Editorial Reviews

The Happy Time (1968) is one of those Broadway musical flops that looks like a surefire winner on paper. It was mounted by the legendary producer David Merrick. It was based on Samuel Taylor's successful 1950 Broadway play, which in turn was based on Robert L. Fontaine's novel about a boy coming of age in Canada. The director/choreographer was veteran Gower Champion. The songs were written by John Kander and Fred Ebb, coming off their hit Cabaret. It marked a return to Broadway by Canadian native Robert Goulet, who had made his breakthrough in Camelot seven years earlier and then gone on to a successful nightclub and recording career. The secondary leads were played by veteran David Wayne and up-and-comer Mike Rupert (who, as Michael Rupert, would have a long Broadway career). It received ten Tony Award nominations and won three, one for Goulet and two for Champion. And yet, when it closed after 285 sparsely attended performances, having been kept alive by every trick the crafty Merrick could conceive, it became the first Broadway musical to lose a million dollars. How did that happen? A key to the problems, as is often true on Broadway, is the interaction between the talented principals. In Fontaine's novel and Taylor's play, the central character in The Happy Time is young Bibi, played here by Rupert. But the musical turned the story into a star vehicle for Goulet, who played the newly created character of Jacques, Bibi's older brother, a successful photographer for whom the story is taking place in his memory. Making the main character a photographer gave Champion a staging concept that included projections and films; indeed, his credit reads, "directed, filmed, and choreographed by Gower Champion." This tended to transform an intimate story about an adolescent boy into a spectacle with a larger-than-life star, and N. Richard Nash's much-criticized "book" (i.e., script) apparently never quite adapted to the changes. Kander and Ebb, meanwhile, seem to have been simply the wrong choice for the music. Their talents, as displayed in Cabaret, were expressed in edgy, somewhat satirical material, while The Happy Time was all warm-hearted nostalgia, and as heard on the cast album, the best they could do was a toothless batch of musical greeting cards. Goulet, Rupert, and Wayne, to their credit, make the best of this stuff, Goulet declaiming heroically and getting to show off a French-Canadian accent at times, the precocious Rupert nearly stealing "Please Stay" from him, and Wayne getting an excellent showcase in the show's best song, "The Life of the Party." This is not, however, among the most memorable work for any of them, and the album will be of interest chiefly (if not exclusively) to musical theater buffs and Goulet fans. William Ruhlmann, All Music Guide

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