San Francisco Classical Voice

After a lifetime of loving and a couple of stints performing O. T. I. S., every number still works its charm, not just the big tunes — “Wintergreen for President,” “Love is Sweeping the Country,” the title tune, and above all “Who Cares?” — but every one of the show situation tunes — “Who is the Lucky Girl to Be?” “Because, Because,” and nine (!) other gems that stick in melody central and won't quit. The principals were fine, led by Stephen Bogardus (bright, high baritone) as the slick, cartoon-perfect candidate and president Wintergreen, Lisa Vroman (soprano, real and clear) as the cut-out American-as-apple-pie Mary Turner. Those two didn't need the body mikes. (All except the chorus were miked).

Then there was Marin Maizzie as Diana Devereaux, the bimbo with “the built” from Louisiana (acting good, top register flat) and Jason Daniely, keen and feisty as the aggressive politico, henchman, White House chief Sam Jenkins.

The problem was the Alexander Throttlebottom. This was the role originally created and cast in gold by Victor Moore, playing his timid, bumbling, self-effacing caricature of the anonymous vice president, a central, running joke. At the Symphony, it was played by a young wiry, wired Mo Rocca, in over-energized Jerry Lewis fashion, totally wrong. Worse, because Rocca was literally omnipresent as narrator, he became the central, self-important character. It was the fault of director Birch and the miscasting more than his, but Rocca, and more regrettably the should-be-lovable Throttlebottom, got to be a pain in both shows.

Naturally, lines were interpolated and words inserted to make contemporary referential humor for a snicker here and there. As the high-flying White House secretary Miss Benson, Lianne Marie Dobbs wore Monica Lewinsky berets in both shows. Kevin Chamberlain, an extra-large, bald character actor, did a very funny, cartoon turn as the French Ambassador in high dudgeon (over the insult to France because Wintergreen married Turner instead of the beauty contest winner Devereaux, who though from Louisiana was “the illegitimate daughter of the illegitimate son of the illegitimate nephew of Napoleon”).

There were no such genuinely amusing lines or situations in Let ‘Em Eat Cake (1933), nothing to compare with Throttlebottom's breaking off the Senate roll call, singing “the other senators will have to bide their time, ‘cause I simply cannot bother when their names don't rhyme.” Just one great Gershwin tune, “Mine,” survived this show. The premise was poor and unfunny, the script strained, the humor labored. Wintergreen (Bogardus), now the deposed ex-president, allies himself with the radical Kruger (Danieley). He promises a revolution (or your money back), gets the army to arrest and remove President Tweedledee by pledging them the war debts owed by European nations. The poor joke in the show that became impossible only a couple of years after the show's opening and closing was that Italy has its black shirts, Germany its brown shirts, so America can have its blue shirts.

Rocca as Throttlebottom persisted in dominating through episodes involving the sleepy, bearded members of the Union League Club, General Snookfield (Chamberlain again) and his doxy Trixie Flynn (the aforesaid doubly endowed Marin Mazzie), the League of Nations members refusing to pay their war debts, (“No comprenez, no capish, no versteh!”), a pay-off baseball game between the League and the Supreme Court, a fashion show by which Mary Wintergreen gets the women to overthrow the dictator Kruger who had deposed dictator Wintergreen — are you following this nutty scenario? Hello? Mary and the women reinstall Wintergreen in the presidency; he restores the republic and immediately resigns to enter the dress business. Curtain, and it's long since due.

The Gershwins, Kaufman and Ryskind were working a dry hole. Sentiment, Gershwin's command of New Yorkers' hearts, momentum from Of Thee I Sing and wishful thinking kept Cake on the boards for 90 performances, then oblivion.

The SF Symphony show team enlivened both shows with a big investment in production, white dresses and suits for the chorus, business suits, hats and costumes for the principals and secondary players (senators, French soldiers, American soldiers, judges, etc). Best of all, on a large screen in front of the organ pipes above the stage — it suggested a field of nominating conventions' banners — played ingenious and colorful projections (Jeffrey Sugg), some pictorial, some cartooned, following the continuity of the shows. Expensive investment. If the Symphony broke even, it would only be by virtue of big, dedicated contributions.

One final point. The orchestrations (originals for O.T.I.S., found 20 years ago and reconstructions done in 1987 for Cake) were for the theater, for pit band. The theater orchestra's small group of strings against the standard winds, produces an entirely different balance and sound than that made by full symphony with its big string sections playing down. Lovely and sonorous and symphonic it was but hardly authentic. It's not musical theater as it was conceived and presented.