Finian's Rainbow

Gwen Orel Reviews The Latest Irish Offering On Broadway

By Gwen Orel

Not only Irish eyes might smile through tears during Finian's Rainbow this fall - the first Broadway revival in nearly 50 years. That's how long it's been since the musical with a book by Yip Harburg and Fred Saidy, lyrics by Yip Harburg (Harburg also wrote the lyrics for "Over the Rainbow") and music by Burton Lane played the Great White Way. Since the 1960 revival was just a one-week light opera event at City Center, one could argue that this is the first Broadway run since the show debuted in 1946 - 63 years if you're counting.

The 1968 movie had charm, and there have been many regional and amateur productions over the years, not to mention a fine Off-Broadway production at Irish Repertory Theatre in 2004 which even led to a cast recording, but the show was written with the heart of Broadway in it. The production that opens at the St. James Theatre October 29, a of the wildly successful Encores! production last spring, is a true Broadway baby. The St. James' plush, luxe style is one of Broadway's jewel-like venues. The gorgeous set design is by Tony award-winner John Lee Beatty. It will be a very full production, including a 24-piece orchestra, over 200 costumes, and, to create the magic of the leprechaun Og (played by the ebullient Christopher Fitzgerald), special effects by Matthew Holtzclaw, who trained with Penn and Teller.

It's an unusual Broadway plot, mixing music, magic, mythology and - political commentary. Finian McLonergan (Jim Norton) and his daughter Sharon (played by the luminous Kate Baldwin) leave Ireland and settle in the mythical state of Missitucky to hide their stolen leprechaun gold. Sharon soon falls for a handsome sharecropper, Woody (played by appealing crooner Cheyenne Jackson). So far, it's a cute Boy-Girl romance, and Celtic imagery was somewhat trendy - Rodgers and Hammerstein's Brigadoon also debuted in 1947, just a few months later, amusing Broadway audiences with fictional Scotland).

But in Missitucky the Lonergans encounter not only American capitalism, which runs (then and now) on debt, but also racial division and a bigoted Southern senator. Og the leprechaun follows them to retrieve his gold - the loss of it threatens to turn him mortal - and his magic gold inadvertently grants hot-tempered Sharon her hasty wish: that the bigoted senator turn black. When he does, he becomes a better man. Blending Irish mythology with social criticism of the United States was something entirely new.

Rodgers and Hammerstein's ground-breaking criticism of racism in South Pacific came a year after Finian's Rainbow debuted. And although South Pacific's song "You Have to Be Carefully Taught" questions racism hauntingly, the show did not look at the racial divides that still existed within American borders. Broadway Producer David Richenthal believes that it's Finian's edigness in commenting on American racism at home that "has scared producers off. In 1946, who was standing up against the scourge of racism? Yip Harburgh and Fred Saidy were, courageously."

How else to explain the long absence of a show that launched such classic songs as "Old Devil Moon," "How Are Things in Glocca Morra," and "Look to the Rainbow?" With the credit crisis still raging and America's first black president, and talk of a "post-racial society" in the air, the relevance of what might seem merely whimsical is inescapable. Ricenthal had been working for over ten years with the writers' estates to bring the show to Broadway, but when he and Encores! Producer Jack Viertel first began looking at doing the show last year, they couldn't miss how perfect the timing was for the revival. Critics agreed: the with its onstage orchestra, book-in-hand cast who'd had just ten days of rehearsal, the Encores! Production at City Center was rapturously received. As soon as it closed, Ricenthal and Viertel decided to go forward with a full Broadway production.

And it will be a production that works in elements of Irish theatre and folklore. Interestingly, the composers and bookwriter of the show were not Irish but Jewish (the entire team)--which only makes the show that much more American. After all, Irish-Jewish blends existed from Tin Pan Alley on - see Mick Moloney's new CD, "If It Wasn't for the Irish and the Jews," for example, which launches at Symphony Space on October 24th. In this production, the title character, Finian McLonergan, is played by an Irishman - Tony-Award winner Jim Norton.

Director/ChoreographerWarren Carlyle, who also helmed the Encores! Version, is English-born (an American citizen now), said "There's something about Irish people I love," he said, "there's a twinkle in the eye." The talented 36- year old Carlyle also staged the dances in the Encores! Production of Juno, directed by Garry Hynes, in 2008 (a musical based on Sean O'Casey's great play Juno and the Paycock, also created by a Jewish team - Marc Blitzstein and Joseph Stein). Irishman Jim Norton, who won a Tony Award for his portrayal of Richard in Conor McPherson's The Seafarer in 2007, was one of Carlyle's first choices. The handsome young director was upbeat as he sat in the St. James balcony, shortly before a technical rehearsal.

"Jim Norton is the essence of Finian - he has that twinkle in his eye- and he has the quality of a dreamer. He's the thread of the story - it's called Finian's Rainbow, after all. It's told through his lens," Carlyle says, pointing out that the rainbow arc at the front of the proscenium is like a lens that Finian looks through. Missitucky is how Finian would imagine it.

