MARBECKS COLLECTABLE: Bernstein: Wonderful Town

Touched by tragedy, conceived in confusion and delivered with dissent, there's no possible reason that Wonderful Town should have lasted past opening night, yet alone become one of the classics of the musical theatre.

Yet somehow it did and although a lot of people can take credit for its success - including star Rosalind Russell, director George Abbott and composer Leonard Bernstein - you really have to take your hat off to Betty Comden and Adolph Green, whose cheeky, chip-on-the-shoulder humour was perfect for the project, just like their burn-the-candle-at-both-ends energy made it possible for the show to even get on the stage in the first place.

To go back to the beginning, it started with writer Ruth McKenney, who came to New York with her younger sister Eileen in the 1930s, seeking fame and fortune.

Ruth wanted to write, Eileen wanted to act and their colourful adventures in the bohemian neighbourhood of Greenwich Village generated a series of stories by Ruth that were initially published in The New Yorker and then collected in book form in 1938 under the title, My Sister Eileen.

They became so popular that Joseph Fields and Jerome Chodorov turned them into a Broadway comedy with the same title. But four nights before it was due to open, on 22 December 1940, the real-life Eileen was killed in a car crash along with her husband, author Nathaniel West.

Producer Max Gordon and Director George S. Kaufman debated closing the show, but decided to go ahead and open it 'as a tribute to the real Eileen'. The end result was a smash hit that played for 864 performances.

A film was made in 1942 which would star Rosalind Russell as Ruth and everyone remembered how great she had been some ten years later when it was decided to turn My Sister Eileen into a Broadway musical called Wonderful Town.

By now, Russell was into her 40s and although she was a giant screen star, she hadn't been on stage in years. More to the point, her singing and dancing experience were extremely limited.

Still, producer Robert Fryer plowed ahead, hiring Fields and Chodorov to adapt their original script, while bringing in composer Leroy Anderson and lyricist Arnold B. Horwitt to write the score.