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[0:06] Robert W. Schneider: Hi, I'm Robert W. Schneider, and welcome to Fifty Key Stage Musicals: The Podcast, a companion piece to the Routledge Press publication Fifty Key Stage Musicals, which is available for purchase by going to Routledge.com or clicking the link below in today's show description.

[0:22] Robert W. Schneider: Today's episode focuses on chapter 12, the 1950 production of Guys and Dolls.

[0:28] Robert W. Schneider: And with us today is the author of that chapter, Emeritus Professor of Theatre at the State University of New York at Cortland, Thomas Hischak.

[0:37] Robert W. Schneider: Thomas is the author of over 30 books on theatre, film, and popular music. Among his works on the musical theatre are The Oxford Companion to the American Musical, The Rodgers and Hammerstein Encyclopedia, Word Crazy: Broadway Lyricists, The Jerome Kern Encyclopedia, The Mikado to Matilda: The British Musical on the New York Stage, and a personal favorite of mine, Musical Misfires: Three Decades of Broadway Musical Heartbreak with Mark A. Robinson.

[1:04] Robert W. Schneider: Thomas, I am so happy that you're joining us today.

[1:07] Thomas Hischak: It's great to be back.

[1:08] Robert W. Schneider: The first question I'm going to ask you, which we ask of all of our authors, is what makes Guys and Dolls a key musical?

[1:18] Thomas Hischak: I would consider it among the top musical comedies. You know, the plays that do not have the desire to go where Rodgers and Hammerstein went. It is just musical comedy entertainment, but still intelligently written, beautifully structured, and of course, a superb score. So we look at it today, and it is considered one of the great models. If you're looking at the classic musicals, there's always this argument between Kiss Me, Kate and Guys and Dolls, which is the more perfect musical. They both come out within three years of each other, and they do not date; they are produced all the time. And I think with Guys and Dolls, it ended up being one of the best books for a musical, and it broke a few rules along the way.

But that's always good. And in this case, you can argue over which of the couples is the primary couple. Is it Adelaide and Nathan Detroit? Nathan Detroit, right? He's synonymous with it, so it makes sense. He picked his name after Nathan Detroit. And then you've got Sky Masterson and the Salvation Army worker, and so depending on how you cast it, who's the bigger stars, or the way you direct it, but it's one of the few musicals where the A and the B couples are not even clear which is A and which is B. They both get the same amount of time. They're both interesting; they are both funny. One's more romantic than the other. This is very unusual, and how it came about wasn't as easy as it looks.

It is one of the smoothest scripts. There isn't a scene in it that's unnecessary. Every musical number plays beautifully; they're not all integrated. I would say the two nightclub numbers are kind of that traditional thing where we go to a nightclub; we have to have a nightclub number. The first one, "Bushel and a Peck," is just a cute number and a very popular song, but really doesn't have much to do with Manhattan, where the setting is. The second one does reflect "Take Back My Mink." That actually is Adelaide's subtext when she's saying to what she's trying to say to Nathan. Beautifully written script, and as I say, a great score, lots of interesting characters, but boy, you don't see the birthmarks when you look at this musical. So I think this is a great time to talk about the birthmarks that we do not see on this particular show.

[4:11] Thomas Hischak: Can you tell us how Guys and Dolls came to be a musical and what that creative process was like?

[4:18] Thomas Hischak: It was two producers, Cy Feuer and Ernest Martin, who had the idea of taking—they didn't very specific—they just said, "Oh, Damon Runyon, wonderful writer, all these short stories, and what a musical it would make." And it wasn't that far-fetched because Damon Runyon had been stories that had turned into movies, several of them, and they're full-length movies, often just based on one short story, and they were expanded. So that's what they wanted to do. Let's take a story, expand it, and we'll have a great musical. And they contacted a Hollywood screenwriter, Joe Swerling, and asked him to come up with which story to use, and it didn't take long for them to realize they were in big trouble. None of the stories was substantial enough for a musical, and Joe Swerling's script was not quite right.

He didn't capture the Damon Runyon language so well, and the plot was just going nowhere. And they had Frank Loesser already lined up. Frank Loesser wrote the music and lyrics, and he had been working in Hollywood for a long time, but he had made a splash with Where's Charlie a couple of years earlier, which Feuer and Martin produced. So they had their good songwriter all set to go. But it was hopeless, and so they let Joe Swerling out of his contract, but he had the clause that they can keep his name in it, even though they're going to make other changes. Well, the script of Guys and Dolls has nothing from Joe Swerling, absolutely nothing, but he's still listed as one of the co-authors, and I'm sure he got a royalty all those years.

