“Musical Comedy”
Sylvia Fine Kaye at it again with Broadway show tunes
Boca Raton News – Feb. 15, 1981
By: Charles Witbeck
King Features Syndicate
HOLLYWOOD – Remember way back when Broadway musicals sparkled with tunes you could hum, lyrics you could remember for more than 10 minutes?
If the memory is dim, shake the cobwebs out with “Sylvia Fine Kaye’s Musical Comedy Tonight – II” on PBS. (Schedule for a repeat broadcast March 13 on Channel 2)
There’s Jack Lemmon as the sprightly leprechaun of 1947’s “Finian’s Rainbow” singing
“When I’m Not Near the Girl I Love.” A few minutes later Sergio Franchi and Bonnie
Franklin let out the stops from “Some Enchanted Evening” from “South Pacific.” Sylvia’s
husband Danny Kaye recreates the number that turned him into a star, “Tchaikovsky,”
from “Lady in the Dark,” and Juliet Prowse dances the Gwen Verdon role in the raunchy
show-
Danny Kaye’s wife, Sylvia, is back at it again, recreating hit numbers from Broadway musicals exactly as they were staged, calling around town to find the right people to do the pieces justice. Material is everything, and the demanding Mrs. Kaye is not one to be lax about standards.
For her second PBS foray on her love, the Broadway musical, Mrs. Kaye picked out
four disparate musicals, big hits with one thing in common—a message. Usually message-
“They had such wonderful scores, they were so well cast, the message became part of the entertainment,” Mrs. Kaye explains. It can be done.
“Finian’s Rainbow,” a tuneful, clever delight, is crammed with cracks about prejudice,
credit, greed and the power of the upper class. “South Pacific” touches on racial
prejudice, while “Lady in the Dark” discovers psychiatry, The Couch, and dreams.
Mrs. Kaye rounds it out with “Sweet Charity,” contrasting the upper-
Apart from having the numbers correctly staged, equating the vision in Sylvia Fine’s mind, which means that Sylvia edits every foot (“I was taught by Sam Goldwyn not to let the technical people get in the way”), the hostess delves into backstage lore.
Anecdotes gave the first show a lift, and for Opus 2 Sylvia brings on Josh Logan,
the wonder man behind “South Pacific,” co-
“He didn’t let me get a word in,” she noted with some pleasure, because she hates the idea of being on camera.
Mrs. Kaye also chats with composer Burton Lane, who sings “The Begat,” that grand, irreverent ditty from “Finian’s,” and gives us first hand, tales of “Lady in the Dark” since she was a happy spectator, watching her husband under the guidance of Moss Hart turn into a star alongside Gertrude Lawrence.
“I learned a lot from sitting,” she acknowledged. “Moss Hart was one of the greatest showmen I’ve ever seen. I listened.
“Danny had a small part, the hairdresser, but the moment he walked on, heads in the audience bent forward digging out the program to see who that man was,” Sylvia continued. “He stopped the show singing ‘Tchaikovsky’ naming 57 Russian composers in 38 seconds.”
With a little arm wrenching, wife allows husband to recreate “Tchaikovsky,” and she
signed Lynn Redgrave to sing Gertrude Lawrence’s version of “The Saga of Jenny,”
a woman who couldn’t make up her mind. “Gertrude Lawrence sang off-
If she regains her strength, Mrs. Kaye will do another musical next season, perhaps a history of the musical comedy, or a complete show. And then there’s the idea of a theater revival of “Lady in the Dark.” But who could fit Gertrude Lawrence’s shoes?
“Barbara Harris,” Sylvia answers. “She has the magic, but she’s always disappearing. I say it’s worth a duenna and two policemen to have her.”