The old ballgame

Damn Yankees is new again

by Bill Rodriguez

It has major league sports, it has Satanism (albeit Satanism Lite). How could the musical comedy Damn Yankees not have been a Broadway hit in 1955 (pulling in eight Tonys)? Its latest incarnation stars Jerry Lewis as Mr. Applegate, the Sultan of Sin. It'll be at the Providence Performing Arts Center March 18-23 as part of a 25-city tour.

The tale that captured imaginations sounds like a mythic amalgam of yuppie aspiration and Sunday school guilt and the naïve exuberance of its signature song, "You've Got to Have Heart." The story is about a passionate middle-aged baseball fan, Joe Boyd, who sells his soul to the devil to become 22 and the best hitter in baseball so that his favorite team can whup the Yankees for the pennant. Temptations are thrown in Joe's way, most noticeably by a sultry siren who sings "Whatever Lola Wants (Lola Gets)."

The book and he original Broadway direction was by George Abbott (of The Pajama Game and Wonderful Town success) and Douglass Wallop, on whose novel, The Year the Yankees Lost the Pennant, the musical was based. Abbott collaborated with director Jack O'Brien on the 1995 Broadway revival; he died the next year.

O'Brien also directed the pre-White Way tryouts and this later touring show. In New York, he spoke recently about the touring production.

Q: You worked with Damn Yankees author George Abbott on the revival. What was done to freshen it up and what were your suggestions?

A: First of all, this was part of the golden era of Mr. Abbott's work, and one of his most enduringly popular successes. But it was done before his protegés Michael Bennett and Hal Prince began their reconstruction of the American Broadway musical. By that I mean there were all sorts of scenes that were in the libretto in order to cover scene changes. Those are called in-one scenes and are down in front of a drop two people walking across a street, two people having a telephone conversation and they are meant to cover the moment when scenery lumbers on behind the drop. Then there were electronic decks installed, so there was no longer any need to push scenery on stage. You have a lot of writing in the musicals that has nothing to do with the through-line of the stories, it just has to do with vamping till ready.

So I took all of that out. I also tried to bring the company down to something reasonable because we simply couldn't afford to do it in San Diego with the original I think there were 48 people in the original company, and that's more than I put into Shakespeare these days. So that was not possible. And to be perfectly honest with you, I was sort of appalled with what was going on with the women in the play. Meg Boyd, in the original play, never complained or commented on the fact that her husband had run away. And when he came back she didn't comment on where he'd been. There was never any anger or expression of concern or frustration. In other words, the women were truly pre-liberated '50s icons, and I felt that no contemporary audience would stand still for that.

Q: Was he receptive to your objection?

A: He was not receptive at all. It was not until the opening night in New York that he turned to me and he said, "You are right about the wife." It was as close to a compliment as I ever got from him. Please remember that Mr. Abbott was 107 when I was working with him. And he was actually lucid, he was helpful, he came up with solutions that were great. He copped very wittily to things he'd never fixed.

Q: How does Damn Yankees stack up to you among the classics?

A: I always loved the score. I thought the score was really wonderful. [Richard] Adler and [Jerry] Ross were at the beginning of their career. They'd only done Pajama Game before that. They were mint fresh and had the real, legitimate New York sound.

And at its base there is a classic story, which is, of course, Faust. This is not a story that is going to date. You can play with it, you can tip it, you can reorient it for a contemporary audience, but it's still the Faust legend, so it works.

Q: How was it having Jerry Lewis play the devil?

A: He has brought a completely different take to this. I wasn't sure he'd want to do this, because he's not a performer known for discipline, known for staying within the framework of the show, and I was really a little bit frightened of what we were going to come up with.

Q: An evening of ad libs each time.

A: Yeah. Well, it has never been that. [Choreographer] Robbie Marshall and I created a section in the show where he can sort of go off. And let me be frank: the audience wants to see Jerry Lewis. They don't want to see him only playing a characterization; a couple of times he's got to do Jerry. He's aware of it, we were aware of it. We did it very tastefully, and it works like gangbusters.

[Then] he stands in the wings, he watches other scenes, he's impeccable about the integrity of the story, he's very worried about it, he's like a father to these people. I've never seen anything like it in my life.

I never thought that I'd be mentioning Jerry Lewis in my prayers at night, but I assure you that I do.