[6:17] Robert W. Schneider: Wow.

[6:18] Thomas Hischak: Yeah, it's one of those, you know, wow, who's Joe Swerling? Well, you look him up; he's written several movies. So who did they go to? Somebody who had never written a play or a musical libretto. It was crazy. But they went to Abe Burrows, who was known for writing for radio. I'm not sure how they found him or how they did, but Abe Burrows is the one who hammered out the script that we now have today, and he didn't have an easy time of it. They started with one story; they tried another one. They tried to put two together, but they couldn't find the second one. You know, they had Miss Sarah Brown; that was the story they were going to go with in Sky, but they really couldn't find a good enough second plot.

But they liked this character of Nathan Detroit, who showed up, I think, in two of the stories. And Abe Burrows pretty much read from nothing the second plot between Nathan and Adelaide. I don't know at what point they realized which one was more important, because in the original production, the big name was Sam Levene, the one who played Nathan. So maybe that's the primary story, you know. But then they had the ballads all went to the Sky Masterson and Sarah Brown plot, and Robert Alda, who played Sky Masterson, had a name and a reputation. This was the best thing he ever got to do. So it's hard to say. But they had this great script, and Burrows, you know, they thought, "Oh, now we're home free."

And they weren't. They were bitter days were up ahead. Sam Levene was cast first, and it was written with him in mind, and he is one of the great character actors. I'm so glad I got to see him on stage near the end of his career in Royal Family. And I thought, "Oh, this guy, he had been playing wonderful character parts since the '30s, and a couple of movies too, but mostly theatre." They had him, and that was what they were going to go with. Unfortunately, Sam Levene could not sing. And I mean, he could not find a note; he could not do four notes in a row. So all of a sudden, one of your four major characters cannot sing. And Frank Loesser had written a lot of songs for Nathan, and he could not do them.

So they had to cut this; they had to cut that. And today, when you do Guys and Dolls, Nathan does not sing much. And it's kind of odd, you know, that the history of the musical is that way because basically he should be in there more. And I'm surprised somebody hasn't said, "Well, now we can get a Nathan who could sing. Why don't we give him the songs he probably should have sung?" For example, the oldest established, you know, crap game in New York is the gangsters or the mobsters or the happy-go-lucky gamblers. They sing it about Nathan and this plot of we gotta find a place to have the crap game. It really should be sung by Nathan. That would be how you'd write it, you know. And "Sit Down, You're Rockin' the Boat," probably should have been sung by one of the four principals, and only Nathan Detroit would sing that, but no way was Sam Levene gonna sing a gospel revival number, you know.

But I'm kind of curious, you know, that if the estate of Frank Loesser is open, I really think the musical can be put back to the way it might have been, but nobody wants to mess with it because it's so good. It's kind of perfect. I know that when they did it in the West End, maybe about 15-20 years ago now.

[10:18] Robert W. Schneider: I saw that, yeah.

[10:19] Thomas Hischak: Did you? And I think they put in "Adelaide" from the movie, which was written for Frank Sinatra.

[10:25] Robert W. Schneider: They may have; I don't remember.

[10:26] Thomas Hischak: It was a wonderful production, yeah.

[10:28] Robert W. Schneider: That's what I've heard.

[10:30] Thomas Hischak: Oh, it was, yeah, of Julia McKenzie. It was a gorgeous production, and I really enjoyed it.

[10:35] Robert W. Schneider: I don't remember "Adelaide."

[10:37] Thomas Hischak: I think it's probably the dullest song that Frank Loesser ever wrote.

[10:43] Robert W. Schneider: Yes, I mean, I can't believe how what an awful song it is.

[10:46] Thomas Hischak: It was written for the film, and I didn't think he was capable of writing such an uninteresting song, but Frank Sinatra had to say more in the movie.

[10:55] Robert W. Schneider: Of course.

[10:56] Thomas Hischak: Of course. Frank Sinatra in a part where on Broadway the guy couldn't sing, you know. That was truly bizarre.

[11:03] Thomas Hischak: He's right for the part, but I would have thought Loesser would have come up with—he wrote two terrible numbers for the movie, "Pet Me, Papa" and "Adelaide," and they are so inferior to the rest of the score. You know, who's to say? And "Pet Me, Papa" replacing "Bushel and a Peck." "Bushel and a Peck" sold more sheet music than any other song in the show. Sam Goldwyn cut it. I think he wanted the royalties. He thought—I think he thought that Loesser would come up with a new hit, and of course he would own it because it's the movie, right?

