Golden Age musicals gone modern

A ‘Brigadoon’ revival transcends time while ‘Flower Drum Song’ falters between eras.

- CHARLES McNULTY

“BRIGADOON” soars in Alexandra Silber’s adaptation at Pasadena Playhouse.

(JEFF LORCH)

Few would contend that Lerner and Loewe’s “Brigadoon” and Rodgers and Hammerstein's “Flower Drum Song” represent the best work of these legendary duos.

Unlike Lerner and Loewe’s eternally popular “My Fair Lady,” “Brigadoon” hasn't had a Broadway revival since 1980. “Flower Drum Song,” relegated to the shadows of Rodgers and Hammerstein's “Oklahoma!” and “South Pacific,” didn’t last long when it received its first and only Broadway revival in 2002.

I assumed nostalgia was fueling the desire to give these Golden Age musicals a makeover.

But when I sat in the audience for these shows and fell immediately under the spell of their scores, I had a different answer.

The music makes a case for why "Brigadoon," now in a soaring revival at Pasadena Playhouse, and "Flower Drum Song," making a less assured reemergence at the Aratani Theatre in Little Tokyo, should live again. I was particularly skeptical of "Brigadoon," with its airy-fairy book and heavy dose of romantic hokum, but the Broadway-level production at Pasadena Playhouse may be the best local staging of a musical I've seen in my 20 years covering the scene for The Times.

I knew both musicals principally from their film adaptations. I missed David Henry Hwang’s original rewrite of "Flower Drum Song," which was a storied success at the Mark Taper Forum in 2001 but fared less favorably when it moved to New York the following year. I suppose I first saw "Brigadoon" as a kid at my grandmother’s house, amused at the way she goofily sang along. When I recently watched both movies again, it was like falling into a musical comedy time warp.