The Happy Time (1968) is one of those Broadway
musical flops that looks like a surefire winner on paper. It was mounted by the legendary producer
David Merrick. It was based on
Samuel Taylor's successful 1950 Broadway play, which in turn was based on
Robert L. Fontaine's novel about a boy coming of age in Canada. The director/choreographer was veteran
Gower Champion. The songs were written by
John Kander and
Fred Ebb, coming off their hit
Cabaret. It marked a return to Broadway by Canadian native
Robert Goulet, who had made his breakthrough in
Camelot seven years earlier and then gone on to a successful nightclub and recording career. The secondary leads were played by veteran
David Wayne and up-and-comer
Mike Rupert (who, as
Michael Rupert, would have a long Broadway career). It received ten Tony Award nominations and won three, one for
Goulet and two for
Champion. And yet, when it closed after 285 sparsely attended performances, having been kept alive by every trick the crafty
Merrick could conceive, it became the first Broadway
musical to lose a million dollars. How did that happen? A key to the problems, as is often true on Broadway, is the interaction between the talented principals. In
Fontaine's novel and
Taylor's play, the central character in
The Happy Time is young
Bibi, played here by
Rupert. But the
musical turned the story into a star vehicle for
Goulet, who played the newly created character of
Jacques,
Bibi's older brother, a successful photographer for whom the story is taking place in his memory. Making the main character a photographer gave
Champion a staging concept that included projections and films; indeed, his credit reads, "directed, filmed, and choreographed by
Gower Champion." This tended to transform an intimate story about an adolescent boy into a spectacle with a larger-than-life star, and
N. Richard Nash's much-criticized "book" (i.e., script) apparently never quite adapted to the changes.
Kander and
Ebb, meanwhile, seem to have been simply the wrong choice for the music. Their talents, as displayed in
Cabaret, were expressed in edgy, somewhat satirical material, while
The Happy Time was all warm-hearted nostalgia, and as heard on the cast album, the best they could do was a toothless batch of
musical greeting cards.
Goulet,
Rupert, and
Wayne, to their credit, make the best of this stuff,
Goulet declaiming heroically and getting to show off a French-Canadian accent at times, the precocious
Rupert nearly stealing
"Please Stay" from him, and
Wayne getting an excellent showcase in the show's best song,
"The Life of the Party." This is not, however, among the most memorable work for any of them, and the album will be of interest chiefly (if not exclusively) to
musical theater buffs and
Goulet fans. ~ William Ruhlmann
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