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THE STAR-SPANGLED GIRL, by Neil Simon, makes The Odd Couple a threesome. A pair of post-Ivy League rebels (Anthony Perkins and Richard Benjamin) publish a protest magazine with virtuously impoverished zeal until a girl (Connie Stevens) who looks like a whipped-cream frappe shows up to curdle their joy. The gags come in two varieties: Simon-pure and simple Simon.
I DO! I DO! Whipped cream and frosting may a wedding cake make—but not a marriage. Only the shimmering talents of two superstars, Mary Martin and Robert Preston, and the agile hand of Director Gower Champion, make this confectionery adaptation of The Fourposter palatable.
WALKING HAPPY—singing brightly, dancing spritely, clapping loudly. A sort of My Fair Laddie, with British Beguiler Norman Wisdom as a Lancashire bootmaker who starts out so far below the stairs that he arrives onstage via a trap door.
CABARET. The prevailing mood winds in the Berlin of 1930 were blowing toward Nazism and war—not exactly the bubbly stuff of which a heady musical is made. In its re-creation of the vulgarity of the era, this musical is a success of style. But its book, based on Christopher Isherwood's Goodbye to Berlin, is an intrusion.
THE SCHOOL FOR SCANDAL was Richard Sheridan's bastion of busybodies, and is today a classroom of high comedy and a showcase for the A PA repertory company.
RIGHT YOU ARE, like Scandal, centers on a group of gossipers, but in Luigi Pirandello's philosophical drama, its effects are tragic and destructive. A handsome production by the APA.
Off Broadway
EH? If Pinter and the Marx Brothers collaborated on a play, and dread and menace were laughing matters, Eh? might be the result. Dustin Hoffman is properly sinister and silly as Henry Livings' pop protagonist.
AMERICA HURRAH. Three brilliant playlets by Jean-Claude van Itallie refract and reflect some of the dominant hues in mid-20th century American life.
RECORDS
Jazz ALFIE (Impulse). Tenor Saxophonist Sonny Rollins, best-known from his hard-bop days for a coarse tone and wild, harsh harmonies, has turned urbane and eloquent as composer of his first film score. This record is a series of new arrangements on the original sound track by Oliver Nelson, played by eleven good jazzmen, including Sonny. Alfie's Theme is a little long and ultimately empty, but then, that's Alfie.
A FLAT, G FLAT AND C (Impulse). The featured player is Yusef Lateef, who used to be plain William Evans, tenor saxophonist with Dizzy Gillespie. In the '50s, Evans changed his name, his faith (from Christian to Mohammedan), and the nature of his jazz, turning to such Middle Eastern instruments as the rebab and the arghool. Now he's headed farther east with The Chuen Blues, played on a three-stringed Chinese lute, and Kyoto Blues, on a Taiwan bamboo flute.
PETER AND THE WOLF (Verve). Bach has been the take-off point for many a jazz exploration. Why not Prokofiev, too? Arranger Oliver Nelson has appropriated the Soviet composer's famous symphonic fairy tale and begins with a straightforward statement of the familiar themes: bird, duck, cat, wolf and Peter. But then a high-spirited jabberwocky takes over as Nelson's two dozen men come on strong, paced by Jimmy Smith at the organ.