INTERVIEW: Rediscovering Rodgers and Hart’s ‘Boys From Syracuse’
Photo: Ian Fairlee (being lifted), Matt Dengler (left), Jose Luaces (center) and Shavey Brown (right) earn some laughs in a scene from Musicals Tonight!’s production of The Boys From Syracuse, directed by Jonathan Cerullo at the Lion Theatre, for a limited engagement through Feb. 25. Photo courtesy of Milliron Studios Photography / Provided by Glenna Freedman PR with permission.
Musicals Tonight!, the company dedicated to early examples of the art form, is celebrating its 20th anniversary this spring season, and they have not held back with the theatrical festivities. To mark the occasion, Jonathan Cerullo has directed and choreographed a new revival of The Boys From Syracuse with music by Richard Rodgers, lyrics by Lorenz Hart and a book by George Abbott.
This all-male production continues through Feb. 25 at the Lion Theatre at Theatre Row in Midtown Manhattan.
The story is based on William Shakespeare’s The Comedy of Errors and features songs that are reminiscent of the 1930s. In typical Bard fashion, the show charts the adventures of a pair of twins, mistaken identity and couples falling in and out of love.
“The score is just beyond delicious,” Cerullo said in a recent phone interview. “When you listen to Richard Rodgers’ melodies paired with Lorenz Hart’s lyrics, they are beyond brilliant and very smart, and those who are familiar with the show will certainly recognize things like ‘Falling in Love With Love,’ ‘This Can’t be Love,’ ‘Sing for Your Supper,’ ‘Dear Old Syracuse,’ some great chestnuts of songs. And the way we are approaching it is really no holds barred. We take no prisoners. It’s all bust-out, gut-out fun, fun, fun, fun, fun. They can expect a fun evening, I can tell you that.”
The Musicals Tonight! production had a three-week rehearsal period, with the first week devoted to staging Act I and the second week dedicated to Act II. The final week was reserved for finalizing the sets and making the actors’ movements work with the setting.
“It’s a complicated set in so much that there are a lot of moving set pieces,” the director-choreographer said. “Our idea behind the set is that it was an old vaudeville theater that comes back to life on this one night to tell this story, and the actors are all seen sort of preparing themselves in what we call our backstage areas. … It’s all in the open, so we see actors putting on costumes and putting on their makeup, but it’s all very dark and mysterious back there. And then as the play opens, we bust a gust and go bam right into vaudeville.”
Cerullo was educated on Rodgers and Hart’s working relationship by watching a documentary about their careers. He was fascinated by the Broadway team, even though Hart died at a relatively young age, and Rodgers moved on to a successful partnership with Oscar Hammerstein II.
“There’s something about the sensibility that they captured of a 1938 temperament and where they were in the world,” he said. “World War II was starting just a little bit, and our country was coming out of a depression. There’s this quality to their music that evokes that period. The melodies are simple. They’re hummable. They’re tuneful. They’re melodic. They have a heartstring when they need to have a heartstring plucked, and they have a funny note when the funny bone needs to be rattled.”
Cerullo also pointed out Hart’s ingenious lyrics, noting their rhythmic and rhyming qualities. The double entendres have also been interesting to discover for the cast and crew.
“Something else that we discovered, which I found very interesting, Lorenz Hart struggled with his sexuality back in the ’20s and ’30s,” Cerullo said. “In that documentary … I’m going to paraphrase this, it said he struggled with that, and his lyrics reflect that. And the minute I heard that, I went back to his lyrics, and I went, what do they mean by that? You look at the song like ‘This Can’t be Love’ just in the nature of the title. ‘This can’t be love because it feels too good,’ or ‘Falling in love with love is only make believe.’ His lyrics are never about love, but about the pain that love brings. It’s a completely different sentiment than Rodgers and Hammerstein had, where it’s celebrating love, and this has a pathos to it that I think we’re working with quite carefully.”
He added: “I think we pass off Rodgers and Hart all too quickly, and to hear this music done again is quite amazing. What an opportunity for us to do this.”
By John Soltes / Publisher / John@HollywoodSoapbox.com
The Boys From Syracuse, directed and choreographed by Jonathan Cerullo, continues through Feb. 25 at the Lion Theatre at Theatre Row in Midtown Manhattan. Click here for more information and tickets.
