The 1976 Broadway musical Rex about larger-than-life King Henry VIII should have worked. Richard Rodgers (Oklahoma!, The Sound of Music) composed the music. Sheldon Harnick (Fiddler on the Roof) provided the lyrics, and Sherman Yellen (An Early Frost) wrote the book.
In addition, the producers cast Penny Fuller--fresh off a Broadway run as Sally Bowles in Cabaret--as Anne Boleyn in Act 1 and as her adult daughter Lady Elizabeth in Act 2. Glenn Close appeared in her first Broadway musical as Mary Tudor.
The part of Henry VIII went to film star Nicol Williamson. The reputation he earned as an actor during the run of Rex almost ruined his career. He never appeared in another Broadway musical.
Going into production, all signs were hopeful, but then Rex fell apart. Richard Rodgers became ill with laryngeal cancer. The pre-Broadway tryouts were a nightmare of hasty rewrites and displays of temperament and even violence by the leading man. By the time the show finally opened at the Lunt-Fontanne Theater on April 25, 1976, critics had given up on it. (One referred to it as "Wrecks.") Audiences, too, stayed away in droves.
Rex ran for 49 shows and was officially declared dead on June 5, less than two months after its premiere. Following the show's closing, the creative team decided not to allow any future productions of the show. Rex was the worst flop of Richard Rodgers' career, and the second-to-last musical he ever wrote.
But, what went wrong? How did a show that could have--should have--been amazing turn into such a disaster? Years later, the two surviving members of the creative team, Sheldon Harnick and Sherman Yellen, reflected on what caused Rex to crash and burn.
Richard Rodgers' Deteriorating Health and the Production of Rex
Shortly before Rex went into production, Richard Rodgers was diagnosed with laryngeal cancer. He was rushed to the hospital, where his voice box was removed. Sheldon Harnick assumed this newest health scare for Richard Rodgers, one of many, would spell the end of Rex, but Rodgers recovered, learned to speak again, and returned to work on the now-foundering show.
He returned with his commitment intact, and composed some beautiful numbers including "Away from You," a love ballad sung by Henry and Anne Boleyn, and the haunting "Bess," performed by Henry as he realizes that the great ruler he hoped to father is his daughter and not his son.
In spite of Rodgers' enthusiasm, however, his health was clearly in decline, and his medical problems could not have made the arduous experience of producing Rex easy on him.
Loss of Focus Sinks Rex
Henry VIII certainly didn't lead a simple life. He had six wives, beheaded two of them, divorced two of them, and fathered children with three of them. He promptly declared two of those children, Mary and Elizabeth, bastards, so that his coveted son Edward stood next in line for the throne. However, Edward's reign, which started at the tender age of nine, was a brief one, plagued with ill health. It was Henry's daughter, Elizabeth, who ruled England through a golden age that lasted almost fifty years.
On the religious front, Henry began his reign as a devout Catholic, heralded by the pope as the Defender of the Faith. When the pope failed to grant him an annulment from his first wife, Katherine of Aragon, so he could marry his second wife, Anne Boleyn, however, Henry ripped England away from her Catholic roots and named himself head of the new Church of England.
In the midst of all of his personal drama, Henry had to calculate how every move he made would affect the political climate in Europe. He was constantly in and out of alliances with France and Spain and worried about whether the pope would raise an army to invade England because of his rejection of Rome.
In trying to tell Henry's complex story, the creative team became bogged down in historical details. They lost sight of their focus for the musical. Was it a family drama about a father and his children? A savvy piece of political intrigue? A love story? Six love stories? They didn't know, and when opening night finally arrived, neither did the critics or the audiences.
Nicol Williamson and Star Quality
According to Joe Cascone, the artistic director of the Civic-Light Opera Company in Toronto, Nicol Williamson was not anyone's first choice to play Henry VIII in Rex. Albert Finney, Richard Harris, Richard Burton (who had played Henry VIII in the movie Anne of the Thousand Days), and Peter O'Toole were all approached first, but they were either unavailable or uninterested. Nicol Williamson, a Scottish actor already well known for both his talent and his temperament was cast as Henry.
Lyricist Sheldon Harnick recalls being told by a friend of his who had worked with Williamson in the movies, "that [Williamson] was the most arrogant, the wittiest, the loveliest man you’ll ever meet. And, oh yes, he’s crazy." The warning was apparently understated.
People who saw Williamson in the Broadway production remember him as a fine actor. He garnered much of the grudging praise that critics gave to the show. The RCA original cast recording of Rex still bears testament to his commanding baritone voice.
But, Williamson proved difficult to work with to the nth degree.
He skipped rehearsals, even when the cast was frantically trying to learn new lines for that night's performance. He arbitrarily refused to sing songs or perform scenes that were not to his liking, including Henry's moving deathbed soliloquy, "The Pears of Anjou." He sometimes criticized the play to the press. And after one of the pre-Broadway tryout performances, Williamson shocked audience and cast alike by striking a male dancer who he believed (incorrectly) had insulted him.
The End of the Line for Rex - Or Is It?
The combination of the Rex’s shaky foundation and the antics of a hot-headed star were too much for the show to endure. Rex quickly collapsed amidst a giant yawn from audiences and critics alike. Harnick, Rodgers, and Yellen wrote the experience off as a “nightmare,” and hopefully one they would never have to think of again.
Then, twenty-five years later, the ghost of Rex returned to haunt the two surviving members of the creative team.
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