[11:42] Thomas Hischak: Um, but nobody wanted Pet Me Papa.

[11:47] Robert W. Schneider: Oh, in the rehearsal process for this show, obviously, it sounds like it's a tough birth.

[11:47] Thomas Hischak: It's a tough birth.

[11:56] Robert W. Schneider: Yes. Can you tell us a little bit more about the character of Adelaide?

[12:00] Thomas Hischak: Um, because Adelaide's Lament is probably one of the most iconic comic numbers. Yeah, would you tell us the origins of that?

[12:07] Thomas Hischak: Well, they cast um Vivian Blaine, who made a couple of movies. If you want to see her really in a good form, see the 1945 uh State Fair music movie. Uh, she gets to sing a couple of numbers there, and she's quite good. Uh Burroughs originally had the idea, he thought this would be funny and interesting, is that Adelaide was a stripper, and she was always had a cold because she didn't have many clothes on in these crafty theaters, and that she would complain about always having this cold. And uh they worked on that and they started doing it, and they found out it was a joke that didn't travel very far. You know, after you've established the joke, you know, she's a stripper and oh hot you, you know.

Uh then he moved to a much more interesting idea. What if her cold, you know, her consistent cold and sinuses was all due to you know nervous frustration over Nathan. Um and that opened the door for Lesser to write one of the greatest yeah, character songs of all time, Adelaide's Lament. Um Vivian Blaine could sing, and he had a lot of plans for her. She sings pretty much in the uh musical. Um when it came to a duet between Adelaide and Nathan, they had to have at least one number together, and uh a compromise of all compromises is a song Sue Me, where Nathan barely joins in. And uh she's carrying the song with all the you know the high notes and everything. Uh Sam Levene had so much trouble finding his note that they wrote, call a lawyer and sue me, sue me.

He couldn't find sue me without climbing up the scale. So Lesser wrote it that you know, cool, you know, he got his note from her and went da-da-da-da-da. Oh, that's the note. Um, and uh, and it's a wonderful little, you know, uh duet and perfect for the couple, but again, you're compromising yourself by saying, well, all right, I'm just gonna write a duet where one person has to carry it. And she did. And it was so nice that she got to make the movie. The only one in the Broadway cast to make the movie. I think they realized she was just so perfect. Um, because they made so many weird decisions about that movie, but uh that was one decision. Odd film, I would say. I don't know what your thoughts on it, but I I can't believe what they did in making that movie.

[14:45] Robert W. Schneider: You got a non-singing part, so you cast Frank Sinatra. You got a heavy singing part, so you cast Marlon Brando, who surprised everybody how good it was, but not what you're known for. And Jean Simmons surprised people with her singing. No, nobody was dubbed in the movie. You kept some of the character parts like um Stubby K as Nicely-Nicely, you kept that for the movie. Um you throw out one of the most popular songs and put in two dull songs, uh songs, and uh uh and then you hire Michael Kidd to do the choreography, and uh, which is great. He's recreating the Broadway choreography, but the director is um Mankiewicz.

[15:27] Thomas Hischak: Yeah.

[15:27] Robert W. Schneider: Joseph L. Mankiewicz, yeah. And he's never directed a musical before or since. Um, but uh it had this nice look to it. I I you know, the set designs were the same guy who did it on Broadway, and uh so it had a kind of a fable, you know, it's a fable, it's not realistic. I mean, some things about it were right, but so much of it just, you know, it it should have been better, you know, could have been a better movie, but I guess we should be grateful for what we got.

[15:58] Thomas Hischak: Absolutely about remaking that. Maybe somebody will say, hey, they remade West Side Story and it made money. Let's remake Guys and Dolls. Who knows? U what I've heard for the longest time, and who knows if it'll actually come to fruition is that they wanted to use uh Channing Tatum and Jonah Hill as um Sky and Nathan.

[16:20] Robert W. Schneider: Yeah, you know them, yeah.

[16:21] Thomas Hischak: Get Lady Gaga for Adelaide and Europe, okay.

[16:25] Robert W. Schneider: Oh, absolutely.

[16:26] Thomas Hischak: Actually, that's fantastic casting.

[16:29] Thomas Hischak: That's fantastic casting. You know, yeah, go what you can. But uh at one point, one of my favorite songs, uh, everybody's favorite, I guess, uh, is the three uh gamblers singing that opening number.

[16:44] Thomas Hischak: I got the horse right here. His name is Paul Revere. It's called a fugue.

[16:48] Robert W. Schneider: It's not a fugue, it's a round.

