Here's an Evening Primrose review from Film Score Monthly:
Evening Primrose (1966) ****
STEPHEN SONDHEIM
Kritzerland KR 20011-6
14 tracks - 35:12
Can you consider an album a holy grail if you never even knew a CD release was even possible? The grail in question is the soundtrack to “Evening Primrose,” an episode of the TV series ABC Stage 67, about people who reject the world and hide out in a department store—and like the perils of window shopping, I didn’t even know I wanted this CD until I saw it. This is one of the few TV projects for Pulitzer-, Oscar- and Tony Award-winning composer Stephen Sondheim, and was an enigma for the longest time. The only song I knew of as a young Sondheim fan was “I Remember,” which showed up on various compilation albums. A more substantial recording appeared on Mandy Patinkin’s eponymous album in 1990, as a four-song suite performed with his Sunday in the Park With George co-star Bernadette Peters. This expert recording by two top-notch Sondheim interpreters felt like the best alternative to actually hearing the original recording. But then came an even longer presentation of the songs in a studio recording by Neil Patrick Harris and Theresa McCarthy on a Nonesuch release, paired with an equally obscure Sondheim show (at that time), The Frogs.
Now, producer Bruce Kimmel has taken the last step, unearthing the original recordings from the television series and releasing them on his own indie label. As a historical document, this album should be owned by any serious theater fan, especially since the episode will never (or I should say, probably never) get released on DVD. Then you can add in the fact that this album features not only the songs but also the underscore written by Sondheim himself (a rarity for the composer for any filmed versions of his work). So, even if the performances and the quality were shoddy, one would still be happy to have such a release. Thankfully, the sound quality is pretty good for a release over 40 years old, and the performances, while not overwhelming, are pleasant.
Based on a short story by John Collier, the musical starred a post-Psycho Anthony Perkins (who would later collaborate with Sondheim on the screenplay to the movie The Last of Sheila) as Charles, a poet who has given up on the outside world and comes up with an ingenious idea to live in a department store. Ingenious, yes…original, no, as it turns out there’s already a band of people living this life in the very same department store. Charles falls in love with one of them, Ella (played by The Sound of Music’s Liesel, Charmian Carr), and when the young girl expresses a yearning to visit the outside world, he must not only overcome his own misanthropy, but a group of Twilight Zone-ish men whose sole purpose is to uphold their secret society. Written by James Goldman (who would later collaborate with Sondheim on the musical, Follies), the mini-musical was one of 26 episodes of the low-rated ABC series. Sondheim was already choosing unconventional material to musicalize for his solo projects, a technique that would become his trademark. However, the TV series came after two high profile flops on Broadway, and four years before his groundbreaking show, Company.
Considering the history, hearing this transitional score is quite informative. Highlights include the defiant “If You Can Find Me, I’m Here,” which Charles sings as a farewell to his old life; the reflective but unsentimental song, “I Remember,” which lists everything Ella recalls about the outside world before she was adopted by the society; and the deceptively hopeful love song “When,” where Charles sings to Ella: “Ella, poets who suffer pain/Should fall in love with girls named Jane/Not Ella.” The final number is the wistful “Take Me to the World,” in which two sheltered people decide to finally take control of their lives.
Sondheim’s underscore is lovely and (towards the end) menacing, not only adapting the songs into the score, and even offering a quaint clarinet duet for a dance sequence.
Since this is a limited pressing, soundtrack lovers will have to compete with musical theater fans for the 3,000 copies. As complete a release as one can hope for, Evening Primrose is an astonishing accomplishment, both for the young Sondheim way back in 1966, and for Kritzerland in the present. —Cary Wong
If you haven't ordered yours, now would be a good time.
