You Can 'Hear a Waltz' at 42nd Street Moon

Arthur Laurents' 1952 The Time of the Cuckoo (with Shirley Booth), the 1955 film version of Summertime (with Katharine Hepburn), and the Richard Rodgers-Stephen Sondheim Do I Hear a Waltz, premiering in 1965 are all birds of a feather.

42nd Street Moon has opened its 22nd season in the Eureka Theater with the musical, the only collaboration between Rodgers and Sondheim, with book by Laurents, based on his play that started it all.

Starring Emily Skinner as Leona Samish, the American tourist, who finds — and loses — romance on a Roman holiday, Waltz is running through Oct. 19.

Company and stage director Greg MacKellan traces the complex history of the musical:

[After the stage success], Laurents envisioned Rodgers and Hammerstein writing a chamber piece to star Mary Martin. Oscar Hammerstein was intrigued, but felt it was too soon after the film’s release. Hammerstein was gone by the time Rodgers grew interested in the project. Rodgers’ daughter, Mary, convinced Stephen Sondheim to join her father in writing the songs. The combination of Rodgers, Sondheim, and Laurents seemed to be a theatrical match made in heaven, but by the time the show opened on Broadway, all three regretted their decision to work together.

The Time of the Cuckoo had a dark, at times bitter tone, and the leading role of Leona Samish was problematic. Early on, Rodgers insisted that a younger woman would make the character more poignant. Laurents and Sondheim agreed, though they had reservations about the actress (Elizabeth Allen) hired for the part. Summertime's director/screenwriter, David Lean, had softened Leona by downplaying her harsher qualities.

Rodgers' instinct was to move the musical more in the direction of the film, while Laurents and Sondheim prevailed in their determination to keep the darker tone of the play. Rodgers took issue with some of Sondheim’s lyrics; Sondheim and Laurents felt Rodgers was a theatrical dinosaur past his prime. The out-of-town tryout wasn’t happy for anyone. Although word of the show’s troubles had reached New York, when it opened, many critics were pleasantly surprised. The reviews, while decidedly mixed, in fact included several which were near raves, and Elizabeth Allen, Rodgers, Sondheim, and set designer Beni Montresor were all Tony Award nominees.

42nd Street being a champion of lost and forgotten Broadway, Waltz's initial success must have had a turnaround, and so it was, so the work, although not forgotten, never had a major Broadway recital, even with songs such as Do I Hear a Waltz?, Someone Like You, Take the Moment, Moon in My Window and What Do We Do? We Fly!.

For 42nd Street Moon, however, it is a revival, the company's second production since 1998.