JERRY HERMAN: A MUSICAL OPTIMIST CELEBRATES LOVE AND LIFE

Recently the Pasadena Playhouse in California presented a musical love letter to Jerry Herman that displayed the composer and lyricist as a man filled with joy, optimism, love and timelessness. Written and conceived by Andrew Einhorn, “You I Like” is a delightful tribute to a man who wrote such musical classics as “Hello, Dolly!” and “Mame” and “La Cage Aux Folles,” garnering two Tonys in the process. A quintet of singers, Andrea Ross, Ryan Vona, Lesli Margherita, Nicholas Christopher and Ashley Blanchet, offered such favorite confections as “Before the Parade Passes By,” “Put on Your Sunday Clothes” and the title tune “Hello, Dolly!” that when sung by Louis Armstrong bumped the Beatles off the Billboard 100 spot where they had resided for weeks. Herman’s songs had shine and sparkle and a “glitzy optimism” according to Einhorn, a massive body of work that made Herman a master of the show tune. The only child of a couple who took him frequently to Broadway to see theater, he was particularly attached to his mother Ruth, a cheerleader of his who died of cancer when he was only 21. He said in an interview that his mother “was glamorous like Mame and witty like Dolly.” Sadly she died before he had a hit on Broadway, but she did arrange for him to have a meeting with composer Frank Loesser when he was a teenager. Loesser encouraged him to continue his writing and advised him to write his songs as if he was building a train, with a locomotive in front, followed by a red caboose that held a little surprise. After that meeting, Herman changed courses and colleges, leaving architecture for show business. Herman’s philosophy was always to find happiness in even the smallest pleasures, a trait he learned early on from his mother. One day he came home from school to find her planning a party. When asked why a party, she replied “Because it’s today.” That may explain why the tune “It’s Today” is such a glorious hit in “Mame.” Jerry Herman was always trying to transport his listeners to warm places of welcome like in the song “Shalom” from his musical “Milk and Honey,” a play about the young and strong state of Israel, a homeland of greeting with a little hello and farewell in it. In writing it, he spent time visiting and talking with the people in the land, rather than take an organized tour. When asked, he claimed his favorite work was the musical about the silent movies, “Mack and Mabel,” with the tune “Movies More Movies.” He had the unique ability to create real and vital characters and could even identify with female roles, like Gooch in “Gooch’s Song” from “Mame.” Gooch sings how she lived, and lived so well, that she opened her window so wide, too wide, that she couldn’t close it again. Even though he was not a trained musician, he was influenced by Irving Berlin and wrote his own holiday song “We Need a Little Christmas” as a Jewish composer. His songs could capture humor and stretch it far for laughs like in “Boom Buddies” in “Mame” where two frienemies defend each other no matter how hard it is to recognize the naked truth or in “If He Walked into My Life Today” also from “Mame” which struggled sentimentally with how issues were handled in the past and what might be different today. Jerry Herman called his musicals “my children.” They had a timeless quality, especially his message songs like Time Heals Everything” from “Mack and Mabel” and “The Best of Times” and “I am who I am” from “La Cage Aux Folles.” In “La Cage” he focused on acceptance between male lovers, a situation that had not been tackled before. You can still get in on the fun and sing along. Go to PlayhouseLive.org. Support the non-profit theater and entertain the whole family for $24.99 until February 7, watching as many times as you’d like. His legacy is clearly that he wanted to explore the human condition and was wholly devoted to making people smile. As Andy Einhorn stated so eloquently. Jerry Herman was a man who “loved to live and lived to love” and we are all the better for that devotion.