Philadelphia Whistlegets mixed reviews

REVIEW BY ANDREW J. MILNER

I n February' 1964, Anyone Can Whistle's pre-Broadway run in Philadelphia encounteredtragedy: A dancer fell into the orchestra pit

onto 9 musician, who subsequently died of a heartattack. Four decades later, the show ran into mis-fortune again at Philadelphia's Prince MusicTheater, as illness sidelined two of the three leadsfor most of its twoweek run. Backstage, accordingto lead Chuck Wagner, Anyone Can Whisde wasreferred to as "the Scottish musical." But even in aconcert staging with a depleted cast, Whistle stillhas the capacity to entertain.

Tbny nominee Grista Moore was initiallyreplaced by Taryn Cagnina in the role of Fay Apple,but toward the end of the run, Cagnina herself wasreplaced by Amanda Harper, a Philadelphia-areacollege student. "It's almost an Apple a day,"Wagner quipped to the audience before the finalperformance. Tbny nominee Jane Summerhays wascast as Mayoress Cora Hoover Hooper, but duringthe run audiences saw several different actresses inthe role. For the final performance on February 6,she was replaced by Betsy Riley, the Prince MusicTheater's director of education.

On such short notice, the two actresses per-\ formed decently. Riley was effective as the manipu-

lative Mayoress and in good voice for "A Parade inTown" and "I've Got \bu to Lean On," but rushedthrough much of her dialogue. The concert stag-ing retained most of Arthur Laurents' libretto, andhis wittier lines deserved to be savored by the audi-ence. Harper, a senior at Philadelphia's Universityof the Arts, was clearly flustered during the firstact. Despite singing "There Won't Be Trumpets"with the sheet music on a stand, she fumbledsome of the lyrics and was slightly off-key. Later,she went up on some of the lyrics to "Anyone CanWhistle," the song meant to establish Fay's charac-ter — undermining her standing in the play. ByAct II, Harper was much more relaxed, and she letfly with "See What It Gets %>u," which earned herthe loudest applause of the matinee. With furtherseasoning, she should have a strong career.

Best known as Rapunzel's Prince in the originalBroadway production of Into the Woods, Wagnerwas confident as J. Bowden Hapgood, displayinggood comic timing. The moment in Act II when herevealed his real identity to Fay was a rare case of aline of dialogue in a musical stopping the show.Moreover, Wagner sang forcefully; his "EverybodySays Don't" was terrific and defined his character.After the performances by the late Harry Guardinoon the original cast album and Scott Bakula onthe 1995 Carnegie Hall recording, we finally had aHapgood with a first-rate singing voice.

Director Charles Gilbert (who conceived theidea for another Sondheim musical, Assassins)deserves kudos for being willing to tackle such a

problematic show. Unlike Lonny Price's gimmickyconcert staging of CcmcUde for Lincoln Center lastspring, Gilbert's direction kept the camp to a min-imum. He cleverly had the Cookies blending intothe population by having them walk into thePrince audience: during the "A-l March," he hadthe Cookies parade across the stage with placardsspelling "HAPGOOD." (At one point, either bydesign or serendipity, the signs spelled out "OHGOD") Where the original Broadway production ofWhisde had 20 speaking roles, theconcert staging had just 13; mostnotably absent were Cora's back-up singers. They were replaced in"Me and My Town" by Magruder,Schub and Cooley, forcefully por-trayed by Charles McCloskey, JimBergwall and Doug Anderson. Thetownspeople doubled as Cookies,and standouts included BillyBustamunte as George in the"Simple" interrogation scene (healso appeared locally in the 2003Arden Theatre staging of PacificOvertimes) and Nancie Sanderson,who sang the soprano solo duringthe "Cookie Chase" ballet.

One major quibble: The pro-duction opened with a mock radiocommercial for Detmold's Asylumfor the Socially Pressured, announcing that it was1964. Anyone Can Whistle is many things — injuggling an absurdist plot with a romance, some-times too many things at once — but it's not aperiod piece in the manner of Bye, Bye, Birdie orThe King and I. Given that a grilled cheese sand-wich with an image resembling the Virgin Marysold for $28,000 on eBay last year, the theme ofthe public accepting alleged miracles is as timelyas ever. And the casually corrupt Cora and herhenchmen had an extra resonance in Philadelphia,with its own City Hall in the middle of a federalcorruption probe during the show's run.

The Philadelphia staging received mixed to nega-tive reviews, but any production in which the audi-ence clapped in time to the mock-Tchaikovskymelody of "The Cookie Chase" can't be considered afailure. Anyone Gun Whisde is the kind of .show need-ing not only a strong directorial hand to succeed buta sizable amount of good fortune. The Prince MusicTheater's production had more of the former thanthe latter, but it was coherent enough to make youwant to see a larger — and luckier — staging. ITSRI

Andrew J. Milner reviews books and CDs for thePhiladelphia City Paper. His essay, "Let the PupilShow the Master,* appeared in Stephen Sondheim:A Casebook.

PHOTO COURTESY Of PRINCE THEATER