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| Kay Cole, Gregory V. Karliss, Janet Powell. |
RAINBOW [Musical/Death/Fantasy/Vietnam/Youth] B: James and Ted Rado; M/LY: James Rado; Joe Donovan; S/L: James Tilton; C: Nancy Potts; P: James and Ted Ra2do; T: Orpheum Theatre (OB); 12/18/72-1/28/73 (48)
Created by several of those associated with the hippie
musical hit Hair, this new rock musical
had a lot going for it but could not overcome a simplistic treatment of the
sensitive material driving its dramatic purpose. Practically devoid of a book
(like Hair), it had 42 energetic,
jubilant, tuneful songs in a variety of modes that outlined the fantastical
story of a young man (Gregory V. Karliss), killed in Vietnam, who ascends to a
heaven that is really a psychedelic rock radio station in the sky.
He meets such figures as Jesus (Philip A.D.) and Buddha (Meat Loaf, yes!), as well as allegorical characters named Mother (Camille), Stripper "Love Me, Dorothy Lamour La Sarong," "People Stink," "Give Your Heart to Jesus," "Somewhere under the Rainbow," and "Star Song."
Clive Barnes raved that the show was a worthy successor to Hair, with its “joyous and life-assertive”
music, zany but “sweet and fresh” lyrics, and “stylistic cohesion and lack of
pretensions.” John Simon was impressed by the “musical profusion” in this “bit
of innocent, silly trifling,” but Edith Oliver could not bear its “Brainless,
heartless, humorless, campy, complacent, gleeful, dirty, and soppy” cavorting.
Walter Kerr was appalled by the “gaucherie” of a show that could offer so
ridiculous a solution to the Viet Nam War. It suggested to him “an isolation
from reality that substituted wishful thinking for genuine strength.”