Let's Face It (1941)

Let's Face It (1941)

Music and Lyrics by Cole Porter,
Book by Herbert and Dorothy Fields,
(Based on The Cradle Snatchers by Russel Medcraft and Norma Mitchell)

Directed by Roy Casstevens
Musical Director: Brandon Adams
Choreographer: Jayne Zaban

Playbill Notes

The Broadway opening of fall, 1941, featured Danny Kaye, hot off his spectacular turn supporting Gertrude Lawrence in Lady in the Dark; Eve Arden, making the most of her already-patented dry delivery; renowned librettist Herbert Fields teaming for the first time with his equally renowned sister, Dorothy; and Cole Porter, making a triumphant return to New York, following a brief stint in Hollywood. Critics cheered, crowds stormed the Imperial Theatre, and Let's Face It! racked up an impressive year and a half run, the longest for any Porter show (until Kiss Me Kate doubled it in 1948) and one of the longest ever for a musical to that time. If the show is remembered now primarily as the launching pad for Kaye's Hollywood career, at the time it was a geniune theatre "event," and praise was distributed to all the principals, not the least of them Porter.

Throughout the 1930's, Cole Porter was responsible for a string of hit that represented the last word in musical comedy chic. Shows like Gay Divorce, Anything Goes, and Red, Hot and Blue were filled with Porter's sleek melodies and sparkling lyrics which made frequent use of high-society in-references and jokes. Along with the acclaim that greeted every hit song, however, came complains that the average theatregoer was left in the dark by many of his lyrics. Eventually, Porter himself came to agree.

"Sophisticated lyrics are more fun but only for myself and about eighteen other people, all of whom are first nighters anyway. Polished, urbane, and adult playwrighting in the musical field is strictly a creative luxary," he said in late-30's interview. He therefore set about writing shows for the common man, and from 1939 through 1944 turned out five book musicals that proved to be enormous successes. The most successful of these shows was Let's Face It!

A musical version of The Cradle Snatchers, 1925 farce about three wives who engage three young gigolos to make their husbands jealous, the show marked a reunion for Porter and Herbert Fields, with whom he had collaborated on the 1929 hit Fifty Million Frenchmen.

The first creative decision made was to change the three gigolos to three young soldiers, to capitalize on the prevailing pre-war mood of the nation. Initially the two leading roles-each given equal weight-were society matron Maggie Watson and the soldier she seduces, Jerry Walker. The parts were written with Eve Arden and Danny Kaye in mind. Arden had made a name for herself in films like Stage Door and musicals such as Parade and Very Warm For May. Only 31 at the time of Let's Face It!, not much older than Kaye, Arden's sophisticated way with a wisecrack usually found her "playing older." Danny Kaye himself had created a bit of sensation that winter singing "Tschaikowksy" in Lady in the Dark, and by the fall was ready for his own starring vehicle.

A "Danny Kaye vehicle," in fact, is what the show became during rehearsals. Both of Eve Arden's solos were dropped to make room for Kaye's comic routines, and Kaye's wife, Sylvia Fine, was allowed to interlopate two specialty numbers for him (against Porter's protests). Arden, perhaps realizing the impression she could make as a scene-stealing character actress, grasciously accepted the downsizing of her part, and Porter eventually relented as well. The rest of the cast included Vivian Vance, like Arden also playing older as Nancy Collister, Rodgers and Hart veteran Edith Meiser as Cornelia, Mary Jane Walsh as Winnie, and Nanette Fabray as Jean.

Regarding Porter's vow to write "for the common man," the ballads in Let's Face It! indeed have a simplicity to them, but patter songs like "Farming" and "Let's Not Talk about Love" represent Cole Porter at his name-dropping best. ("Pets" one of Arden's solos restored for this production, represents him at his naughtiest.) With the sublime silliness of the Fields' script and our own Bill Fahrner, Lesley Hamilton, and Lisa Peers spelling Kaye, Arden, and Vance, we're delighted to give you a peek at this classic musical farce.

Plot Summary

Three suspicious wives, Maggie Watson, Nancy Collister and Cornelia Pigeon invite three Army inductees to Maggie's summer house in Southampton on Long Island to make their husbands jealous. Jerry is engaged to Winnie, and, because he needs the mony, agrees to the plot. Their philandering husbands leave on yet another camping trip. Winnie, hearing of Jerry's involvement, brings in two friends (who are actually girlfriends of the other two soldiers) to pretend to be interested in the older men. The husbands actually do go fishing. Winnie and her friends crash Maggie's party and the husbands unexpectedly return home. (wikipedia)

Press Release

SAN FRANCISCO (19 August 1999) -- 42nd Street Moon, one of the country's first companies dedicated to concert presentations of "lost" musicals, presents Let's Face It!, Cole Porter's 1941 wartime hit which made a star of Danny Kaye. Let's Face It!, directed by Roy Casstevens with music direction by Scrumbly Koldewyn, plays September 29 (press opening: October 1) through October 17 at San Francisco's New Conservatory Theatre Center. For tickets ($12-22), the public can call 415/861-8972.

In this toe-tapping musical version of The Cradle Snatchers, with book by Herbert and Dorothy Fields, three bored wives decide to spice up their lives by hiring three young soldiers to step out with them, with hilarious results. Originally starring Eve Arden, Edith Meiser, and Vivian Vance, the show also introduced a young Danny Kaye, fresh from his success in Lady in the Dark the previous season. At its opening, Walter Winchell of the Mirror cheered, "so funny is the fun, so hilarious the hell-raising and so smart, snappy and snazzy are the show-stoppers ... a leader among the hits." The New York Times raved, "Everything about 'Let's Face It!' is bright and brisk and continuously enjoyable ... a wonderfully joyous musical show." The snappy score includes the songs "Let's Not Talk About Love," "A Lady Needs a Rest," "Ev'rything I Love," "You Irritate Me So," "A Little Rumba Numba," and "Ace in the Hole."

Let's Face It! marked the first time that brother and sister team Herbert and Dorothy Fields worked together. Each had earned a name for themselves in the theatre -- Herbert had, by 1941, written a dozen musical plays including Dearest Enemy, A Connecticut Yankee, Hit the Deck, Fifty Million Frenchmen, and Du Barry was a Lady, and Dorothy had written lyrics for the hit revue Blackbirds of 1928 and Star in Your Eyes (1939), and won an Academy Award for "The Way You Look Tonight," written with Jerome Kern. Starting with Let's Face It!, the siblings teamed up with composers such as Irving Berlin and Cole Porter to create many wonderful works, such as Something for the Boys (1943), Mexican Hayride (1944), Up In Central Park (1945), Annie Get Your Gun (1946), Arms and the Girl (1950), By the Beatiful Sea (1954), and Redhead (1959).

Let's Face It! audiences can enjoy the talents of a few familiar faces, including Bill Fahrner (seen as the Dauphin in Goodtime Charley, as Slick Fothergil in Girl Crazy, and both the stage production and the recording of Something for the Boys), Lesley Hamilton (who starred as Essie Whimple in Redhead, and as Chiquita on stage and on the recording of Something for the Boys), Lisa Peers (who appeared in Girl Crazy, Face the Music, Goodtime Charley, and I'd Like to Hide It), and Robin Steeves (most recently seen as Marie, the patient secretary in Fiorello!). Fahrner's soldier cohorts will be played by Kirk Mills and Christian Cagigal. Joining them will be the talents of Karen Walsh, Jimmy Gartly, Sarah Jebian, Arwen Anderson, Richard Pardini, Lianne Marie Dobbs, Nick Hoffa, and Henry Sellenthin.