Do Re Mi (musical) - Response

Response

The New York Times called the musical "fast, loud and occasionally funny." It noted that "a team of expensive talent has turned out some lively songs, set them in motion in feverishly paced production numbers and has managed to overcome, at least part of the time, the cheapness of a machine-made book." It commented that Phil Silvers was cast against type, here playing "the fall guy, the poor sap who ends as the victim.... Betty Comden and Adolph Green have written sprightly lyrics, and Jule Styne has contributed some attractive as well as some ear-shattering tunes. The loveliest is "Cry Like the Wind" which has the keening quality of a folk song of lamentation."

According to Stanley Green, the musical had "an average score that is worth the price just to hear Miss Walker describe her life of 'Adventure'". Ethan Mordden wrote that the song "Adventure" is "one of the grandest comedy songs ever.... Here we learn that she, at least, already knows that it's a wonderful marriage, because it's never boring ... then came a Mad Scene - a bolero complete with trumpets pealing out like the band in the Plaza del Toro on corrida day and woodwinds tripping up the scale with the flash of a hundred capes."

In reviewing the 1999 "Encores!" production for The New York Times, Ben Brantley wrote that, despite its famous creators, "the show still has the incomplete feeling of a work that never quite meets its own aspirations... A tale of buffoonish gangsters trying to muscle in on the music industry." He further suggested that the show was like a "shotgun marriage" of Bye Bye Birdie and Guys and Dolls with parts of the television sit-com The Honeymooners.