“Marie’s Law,” Fiorello! (1959)
Esther as Marie, me as Morris, in the Players of Utica production of Fiorello! (1980)
By 1980, I hadn’t sung or acted for sixteen years. For good reason: first I’d been hunting for a job, then I was starting graduate school seven years too late, then I was teaching and slaving away on a never-ending dissertation. But now, at 44, my job left my evenings free and seemed to offer me a path up –I’d already been promoted to assistant dean and three years later, I ‘d be a dean.
Esther hadn’t sung for the past year and a half either –new town, new apartment, new school for Jeremy…. new! new! new!
So when she saw the announcement that Players Theater was holding auditions for the musical Fiorello! (1959), she turned to me and said, “They’re holding auditions for Fiorello! Why don’t we go?” So we did.
The audition pianist didn’t show up –this type of thing happens in amateur productions- but one of the people there to audition played so she played for anyone who wanted instead. the problem wash played … badly … very badly. If you wanted to kill there song’s momentum, she was there one who could do it for you, no problem. When it came time for us to sing our bit, Esther suggested we do it a cappella. So we did. We sang the love ballad, “There Was You,” from The Fantasticks. We must have sounded decent: Esther got the female lead role, Fiorello’s long suffering secretary and eventual wife Marie, and I the principal male supporting role, Fiorello’s equally long suffering aide, Morris Cohen. Esther had a smashing solo turn in “I Shall Marry (the Very First Man Who Asks Me)” and I soloed on “On the Side of the Angels.” We also sang a duet together, the lovely “Marie’s Law.” Boy, did I love singing on the stage together again!
Marie: My law / shall state / “To whom / it may concern:
When a lady loves a gentleman, he must love her in return.”
Morris: In re: / my law; / ad hoc, /to wit, to woo:
“When a lady feels affectionate, then the man must follow through.”
Marie: Here’s another law we women’ll do our best to legislate:
“It shall be completely criminal for a man to break a date. Each offender shall be rapidly thrown in jail where he belongs.” / Thus we’ll write our Bill of Wrongs.
My law / is what / the world / is waiting for.
Every unrequited lover will be grateful when it
meets the full approval of the House and Senate,
Such enthusiasm as you never saw will greet my lovely law!
In re: my law; / it should / be understood:
with the help of women everywhere we shall outlaw bachelorhood!
What’s more, in lieu…
Morris: Marie, before you’re through, I’ve got some things
I’d like to say; / if you have got to outlaw anything / you should outlaw in-laws, too!
Marie: I’m concerned with what the man must do.
“Every girl shall have a honeymoon / which shall last at least a year.
During which aforesaid honeymoon / every care shall disappear.
Ipso facto, let the government / get the bride and groom alone.
After that they’re on their own.”
Together: Whereas (whereat) / hereby (hereof) / herein (there-out, and furthermore)
Marie: My law / is what /
the world / is waiting for.
Marie: We are going to rid the country of contempt of courtship, Morris: Legally replacing it with davenportship
Together: Such enthusiasm as you never saw will greet my lovely law!
rehearsing “On the Side of the Angels”
We did well in the production. Esther was more consistently natural than I was, in part because the director had me artificially lower my voice so its center was in the low baritone range rather than my natural tenor range. It didn’t always work. When I broke out of it to sing naturally, as in “Side of the Angels” and “Marie’s Law,” the difference was apparent.
composer Lou Angelini 
The next spring, I was back at it again, cast as BB in a home grown opera entitled BJCB, about the meeting of BB (Buffalo Bill) with JC (Jesus Christ) in the American West and the ranchers’ looting of our nation’s natural heritage. The composer, Lou Angelini, was a Koussevitsky award winner who taught at a local college. He’d written both the music and the libretto. He wrote good music but lousy script. The composer and director were rewriting it up to the day before the show opened –we added a whole scene between JC and me, replete with dialogue, at dress rehearsal. There were three singers of note in the cast –and two of them were Jeff, who played JC, and me. Jeff sang opera and had a gorgeous bass voice. Mine was tenor, strong and true. But we sang only one song in the entire show –sharing honors on “These Boots Are Fine.” You can see us kicking our cowboy boots together in the photograph above: we needed to see whose boots were fine and whose “were even finer.”
On the positive side, in that play, I got to wear a false beard, eyebrows and wig, all red haired, and my first entry was being carried on stage stretched out flat, my hands crossed over my chest, in a coffin.
That fall, Esther and I were together again in Neil Simon’s God’s Favorite, a black comedy on the Book of Job. I played Simon, God’s messenger (I wore an orange sweatshirt with a big letter G on it) and Esther played Joe Benjamin’s (Job’s) wife Rose. It wasn’t a good play –there are unresolved problems with the ending- but it drew a lot of laughs and we both got positive reviews in the local paper. (Notice Esther’s wig in the photo below.)
ADDITIONAL LISTENING
“I Shall Marry (the Very Next Man Who Asks Me,” from Fiorello! (1959)
MUSIC & ME 