In this centennial year of George Gershwin’s birth, the Shaw Festival of Canada is paying tribute to the great American composer with a small but genuine theatrical miracle.
The miracle is titled “A Foggy Day,” and it’s a new musical, conceived in the 1990s but anchored firmly and delightfully in the Gershwin era of the ’30s.
Introduced last May in the festival’s 328-seat Royal George theater, the show — which includes Gershwin standards, plus two previously unpublished songs — has been playing to sold-out houses ever since; and, though it ends its current engagement here in early November, it is almost certain to return for the festival’s 1999 summer season.
There’s nothing new about “new” Gershwin shows, of course. Though he died in 1937, many of the composer’s popular songs, written for the movies and the Broadway stage, have been recycled in such latter-day shows as “My One and Only” and “Crazy for You.”
But “A Foggy Day,” though not as big or as flashy as these Broadway successes, has its special virtues, among which are its intimate scale and expert performance.
The show had its beginnings two years ago, when John Mueller, a movie scholar and author of “Astaire Dancing: The Musical Films,” approached Christopher Newton, the Shaw’s artistic director, about presenting a stage musical, never before produced, that would be true to the original creative intentions of the Gershwin brothers, George and his lyricist partner Ira.
According to Mueller’s research, George Gershwin wanted to write a Broadway musical comedy based on the novel “A Damsel in Distress,” by P.G. Wodehouse. The Gershwins had successfully worked with Wodehouse in the 1926 musical, “Oh, Kay!,” for which he had been co-librettist; and “Damsel’s” story of a lonely, romantic American songwriter, named George, whose yearning to rescue a damsel in distress is fulfilled, appealed to the composer.
But a stage musical never happened. RKO bought the film rights to “Damsel,” and the brothers subsequently supplied the ensuing movie with a vintage score that included “A Foggy Day,” “Nice Work If You Can Get It” and “I Can’t Be Bothered Now.”
In its transfer to the screen as a Fred Astaire musical, however, the story of “A Damsel in Distress” was dramatically changed. It picked up the comedy team of George Burns and Gracie Allen and a non-dancing leading lady, Joan Fontaine. Consequently, Mueller contended, the show Gershwin had wanted to write for the stage never really came to pass, so why not do it at long last the way he had envisioned it.
A likely place for this project was the Shaw Festival, where the mandate is to produce the plays of George Bernard Shaw, plus works by other authors that were written during his long lifetime (1856-1950). As part of this programming in its three festival theaters, the festival annually presents in the Royal George a rotating repertory of Shaw-era thrillers and musicals; and the proposed Gershwin show fit neatly into this pattern.
At first, the idea was to insert the Gershwin songs straightaway into a play that Wodehouse and Ian Hay long ago had fashioned from the novel. But that process didn’t work, so Norm Foster, a Canadian playwright, was brought in to reshape the work into musical comedy form. Most of the songs written for the movie were retained, to which were added the two unpublished songs, “Put Me to the Test” and “Pay Some Attention to Me,” and such other classics as “Love Is Here to Stay” and “He Loves and She Loves.”
After a workshop production and delicate negotiations with the Gershwin estate had been completed, “A Foggy Day,” as the new musical was called, made its debut to rapturous response.
And no wonder. Despite a few missteps and a somewhat hurried finale, the musical, staged by Kelly Robinson and choreographed by William Orlowski, is a charmer.
Faithful to its period, the show is presented without elaborate stage machinery and without electronic amplification. But it has an abundance of good humor and great songs, accompanied by a small, smart pit orchestra; and its design and libretto perfectly capture the aura of ’30s musicals.
As Steve Riker, the brash American songwriter in pursuit of a beautiful, titled young Englishwoman, Jeffrey Denman is a tiptop leading man who snappily suggests, but does not slavishly imitate, the Astaire style and talent. And with him, he has a whole gallery of deftly-played comic supporting characters, including a lovable old lord, a battle-axe lady, a saucy maid, a stuffy butler and a wisecracking showgirl.
Once the festival has ended its performances, rights to “A Foggy Day” revert to the Gershwin estate, and, judging from its joyous reception at the Shaw, this delightful little musical probably will have a long career ahead of it in many other theaters.
Good as it is, however, “A Foggy Day” is only a part of the Shaw’s current and excellent eight-play season in this lovely Ontario resort town.
Other productions include a handsomely designed, beautifully played version of Oscar Wilde’s “Lady Winderemere’s Fan,” directed by Newton; a crackling staging of “John Bull’s Other Island,” Shaw’s comic, poignant view of “the Irish question”; a delicate rendition of John Galsworthy’s rarely staged coming-of-age drama, “Joy,” and a vigorous, sometimes bombastic edition of Christopher Fry’s 1948 verse drama, “The Lady’s Not for Burning.”
In any season, the high level of craft and artistry lavished on such works makes the Shaw an outstanding theater festival. This year, thanks to Gershwin and “A Foggy Day,” the season is especially extraordinary.
