Roy Harris / Me and My Girl

On this day in classical music: American composer Roy Harris was born in Chandler, Oklahoma in 1898. At age five, Harris moved with his family to southern California where he would study with Arthur Bliss and Arthur Farwell. Thanks to a recommendation by Aaron Copland, Harris studied with noted pedagogue Nadia Boulanger in Paris from 1926 to 1929. After returning to the United States, Harris established long associations with Howard Hanson, director of the Eastman School of Music, and Serge Koussevitzky, music director of the Boston Symphony. The latter gave the premiere of Harris’ “Symphony No. 3” in 1939. It would become his most popular work and was frequently performed during the mid-20th century. Listen to Howard Hanson and the Eastman-Rochester Symphony Orchestra perform an excerpt from Harris’ “Symphony No. 3.” http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8ft9LqD3pXY

On this day in the musical theatre: The London production of Noel Gay’s musical comedy “Me and My Girl” opened in the West End in 1985. The musical was originally produced in 1937 and was frequently revived. Set in the late 1930s in Hampshire, Mayfair and Lambeth, “Me and My Girl” followed the story of Bill Snibson, a Cockney who learns that he is the long-lost Earl of Hareford. In order to gain his title and estate, Snibson must satisfy the very proper executors (Maria, Duchess of Dene and Sir John Tremayne) by learning gentlemanly manners. Much of the show’s comedy came from Snibson’s challenges with transforming himself into a man of privilege. The London production ran for 3,303 performances. Robert Lindsay won an Olivier Award for playing Bill Snibson. He recreated the role for the 1986 Broadway transfer and won a Tony Award for his performance. Watch Lindsay and the Broadway cast perform “The Lambeth Walk” on the 1987 Tony Awards broadcast. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3oimHJCURbo

Musical musings: There is nothing more primal in the lexicon of musical comedy than the number in which the young hero declares his undying love for the woman of his dreams. About a half-hour into “Me and My Girl,” the restored 1937 English musical now on Broadway, that number is to be found in its most cliched form: every word, note and gesture collides with a civilization’s collective memory of vintage stage and movie musicals. Yet, astoundingly enough, one finds oneself wishing that the title song of “Me and My Girl” would never end. When the leading man, Robert Lindsay, croons and twirls his way through his romantic declaration, the audience is as enraptured as Maryann Plunkett, the fresh-faced heroine who eventually joins him for a delirious tap pas de deux on top of a banquet table. “Me and My Girl” — both the number and the show — has uncorked the innocence of the old-fashioned musical comedy so ingenuously that for once a theatergoer is actually sucked directly into that sunny past rather than merely suckered into nostalgia for it. Some actors keep audiences hanging on every word. The extraordinary Mr. Lindsay, who makes a nonstop charade of intricate vocal and physical details look relaxed, compels us to cherish his every syllable, wink and step. His subversive timing snares the laugh on each hoary pun, double entendre and malapropism. (Asked if he likes Kipling, Bill typically replies, “I don’t know — I’ve never kippled.”) The slapstick sequences — which require the star to play leapfrog with a seductress on a couch and to wrestle a royal robe and tiger rug to the floor — are full of surprising, daredevil pratfalls. As a singer, Mr. Lindsay captures the reedy vocal style of the 30’s without falling into stylized parody; as a dancer, he’s just as graceful gliding about a lamppost in debonair evening clothes as he is tapping up a vaudeville storm. Nor can one overlook this one-time Hamlet’s acting: while his performance boasts more funny walks and quicksilver flashes of mimicry than some whole farces, it’s never marred by star mannerisms or showiness and is always informed by an astringent wit. – Frank Rich reviewing the Broadway production in The New York Times 

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