Happiest Girl in the World, The review

Happiest Girl in the World, The Review - Broadway musical

There is the ambivalent impression from this play. On the one hand, before the eyes appears the classic comic story based on ancient Greek literature, and on the other – the inept performance and reading. The musical, which should reveal the irony and humor of the problems of war and sex, revolves around its ubiquitous director -–Cyril Ritchard. He played several roles in it, separating oneself from the rest of the actors, frantically pulling the blanket, which, for the guarantee of the success, had to be properly distributed amongst each participant correctly and evenly. Ritchard apparently did not think of it, too much wanting to put himself on public. Leaving oneself also the main male role in the musical (the villain Pluto, which in one of the scenes try to seduce a beautiful Lysistrata and to make her to give up the rebellion), he tries even there to outshine everything that happens on stage with his character.

Of course, in productions like these, always a character is required, who will focus on himself, allowing events to flicker easier and to smooth all corners of the plot, if any. Suffice to recall very popular in those days production A Funny Thing Happened On The Way To The Forum and the main character of this production, slave Pseudolous, which, obviously, was the lead in the plot, but served extremely competently and in harmony. Which, unfortunately, the director of this play was unable to achieve.

The second obvious reason for the lack of success of this staging was an attempt to make the music accompaniment too typical for those years. When the motives are already ingrained even in each random stone, falling under a show sole on Broadway. Yip Harburg wanted to match the pattern of Offenbach too much and either overdone either was tiresome for Broadway audience.

However, despite the unfortunate production and the fact that musical was not able to take a firm stand on Broadway, it was recorder pretty well. Voices of actors perfectly conveyed the emotions and mood. On the disc, musical sounds really good, many fans of 60s call it classic.
Last Update:April, 06th 2016