Rodgers and Heart

Richard Rodgers has an untouchable place in the history of musical theater. The shows he composed to accompany Oscar Hammerstein’s lyrics read like a hall of fame: Oklahoma!, Carousel, South Pacific, The King and I and The Sound of Music. And though his and Lorenz Hart’s shows are less classic, they’re not exactly hack jobs; consider such songs as “My Romance,” “My Funny Valentine” and “Bewitched, Bothered and Bewildered.”

Quality Hill Playhouse gets on the Richard Rodgers centennial express with A Salute to Richard Rodgers, opening the cabaret series’ eighth season downtown. J. Kent Barnhart is at the piano but must have been just as animated behind the scenes, whittling down the Rodgers repertoire to a manageable two hours. Sharing his and our company are Melinda MacDonald, James Andrew Wright and Blanche Shively.

After an opener from State Fair, Barnhart’s Salute gives all of the first act to Rodgers and Hart. The cast perfectly enunciates the panoramic view offered by “Manhattan,” which manages to find rhymes for such New York landmarks as Mott Street, Greenwich Village and the Bronx. Everything is fairly upbeat until Shively’s fascinatingly morose “Spring is Here,” the title of which doesn’t hint at the singer’s inability to embrace the season — she’s not, after all, in love.

Giving back to “Bewitched” the racier lyrics that most interpretations erase, MacDonald, perplexed and oversexed again, relays that she’s no stranger to a man’s carnal attentions but finds her latest, horizontally speaking, a tough one to top. Drawing from the same show, Pal Joey, MacDonald and Barnhart provide a glimpse into their “Den of Iniquity,” which includes a bedroom ceiling of glass. Both numbers make you pine for a PG-13 revival of the show with the two sexiest leads Broadway can muster.

The company jazzes up “This Can’t Be Love” and “Falling in Love with Love” from The Boys from Syracuse (which opened on Broadway last month to critical disinterest) and gives “Blue Moon” a nice splash of doo-wop.

The second act pays exclusive attention to Rodgers and Hammerstein, opening with “Oklahoma!” and three more songs from that show, including “Everything’s up to Date in Kansas City,” which may be a little too overarranged for some tastes.

Simple and straightforward evidence that The King and I might have offered Rodgers’ loveliest melodies is found in Shively’s “Hello, Young Lovers,” followed by MacDonald’s and Wright’s medley of “I Have Dreamed,” “We Kiss in a Shadow” and “Something Wonderful.” The foursome’s peppy and gospel-influenced version of Carousel‘s “You’ll Never Walk Alone” closes the show.

Lighting designer Randy Emery creates some subtle yet soothing effects that match the songs’ many moods. And with a playlist this deep and rich, there’s no way this production couldn’t be entertaining. Audiences just shouldn’t expect any surprises or unusual turns in the Quality Hill format. The set is the same as last year, and the performers don the expected tuxedoes or sequins. Still, the venue offers patrons the intimacy of a phone call, and every night is usually “A Grand Night for Singing.”
Post Script: The day before she flew to London for a concert engagement, Kristen Chenoweth squeezed in a minute to talk with the Pitch about her pops concert with the Kansas City Symphony this weekend. It’s the kind of gig she is lately juggling between Broadway shows, the upcoming TV movie The Music Man with Matthew Broderick and, less dazzling, her ill-fated NBC series, Kristen.

“Concerts are so much more fun because I love to let people into who I am. It fulfills me in a way that being on the stage doesn’t,” says the diminutive alumnus of You’re a Good Man, Charlie Brown (she won a Tony for her cranky Sally character), Kander and Ebb’s Steel Pier and William Finn’s A New Brain.

Chenoweth says local relatives and family from her native Broken Arrow, Oklahoma, will be in attendance at the Kansas City concert, which is sure to feature selections from her lushly retro CD Let Yourself Go. She promises some Rodgers and Hammerstein and maybe a Sondheim, with whom she says she’s eager to work. “I’ve almost done Sondheim shows three times, and they just haven’t worked with my schedule,” she says. “It’s almost embarrassing. But I think we’d be a great match.”

The next time Chenoweth steps on a Broadway stage will be in Stephen Schwartz’s new musical, Wicked, a take on The Wizard of Oz that the actress describes as “the back story of the relationship between the Wicked Witch of the West and Glinda the Good Witch — like from witch school on. It’s a fairy tale but with real issues.” She’s playing Glinda, whom she says “is not just good, either; she’s much more complicated. People are going to have to brace themselves.”