World Theater, Opera, and Performance: Jule Styne, Adolph Green, and Betty Comden | "The Party's Over" from Bells Are Ringing / 1956

I’ve always been somewhat miffed when people today call the Jule Styne, Betty Comden, and Adolph Green 1956 musical, “old fashioned” and “out of date,” terms abundantly used to describe its 2001 revival with Faith Prince and Marc Kurdisch. Certainly, this charmer of a work, about the great new technology of the day, the telephone and, particularly, answering services, might be easily be transformed into a piece about meeting through cellphone or Facebook encounters! People still want to find their mysterious callers or on-line admirers, which is at the heart of Bells Are Ringing.

This musical was also about international celebrity fashion and behavior, which seems to me as current today as it was back in 1956, given the ridiculous fashion-conscious reality shows devoted to the Kardashians and others.

So, what’s the problem? Somebody simply needs to imagine a marvelously updated version, that re-contextualizes its wonderful songs. Maybe not “bells,” but “ring signals” and “emojis.”

Certainly, songs such as “It’s a Perfect Relationship” is even more appropriate to today’s on-line Facebook and Instagram relationships; and “Drop That Name” just needs a little dusting off—new names and new way to drop.

But nothing needs to be done to the heart-breaking song, when Ella Petersen believes that her magical relationship with the man of her dreams has ended because of the fibs she has told to help him in his career. “The Party’s Over,” heart-breakingly expresses it all; it’s a song that even Cinderella could have sung after running off from Prince Charming. For the “end of the affair,” a theme is so many musicals that it’s a wonder that the stage genre has ever survived (after all, it’s at the heart of Show Boat, Carousel, South Pacific, The King and I, My Fair Lady, Funny Girl, Gypsy, Follies and so many musical theater works that it’s almost become a standard trope). Love generally falls apart on the Broadway stage.

Judy Holliday’s plaintive plea should almost be seen as a placard of the musical theater genre itself—even though her relationship with pretty-boy Sydney Chaplin does, after all, end happily; he wants her all to himself!

The party's over

It's time to call it a day

They've burst your

Pretty balloon

And taken the moon away

It's time to wind up

The masquerade

Just make your mind up

The piper must be paid

The party's over

The candles flicker and dim

You danced and dreamed

Through the night

It seemed to be right

Just being with him

Now you must wake up

All dreams must end

Take off your makeup

The party's over

It's all over

My friend

Holliday sings the song, sung to herself, so brilliantly that she might, metaphorically speaking, have “owned it”—until hundreds of other brilliant interpreters came along, including several male ones. What I find utterly fascinating is that Nat King Cole and Johnny Mathis sang it as it was originally written, keeping the male “him” and talking about taking off “your makeup.” Singing with Garland, Mel Tormé (the two on matching motorcycles) pretended they were at the end of an all-night spree on New Year’s Eve, in which the “he” became “we.” Sammy Davis, Jr., on the other hand, given his macho role in “the Rat Pack,” turned the male designation to “her” and muttered over the “makeup” line.

So many brilliant women singers, including Doris Day, Judy Garland, Shirley Bassey, and Peggy Lee, reinterpreted the work to fit their own vocalist stylings. And who might blame them given the simple beauty of its music and lyrics?

Old-fashioned? Well, if such great songs are out of fashion, I’m terrified for the fact.

Los Angeles, August 30, 2017

Reprinted from USTheater, Opera, and Performance (August 2017).

World Theater, Opera, and Performance

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Monday, January 20, 2025

Jule Styne, Adolph Green, and Betty Comden | "The Party's Over" from Bells Are Ringing / 1956

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