Ruth McKenney
With a keen sensitivity to the demands and specificities of the American “musical”, and after the triumph of Sondheim’s Follies in 2015, the Opéra de Toulon once again embarked on a Broadway adventure with the French premiere of Bernstein’s Wonderful Town, and brought back for the occasion stage director Olivier Bénézech, a major connoisseur of the genre. A true declaration of love to the city of New-York, Wonderful Town tells the tale, with a boisterous rhythm and vast amounts of jazzy tunes, of two sisters from Ohio looking for success and glory in the big city. Lighter in tone than later works like West Side Story or Candide, its smart combination of the different musical traditions one could hear when wandering in the streets of New-York, its accomplished orchestral writing and colouring, and its vivid sense of comedy earned it no less than five Tony awards when it premiered in 1953.
Ruth and her beautiful sister Eileen come to New York's Greenwich Village looking for "fame, fortune and a 'For Rent' sign on Barrow Street". They find an apartment, but fame and fortune are a lot more elusive. Ruth gets the attention of playboy publisher Bob Baker when she submits a story about her gorgeous sister Eileen. She tries to keep his attention by convincing him that she and the gorgeous, man-getting Eileen are one and the same person.
A psychology professor comes up with a theory that women have a desire to be subjugated. A newswoman, using a pseudonym, accuses him of advocating wife-beating. There is trouble, when he falls in love with her, unaware of who she is.
Margie and her daughter reminisce about Margie's girlhood in the roaring twenties. In flashback, Margie, a smarter, less popular girl at Central High, meets handsome new French teacher Ralph Fontayne. Circumstances keep throwing them together and Margie, in company with every other girl in school, develops a crush on him. Margie's date for the prom gets sick, and what happens next surprises everyone.
A harried daughter tries to keep her wacky family together while trying to sell her eccentric father's latest invention, a collapsible life raft.
Sisters Ruth and Eileen Sherwood move from Ohio to New York in the hopes of building their careers. Ruth wants to get a job as a writer, while Eileen hopes to succeed on the stage. The two end up living in a dismal basement apartment in Greenwich Village, where a parade of odd characters are constantly breezing in and out. The women also meet up with magazine editor Bob Baker, who takes a personal interest in helping both with their career plans.
