Article By Ron Fassler . . .
Sheldon Harnick, one of the most inspiring lyricists of the Golden Age of Broadway, died this past June at the age of ninety-nine. Yesterday afternoon, friends and family gathered in tribute at the Music Box Theatre on West 45th Street, right next door to the Imperial where his Fiddler on the Roof had opened almost sixty years ago. As memorials go, this one had a hamish quality, Yiddish for relaxed, cozy and unpretentious. From all that was said about him, I doubt Mr. Harnick would have wanted it any other way.
To the opening “daidle deedle daidle daidle daidle deedle daidle dum” of “If I were a Rich Man,” Danny Burstein, the last Broadway Tevye from the 2015 production, took to the podium. Noting that he was standing on the set of the current tenant Purlie Victorious, he expressed how “Sheldon would have loved this is a church and that they only flew the cross out a few minutes ago.” For the next ninety minutes there was more music than talk, which is as it should be, as music and lyrics were Harnick’s life. He began as a violinist and was a fine singer in addition to his crafting some of the warmest, most poetic, witty and deeply felt songs of the American theatre.
The first we heard was from the first hit that Harnick and his partner, composer Jerry Bock created, which happened to win them the Tony for Best Musical and the Pulitzer Prize for Drama. Fiorello!’s beautiful ballad, “When Did I Fall in Love,” featuring a lyric Stephen Sondheim once cited as one he wished he’d written,“Where was the blinding flash? Where was the crashing chord?,” was beautifully sung by Elena Shaddow. She was followed by Jason Danieley and “Now I Have Everything,” one of five numbers from Harnick’s masterpiece, Fiddler. David Rockwell, the scenic designer who won a Tony for the 2016 She Loves Me revival, gave a heartfelt and moving speech in which he cited what he always called Harnick’s “instant empathy.”
Subbing for Emily Skinner was Jenn Gambatese who deliciously sang one of the revue songs Harnick contributed during his days prior to writing book musicals. Titled “The Ballad of the Shape of Things,” its clever lyrics describing a bad relationship in terms of geometric figures, include this gem:
Rectangular is the hotel door
My true love tried to sneak through.
Rectangular is the transom
Over which I had to peek through.
Deborah Grace Winer was on hand to tell delightful stories of her decades of friendship with Harnick and his wife of fifty-seven years, Margery Gray (they met when she was a replacement in the original cast of Fiorello!) Music director Rob Fisher, who accompanied at the piano for the afternoon, also spoke of wonderful times embraced in the warmth of the Harnicks as a couple. Their daughter, Beth Harnick Dorn’s reminiscences were moving as well as adorably funny, such as when she looked upward and said, “Dad, I hope you’re okay with how much this is all costing.”
A graduate of Northwestern, Harnick kept his ties with the university over the years, befriending many young songwriters, among them Alan Schmuckler who serenaded with silly lyrics Harnick had once written for the previously sung “Now I Have Everything.” Counterbalancing that was seriously loving reminiscences from Sherman Yellen, the author of the books for two musicals with Harnick, The Rothschilds and Rex. Reading from pages he’d written; his words were economical and heartfelt.
Other superb talents on hand to sing from the Jerry Bock-Sheldon Harnick songbook were Robert Cuccioli, who has portrayed Mayer Rothschild in both The Rothschilds and its reworked version Rothschild and Sons, biting into the anti-war ballad “In My Own Lifetime.” Alexandra Silber, who played Tzietel in the 2015 Fiddler revival offered a tender rendition of “Far From the Home I Love.” Nancy Opel, Yente in the 2004 Fiddler revival sang the cut song intended for Lazar Wolf titled “A Butcher’s Soul,” which includes the fabulous non-rhyming line, “What gave you the idea that a man who makes his living handling livers, lungs and kidneys has no heart?
Karen Ziemba performed “Gorgeous” from the three-act musical, The Apple Tree. The first of its opening plays, “The Diary of Adam and Eve,” contains some of Harnick’s finest lyric writing of his long and fruitful lifetime of work (yes, I said fruitful). And Judy Kuhn, Amalia in the 1993 She Loves Me revival, sang a glorious “Ice Cream.” Danny Burstein and his Golde, Jessica Hecht, gave us a charming “Do You Love Me?,” dedicating it to Margery Gray, who was the constant focus of almost every person that spoke or sang.
Emotions ran high when John Kander, one of the very last of Harnick’s contemporaries still with us, took a seat at the piano. “For my generation of people who played in the sandbox, all of us knew that Sheldon was the best of us,” he said, touchingly. Then, from one national treasure to another, he played and sang a Harnick revue song titled “The Merry Minuet,” as much a plea for peace as “In My Own Lifetime,” only pierced throughout with Harnick’s deadly wit.
Harvey Fierstein, himself a joyous Tevye both on Broadway and around the country, offered a version of “To Life” with some new lyrics he undoubtedly came up with. The stage then became crowded with all the day’s participants and it was time to call it an afternoon.
I have always felt deep in my bones that the lyrics of Sheldon Harnick are in a class by themselves, capable of every style and comfortable in all of them. It did my heart good when Beth Harnick Dorn said, “Stephen Sondheim once told me at a party that my dad was his favorite lyricist.” It reminded me that Harnick once said that when he first came to New York he went to a backer’s audition for the unproduced Saturday Night, Sondheim’s first completed musical. Upon hearing, Harnick said to himself, “It that’s the level of unknown talent here, I’m in big trouble.”
No, he wasn’t. Rest in peace, Sheldon Harnick.
Photos: Maryann Lopinto
