The West Marin Players make a major departure from Gilbert & Sullivan’s Victorian England with this year’s music production, Frank Loesser’s 1956 Broadway gem, “The Most Happy Fella.” Showing at the Dance Palace Community Center from July 10 to 12, this exhilarating musical is the set in the Napa Valley in 1927. It’s the tale of a May-December romance involving a middle-aged grape rancher who, through letters, shyly woos a young San Franciscan waitress who is seeking someone “who wants me and needs me.”
The plot is by no means love-at-first sight. It begins with a near-fatal auto accident, misunderstandings and a pregnancy; by the end, however, “The Most Happy Fella” has become a soaring love story with sublime music, passionate leading actors and delightful secondary characters. Many players from previous productions return to bring Loesser’s monumental musical achievement with Inverness resident Susie Stitt as director and producer.
No surprise that the songwriter who gave us the most memorable “Guys and Dolls” in 1950 and who wrote songs like “Once in Love With Amy,” “Slow Boat to China,” and “Sit Down You’re Rockin’ the Boat,” could write light-hearted songs for “The Most Happy Fella,” like “Standing on the Corner” or “Big D.” But in this musical, Loesser rose to greater heights with warm and marvelous operatic arias like “My Heart is So Full of You” and the touching “Happy to Make Your Acquaintance.” I was lucky enough to see the original cast, and both of these songs moisten my eyes on cue.
In the 1950s, operatic voices on Broadway stages were common; Ezio Pinza, starring in South Pacific, jumps to mind. Loesser successfully cast the renowned Metropolitan Opera star baritone Robert Weede in the lead role of Tony, who sings several songs in a bel canto style.
To me and many others, “The Most Happy Fella” is a grand American opera, along with “Porgy and Bess” and “Showboat,” though Loesser himself resisted calling it an opera. “It is a musical with a lot of music,” he said in one of the greatest understatements in Broadway lore. There are over 30 songs in the show, more than twice as many as in an average musical. For Loesser, who created the words, music and book, the lyrics were as important as the music. What is remarkable in his score is the consistency and accuracy with which the characters use folksy language, even when the music soars.
This emphasis on the characters’ realism is what makes “The Most Happy Fella” so emotionally satisfying. It is a story about anger and forgiveness, about ordinary people who fall down, get up, forgive and love each other, and embrace new lives. At first, we can all recognize the mistakes these characters make; later, we can glow in the warmth of the love that develops between them. In The New York Times, famed theater critic Brooks Atkinson wrote, “Broadway is used to heart. It is not accustomed to evocations of the soul.”
Opera, operetta, musical comedy? It’s best to say “The Most Happy Fella” defies categorization. It is the unique Broadway show Loesser intended to write; one filled with all the complex elements that make up life itself.
“The Most Happy Fella” shows Friday and Saturday, July 10 and 11, at 8 p.m.and Sunday, July 12 at 2 p.m. at the Dance Palace Community Center. Tickets are $30, or $28 seniors and kids, and are available in advance at dancepalace.org or by calling (415) 663.1075. An opening night program for $85 includes wine and appetizers, dinner, dessert and preferred seating.