[16:50] Thomas Hischak: That was originally written to be sung by Adelaide. I think Sky and Nathan is around of three people going, you know, and of course, you can imagine Sam Levene. It's hard not to sing a note, you know, sing a melody, and when two people are singing something different than what you're singing, you know, I think you probably ran out of the room and in horror. Um, and so Lesser had this great little trio, you know, what are you gonna do with it? And he did a probably a better thing is giving it to the three gamblers. It's one of the great opening uh songs. Um what a testament to Sam Levene's talent that they're willing to make so many compromises to the writing of their show to keep this individual employed in it.

[17:37] Robert W. Schneider: Yeah. People have trouble saying, Well, what was the big deal with him? Why would they, you know, and uh no, he was outstanding in the role.

[17:46] Thomas Hischak: Let's talk a little bit about the genius of Frank Loesser. Um, from his career overall, but also like you were mentioning on this particular show. Can you tell us a little bit more about the career of Frank Loesser?

[17:58] Thomas Hischak: Mm-hmm. He started off as a lyricist, a very good lyricist, always working on B movies in Hollywood, uh, and writing with pretty good Tune Smiths um composers. Uh and he was well known. He'd been around. Um, he had written uh one or two songs that went into a Broadway review in the 30s, but basically he's Hollywood.

[18:22] Thomas Hischak: And uh, and then during World War II, he writes a song uh called Praise the Lord and Pass the Ammunition, and he wrote a mock little melody for it. And a lot of lyricists do that. Uh, they'll take an existing melody or they'll make up a melody just so they can when they write the lyrics, everything is falling into place. He played it for I don't know, publisher or whatever. And uh I said, that's not the melody. You know, we'll get somebody to write a real good melody, but this is the lyric and very simple lyric. And uh whoever he showed it to said, that music is fine. Let's publish it as you know, Frank Loesser music and lyrics. Well, from that day on, Frank Loesser never wrote a song where he didn't write his own music.

Uh, was he musically trained? No, but he had the instincts, you know, of uh Irving Berlin. He just could write music uh uh that was interesting, funny. He can write operatic for Most Happy Fella. He can write jazzy stuff, he can write, you name it. Um uh unbelievably talented. His first show for Broadway was uh Where's Charlie? came up with a couple of hit songs and a delightful score, and then Guys and Dolls came along.

[19:40] Thomas Hischak: Um as I said, he was writing songs before they actually put it all together and uh had to cut out a lot of stuff, and that always is annoying. Um reused some stuff, but there was no question that this was uh a first class score, had a couple of hits in it, but it was one of those shows where you look forward to every song. You know, there wasn't like, okay, we gotta get through this song because we gotta get to the good one.

[20:05] Thomas Hischak: Yeah, there are no weak numbers in this show. He even took the risk of uh uh giving a very minor character, the uh Salvation Army fatherly figure there, and giving him a little Irish lullaby, the sing in the middle of all this, a wonderful song called More I Cannot Wish You. And it's it's a little, it's a short but touching little song he sings to Sarah, and it's needed. The the show is brassy and it's you know, we're getting ready for the big gambling number, and it's this quiet little ballad, perfectly, you know, restrained uh for the character and also what you would sing to Sarah. Uh it's brilliant.

[20:46] Thomas Hischak: Um every song in the show is brilliant. Uh the duet for the two leading ladies, which is not a typical thing.

[20:54] Thomas Hischak: And uh to do the song about, you know, Marry the Man Today. It's funny, it's touching, and it actually comes in the second last spot. It's an important song.

[21:04] Thomas Hischak: It's when the two women realize you can't change them, you marry them, and then you try to change them.

[21:09] Robert W. Schneider: Yeah. I find it interesting that that was cut from the film.

[21:13] Thomas Hischak: Yes, it was.

[21:15] Thomas Hischak: And it it a lot of character went out the window with it.

[21:19] Thomas Hischak: Um I'm surprised the song, the film kept as many songs as it did because Hollywood was notorious up in 1950. They were notorious for changing uh musicals, uh, you know, wholesale, just you know, throwing out scores, bringing in other stuff.

[21:37] Thomas Hischak: And I never understood why they would do something like throw out a classic song that was a best seller and replace it with something much less interesting until I found out that the movie company would own the song if it was written for the film.

[21:53] Thomas Hischak: So instead of singing like in Babes in Arms, My Funny Valentine, one of the great ballads, they throw it out, put in another ballad, and if it became a hit, then MGM owned it, and they got all the royalties. You know, it's uh um it's a weird way to work, but uh it was still working in the 50s.

