In the background, my random iTunes produced Chita Rivera singing “An English Teacher” from the original Broadway cast album of Bye Bye Birdie. A little masterpiece: the earnest middle class aspirations of Rivera’s character Rosie; the complex angularity of the text-tune relationship (lyrics by Lee Adams, music by Charles Strouse); the extraordinary performance by Rivera (I have now listened to another dozen versions, and nothing comes close to the first Rivera). I tried to find a YouTube version of the cast album, but no dice; instead, something even better: Seth Rudetsky deconstructing Rivera’s performance of this first number in the show, here.
On the show. from Wikipedia:
Bye Bye Birdie is a stage musical with a book by Michael Stewart, lyrics by Lee Adams, and music by Charles Strouse. [opened on Broadway in 1960, with Dick Van Dyke as Albert, Chita Rivera as Rosie, and Dick Gautier as Conrad]
Originally titled Let’s Go Steady, the satire on American society is set in 1958. The story was inspired by the phenomenon of popular singer Elvis Presley and his draft notice into the Army in 1957. The rock star character’s name, “Conrad Birdie,” is word play on the name of Conway Twitty. Twitty is best remembered today for his long career as a country music star, but in the late 1950s, he was one of Presley’s rock ‘n’ roll rivals.
The original Broadway production was a Tony Award-winning success. It spawned a London production and several major revivals, a sequel, a 1963 film and a 1995 television production. The show also became a popular choice for high school and college productions.
(“An English Teacher”, among other numbers, was omitted from the 1963 film.)
The relevant lyrics:
An English teacher, an English teacher.
If only you’d been an English teacher
We’d have a little apartment in Queens
You’d get a summer vacation
And we would know what life meansA man who’s got his masters
Is really someone
How proud I’d be if you had become one
It could have been such a wonderful life
I could have been Mrs. Peterson
Mrs. Albert Peterson,
Mrs. Phi Beta Kappa Peterson,
The English teacher’s wife!… An English teacher is really someone
How proud I’d be if you had become one
It could have been such a wonderful life
I could have been Mrs. Peterson
Mrs. Albert Peterson,
Mrs. Phi Beta Kappa Peterson,
The English teacher’s wife!
The music requires accents on teacher in the first lines, even though the word is ordinarily subordinated in accent to English in English teacher. And then there’s someone / become one. And more. The words don’t just jog along with the musical beats, but run against them.
Rudetsky focuses instead on what Rivera does with the song; you might disagree with him on some points, but he makes you think about her choices and appreciate her artistry.
And he does it in what I think of as sweet fag style — unmistakably gay, but entirely unthreatening: deeply serious, charming, and unmissably queer. I think the world is enriched by people like this, and find myself baffled by the idea (sometimes bruited about) that the End of Discrimination should mean that all men adopt a uniform regular-guy style. Rudetsky is providing something precious and wonderful, worth celebrating and preserving. Damn, I wish I could do it easily.
January 4, 2013 at 8:06 pm |
On Rudetsky from Facebook friends: