Metropolitan Opera House

At the Met
Judy Garland Revue Opens
A Seven-Night Engagement
By Judith Christ - New York Herald Tribune

There is plenty of fuel to keep the old nostalgia burning brightly at the Metropolitan this week with Judy Garland belting out the great standards, John W. Bubbles proving that the fine art of tap and soft shoe dancing is not dead and Alan King demonstrating that there are still some angry and versatile young comedians around.

There is only one thing wrong with Judy Garland:  she doesn't know how good she is.  Her voice is richer, stronger, truer than ever and all she has to do is give out with an introduction to get a more-than-eager audience in the palm of her hand.  It's not just the old familiar refrains of "It's Almost Like Being in Love" or "It Can't Be Love" or "The Man That Got Away;" it's the old familiar Garland voice.

Miss Garland is not, of course, the piquant girl of twenty years ago -- but who among us is?  Her legs are still slim and girlish, but she has put on weight and, perhaps through self consciousness, has lost the limber agility that made her routines in a tuxedo with a line of chorus boys her trademark.   But in any case it is time she put the old routines aside and appeared in her own right as a young woman with a voice that can ride right over a fifty-piece orchestra and hit you in the heart.  When it comes to the "Trolley Song" or "You Made Me Love You," she is still without equal, and she can even lend quality to the rather undistinguished series of tunes Gordon Jenkins has provided in "The Letter."

The passing of time has, if anything, enhanced the talents of Bubbles, whose easy singing and easier dancing remind one of how much good tap dancing is missed these days.  With all due respect, as the frustrated tap dancer in "Say Darling" remarked, "damn Agnes DeMille."!

Bubbles has style and distinction whether it's with "It Aint Necessarily So," which he introduced as the original Sportin' Life, or a casual "Lady Be Good."  And joined by Alan King in a "Song and Dance Man" routine he brings back the glory of Buck and Bubbles as they were.

Mr. King proves himself a more than able partner for Miss Garland as well, in the "Couple of Swells" number.  But it is as a monologist that he shines. 

He is, in fact a very funny fellow, even though there are moments when one believes his comment that "When they said the Met -- I thought they meant the Metropole."  His comments on domesticity, suburbia, television and child-raising are incisive and uninhibited, his manner is more than pleasing and his ego unobtrusive.  And there are not many comedians of whom the last can be said.

The two acts have been decked out with some stylish back drops and an attractive company of singers and Mr. Jenkins and his orchestra lend fine support.  But dancers -- the three stars can well stand alone -- even on the grand stage of the Metropolitan.  In fact at times the microphone seemed extraneous -- and Miss Garland finally proved it was, abandoning it for her "Over the Rainbow" number.

but the important thing about the very satisfying opening is that Judy Garland is on hand and sings as only she can.  And how she can!

Miss Garland's seven-night stand is under the auspices of the Children's Asthma Research Institute and Hospital at Denver and for it's benefit.

Judy Garland, registering high Met-abolism, fractured them in an opera setting, too, as Sir Harry Lauder did years ago.  Though lately carrying the weight of a short-statured Wagnerian soprano which gives her the appearance of an oversized kewpie doll, she's still a whammo click in a variety "extravaganza" that mixed sittees and stoodees to full-pack the Metropolitan Opera House Monday (11) night.  At $50 top for the preem, the week's run benefits the Children's Asthma Research Institute and Hospital of Denver.  Otherwise, it's scaled to $9 and $10, latter tab for weekend performances.  Opening take was estimated at a huge $75,000.  House capacity is 3,600.

Taking benefit and partisan audiences into account, it was nevertheless so lusty a crowd as to suggest that a Garland cannot err.  They kept on mitting her throughout, even at the first bar when she launched an otherwise familiar sing with verse that must have been obscure to many.

Miss Garland is slow getting settled in the first half, apparently reserving her power and big weapons for post-intermission segment.  Forepart has her in "I Happen to Like New York" number midway, followed by John W. Bubbles and comedian Alan King.  It's King's round, right to the finish with some 30 minutes of slickly purveyed standupology on at-home tribulations, his favorite set-piece.  Bubbles, of the late standard vaude team (Buck &), hoofs and raspily chirps like he'd never been away -- older, yes, but loose of limb and streamlined as per earlier days in the varieties and legit (the Sportin' Life in the 1935 "Porgy and Bess" to partner Ford L. Buck's Mingo role).  A mixed up group of nearly three dozen singer-dancers, whipped into shape by stager-choreographer Richard Barstow, choral-directed by Robert Lenn and dressed by Irene Sharaff, provide the flashes here as throughout.

In unusual slotting, the star opens the second half, and in a longish workout pegged on "The Letter."  This was composed by her conductor, Gordon Jenkins, and she has etched it for Capitol Records.  Intending to convey this intelligence to the aud in an intro, Miss Garland muffed the label's name and quipped, "I've been fired so many times, I don't know whom I work for."  If it wasn't an ad lib, it didn't matter; it broke the ice and broke up the house, since the candid self-effacement could not have been put better whether by accident or design.  "The Letter" is a sneaker upper; however it sounds on the platter, on the live stage it starts slowly and seems to go nowhere, but Miss Garland inches it skillfully into a splendiferous mood piece of fine balladic value.

After a two-act by Bubbles and King in an innocuous tails and toppers song and dance, Miss Garland is in with her lodestone, the Born in a Trunk" sequence from her pic "A Star is Born," scripted by Roger Edens and Leonard Gershe.  With choral background and multiple flash roles, it is a payoff production, although difficult to spot during intermittent darkened stage whether the mobile portions of this were pre-recorded, as in the Baltimore wamer-upper date.

Bubbles gets in a big lick with the ensembles, for a good pace-changer.  With softshoe, taps and other hoofology he tops with "Aint Necessarily so" out of "P & B." Segue is to Garland & King in "We're a Couple of Swells," an ingratiating tramp number with exaggerated hobo raiment.  It's good for steady laughs from an aud already saturated with a lot of show to this near-finale point.  But it's well to coin-a-phrase here that they aint heard nothing yet.  For now comes the olio-out-of-place, slotted at the tape.

Harking back to her Palace boom-days, Miss Garland takes to the apron, mounts a high stool and is off-and-runthrough on the trademark-Reg-U.S.-Pat.-Off. standard.  The old and not so long ago and sometimes childlike Garland shows through penetratingly.  Here she is near to the apex of her vocal prowess, delivery and projecting characteristic broken notes and all after the medley ("Melancholy Baby," "You Made Me Love You," "For Me and My Gal," "Trolley Song," ad infinitum) amid cascading of handclapping fore, amidship and aft, she tossed away the mic with a "they don't use these at the Met" crack in mock haute and caressed "Somewhere Over the Rainbow."  She had moved from her stool to handle the evergreen in spotlight, with the audience hushed and then stunning her with applause.  She encored with the Jolson farrago to wrap up after some two hours of stage time.

Miss Garland may be peck's-bad-girl with her frequent peccadillo's but onstage, even in her rather rigid posture and tentative stance, she's the showman and virtuoso.