Henry Sweet Henry

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The thread on which I originally posted this has been obscured by the deletion of its original post, so I am copying my comments here:

Funny you should mention the musical version of Breakfast at Tiffany's, as the score for that famous failure was also written by Bob Merrill. Luckily, "How Much Is That Doggie in the Window" and "Love Makes the World Go Round" (not to mention his ghost-writing of two songs for Hello, Dolly!) must have given him a steady income.

William Goldman's book The Season is a detailed analysis of the 1967-68 Broadway season, and there is a full chapter on Henry Sweet Henry. He writes that, when the show went into rehearsal, there was some hype about Robin Wilson's big, Streisand-like singing voice, but that it was this very quality in her singing that made her seem too old to play Val. Apparently, during rehearsal, her voice was toned down and this diminished her impact in what could have been a star-making role.

The New York reviews went instead to Michael Bennett's striking choreography and to Alice Playten, who played Kafritz (elevated in the musical to a major supporting character with two big numbers to herself). Playten has had a steady career and you probably recognize her face from numerous television commercials. (Someone with the production, quoted in the book, was surprised at the New York response to Playten after out-of-town audiences made no particular fuss over her.) Goldman says that, during previews, audiences were having as much fun at Henry Sweet Henry as they were having at Mame, but that after the negative reviews the audience response was more muted (a damning comment on the tractability of the public).

There's also some coverage of Henry Sweet Henry in Ken Mandelbaum's book on Broadway flops, Not Since Carrie. I have to agree with his comments about how outdated and quaint Val and Marian seem in the musical. The year was 1967, a big turning point in our culture: Hair was about to open but Val, in one song lyric, is fantasizing about Charles Boyer. Breakfast at Tiffany's, Henry Sweet Henry and Prettybelle (another Bob Merrill flop of this era) are all unusual, wistful properties given routine Broadway musical treatment in the "sledgehammer" style of, say, How to Succeed in Business without Really Trying, a style that was on its way out.

The score is the loud-and-tinny 1960s in-your-face Broadway musical at close to its worst. Marian's "I Wonder How It Is (to Dance with a Boy)" is rather nice before the screaming young girls of the chorus join in, and Val has a couple of passably good numbers, but Henry Orient's two songs are excruciatingly poor, and the entire score is filled with Merrill's trademark wannabe-cute-but-actually-painful rhymes ("tickles us/ridickle-us"). Mrs. Boyd shares one terrible duet with Henry, and Stella does not sing at all (though Louise Lasser does speak a few lines on the cast album). It's easy to see how Alice Playten's assured handling of her solo "Nobody Steps on Kafritz" could bring down the house (even though it contains the rhyme "miserable/visible").

Other notes about the cast: Neva Small (Marian) played Chava in the movie version of Fiddler on the Roof. Cast members who went on to work with Michael Bennett in A Chorus Line include Baayork Lee, John Mineo and Priscilla Lopez. Kim Milford was the original Rocky in The Rocky Horror Show . Robert Iscove has gone on to become a stage, TV and film director. (I don't think Bonnie Franklin was ever connected with it though.)