Prettybelle

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Original cast recording

Prettybelle is a musical adapted from the Jean Martin novel of the same name, with a book and lyrics by Bob Merrill and music by Jule Styne.

The plot hardly lends itself to musical interpretation. Its central character is a Southern woman who, long abused by her recently deceased law officer husband, turns to alcohol for comfort, becomes a nymphomaniac prostitute, and eventually is institutionalized as a schizophrenic.

The show was plagued with problems from the start. Merrill's intent to bring to the stage the techniques and abstractions of avant-garde films was never fulfilled. Producer Alexander H. Cohen was dissatisfied with director/choreographer Gower Champion's approach to the material and his dictatorial treatment of the cast, and the latter ultimately banned him from rehearsals. Leading lady Angela Lansbury pledged to boycott a move to Broadway unless everything was fixed during its out-of-town tryout.

Prettybelle opened on February 1, 1971 at Boston's Shubert Theatre. Those in the increasingly angry audience who didn't walk out loudly derided it, hissing at the end of each musical number and booing at the curtain call. The critics were brutal and, much to Lansbury's relief, Cohen closed the show within a week.

The original cast recording on the Varese Sarabande label is a collector's item among musical theatre buffs.