[22:14] Thomas Hischak: What changed it was when Rogers and Hammerstein sold their uh musicals to the movies, and they wanted total control, and they said, we will decide which songs are cut, which ones are going to be added if we want to change a song. Um, and everybody wanted to make a movie out of the Rogers and Hammerstein shows, so they had to play ball with them.

[22:37] Thomas Hischak: And I think that opened it up, you know, and made it um easier for songwriters like Frank Loesser to say, don't screw around with my score uh when you make the movie.

[22:49] Robert W. Schneider: Now, you as you were saying earlier, this show breaks a lot of rules, uh, whether it was intentional or not. How much of that do you think was guided by the show's original director, George S. Kaufman?

[23:03] Thomas Hischak: I don't know. Jo Kaufman was a playwright. And he wrote uh librettos for musicals as well as wonderful comedies with Moss Hart and other people. Um I can't think but he must have had his hand in in the script.

[23:21] Thomas Hischak: You know, he was so good. What's the punchline, you know? And uh and I I listened to uh some of the dialogue between Sky and Nathan, and I I hear Kaufman, you know, I hear the the uh the Kaufman of the 20s, 30s, 40s. Um by the 40s, he wasn't writing hit plays anymore, but he definitely was in the 20s and the 30s. So I can't help but think that he probably had a hand in. For example, uh, to end a scene with a joke and not a musical number. So Nathan is talking to Sky and he's trying to talk him into taking the bet and and he he tricks him into betting I could take any girl to my uh to uh Havana, and then the guy turns and says, that's the girl, and it's a salvation army worker, and Sky Masterson says the line, cider right in the eye, what he had been taught by his father.

Punchline, blackout, go to the next scene. That's very Kaufman-like. So I, you know, but any director makes changes, and uh his changes are not reflected in the script. They don't say, you know, additional Kaufman. Kaufman did a lot of that uh in the famous uh wonderful uh comedy, uh The Women, and that's going back to 1939, I believe. Um he wrote some of the punchlines in that, but he never took credit. You know, uh so he was punching up his scripts um that he either directed or in that case, uh he didn't direct it, I don't think, but he was a friend of the playwright. Uh Kaufman was a very good director. We don't think of him that way, but he believed in uh timing, keeping the scene changes moving, not you know, coming to an abrupt boom, and um and the the dialogue, you know, moving the dialogue at a at a New York pace.

Uh so I think he probably was pretty influential. But today, because the script is so good. If a director trusts the material, it's all there for you. You know, it's not like you gotta solve the problem of oh, how are we gonna do this book or how are we gonna do this scene? You just do it. You do it and you do it fast and you do it tight, and I promise you it'll play, and it does. Uh so his original directing was probably very important in in terms of some of the lines may have been his, but I think it was more the idea that you write a script that's you just trust the actors.

[26:00] Thomas Hischak: Yeah. Because I have seen Guys and Dolls where it didn't work on stage, and in almost every case, I think they were not trusting the script. They were either adding bits, you know, they thought, oh, that was funny if we do that. Or, you know, I it it's I thought it was a foolproof show, but it's not. As brilliant as it is. You still have to trust the script and do it it like Kaufman would have done it. That's why Jerry Zaks was so successful with that big revival. Uh Jerry Zaks very good director of farce comedy musicals, musical comedy, although he would surprise people and do something really edgy like the original Assassins, you know, off Broadway. Not exactly a Jerry Zaks musical to say the least.

Yeah. I hear it was brilliantly done. Yeah. Um that revival, the uh uh Nathan Lane sort of became the star and and um oh my goodness, Faith Prince as Adelaide. And I would say that they kind of overshadowed the other couple because they were the two names and they were both very, very good, but then they were very solid in the other, you know, the couple too. And I think you need that. Um what I got from that production, what I got is Jerry Zaks was doing a Kaufman thing. He was keeping it moving, keep the punchline, drop, you know, black out when you're supposed to, and come back. And I've seen at least four musical numbers from it and and then some of dialogue, and I would say that he was faithful to the original intent.

[27:43] Thomas Hischak: Yeah. Um there had been an all African American production of it, and I did see that. Um and uh what was so nice about that one is nothing had to change. It was still razor sharp, it was a good production, not as tight as is the Jerry Zaks one. And uh and there was something wonderful about an African American nicely nicely singing sit down, you're rock in the boat, because it is a a pastiche of a a gospel number. It's yeah, the great Ken Page. And he'd be he brought the, you know, he stopped the show with that number, as you should when you do that number. But yeah, that was the highlight of that production. Um, Robert Guillaume, I remember with Sky Masterson, and uh um there have been many, many productions over the years.

