The Little Flower Blooms Again

Fiorello La Guardia, strutting, opinionated, squeak-voiced Italian- Jewish son of an army bandmaster, did, by the bizarre convolutions of New York politics, end up as mayor of the world’s largest city. But that was before Aptitude Tests, and La Guardia never knew that what he really should have been was a musical comedy star. George Abbott and Jerome Weidman figured this out (somewhat belatedly) and suddenly there, among us again, is that buoyant, outrageous figure every New Yorker remembers, whether with irritation, affection or simply amusement. In Fiorello!, Abbott and Weidman have produced a play that—despite minor flaws: an occasional falloff in pace, a noticeable shortage of songs in the second act (no fair so many reprises!) and a love ballad that falls flat— stands out high as the Empire State above the more pretentious and less successful Destrys, Gypsys and Saratogas.

Like West Side Story, Fiorello! came to town without benefit of big star billing. And this seems to be a help. The dramatic urgencies are never sacrificed to the build-up of a particular actor. The songs are portioned out in equal measure to the three or four lead characters, all of whom, though unknowns, are talented. Tom Bosley, who might be a younger brother of La Guardia, fits as easily into the role as he does into the characteristic black suit and broad-brimmed hat that marked the political Fiorello. He has the determined, long stride of the short man, and from his first horrified squeak (at the antics of a comic-paper villain) to the last abrupt: “You’re fired. Will you marry me?,” the audience is his. Thanks undoubtedly to Mr. Abbott, whatever temptation there was to make of La Guardia, protector of the poor and the oppressed, a Mr. Goody Two-Shoes, was happily suppressed. The Little Flower we see here has all the exasperating qualities we remember in him.

PL

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Priscilla L. Buckley

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Fiorello La Guardia, strutting, opinionated, squeak-voiced Italian- Jewish son of an army bandmaster, did, by the bizarre convolutions of New York politics, end up as mayor of the world’s largest city. But that was before Aptitude Tests, and La Guardia never knew that what he really should have been was a musical comedy star. George Abbott and Jerome Weidman figured this out (somewhat belatedly) and suddenly there, among us again, is that buoyant, outrageous figure every New Yorker remembers, whether with irritation, affection or simply amusement. In Fiorello!, Abbott and Weidman have produced a play that—despite minor flaws: an occasional falloff in pace, a noticeable shortage of songs in the second act (no fair so many reprises!) and a love ballad that falls flat— stands out high as the Empire State above the more pretentious and less successful Destrys, Gypsys and Saratogas.

Like West Side Story, Fiorello! came to town without benefit of big star billing. And this seems to be a help. The dramatic urgencies are never sacrificed to the build-up of a particular actor. The songs are portioned out in equal measure to the three or four lead characters, all of whom, though unknowns, are talented. Tom Bosley, who might be a younger brother of La Guardia, fits as easily into the role as he does into the characteristic black suit and broad-brimmed hat that marked the political Fiorello. He has the determined, long stride of the short man, and from his first horrified squeak (at the antics of a comic-paper villain) to the last abrupt: “You’re fired. Will you marry me?,” the audience is his. Thanks undoubtedly to Mr. Abbott, whatever temptation there was to make of La Guardia, protector of the poor and the oppressed, a Mr. Goody Two-Shoes, was happily suppressed. The Little Flower we see here has all the exasperating qualities we remember in him.