With music by Leonard Bernstein and book and lyrics by Betty Comden and Adolph Green, On The Town enjoyed a successful Broadway run during the 1940s. The London production opened at the Prince of Wales Theatre in 1963 and starred Elliott Gould along with Don McKay, Carol Arthur, Andrea Jaffeand Gillian Lewis. The Original London Cast Recording of On the Town has never before been available in the U.S.
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Starring in the London production was Elliott Gould, not long after he closed on Broadway in I Can Get It for You Wholesale – his big break as a musical leading man, which was an even bigger break for his wife-to-be Barbra Streisand. Gould played the happy-go-lucky Ozzie (a role created by Adolph Green). As Gaby, the lovestruck hero, the London production featured Don McKay, a Broadway singer/dancer with an attractive, boyish voice who had been the first Tony in the hit West End staging of West Side Story. The trio of sailors on leave was completed by another American, Franklin Kiser, as the nai?ve but determined Chip. A favorite in West End musicals like Salad Days, Gillian Lewis played Claire de Lune (Betty Comden in the original production), and American Carol Arthur was Hildy, the raucous cab driver unforget- tably created by Nancy Walker. American audiences know Arthur as a comedic actress (Blazing Saddles) and as the wife of comedian Dom DeLuise, but on this recording she belts out Hildy’s show-stopping, double-entendre-laced “I Can Cook, Too” with joyous abandon.
The London recording preserved much of Bernstein’s dance music, though some arrangements were updated and smoothed out – “I Can Cook, Too,” for instance, loses its fractured-big-band musical setting. Best of all, the London recording lets us hear this spectacular score with the charm of a cast that was performing the show onstage at the same time. With its Coplandesque ballet music and hyperkinetic invention, the score, oddly enough, may the most challenging aspect of On the Town. The London recording reminds us it is a challenge full of rewards – a heartfelt masterpiece, hilarious and zany, with romantic longing and unbridled hope lurking just beneath the gleaming surface. Maybe its time has come?
-- From the liner notes by David Foil
CAST Ozzie – Elliott Gould Chip – Franklin Kiser Gabey – Don McKay Hildy – Carol Arthur Claire – Gillian Lewis Diana Dream – Meg Walter Workman – Howarth Nuttall Policeman – Lewis Henry
MUSICAL NUMBERS: 1. Opening: 10:55 I Feel Like I’m Not Out of Bed Yet – Workman New York, New York – Chip, Gabey, Ozzie and Chorus Miss Subways – Policeman, Workman, Chip, Gabey, Ozzie and Chorus 2. Taxi Number: Come Up to My Place 2:15 – Hildy and Chip 3. Carried Away 3:15 – Claire and Ozzie 4. Lonely Town 5:07 – Gabey 5. I Can Cook Too 2:49 – Hildy 6. Lucky to Be Me 2:44 – Gabey 7. Dance: Times Square (Finale Act I) 5:14 8. Night Club Sequence: 4:59 So Long Baby – Chorus I Wish I Was Dead – Diana Dream You Got Me – Hildy, Ozzie, Claire, Chip, Gabey 9. Dance: Imaginary Coney Island 8:11 10. Some Other Time 3:48 – Claire, Hildy, Ozzie, Chip 11. Real Coney Island, Finale 4:01
