill’s Holly Golightly, part of Ian Marshall Fisher’s Lost Musicals season at the Lilian Baylis Studio, Sadler’s Wells continues on September 15, 22 and 29.
In his time, some 20 years, Ian Marshall Fisher has excavated many real collectors’ items from the repertoire of Broadway shows for his Lost Musicals series. He has surveyed the books, music and lyrics of some once great musicals and others that were probably best left on the shelf. This month he has come up with a real doozie, Holly Golightly (1966) based on the Truman Capote 1958 novella Breakfast at Tiffany’s. Sadly, this show appeared to be doomed from the start, although it had music and lyrics by Bob Merrill who had written New Girl in Town, Take Me Along and Carnival! as well as the lyrics for Funny Girl. It had a book by Abe Burrows, famous for Guys and Dolls and How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying. It was based on a popular novella by Truman Capote and had been a successful, albeit diluted, film version with Audrey Hepburn as Holly Golightly, the New York good-time girl who stalked rich men as a way of life and to make a good living.
The show starred Mary Tyler Moore and Richard Chamberlain, at the time both huge television stars. It was designed by Oliver Smith who also worked on My Fair Lady and West Side Story, had choreography by Michael Kidd (Finian’s Rainbow, Guys and Dolls and Seven Brides for Seven Brothers), but in the end it just didn’t work. Nunnally Johnson had two cracks at writing the book but failed; on tour Burrows took over as librettist and director of the show which was then, in Philadelphia, known as Holly Golightly. In Boston another writer, Edward Albee, was brought in and he changed the whole concept and the title back to Breakfast at Tiffany’s. Burrows left and director Joseph Anthony took over.
By the time it reached Broadway, producer David Merrick had had enough and, as he said, to avoid everybody having “an excruciatingly boring evening”, he closed the show even though it had taken a lot of money in advanced bookings. It ran for four previews only and then closed, without even officially opening. More than 30 songs were written and these can be heard on the world premiere cast recording with Faith Prince, John Schneider, Hal Linden, Sally Kellerman and Patrick Cassidy, an album issued by Original Cast Records.
Fisher and Lost Musicals present the first-ever revival, using the Burrows version and just some of the songs by Merrill. Even going back to its original creation, the show never seems to come alive. Good as she is, it proves difficult for Holly Dale Spencer to convince us that Holly is the free spirit who is driven by the obvious attractions of money. It is revealed that the smart, chic Holly Golightly, the toast of the town, is actually born Lulamae Barnes and, far from being a free spirit, she is still married to Doc Golightly who comes to New York to seek her out and take her home. She becomes involved with a gangster who she visits in jail and nearly gets a narcotics charge nailed on her. As Jefferson Claypool, the writer she befriends, comments, she is a walking disaster area. In a different life she would be related to Sally Bowles, another girl out to get all she could from life without paying the price.
Some say that the character of Claypool was based on Capote himself and therefore gay, a fact overlooked in the film version. Joseph Wilkins as Jeff appears to be taken in by Holly to a degree, and he makes a good job of the part of a man who comes to be obsessed by her, perhaps because she is so unlike him and his own diffident character. Jonathan Dryden is hilarious as the racketeer Sally Tomato, while veteran dramatic and musical actor Gary Raymond is really very moving as Doc, Holly’s husband. Musical director Chris Walker provides the piano accompaniment for a score that would be more appreciated if the book were better and more focused.
Merrill was a great songsmith who turned out delightful ballads such as here, ‘I’ve Got a Penny’, ‘You’ve Never Kissed Her’ and ‘The Girl You Used to Be’, as well as elsewhere popular novelty songs such as ‘How Much is That Doggie in the Window?’, ‘Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania’, ‘She Wears Red Feathers’ and ‘The Kid’s Last Fight’. The whole shebang is certainly worth excavating out of interest in the form, but as for another staging – the jury is out on Holly Golightly.
Michael Darvell
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