Um but uh and it'll come back. We'll see it on Broadway again. It's just one of those great musicals. And what's so interesting, and I'm so curious about your opinion on this, is in the 1976 version that was done, it was very clear that Sky and Sarah were the leads of this. And then when you see the 92 revival, it's very clear that Nathan and Adelaide are the leads of this. Then there was a revival that Des McAnuff did. I don't know who was the lead, but maybe the scenery that was very disappointing, I understand.

[29:05] Thomas Hischak: Yeah. So my question for you is this do you have a feeling on whose shoulders this show actually rests? I would say you could do the show with a weak Sky Masterson and Sarah that we are just adequate, but you can't do this show with just an adequate Nathan and and Adelaide. So my feeling is they would make or break it. So I would say that's where the shoulders they have to carry it. But a whole musical with just Nathan and Adelaide wouldn't be as good, you know. You want that other couple, you want the more romantic moments, um, but still an interesting couple, not boring, you know. He's funny, she gets drunk and does a great if I was a bell number, you know, and so it's not not like they're the dull couple and this is the funny couple. They're both good. But I think of the two couples, if the show's gonna fly, it's gonna depend on the Nathan and uh Adelaide.

[30:09] Thomas Hischak: Yeah. One of the things that I find so fascinating about Guys and Dolls, and I would love if you can uh talk about it a little bit for us, is the fact that the lyrics and dialogue and even the music all feel like they're written by the same person, and that person just happens to be Damon Runyon. Can you tell us a little bit about Runyonese and how it's used in Guys and Dolls?

[30:31] Thomas Hischak: Yeah, nobody writes like Runyon, and um you can always tell when uh a character is a Damon Runyon character. The stories, I've written a lot of them, um, and uh they're usually narrated by a New Yorkese character, but he's usually not the main character in the story. He's telling about, oh, this guy Sky Masterson, you know, and I saw him at, you know, at uh uh the deli, you know, and he'll tell you what he sees and what he hears, but the narrator is a character, but he's not involved directly in the action. It's kind of interesting. So you kind of tell the story through a point of view of somebody who talks that way and thinks that way. Uh it's a very unique style. Um, it's highly erudite and intelligent.

The vocabulary could be very, you know, on the other hand, it's slangy and it's it's down to earth and kind of street smart. And I think what's funny is the combination of a gangster using a very intelligent word, and then right next to that, you know, coming down to some pretty low slang, you know. And uh it's musical dialogue, it's delightful. Some of the stories get very serious. Uh, I was so surprised when I wanted to research um the Bob Hope movie of the um uh Lemon Drop Kid, and uh it's a delightful movie with some songs in it, and uh it predates uh Guys and Dolls. And I went and read the story, and it was a tragic story. You could tell that they liked the concept, and then they just said, Well, we're not gonna go there.

Um, so Runyon's stories are not all um escapist or trivial. He he was a solid writer, but boy, did he know how to come up with names of characters, wonderful names, you know, Harry the Horse and so and so. He's got dozens of them, and uh in an attitude. I would say that the stories have this kind of attitude. It's not real, it's a fable, it's uh a little romanticized, at the same time, it's a little uh uh guttural, a little, you know, tough, you know, kind of thing. Uh brilliant writer, and I could see why they wanted to make a musical out of it, but not as easy as they thought. He never wrote a novel, he never wrote anything longer, you know, than a short story. So you are stuck with, you know, filling in a lot if you want to make it a full-length player musical.

[33:16] Thomas Hischak: And one of the brilliant things I think Loesser does is he's somehow able to take his lyrics, which and at this time lyricists were being, you know, asked to uh use a vernacular that sounded a little bit more realistic and and maybe leaning into the world of poetry. And Loesser just throws all that out the window and says, No, these characters are gonna sing the way they would talk in real life. He must have studied those stories because you can't tell. Um, because Abe Burrows' book is so good, and he's taken some of his dialogue from from uh from Damon Runyon, but not everything, because he's making up a whole new story. What you said, I love is the dialogue moves into the lyrics, and it's all sounds like the same person.

That's the sign of really good lyric writing. Um, and some people it's a good sign of good libretto writing too. And it's when a musical has a certain sass in its dialogue that continues immediately into the singing. Um, Nathan singing, a little bit that he does, and Nathan talking is the same Nathan. And that's easy to do. Um, even when somebody's writing both music and lyrics, like Loesser, um, I'm reminded that uh very often Neil Simon's musicals, successful and unsuccessful, Neil Simon writes a certain way, and it's the challenge of the lyricist to sound like Neil Simon, you know, and in some cases uh it worked pretty well. There was a lyricist called Carolyn Leigh who really picked up the Simon cadence and musicals like Little Me.

