HALLELUJAH, LESLIE AND DANIELLE! By Peter Filichia
Leslie Uggams was certainly surprised last week.
Oh, she knew that she was receiving a Lifetime Achievement trophy from The Theatre World Awards. We had announced that weeks ago, and she was thrilled that we thought of her for that honor.
What she didn’t know is that we had arranged for Danielle Chambers, her daughter, to come to the stage and sing two songs from HALLELUJAH, BABY! – the Tony-winning Best Musical in which her mother had won a Best Actress in a Musical Tony.
HALLELUJAH, BABY! showed the admittedly slow and unsteady progress that Black people had made from 1900 to what was then the present day: 1967. Following the lead of LOVE LIFE (recently seen at Encores!), Arthur Laurents’ book had us follow the same characters who never aged over a 67-year span.
Uggams portrayed Georgina Franklin, who started off as a maid in 1900 where she wanted “My Own Morning” – not one in which she’d have to cater to someone else.
Back then, show business was virtually the only legal route that a young Black woman could take to avoid domestic service. So, Georgina became a chorus girl in the ‘20s, performing in “Feet Do Yo’ Stuff.”
Georgina’s feet took a step up in the ‘30s, thanks to the Federal Theatre Project. It offered artists opportunities while embracing unconventional fare. Hence, a voodoo-tinged take on MACBETH had Georgina participating in “Witches’ Brew,” the adaptation’s opening song.
(With such unorthodox offerings, are you shocked to hear that the Federal Theatre Project couldn’t last more than four years?)
Meanwhile, Georgina doesn’t go without romance, which also means that she doesn’t go without problems. Oh, that Clem! “I Wanted to Change Him,” she sang, but now, in a classic example of “Be careful what you wish for,” Georgina decided that after his changes, “I want to change him back.”
Give Georgina credit for knowing that the ultimate responsibility falls on her. “Being Good,” she insisted, wasn’t good enough. She’d expect excellence and excellence alone for herself.
So, in the ‘40s while Georgina’s a wartime entertainer with the USO, she and Clem – as well as Harvey, her Caucasian admirer – each feels as if “Talking to Yourself” is all that they can do.
By the ‘50s, Georgina is the main attraction at a posh supper club where her signature song is “Hallelujah, Baby!” Clem, however, challenges her choice to pander to white audiences, and by the ‘60s, Georgina realizes that “Now’s the Time” to change things – or at least make a concerted effort.
It’s a marvelous, Tony-winning score, courtesy of Jule Styne, Betty Comden and Adolph Green. Of the more than half-dozen times that they had collaborated, this would be the only time that they’d win that prize.
But let’s not forget the extraordinary orchestrations by Peter Matz, who was an important musical inspiration in Barbra Streisand’s career. Matz had to make certain that each song sounded right for each decade, and indeed, he did.
At The Theatre World Awards, as Chambers took the stage to celebrate her mother, we all of course wondered which two songs she’d sing. HALLELUJAH, BABY’s first and last songs – respectively “My Own Morning” and “Now’s the Time” – were good bets. The latter is what Uggams sang on the 1970-71 Tonys in celebration of the award’s 25th anniversary; those connected with all the previous Tony-winning musicals were invited to perform a number from the show.
However, Chambers opted for “I Wanted to Change Him” (a song that would ultimately be dropped during the Broadway run) and “Being Good.” Uggams put her hand over her heart and opened her mouth wide, for we had kept from her that her daughter would do the songs (and, for that matter, do her proud).
Full Disclosure: Uggams did not win her Best Actress in a Musical Tony outright on that Sunday, April 21, 1968. After presenter Groucho Marx opened the envelope and read “And the winners are,” the audience assumed that he was making a joke by not saying the expected “is.”
No: Marx announced “Patricia Routledge for DARLING OF THE DAY” before he said Uggams’ name. The camera then panned to the audience, showing that Uggams was seated closer to the stage. How nice that she waited for Routledge to reach her, grab her hand, and guide her to the stage with her.
(DARLING had lyrics by E.Y. Harburg of FINIAN’S RAINBOW fame. What he wrote in “That Great ‘Come-and-Get-It’ Day” was relevant to both receiving a Tony: “We’ll keep it, and share it.”)
Uggams was so excited that she said, “I don’t know where my feet are right now!”
The ever-so-helpful Marx said, “Do you want me to look?”
As rare as ties have been in the history of these awards, what makes this dead heat the rarest of all is that the same composer, one Jule Styne, provided the music for both shows. His work and Harburg’s on DARLING OF THE DAY is top-notch.
We now all know Routledge from her five seasons as Hyacinth Bucket (pronounced, she insisted, “Bouquet”) on KEEPING UP APPEARANCES. In 1968, though, her name didn’t mean much to American audiences, except for those who 18 months earlier had seen her in HOW’S THE WORLD TREATING YOU? in which one plot twist had a man killed by a piece that flew off a washing machine and became a veritable bullet.
(Don’t ask.)
After a Tony winner from a musical finishes accepting and speaking, and begins to leave the stage, the orchestra plays a few bars from one of the show’s songs. What to do, what to do when there’s a tie?
(Whatever they played, Jule Styne wouldn’t be disappointed.)
Although Uggams’ show ran almost ten times longer than Routledge’s, a DARLING OF THE DAY song turned out to be the orchestra’s darling. Only those who knew the lyrics from the song could understand the choice, for the song’s name is “That Something Extra Special.” How fitting, for the Tony voters had decided that there would be something special that night in the category of Best Actress in a Musical.
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.
