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To an enjoyable musicomedy book, 26-year-old Composer Bernstein (who got a royal bawling out from Serge Koussevitsky for trafficking with Broadway) has matched a lively score. There is a modern beat to his ballet music, but such songs as Lonely Town and Lucky To Be Me are as torchy as the next fellow's, and such ditties as Come Up To My Place and You Got Me are straight Main Stem—and with delightfully tough Nancy Walker to bawl them out, they are showstoppers as well. Jerome Robbin's dances have humor and verve, and charming Sono Osato to gladden them. Best of all, On the Town has the oldtime touch it needs: under George Abbott's direction, youth has made hay without going haywire, and a lot of slightly off-Broadway talent has been given a sharp Broadway spin.
In her second Broadway show, as in her first (One Touch of Venus), jet-haired, slant-eyed Sono Osato catches and keeps the spotlight. She has personality and piquant looks as well as nimble feet.
Born 25 years ago in Omaha, the daughter of a Japanese father and an Irish-French mother, she joined Col. de Basil's Ballet Russe de Monte Carlo when she was 14 and toured the world with it. Her roles got better, but her pay ($50 a week) did not—and she finally walked out. Three years ago, as a member of the Sol Hurok troupe, she made another ballet exit—when the Government refused to let her go to California because of her Japanese blood. Sono, who has a brother with the Nisei 442nd combat team and is married to a young French-Moroccan architect, has never had any other trouble over race.
Although she has been dancing all her life, she is no longer interested in that alone. Because she could also act and sing in On the Town, she turned down Billy Rose's offer to "back her up with 40 dancers" in The Seven Lively Arts. "Anyhow," says she, "if you're trying to be somebody, why get smothered under great big names like Beatrice Lillie's?"