The Theatre: New Musical in Manhattan: Apr. 15, 1940

Higher and Higher (music & lyrics by Richard Rodgers & Lorenz Hart; produced by Dwight Deere Wiman). In virtually all musicomedies, the book is merely a nuisance, like the bones in fish. But in Higher and Higher it becomes as much of an outright menace as maggots in cheese.

The plot drones on about a houseful of servants who try to rehabilitate their bankrupt master by palming off a pretty scullery maid as a debutante, hoping she will bag a millionaire. The stage swarms with snooty butlers, comic valets, tripping parlormaids, hoity-toity housekeepers, red-nosed cooks. Higher and Higher is really floored by the Servant Problem. As though that were not enough, the show goes in for haunted rooms, visitors from Iceland, phantom coachmen, hidden wine cellars, a butlers’ ball. Otherwise there is virtually no plot.

Rodgers & Hart, who can usually save any show from taking a nose dive, aren’t quite able to save this one. Their score is agreeable enough, with a few good swinging tunes like Disgustingly Rich and How’s Your Health. But it’s their slimmest job in a number of years. Making her first U. S. appearance in musicomedy, Hungarian Actress Marta Eggert (wife of Polish Tenor Jan Kiepura) is pleasing but not outstanding; returning to Broadway after seven years in Hollywood, Comic Jack Haley is amusing but not uproarious. Biggest thing in the show is a trained seal named Sharkey. Unfortunately, he is provided with the smallest part.