The MAN THAT GOT AWAY, IRA WITHOUT GEORGE, LYRICS OF IRA GERSHWIN
Rex Reed brought his production “The Man That Got Away: Ira After George” into the Jewish Community Center of San Francisco on April 13 and 14th along with Broadway singers Linda Purl, Gregory Harrison, Tony nominated Sally Mayes and jazz specialist Kurt Reichenbach before an appreciative crowd of Rex Reed fans.
Rex Reed gave a lot of insights into the life of lyricist Ira Gershwin including his working with such composers as Vernon Duke, Kurt Weill, E.Y. Harburg, Arthur Schwartz and Harold Arlen after the untimely death of his brother George.
The show was originally produced by the 92nd Street Y in New York City in July 2010 where it sold out for five performances. Rex Reed decided to tour the country with the show. There were 25 songs sung by the talented singers. Some were standard and other I had not heard before such as “Fun to Be Fooled” with music by Harold Arlen from “Life Begins at 8:40” sung with pizazz by Sally Hayes or “Goodbye to All That” with music by Arthur Schwartz from the failed Broadway musical “Park Ave” sung by Kurt Reichenbach.
Linda Purl was outstanding singing such songs as “Spring Again” and “Words without Music”. Sally Mayes belted out such numbers as “Island in the West Indies” and “Long Ago and Far Away” from the Columbia Picture production “Cover Girl”. Gregory Harrison who I saw on Broadway in “Steel Pier” has some vocal difficulties with “Sunny Disposish” from the 1926 production of “Americana” however he did a good rendition of “A Rhyme for Angela” from “Firebrand of Florence” with music by Kurt Weill. Both he and Linda harmonized on “Cheerful Little Earful” the Billy Rose review “Sweet and Low”. Kurt Reichenbach did a nice reading of “Let’s Take a Walk Around the Block”.
The four talented singers did songs from my favorite musical of all time “Lady in the Dark” with music by Kurt Weill. Sally was sublime singing my favorite song “My Ship” from the 1941 musical. There were also songs from the 1947 Fox Film “”The Shocking Miss Pilgrim” which was the only post-mortem musical since George had passed away in 1937. (Ira had found various sheets of music that George had written for musicals that were not produced during his life. He put them together for the score of the film that stared Betty Grable.)
The evening ended with the splendid score of the Warners Brothers’s film “A Star is Born” starring the legendary Judy Garland. (I worked on the film as an ass’t cameraman). The highlight of the evening was Linda Purl singing “The Man That Got Away” with a terrific score by Harold Arlen. (E.Y. Harburg was supposed to write the score but this was during the time of the Joseph McCarthy “witch hunt” and the composer had been “outed” as a “red sympathizer” by the Wisconsin senator. Jack Warner said “I won’t have that “pinko” working on the Warner lot”)