I
Love My Wife at The Center at Rhinebeck
by
Jay Blotcher
Peter Aaron
Gregio keeps the action era-appropriate, depicting
not only the bad hair, dubious fashions but also the suburban mindset.
“We
have to keep the naiveté of that time,” he said. “We
have to remember certain aspects of who we are and what we did.
We have to put on those clothes again—the polyester. It’s
kind of charming really.”
The
musical score (music by Coleman, lyrics by Stewart) is a grab bag
of divergent styles, hopscotching from Dixieland jazz to soul to
country-western to soft rock. Faux-naughty numbers include By Threes,”
“Sexually Free,” “Married Couple Seeks Married
Couple” and “Ev’rybody Today is Turning On,”
a raucously clever cataloguing of recreational drugs. (A surreal
and sublime version of this song, duetted by Rock Hudson and Bea
Arthur, now appears on YouTube.)
Gregio
considers Coleman “a composer who is underrated,” describing
his exuberant, razzle-dazzle numbers as “Cole Porter mixed
with Randy Newman.”
Clearly
the storyline of a sweet-but-square foursome fumbling towards kinkiness
resonated for audiences: I Love My Wife, directed by Gene Saks and
originally starring James Naughton, Joanna Gleason, Lenny Baker
and Ilene Graff, tallied an impressive 857 performances on Broadway
at the Ethel Barrymore Theatre. (Perhaps it was ultimately viewed
by every tri-state resident similarly intrigued and frightened by
the new sexual mores.) The show pulled in four Drama Desk awards
and two Antoinette Perry statues: for both director Gene Saks and
lead actor Lenny Baker, who found fame that year also starring in
Paul Mazursky’s valentine to 1950s Manhattan, Next Stop Greenwich
Village.
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