Bucks County Playhouse offers this rarely staged musical, based on Al Capp’s popular comic strip.
By: Stuart Duncan
Musicals based on cartoon strips are a genuine rarity, partly because of the difficulties of adapting a storyline that can satisfy, and partly because it is difficult to find actors close enough in appearance to the drawings to command the attention of dedicated readers. The most successful, without a doubt, has been Annie, but in the mid-1950s, no show taken from a cartoon series had yet reached the magic 500-performance signpost.
Li’l Abner would change that, but it would not be easy. Many composers would try to bring Al Capp’s famous and highly successful cartoon to the stage, including Alan Jay Lerner, fresh from My Fair Lady. All would fail. The Capp cartoon series started in 1935 and spread rapidly throughout the United States (the first newspaper was New York’s Daily Mirror). Capp satirized politics, public figures and public corruption with equal glee.
One week in the late 1940s, when Capp began ridiculing a well-known senator, one out-of-town newspaper (in a large college city) eliminated the comic strip. Thousands of readers complained and, on the various college campuses in the city, enterprising students sold pirated reprints of that week’s cartoons. Within a very short time, the strip returned to the newspaper, with no explanation.
Capp became a favorite author on school campuses for his creation of Sadie Hawkins Day, and a race in which all the unmarried women of Dogpatch, the home of Li’l Abner, chased the eligible males. Any girl who caught a man before he reached the finish line dragged him to Marryin’ Sam, who ultimately performed a group marriage ceremony. On some college campuses, the race (without the inevitable marriage prize) became an annual event. Later, Capp intrigued readers with his creation of a loveable little animal called "the Schmoo," which soon became a national best seller in the toy market.
Turning all this into a musical was no simple task. Finally, a libretto by Norman Panama and Melvin Frank, with lyrics and music by Johnny Mercer and Gene De Paul, and direction and choreography by Michael Kidd, succeeded in capturing the spirit of Capp’s comic strip. The show is being revived (a genuine rarity in itself) at the Bucks County Playhouse in New Hope, Pa., and the same problems that reared a half century ago reappear. The book is a jumble of complications and involved situations decidedly old-fashioned.
Few in the audience will remember the original cartoon. Capp has been dead since 1979. But some strong comic acting, colorful costumes by Molly Castor, athletic dancing and youthful energy pouring across the footlights may well let you forget the silly story.
Director-choreographer Stephen Casey has paired Playhouse favorite Susan Keeth as the curvy Daisy Mae, with 6-foot-6 newcomer Zachary James as Abner. She has been seen at the Playhouse as Sandy in Grease, the narrator in Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat and Sally in Me and My Girl, plus many others. He, a Floridian by birth, is finishing up a bachelor’s degree in theater musicals at Ithaca College in upstate New York.
Casey has filled in the corners with the veteran Louis Palena in one of his best roles in seasons as Marryin’ Sam; the highly talented and inventive Eva DeVirgilis as the limber-limbed Mammy Yokum; Grey Fortuna as the self-effacing Pappy Yokum; Erik Reid as the pompous General Bullmoose; Deven Miller as the swinish Moon Beam McSwine; Jamie Lynn Udinson as the knockout Appassionata von Climax (nothing too subtle about Capp’s character names); and the versatile Dann Dunn in an assortment of four different roles, all handled cleverly.
The show originally ran three hours on Broadway, but in keeping with Playhouse tradition, it has been cut to a bit more than two. The original turned into a surprising hit 693 performances and a nice start for two beauties Tina Louise and Julie Newmar.
Li’l Abner continues at Bucks County Playhouse, 70 S. Main St., New Hope, Pa., through May 25. Performances: Tues., Thurs.-Fri. 8 p.m.; Wed. 11 a.m., 8 p.m.; Sat. 4, 8 p.m.; Sun. 2 p.m.; May 25, 6 p.m. Tickets cost $20-$24. For information, call (215) 862-2041. On the Web: www.buckscountyplayhouse.com

