THEATRE REVIEW:

“SING A SONG OF HOLLYWOOD-

HARRY WARREN:

AMERICA’S GREATEST UNKNOWN SONGWRITER” at SDSU

KPBS AIRDATE: October 30, 1996

MUSIC, up and under: “Serenade in Blue”

Poor Salvatore Guaragna. He changed his name to Harry Warren. He wrote more than 350 songs. From the 1920s to the 1950s, he had 42 Hit Parade Top Ten tunes, scored 70 movies, and garnered 11 Academy Award nominations for Best Song. And still, nobody knows who he was. At the San Diego State University Drama Department, they’re calling him “Harry Warren, America’s Greatest Unknown Songwriter,” which is the subtitle to a world premiere musical revue, “Sing a Song of Hollywood.”

By the way, I oughta mention some of Harry Warren’s songs. You know ‘em all: unforgettables like “42nd Street,” “Serenade in Blue,” “We’re in the Money,” “Jeepers Creepers,” “Chattanooga Choo Choo,” “An Affair to Remember,” “Atchison, Topeka & the Santa Fe” and his Oscar-winning “Lullaby of Broadway.”

Some forty of Warren’s songs appear in “Sing a Song of Hollywood,” which is based on a concept by Warren’s biographer, Tony Thomas. After two years with the project, musical director/creator Terry O’Donnell has come up with some terrific arrangements and orchestrations. He and his six-piece ensemble actually manage to sound like a big band. And co-creator/director Paula Kalustian, along with her Old Town choreographers Jill and Steve Anthony, have done everything imaginable to make the staging high-energy and great fun. The sets are elaborate and the costumes are gorgeous. But what about the cast, you may ask?

The 18 undergraduate and graduate students are amazing: young, vibrant, adorable, enthusiastic, and really talented. They sing, they dance, they act; they are the “triple-threats” that musical theater programs should be turning out. Especially winners-to-watch like Michael Dalager, Ivan Hernandez, Todd Jones, Melissa Supera and Lisa Kinnard. This is a singing style these kids may never have even heard, but they wrap their mellifluous voices around it like it was bred in the bone.

The 50-minute first act whizzes by; those are the radio days, set on Main Street and 42nd Street. The second act moves, as Warren did, to Hollywood, and focuses on the movie scores for Warner, Fox, MGM and Paramount. The second act sags in the middle; these songs are less familiar and we could live without the pseudo-impersonations of Betty Grable and Doris Day. Thank goodness for “That’s Amore,” which turns into a hilarious Three Italian Tenors competition.

The piece is light on narration, and could use even less; much of it is unnecessary or redundant. More troubling to me was the absence of the lyricists. Yes, they’re listed in the program, in one big, 14-man lump. But let us not forget that, except in a few instances, all of Harry Warren’s songs were collaborations. He was primarily a tunesmith, not a wordsmith. And, for most of his still-popularized songs, not only the melody lingers on.

Which reminds me of the classic story about Oscar Hammerstein’s wife, Dorothy. She once heard someone refer to ‘Jerome Kern’s “Ol’ Man River.”’ Offended and indignant, she immediately shot back, “Oscar Hammerstein wrote “Ol’ Man River.” Jerome Kern wrote ‘Ta-ta dumdum, ta ta-ta dumdum.” Harry Warren wrote some wonderful songs. But he didn’t do it alone.

MUSIC, up and under: “Serenade in Blue”

I'm Pat Launer, KPBS radio.

©1996 Patté Productions Inc.