Prolific Unknown ARTS &
Popular songs from a man who did not get noticed are the music of the Theatre Workshop’s “Sweet and Hot”
BY LAURA RASKIN INDEPENDENT ARTS WRITER

The four-person cast of the Theatre Workshop's musical review “Sweet and Hot: The Songs of Harold Arlen” rehearses at the Methodist Church. PHOTO BY MARK MATTOON

“Let us say, for the sake of the argument, that (Harold Arlen) has a song that’s twenty bars longer than the norm. It then becomes fas-cinating to me that you cannot take out one bar of that sup-posedly extra twenty bars and still make it come out, because every single note that he has put down seems suddenly the only logical next move.”

The composer Andre Previn did not go so far as George Gershwin did, who called Arlen “the most original of us all.”

High praise for a composer whose 400-plus tunes your cab driver and your grandfather have whistled for years, but who was scarcely known or recognized in his lifetime.

Arlen wrote such familiar classics as “Stormy Weather,” “Let’s Fall in Love,” “Come Rain or Come Shine” and all of the music for the movie “The Wizard of Oz.”

Twenty-three of the songs in his vast library are part of a musical review on stage now by the Theatre Workshop of Nantucket. “Sweet and Hot: The Songs of Harold Arlen” was musical director Marcia Hempel’s choice, coincidentally falling during the year that Arlen would have cele-brated his 100th birthday and centen-nial celebrations are honoring him throughout across the country.

While Arlen’s lyricists – Truman Capote, Ira Gershwin, Johnny Mercer and Ted Koehler among them – were household names, Arlen stayed out of the spotlight, despite his unfath-omable productivity.

Biographical information specu-lates that this was because he and his wife model Anya Taranda moved to California in the late 1930s and stayed out of the New York spotlight for decades.

Born Hyman Arluck in 1905 to a father who was a celebrated cantor in Buffalo, N.Y.’s growing Jewish com-munity, Arlen began to play the piano at age nine, and by 15 he played, sang and did arrangements for his band The Snappy Trio.

Although he wanted to be noticed for his singing ability, he admitted it was a goal his “temperament couldn’t take.” In 1929 he wrote his first pro-fessional song, “Get Happy,” and, like most talents, his abilities trumped his desires.

Hempel said she has long enjoyed playing Arlen’s music at restaurants and parties. A musical producer of over 30 shows for theaters on the island since she arrived here in 1984, Hempel said Arlen’s music speaks for itself.

“One of the things I like about his music is that it’s very bluesy,” she said, although Arlen technically only wrote one blues song. The rest could be categorized as rhythm numbers, jazz pieces, ballads, novelties or torch pieces. What Hempel was referring to though, was his somewhat mournful sound, an influence she believes comes from Jewish music.

The Theatre Workshop’s produc-tion of “Sweet and Hot” stars Dwight Beman, Sandy MacDonald, Craig Spery and Lizzie Verney. There is lit-tle dialogue and some dancing, and act one takes place in a New York City bar, while act two takes place at a car-nival, although in front of backdrops are by local artist John Devaney. Hempel said the songs in the review have harmonies that work well for four voices.

Sandy MacDonald, a soprano, said she is responsible for most of the torch songs — the ones about unrequited love, like ‘The Man That Got Away.”

MacDonald never discovered she could sing until four years ago and has since performed with the Tanglewood Festival Chorus and on the island. She writes theater reviews for various media..

If she were writing the review for “Sweet and Hot,” MacDonald would remind audiences that it is not a musi-cal, but a review, with little dialogue, and that it is short, light and fun.

“If you like that era in music, swing and jazz, I’d say sure,” she said.

The remaining performances of “Sweet and Hot” are Aug. 10-13 & 17-20, 8:30 p.m., with a Sunday mati-nee on Aug. 14 at 3 p.m. All perform-ances are downstairs at the Methodist Church, 2 Centre St. Tickets are $25. The matinee is free for island seniors and students, thanks to a grant from the Tupancy-Harris Foundation. Call the box office at 228-4305.

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