HAPPY 60TH, SWEET CHARITY By Peter Filichia
January 29, 1966, New York City. Light snow falling. Temperature: 12 degrees.
Inside the Palace Theatre, matters are much warmer. SWEET CHARITY had a hot Gwen Verdon starring in her husband’s equally hot show.
He was Bob Fosse.
The score by composer Cy Coleman and lyricist Dorothy Fields is still one of the great ones. Had any character ever sung a jazz waltz to open a musical? Verdon did in, “You Should See Yourself.” But that may have been expected from Coleman, who’d well established himself in jazz before he embraced musical theater.
These creators, along with librettist Neil Simon, made a big change from the 1957 film Nights of Cabiria,named for the prostitute with – what else? – a heart of gold, fashioned by director Federico Fellini and his two co-screenwriters. The renamed Charity Hope Valentine would instead make her living dancing with customers in a dance hall.
Such establishments were once plentiful in Times Square, but by CHARITY’S debut, they were fading faster than manual lawn mowers. Still, having Charity dance in a hall was better than having her walk in the streets – even if her colleagues seemed utterly amoral in the sinuous (but galvanizing) “Big Spender.”
As much as Charity wanted a different career, she desired even more a man to love her. Her most recent one had thrown her in Central Park Lake and stolen her purse. She detailed how she should have seen it coming in “Charity’s Soliloquy.”
But she finally believed that she’d found Mr. Right (real name: Oscar Lindquist) who, on their first date, took her to church.
Well, not the type of church that first comes to mind: “The Rhythm of Life” Church was an alternative religion. Coleman and Fields explained all in a dazzling first number for their second act.
Oscar was a shy guy who lauded Charity’s “pure innocence,” as “the last of a dying species – a virgin,” and sang a sweet title song. Granted, he did say “virgin in the most poetical sense,” but he was more inclined to mean it literally. Charity wondered what he’d think if he knew where she worked. As she and her co-workers decreed earlier, “There’s Gotta Be Something Better Than This.”
So, Charity said that she worked in a bank. “Where Am I Going?”, she wondered about the lie, in the score’s most powerful ballad.
Oscar eventually discovered Charity’s occupation, but still offered to marry her, spurring her to sing the joyous “I’m a Brass Band.” Everyone at the dance hall was happy to meet the fiancé. They proclaimed, “I Love to Cry at Weddings,” and they looked forward to weeping copiously at hers.
But after a night’s sleep, Oscar decided that he couldn’t go through with it. To make matters substantially worse, he turned out to be just as bad as his predecessor, for he, too, threw Charity into Central Park Lake.
Now what? SWEET CHARITY has always had a problem finding the right ending.
The first: Charity climbed out of the lake and was greeted by A Good Fairy who told her that “Dreams will come true tonight!” Just as Charity was ready to believe this, the “Good Fairy” turned around and displayed a sign on her back that said, “Watch The Good Fairy tonight – 8 p.m. – CBS.”
Verdon responded by shrugging and giving the audience a what-are-you-gonna-do smile. It didn’t make theatergoers smile. We’d all come to care for the woman and wanted more for her.
The second: for the film, Fosse and screenwriter Peter Stone finished with a forlorn and abandoned Charity in Central Park, but they didn’t throw her into the lake. They had her meet a tribe of hippies – it’s a 1969 film – who gave her a flower that made her feel better.
Well, at least this time she wasn’t all wet. But the collaborators could have been said to be, for this still wasn’t a satisfying finish.
The third: this one saw limited release (and is on the laserdisc, if you know or remember what that was). After Oscar broke with Charity, he came to his senses – as well as to Central Park, in hopes of finding her there. In an all-too-convenient coincidence, she was indeed there, and because she was near a lake, he assumed she was about to commit suicide. He attempted to intervene but wound up in the water. Charity rescued him, forgave him and both walked off wet but happy.
Not bad. But Fosse wasn’t a sentimental type, and perhaps that’s why he cut it and didn’t include it in his director’s cut.
The fourth: for the 2005 Broadway revival, Charity suddenly had a backbone. When Oscar told her he wouldn’t marry her, she let him know that he was missing someone wonderful. That was better, but it still didn’t result in a happy ending.
This brings up the oft-told story about the creation of A CHORUS LINE. Auteur Michael Bennett originally had director-choreographer Zach deny Cassie, his former lover, a job.
Marsha Mason, then married to Neil Simon (who had given the musical some excellent jokes), phoned Bennett and said that Cassie must get the job. One of the show’s messages had to be that however dire your situation is, you must have the opportunity to start over.
Too bad that Mason wasn’t married to Simon when he was writing SWEET CHARITY. Perhaps she could have convinced him that there was a way to provide a happy ending – such as this:
Oscar, learning the truth about Charity’s occupation and that she lied to him, and does break up with her, then and there. The next day, however, he realizes what he’s lost. So, he appears at the dance hall and, in front of everyone, begs her forgiveness and asks her to marry him.
That’s when everyone can sing “I Love to Cry at Weddings.”
But that’s not the end of the show. After this rousing 11 o’clock number, Oscar would shyly approach dance-hall hostess Charity and ask, “May I have this dance?”
They would waltz as the others cheered, as the curtain fell. There would have been plenty of tears of joy from the dance hall denizens, and theatergoers would love that they had the chance to cry before the wedding.
Peter Filichia can be heard most weeks of the year on www.broadwayradio.com. His calendar – A SHOW TUNE FOR TODAY: 366 Songs to Brighten Your Year – is now available on Amazon.
