I'd Rather Be Right

A Musical Revue
by George S. Kaufman & Moss Hart
Lyrics by Lorenz Hart
Hardcover: New York: Random House, 1937. 4 plates.
Well printed on acid-free paper, so should remain in good shape if properly stored. Music composed and written by Richard Rodgers and Lorenz Hart, separately published.

I first discovered this musical after watching James Cagney, as the songwriter and performer George M. Cohan, perform the showstopper "Off the Record" song-and-dance routine in Yankee Doodle Dandy. A fabulous film, by the way, with the theatrical costumes sparkling in black-and-white in a way that they never could in color.

Unfortunately, I'd Rather Be Right is not one of those musicals likely to get revived frequently. It's not, say, West Side Story, itself an update of Romeo and Juliet, which can be trotted out and freshened up to any area of cultural conflict (I'm waiting for the adaptation about the Kerry supporters who move to a red state).

So it's quite likely that the snippet in Yankee Doodle Dandy will be the only part I'll ever get to see. If there's a recording it's too limited in appeal to be released wide enough to show up on Amazon, and if the musical is performed it's more likely to be read in an American history class than acted in a drama class. But the book for I'd Rather Be Right does provide a collapsed version of the musical, albeit sans score.

It's a quick read, and what emerges is a bit of light comedy which provides quite a bit of amusement for persons well-versed in American history. The jokes aren't very deep, but they come fast and furious. And the authors don't take it too seriously themselves, sporadically referring to the artificiality of the musical comedy genre in the stage directions:

And the CABINET enters — all ten of them. Singing, of course — it's a well-known fact that the CABINET always sings when it gets together for a meeting. (p. 22)
Into the scene — suddenly, and for no apparent reason — there stroll a dozen or more beautiful girls, in gay musical-comedy costuems that were never designed for just strolling through a park. (p. 52)

The plot is just there to stitch the music together. Two young lovers in New York City want to get married, but the boy needs a raise and his boss won't give it to him until the federal budget is balanced. President Roosevelt strides through their dream in Central Park, and a procession of government officials, the Cabinet, the Supreme Court, even defeated candidates like Al Landon, come through. Along the way, we get jokes about the federal interventions in the economy — the millionaires now working for the WPA, President Roosevelt trying to mediate a wage dispute between a merry-go-round owner and employee using the Wagner Act.

Many of the jokes are quite universal, like the Cabinet members reacting angrily to a suggestion to balance the budget, then sighing in relief when President Roosevelt asks them what new taxes they can think of. (Postmaster-General Farley suggests charging all letters airmail rates, "They wouldn't go air mail &mdash we'd just send them the regular way. But it would double the revenue.") Then there's the balloon vendor reciting off a list of taxes that he has to pay, popping a balloon each time, a joke that has probably been around ever since there've been balloons.

But there are also jokes which draw on context. Morgenthau (Treasury Secretary) talks about buying $21 an ounce gold for $35, referring to the devaluation of the dollar. Perkins (Labor Secretary, first woman to sit on the Cabinet) comes up with stupid ideas, is treated dismissively, and Roosevelt says, "You know, sometimes I think a woman's place is in the home). We even get references to Chief Justice Hughes' beard, perhaps a hard-to-get joke even then considering what Theodore Roosevelt said of it. Of course, much of the popular culture is no longer foremost on the mind. ("That was all Jim Farley. He could have elected Parkyakarkus.") And also, as with any book from the past, the peeks into lifestyles are intriguing and provide a contrast to today. The two lovers spread out newspapers to sit on in the park; today, blankets are de rigeur. The Cabinet gets ideas for balancing the budget from watching Marx Brothers comedies. And Roosevelt's fireside address is sponsored by Lady Esther face cream.

It's all a gentler style of comedy than today's, a style which relies far more on wording, and there's quite a bit of gee-whiz in there too. As Roosevelt buys the kids an ice cream, we get Peggy exclaiming, "My, I never thought I'd be eating ice cream with the President of the United States." Roosevelt pulls out a little red notebook (the budget), which includes lines on, "Two battleships, a hundred and fifty million dollars. / Ice cream, twenty-five cents."

Of course, battleships were a dead end even then; the famous Fleet Problem IX, where the aircraft carrier Saratoga easily "disabled" the Panama Canal, took place in 1929. But now that decades have passed, there's more unintentional humor, as when the Cabinet discusses a third term with Roosevelt. It's all intended to be zany fun, jokes that derive their humor from being nonsensical, as when the Supreme Court declares the Constitution unconstituional, but the unthinkable in 1937 became reality in 1940.

Much of the text could benefit greatly from a good delivery, as proper emphasis will bring out the humor even when the historical incidents referred to have faded. Even more, the stage directions describe the song-and-dance numbers with such breathless enthusiasm that one is disappointed to turn the page and find them not there. But there's just so much culture in the backlogs of history, and so much is more generic and applicable than this play. But it's an amusing glance back into the past, and a student of history will feel a pang of recognition probably every other page.

Off the Record is actually a disappointment in this book. Cohan's unauthorized opening-night lyrics, which are presented in Yankee Doodle Dandy with an additional wartime verse, are not as mild and polite, and much livelier and funnier. That applies to much of the humor of the play, but of course it's a musical and, divorced from the staging of the numbers, loses much of its effectiveness (how many MGM musicals would be bearable with only the prose?). Really a shame that an adaptation of this musical wasn't made in the Golden Era, but until and unless some recordings turn up in circulation, for now we have a vivid glimpse through Yankee Doodle Dandy.