I'd never seen the 1970 Broadway musical about how four of Minnie Marx's five sons turned into Groucho, Harpo, Chico and Zeppo. The show Minnie's Boys opened March 26 of that year after an unusually-long string of previews — 64. Every so often, a new musical tries to open in New York without going outta-town first for tryouts. That means that New York audiences see the actors trying to perfect their performances plus all the stuff that the creative team decides must be tossed out or rewritten.
While Minnie's Boys was doing serious repair work, word got around and I recall reading an article at the time that said that much of the audience was going to see it not because they'd heard it was good but just the opposite. As I mentioned here, a lot of theater fans love it when a show flops and they can savor the pain of its creators and backers. Once it finally did have an opening night, it ran ten weeks and that was that.
Shelley Winters played Minnie and, according to all reports, lacked (1) the ability to sing, (2) the ability to remember lines, (3) the ability to deliver them in any tone but serious angst and (4) the sense and heroism to get out of a show she couldn't handle.
The producers wanted to fire her and bring in comedienne Totie Fields, who just might have had the star power to make the thing work, but Groucho (then 79 years of age) was insistent about how his mother would be depicted and for him, it was either Shelley W. or nobody. Also, it was rumored Ms. Winters announced that if she was ousted, she would sue the show into oblivion and also go on Johnny Carson's and others to denounce the whole project as the utterest of crap. So it was Shelley W. who stayed in it and is usually blamed for the failure, along with Groucho's stubborn refusal to allow her to be replaced.
After seeing a production of it last Sunday evening, I would like to suggest some blame is due to the script, which was by Arthur Marx and Bob Fisher and heavily rewritten on the fly during previews. A number of writers took a crack at fixing it and I dunno if they did too much or not enough but it was one of those. Ms. Winters is gone but the unimpressive book remains.
The production I saw was a one-shot staged reading in Glendale by the Musical Theater Guild, a prestigious organization which often takes on impossible challenges like this and usually succeeds. I really liked Susan Edwards Martin as Minnie and Matthew Patrick Davis, who played the man who would be Groucho. He did a fine job mimicking Groucho's famous delivery. His big problem was that Mr. Davis is 6'8" so even when he stooped over to do the famous Groucho walk, he was still taller than Harpo or Chico. Best of all was the score, which has many delights. It was by composer Larry Grossman (who was there for the performance and the limited rehearsals) and lyricist Hal Hackady.
The Broadway World website has posted two reviews of the one performance. This one I think overpraises it a bit and this one underpraises it a bit.
I admired the effort that the cast and their enablers put into it and there was a certain joy emanating from the stage that made me more forgiving of weaknesses. It also helps to remember that this was never represented as a polished presentation. It was a staged reading that was blocked, rehearsed and presented in a measly twenty-five hours with the actors holding their scripts throughout. I suspect if you saw Laurence Olivier do Hamlet book-in-hand after only 25 hours, you might well think he was among the worst actors ever.
I'm skeptical that we will ever see a major theatrical revival of this show. They don't do that for non-Sondheim shows that close on Broadway in ten weeks. But it does get revived a lot in community and local theaters. I did not have a bad time — and believe me, I've had them at musicals that had a lot more budget, a lot more prep time and a much better script to begin with.