[35:01] Thomas Hischak: That's the challenge, uh, is the move from dialogue to lyrics, and it falls together. And, uh, people are gonna hate me for saying it, but Sondheim sometimes the lyricist, the book writer is not up to Sondheim the lyricist. And, uh, he's a brilliant lyricist, and either it's funny or it's provoking, or it's, you know, um, I have trouble with, uh, Into the Woods that way. I don't think the dialogue in Into the Woods is nearly as interesting as the lyrics when they start singing. Uh, that's my, I'm in the minority there because that show is well beloved. Um, as opposed to Sweeney Todd, uh, Hugh Wheeler wrote that book, and it just moves right into the Sondheim lyrics. Yeah. So beautifully, you would think that Sondheim wrote the script.

Um, but that is a challenge, especially if you have three people: a composer, a lyricist, and a book writer. Um, how does it all sound like the same thing? Well, in Guys and Dolls, it does. It's almost like Frank Loesser wrote the script, you know, or Abe Burrows wrote the lyrics. It really moves so beautifully. You know, one of the things, and we were talking about this, which is, you know, this is the model musical that they tell, you know, writers in musical theater school, this is what you study, this is what you try to emulate. In addition to Guys and Dolls, Thomas, is there any other show you can think of that you would hand to a potential, I'm gonna say libretto writer, a book writer for a musical, and say, study this as well after you're done with Guys and Dolls?

[36:45] Thomas Hischak: A lot of the Hammerstein books, he always wrote the book as well as the lyrics. And for the musical play, the more serious thing, I would say look at Oklahoma or look at Carousel. For musical comedy, uh, I bring up, uh, Kiss Me, Kate again. Uh, Sam and Bella Spiwak wrote the script there, and the script came first, and Cole Porter was brought in later. And, uh, that is a brilliant script because it doesn't have the two equal couples, but it's got two musicals going on: the on-stage Shakespeare musical and the backstage musical, and that script is so well written that at the end of the evening you know everything you need to know about this Shakespeare story and everything you need to know about the backstage story, and it's also the only musical I could think of that is in real time.

They start with the end of a rehearsal a little bit before the overture, and then the musical lasts as long as the musical lasts. In other words, the intermission for Kiss Me, Kate, the musical, comes at the intermission for the story going on backstage, and they all climax at the end. Uh, I don't think any show has ever done that.

[38:02] Thomas Hischak: You know what? I did not realize that until you just said it. Yeah, it's in real time. Except for the very beginning, there's a rehearsal and you get some backstage stuff. But once they start that overture and they start singing "We Open in Venice," um, everything is taking place during the time period of the show itself. Uh, so I would point to that as a very, uh, superior, uh, book. And, um, I was gonna say, I know shows like A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum and 1776 get bandied about on this list. Would you agree with those?

[38:36] Thomas Hischak: Oh, yes. Although I don't think 1776 is so unusual and is so unique. I don't know if it'd be a very good model for anyone, you know. Uh, here's a show that has 25 minutes of no music, it's all talk. Yeah. And I don't know if you can get away with that, except in something like 1776. Um, but Peter Stone wrote that, and it's a superb script. There's no question about it. Uh, Larry Gelbart and, um, Bert Cheviot, I guess, that are two writers for Forum. And that also is an unusual show. We don't have many musical farces. Farces are so hard to do in musicals because a farce depends on nonstop boom boom boom, and musicals have to stop and sing, and Forum manages to get away with it. You're moving at a good pace, but then the song, uh, even Sondheim says the songs are kind of a respite from the farce, yeah.

And then you can move on again. Um, how many musical farces are there? Not many. Voices, I think, uh, fits in there. Lucky Stiff. Lucky Stiff is one of the few farces, modern farces I can think of, where the songs, uh, keep up pace with the musical, you know. Yeah, we do a lot of musical comedy, but musical farce is hard. Uh, it's a real challenge. And there's many cases where it doesn't work. We have all in my mishaps book, we have a lot of musical farces. They just didn't play out.

[40:08] Thomas Hischak: I, yeah, I was gonna say, uh, and of course, Gypsy as a great book musical. Yeah. That question, Arthur Laurents there is writing, uh, um, that would be a good model for a musical in which a star is featured and it's all built around the star, and, uh, which is not true of West Side Story by the same guy, you know. Yeah, West Side Story is a, is, is held together in its own way, where Gypsy is, is everything circulates around one character, uh, and very strong character. But yeah, I would put that as a very superior, uh, script. Do you feel it's an accurate statement when individuals say the reason that we don't see a lot of these older musicals, say Boys from Syracuse, say Babes in Arms, is because that the book is weak? Is that an accurate statement? Or is it just times have changed, but the book isn't weak?

