Word: humbert
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Dates: during 1970-1979
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...Poor old Humbert Humbert met a host of problems during his pursuit of Lolita, but they were nothing compared with those faced by the optimists intent on adapting Vladimir Nabokov's novel to the musical stage. Dropped as "too ripe" was Annette Ferra, 15 (TIME, March 1). Into the role went Denise Nickerson, 13, who opened as the nifty nymphet in Boston last week. "I can play a sexpot as well as anybody," she told an interviewer, but first-night critics had their reservations. Said one: "She smiles and speaks and sings like a sweet ten-year...
...perverse. The killing of Quilty doesn't take place in an eerie, Poe-like mansion, but at a party in Arizona in front of Quilty's freaky set of disciples, thus giving Lerner a chance for a rousing song-and-dance opening. The Enchanted Hunters Motel where Lolita seduces Humbert is changed to the Bed-D-Bv Motel, full of whores and Mr. and Mrs. John Smiths. And Lerner perversely places Humbert's final visit with the married, pregnant Lolita at the very end, enabling him to stage a tear-jerking finale...
What is most annoying about Lerner's adaptation is its complete lack of a moral sense. Certainly Nabokov's book wasn't written to make parents more vigilant in bringing up their children, but there is a real feeling that what Humbert has done is wrong, that he has destroyed a girl's childhood. This idea is completely missing from the musical, and without it we are almost forced to root for Humbert as he tries to violate Lolita. The actual seduction is almost sickeningly sentimental...
SINCE Lerner himself invites the compassion, it's only fair to say that the cast suffers badly in comparison to that of the movie. The best of the lot is John Neville as Humbert, who has the perfect appearance and accent for the part, and a fine singing voice as well. What he lacks, and this is probably Lerner's fault in his writing of the role, is James Mason's air of old-world degeneracy. He doesn't leer at Lolita, he gazes in wonder at her beauty...
...that Lolita, My Love is strangest. The sets by Ming Cho Lee are all very impressive, the choreography by John Morris occasionally exciting. John Barry's first Broadway musical score (after Goldfinger, Midnight Cowboy and lots of other movies) includes several fine numbers, including a very charming ballad about Humbert's past, "In the Broken Promise Land of Fifteen." "How Far Is It To The Next Town" is a good song, but its refrain is hardly an adequate substitute for the constant car travel between motels in the book and movie. The mindless opening number, "Going, Going, Gone," sounds like...