New Musical in Manhattan

New Girl in Town (book by George Abbott; music and lyrics by Bob Merrill). No one in the American theater has trudged so far or so heroically or so alone, been so indifferent to pace or careless of pitfalls as Eugene O'Neill. No one in the American theater has proved such a steam calliope down the Main Stem, shown such a knack for pacing, for well-oiled speed, for sociable razzle-dazzle as George Abbott. And with the insouciance that pervades the American theater, when a musical is made of O'Neill's Anna Christie it is George Abbott who writes the libretto and directs the show.

The result is no more a miraculous meeting--and mating--of extremes than a head-on catastrophe. It is, instead, an often pleasant but an always misguided show. The trouble is that extremes don't meet and that oil and salt water don't even try to mix. They carefully avoid each other: when traffic moves north and south for O'Neill, it halts east and west for razzle-dazzle. O'Neill's simple black and white concerning a former prostitute-by-circumstance, her rather bleary, seafaring father, and her suitor who learns of her sordid past, is set inside a gaudy, frilly, foolish, turn-of-the-century lace valentine.

Far from being ruthless with Anna Christie, Abbott has been all too faithful to her in his fashion, hewing neatly to the plot line and merely jettisoning all mood, unity and cumulative effect. Anna Christie might make a good, serious musical drama that would sustain O'Neill's story better than O'Neill did. But for capers-and-confetti musicomedy it can only be a death's-head at a feast.

The capers and confetti are often happily present. In New Girl no one even mentions "that old davil sea"; the waterfront is covered with period folderol, with tars and tarts and tararaboomdeay. Bob Merrill has composed a pleasantly undistinguished score, at its best in such a mildly rowdy ballad as Flings or such a lilting, deliberate throwback as The Sunshine Girl. And, one earthbound ballet aside, Bob Fosse has provided dances that are the brightest part of the show.

As Anna, Gwen Verdon proves something more than a mere musicomedy actress. All the same, she is first and foremost a wonderful dancer, and not the least of the libretto's sins is how badly it rations her dancing--her comic dancing in particular. As an old waterfront rip, Cinemactress Thelma Ritter endows a rather inelastic role with a winning, raffish charm. Cameron Prud'homme makes a good father and George Wallace a good suitor. But leading such a left-hand, right-hand life, Anna Christie is neither her old self nor really a new girl either.

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