[41:07] Thomas Hischak: No, there are so many musicals from the 20s that have great scores and weak books, and we just never do them. That's why you have all these Cole Porter revues, Rogers and Hart revues, because the shows themselves are not salvageable, you know. Uh, Crazy for You, a good example. Girl Crazy had some book problems. I don't think they solved them with Crazy for You, but it was, they worked and people loved it. And of course, they piled in all the Gershwin songs. Um, but I think of all the great musicals of the 20s that the book didn't matter as much, especially pre-Oklahoma days, and, uh, and we just don't do them. Uh, Boys from Syracuse, I think is done enough because it does have the structure of the Shakespeare play.

So you got something substantial, but then you turn around and you look at, you know, some of the other Rogers and Hart things, and you say, Oh my gosh, you know, nobody's doing Peggy Ann, or nobody's doing, um, uh, I Married an Angel, or you know, some of the other ones. Um, it's just the songs are there, but no show survives with a weak book, and that's the bot, it could survive with a weak score. I hate to say how many recent musicals play well because the story's good and the stars are good and the score is weak, but we, we for even forgive that. Here I asked not in an old musical, yeah.

[42:31] Thomas Hischak: For an example, well, I'd say Book of Mormon survives because of its book. There's not a song in there that is worthwhile and is necessary and is much shows much talent, but the book is so strong, people enjoy it. I think that's a good example. That's great. Uh, um, they always said that of the two, the music and lyrics, the lyrics were the least important. Uh, we love good lyrics now, thanks to Sondheim and, and, uh, Cole Porter and, uh, oh my goodness, uh, Hart. Oh, Laurence Hart. He's a top lyricist, you know. But, uh, we have many, many shows where there's beautiful music, a solid book, and pretty mediocre lyrics. We're very forgiving on lyrics, especially if it's an operetta, we don't expect the lyrics to be any good, or in some cases, we don't expect even to hear them, you know.

[43:29] Thomas Hischak: No, it's so, you know, it's so funny. You said that yesterday I was playing an operetta clip for my students, and I said afterwards, so what are your thoughts? And one of the students said, I didn't hear anything she was singing, but I think she was just singing the same thing over and over again. I said, So you're actually correct. I said in opera, you do that in an operetta, you can get away with it too. Yeah. And Thomas, my last question for you is what did Guys and Dolls open the door to? So, for example, had we not had Guys and Dolls, we might not have had shows A, B, and C. What are some of those shows?

[44:03] Thomas Hischak: Um, I think Guys and Dolls showed that a musical comedy could be as intelligent and structured as the musical play. In other words, we take more seriously the musical plays. Oh, yeah, you know, Carousel's a brilliant musical and everything. It's not just a musical comedy. Well, Guys and Dolls showed that just a musical comedy is really hard. And, um, I'd say Hello, Dolly! wouldn't have been possible without Guys and Dolls. I don't think Jerry Herman would have written that show as tightly as if he didn't have something like Guys and Dolls to look at. Um, I think, uh, well, other lesser shows, I think How to Succeed in Business. Oh, yeah. Um, but that we're back to the same person. Um, I'm thinking, uh, meme, musical comedy, you know, we don't get too serious in Mame, and, uh, but it just crafted so well, uh, that we go through that way, and, um, I'm trying to think of some other examples.

Uh, I think Forum was possible because of Guys and Dolls. Uh, let's write a tight book, let's make the jokes land. In that case, let's do a little vaudeville, even, you know, but, um, but let's keep that book sharp and smart, you know, even though it's low comedy, you know, that sort of thing. So, yeah, it's an important musical. There's no question. And because it's done all the time, it's not just a historic thing, you know. That, oh, I studied the history of musical theater, I know how important it is. It's done. People want to see it. They, you know, and they don't get tired of it. And, uh, who knows when it's coming to Broadway again.

[45:51] Robert W. Schneider: Yeah. Well, um, that's a sign of a great musical. That's great. Hopefully, soon. Hopefully, we'll all get to see another production again. Professor, thank you so much for joining us today. Uh, friends, please make sure to purchase a copy of Fifty Key Stage Musicals by visiting Routledge.com or by clicking in today's show description. If you want to learn more about Guys and Dolls, please also review the links in the below description. I'm Robert W. Schneider, and thank you for listening to Fifty Key Stage Musicals: The Podcast. Bye-bye.