`Flahooley` mixes whimsy and indignation

A B`way flop about a laughing doll that has achieved legendary status.

New York – As theatre critics compile their best-of-the-year lists (a practice beloved by press agents everywhere), let us go a step further and name just one candidate in a new category: strangest musical of the last half-century. OK, make that nearly 60 years.The show in question is Flahooley,’ a Broadway flop about a laughing doll that has achieved legendary status in certain show-biz circles.

The honor comes up because ‘Flahooley’ is now getting a rare revival in a truncated, 90-minute version produced by Theater for the New City and the Harlem Repertory Theatre and running though Jan. 3 at New City`s space in the East Village. Serious musical-theater archeologists can`t afford to miss it. Strange does not adequately describe ‘Flahooley.’ Loopy, perhaps. A bit beyond daffy — with a smattering of seriousness. It`s cockeyed musical theatre laced with whimsy and indignation, childlike delight and pointed, yet often quite funny, political commentary. In 1951, the show had a most eclectic original cast. It featured not only the vocal pyrotechnics of Yma Sumac but Bil Baird`s Marionettes AND the Broadway debut of Barbara Cook AND Irwin Corey (before he became a professor) — all on stage with a catchy, ingratiating score by E.Y. Harburg (lyrics) and Sammy Fain (music). The two wrote everything except the numbers for the unique Ms. Sumac., who had a vocal range of over four octaves. But then there is its book. Harburg and co-author Fred Saidy concocted its convoluted story, much of which has been snipped here. ‘Flahooley’ is very much of its time, the mid-20th century era of the blacklist of suspected communists and the Hollywood 10. Harburg himself was blacklisted, but was able to work on Broadway if not in Hollywood. And his outrage and genius for devilishly clever lyrics flowered in the musical, set against the backdrop of a toy company looking for a Christmastime best seller and finding it in Flahooleys. The show`s targets: big business, consumerism, witch hunts and loyalty oaths, among other things. Then cram in puppets, a bureaucrat from the State Department, a magic lamp, a genie, an Arabian Nights-style princess, a conventional boy-meets-girl love story and all those little dolls called Flahooleys, which in an early version of the script — and in this revival — are able to say "Dirty Red." Serious overstuffing, which poses a problem for any revival. This production, directed and choreographed by Keith Lee Grant, is small, practically bare bones, and the cast, while eager, struggles to keep up with the ambition of the material. Still, Daniel Fergus Tamulonis, who also plays the owner of the toy company, has provided some charming puppets and the Harburg-Fain love songs, appealingly delivered by Natalia Peguero and John Wiethorn, are wonderful. ‘Flahooley’ should be seen in tandem with another Harburg-Saidy musical currently playing in New York: ‘Finian`s Rainbow,’ on view at Broadway`s St. James Theatre and featuring music by Burton Lane. With ‘Finian,’ which opened four years earlier, everything came together just right. Still, ‘Flahooley’ remains a tantalizing might-have-been. Bureau Report