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Yip Yip Hooray!
Revival of Flahooley comes to off-Broadway
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Yip Harburg may be best known for writing the score to The Wizard of Oz, winning an Oscar with Harold Arlen in 1940 for Best Original Song for “Over the Rainbow.” Noted for his clever, lyrical songs, his work is enjoying a theatrical renaissance. The enterprising Harburg also wrote Broadway musicals in the thirties and forties, including the 1947 Finian’s Rainbow, which is currently enjoying a revival on Broadway at the St. James Theater. Finian co-writer Fred Saidy and composer Sammy Fain (along with Harburg) also created the imaginative musical fable Flahooley, which is receiving a long overdue revival at Theater for the New City, spearheaded by Keith Lee Grant of the Harlem Repertory Theatre, December 18–January 3.
Flahooley, originally produced in 1951, is a fantastical allegory, an entertaining musical tale that takes place in the fictional Midwest city of Capsulanti, U.S.A. There, toy titan B.G. Bigelow is approached by an Arabian sheik who needs a magic lamp repaired, thereby reviving the kingdom’s oil industry against competition from atomic power and sneak attacks from Communist oppressors. Meanwhile, a puppet designer named Sylvester Cloud has created a talking doll called Flahooley, which Bigelow views as a tool to achieve industry domination.
Harburg, a confirmed left-winger, imbued Flahooley with a heavy dose of political satire in response to his own Hollywood blacklisting. The musical targeted big business and conformity and contained “genie hunts” and “doll burnings” that slammed the McCarthy witch-hunts—all of which appealed to Keith Lee Grant, the founder and artistic director of The Harlem Rep who doubles as the producer/director/choreographer of Flahooley.
“Although I was attracted to the emotional depth and insightful political themes of Flahooley,” says Grant, “I was no less enchanted by its delightful score, hilarious libretto and wonderfully entertaining cast of characters.” For audiences, it’s a chance to see a rarely staged Harburg gem with the added value of his grandson, Ben Harburg, in the cast.
For more information, please visit www.theaterforthenewcity.net.