I'd like to preface these comments with memories. More than a half-century ago, we college students enjoyed laughing together at party records. Often we'd put them on among dance records until listeners caught on that something peculiar was going on. I remember three as funniest.
One album had super-pro pop music artists Jo Stafford and her husband, Paul Weston, pretend to be "Jonathan and Darlene Edwards" in a hilariously awful nightclub act. "Darlene" sang only a fraction of a tone off-key, and "Jonathan" missed every fourth or fifth note. Also a young math instructor at Harvard named Tom Lehrer was sending his delicious satirical songs to college radio stations and their listeners. And the one unintentionally hilarious favorite was an album including several tour-de-force coloratura soprano showpieces sung inimitably by Florence Foster Jenkins. With the high-notes screeched far away from the prescribed note and often enthusiastically entered just before the correct time, or a beat or two late, Florence Foster Jenkins rendered [literally] war-horse arias like the "Bell Song" from Lakme in unique and startling versions.
I'd forgotten that background when I got a note from my college roommate to whom I'd introduced all three recordings 55 years ago: he had just laughed through a new pre-Broadway play about Florence Foster Jenkins. So that legend continues.
Actually, Florence Foster Jenkins' husband would not permit her to sing in public, but divorced and freed to express herself, Florence gave extravagant concerts in fancy costumes (some with feathered wings) that she changed after each selection, and she clowned and threw flowers into the audience; thus the laughter could be attributed to delight, not derision.
For decades Florence's annual gala recitals were treasured by the wealthy women who attended (and not-too obviously laughed at her). Admission was possible only with a ticket purchased from Florence. Since people couldn't get to see this rumored amazing performer, a demand grew, culminating in her renting Carnegie Hall and giving a recital there in 1944 when Florence was 76 and sounding it. She died shortly afterward, supposedly shocked to find that people were making fun of her. Actually the New York critics published wonderful, ambiguous reviews, noting the "joy" in the audience, and Florence Foster Jenkins' "unique," "unparalleled," and "extraordinary" talents. The record album became the cult object I'd found after the story of her life got embellished into legend. And in 2005 two funny musical plays emerged. Souvenir, the Broadway one with Judy Kaye, is now playing Geva Theater Center in Rochester.
Stephen Temperley's Souvenir, as shaped by master-director Vivian Matelon, is light-hearted and very funny, but it avoids the reportedly smirky sarcasm of the other play, Peter Quilter's Glorious. By having the story narrated onstage by Cosme McMoon, Florence's accompanist and friend, Souvenir lets us understand the outrageousness of the great fame and acclaim and long singing career of this extravagant woman devoid of any singing ability, but it also comments on the nature and variety of the art of singing and manages to end with a coup de theatre that is touching, inspiring and sweet.
Perhaps one reason for the remarkable welcome audiences have given this peculiar, amusing play is its unusual possibly unique production history. The people putting it on just don't want to let go of it and won't perform it without each other. So it has no producer; the producer is the theater currently playing it. The director, two stars, and designers all award-winning pros, will return to Souvenir when another city wants a run of performances with essentially the Broadway production reinterpreted but reproduced intact. The company have played it across the country, and I imagine that it gets richer each time.
Judy Kaye, a Broadway veteran and noted singer with symphonies, opera companies, and in operettas, makes Florence produce some truly startling sounds but never able to sing on-key. Of course, the law of averages made the real Florence sing some notes in tune. But the indomitable, inspired creature that Ms Kaye creates is as bewitching as she is laughable. Donald Corren, also an awarded actor and singer and musician, moves winningly from Cosme McMoon's dry commentary through exasperation and absolute shock to a nurturing support [not just on the piano] that helps to sustain Florence and lead to the very satisfying ending.
The simple but elegant sets, costumes and props present suggestions of the homes, meeting rooms and concert halls where the two rehearse, perform, fight, strategize, and come to understand what they are about.
Find Florence's recordings: you'll laugh yourself silly. But the play will do even more for you.
