Visiting Long Beach, staying with friends and following their recommendation to see Daddy Long Legs proved to be excellent ideas, all around. I was not familiar with the loosely adapted 1955 film starring Fred Astaire and Leslie Caron which I could overhear being widely discussed amongst the audience. Based on her very successful 1912 novel, Jean Webster adapted her story into a play. Here is what the New York Times said on September 29, 1914: “If you will take your pencil and write down, one below the other, the words delightful, charming, sweet, beautiful and entertaining and then draw a line and add them up the answer would be Daddy Long Legs.”
The play made Ruth Chatterton a star and she was later nominated for Best Actress Academy Awards for two pre-code films, Madame X (1929) and Sarah and Son (1930). How significant was this story? Films were made by Mary Pickford in 1919, Janet Gaynor in 1931 and a Shirley Temple adaption in 1935 called Curly Top. This version is a musical first produced in 2009 with subsequent stagings in the West End and off-Broadway. The effective book was written by John Caird (Tony Award Best Director of both Nicholas Nickelby and Les Miserables). Paul Gordon (Jane Eyre) wrote this beautiful score which felt like a chamber piece overflowing with lilting, elegant, moving, character-driven heartfelt songs.
Daddy Long Legs begins at the John Grier Home, an orphanage where Jerusha Abbott is the oldest resident at seventeen. One of the trustees, a “Mr. John Smith” becomes her benefactor and sends her off to college to fulfill her promise as a writer. All she needs to do is write him a monthly letter. Jerusha comes up with his nickname, Daddy Long Legs. This musical traces the lives of these two characters through their letter writing. While the original book and play had more than twenty characters, many of whom are mentioned here, this musical has been structured into an intimate two person show.
We have a good Samaritan using his considerable wealth to allow a smart, heretofore unlucky girl a shot at the opportunity of a lifetime. Ashley Ruth Jones and Dino Nicandros deliver superb acting and singing performances which build from simple beginnings to more complicated characters in a organically developing story arc. Dozens of gorgeous songs, both solos and duets, keep their relationship evolving despite the fact that most of the interaction is through letter writing. Credit has to be given to the director Mary Jo DuPrey who keeps this period piece flowing gently, melodically and emotionally to its satisfying finale.
Perhaps the most outstanding song was titled, “The Secret of Happiness.” Seeing this production of Daddy Long Legs was one of those such secrets. So was the fact that I beat my friends – for the first time ever – in the card game of Oh Hell. And I did it twice this weekend! So let’s update the New York Times formula from 1914: If you take your pencil and write down, one below the other, the words Daddy Long Legs, International City Theatre and two card victories then draw a line and add them up, the answer would be bliss.