Carlyle brought some Irish imagery into rehearsal, he explained. "I went into the mythology of wells, wedding rings and leprechauns - just enough to support the action on stage without diverting attention too much. There are touches of Irish folklore in the fabric of the story - there are three Irish characters, and even Irish themes in the music. Sharon looks into the well to make a wish." "How Are Things in Glocca Morra" has been seen by many as an echo of immigrant songs of yearning.

For Norton, a Gaelic speaker ("I went to the Christian brothers!" he explained), adding an Irish sensibility to the production was natural - though he had to accept the Broadway show's pronunciation of the leprechaun Og's name as Ahg. He hears some Irish melody in the music, too. The song "Look to the Rainbow," though very different, reminds him in some ways of the traditional ballad "She Moves Through the Fair."

Speaking in his dressing room, "just a step away from the stage," the actor, more robust and hearty than the blind man he played in The Seafarer, said he jumped at the chance to play the role, which he originated at Encores! last spring. He turned down three other roles to do so. To do the Broadway show, he turned down four - the Tony Award making him a much hotter commodity, which amused him tremendously.

For his portrayal of Finian, whom he describes as "philosophical, a dreamer, who doesn't understand the principle of investment" - he drew on the character of one of his Uncles. He strived to avoid a stereotypical "Stage Irishman," what he calls "Hi diddle diddle acting," and what American viewers might associate with a commercial for Lucky Charms. "I play Finian, but not as a cardboard cartoon. He wants to be happy - his wife has died," which is partly why he and his daughter leave Ireland.

The character is from the West of Ireland. "I specialize in Irish accents!" he said with a chuckle. Before starring in Conor McPherson's The Weir in 1997, he had done so many German and English roles that "people forgot I was Irish."

Acting runs in the Norton family: He and his sister used to play dress-up when they visited their granny, "a great storyteller." His sister now runs a drama school in Dublin, and Norton gave a master class there this summer. Asked whether acting can really be taught, Norton quotes his grandmother, saying "it's all about what the fairies leave in the cradle." His grandmother really did believe in fairies - but not leprechauns. She was 97 when she died. Norton thinks people don't believe so much these days - and "Ireland's become a crosser place."

"Yip Harburg wanted a musical expression of political feelings," Norton suggested. "Harburg had read all of O'Casey's plays." Finian's rheumatism echoes that of 'Captain' Boyle in Juno and the Paycock. Harburg had also read James Stephens' classic reimagining of Irish mythology, The Crock of Gold. As for the composers being Jewish, Norton parries, "I grew up in the Jewish area of Dublin, and passed the synagogue every day, listening to cantorial music."

Norton knew the songs from Finian's Rainbow - he'd seen it in Dublin in 1964 - but had forgotten how many great standards came from the show. For Norton, singing on Broadway is "a dream come true." He actually began his career as a boy soprano in Dublin, with parts in radio drama that were broadcast on Irish radio.

"This was in late 1957," he explained, "there was no TV in Ireland, and radio was huge." So he had to learn many different accents. His mother sent him for elocution lessons, and when he was 12-13 he began drama lessons. He joined Actors Equity Association when he was 19.

Carlyle also knew the music from Finian's Rainbow: "It's from the golden age of musicals, and there's no other sound like it." Unlike Norton, he had never seen a production of the show, nor even seen the musical, until he began work on it last spring.

The book, with its unusual, complex, whimsical story was new to Carlyle. "While set in 1947, the show really exists in its own world - in an imaginary Southern state, with a pre-civil rights era integrated, utopian society. Where South Pacific takes on prejudice by looking at children of a European father and a South Pacific mother, the prejudice that Finian's takes on was very close to home, Carlyle pointed out.

So many of the shows Norton has done have been about loss that he really appreciates being in a show that offers "the possibility of change." And a few changes have been made for 2009 audiences. Originally, when the white man is turned black by the leprechaun, the audience saw a white man in blackface. Today, Carlyle uses two actors. "It's twice the fun!" Carlyle says, with a laugh. The book adaptation by Arthur Perlman (David Ives did the Encores! Version) has not gutted the original script, but clarified it and streamlined it, he explained. "In 2009, we receive information faster than they did in 1947. We know the senator is a bigot when he says two words; back then it needed five pages." Music written to cover lengthy scene-chances also could be streamlined, now that modern technology has made those changes faster. Some sections of music that were three minutes long are now fifteen seconds, thanks to Rob Berman the musical director. Holtzclaw's special effects had not even been conceived in 1947.

And then of course, there's the magic "of two people falling in love," says Carlyle. With laughter, tears, that old devil moon, and children onstage, this is a show with "a strong message of hope." It's the first time that Norton can have his grandchildren, Josh, eleven, and Samantha, six, see him onstage. "The play shows a community where people live together and care about each other. I want the world to be like that!" If eyes well up with tears as the show arrives at its happy ending, that might be the reason why.