Evening Primrose

[pvitari]

Tomorrow (October 26) is a banner day for musicals fans -- Evening Primrose, Stephen Sondheim's 1966 TV musical, is finally coming out on DVD! Broadcast originally in color, this production of ABC's Stage 67 now exists only on a black and white 16mm copy, which is the source of this much-longed for release. Sondheim wrote a beautiful score (music and lyrics) for this tale of a young man (Anthony Perkins, who had a beautiful, light singing voice) who decides to hide from the world in a department store, and finds that he's not the only one.

I've loved this score for ages and watched the clips on youtube -- I'm so excited the entire video is finally being released!

There's an article about it in today's New York Times.

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/10/25/theat ... ose&st=cse

[Jezebel38]

Paula – Wow, thanks for posting this! Although I’m not a Sondheim scholar, I am a big fan, but had never heard of this production. Just listened / watched the Youtubes; just four songs, but they are all winners – Take Me To The World is divine. Anthony Perkins – lovely voice, who knew? - and Charmian Carr was in something else besides Sound of Music! (Living in a department store - brings to mind Loretta Young in Employee’s Entrance.)

[klondike]

(Living in a department store - brings to mind Loretta Young in Employee’s Entrance.)

Also, Ava Gardner in One Touch of Venus, and several episodes from "Twilight Zone", and "Night Gallery"!

[pvitari]

Jezebel -- re Anthony Perkins' voice... well, all of us stage musicals fans knew. ;) Everyone at castrec (the cast recordings list) has been drooling for ages in anticipation of this video. (Jane Klain, quoted in the NY Times article, is one of our members.) We've all been enjoying the CD of the soundtrack since its release in 2008 but we also all wanted the video. Thank goodness it's been resurrected.

(Another production from ABC's Stage 67 in dire need of resurrection is Sam Peckinpah's Noon Wine, adapted from a Katherine Anne Porter story, and starring Jason Robards, Olivia de Havilland, Theodore Bikel and Ben Johnson... this has been completely unavailable ever since the broadcast and Peckinpah fans are begging for it. Well, this one is.)

Perkins recorded three pop albums in the 1950s and he also starred in a 1960 Frank Loesser Broadway musical, Greenwillow, which alas, flopped, although Tony got a (ha ha) Tony nomination. You can see him performing a number from Greenwillow on youtube. Also, a Perkins enthusiast has posted lots of his pop recordings on youtube, so head on over, put Tony's name into the search engine, and enjoy!

[pvitari]

Watched Evening Primrose last night and it was every bit as wonderful as I knew it would be. Warning: bring a box of kleenex or a hanky. You're going to need it!

[pvitari]

The four principal numbers from Evening Primrose, on youtube. These are official videos from Kochvision, which owns eOne,the company that released the DVD, so the quality is very good.

[Jezebel38]

I was wondering about the story's ending, but if I need a hanky that gives me an indication...I see that this is available on Netflix, so I'll check it out. (I usually try to watch DVD's this way before I decide to buy.)

[pvitari]

Jezebel, I say no more... but once you've seen it, please post your thoughts!

[pvitari]

A great article about Tony Perkins' musical career.

http://theseconddisc.com/2010/10/31/hal ... y-perkins/

[Jezebel38]

Jezebel, I say no more... but once you've seen it, please post your thoughts!

Can't say what took me so long to get to this, but since I'm going to join the other reported 600,000 and drop Netflix due to the pricing increase, I've ramped up my viewing and just finished streaming this. I did not read any spoilers, so went in just expecting a little surreal fantasy, but I started to get creeped out when they were describing "the dark men" and realized that no,this was not going to have a happy ending! But I did enjoy it very much,for what it is - a 50 minute early 60's telecast, and loved the songs and how they were performed by Tony Perkins and Charmian Carr. I'm familiar with lots of Sondheim standards, but not all, and Take Me To The World was new for me - this will now join my favs. As they were singing the duet I thought, hmm, this would make a nice song to sing at a wedding for a bride and groom who are hardcore musical theatre buffs! So I suppose I foresaw the ending, in a way...