Richard Rodgers and Oscar Hammerstein II’s Allegro premiered in 1947 and got a mixed press. Broadway audiences, who had just seen Oklahoma! and Carousel, were very disappointed. Today there are going to be a lot of musical buffs and Rodgers and Hammerstein aficionados who will want to see its European premiere at Southwark Playhouse, flaws and all, regardless.
The script is a 20th-century morality play exploring the problems of personal integrity in a money-oriented, rat-race society. A young man thinks the best thing in life is to become a doctor just like his dad and granddad before him. But what sort of doctor should he be? Should he be a rich and successful one in Chicago servicing the rich or should he be a poor one in the small Midwestern town where he was born, servicing the poor? The hero (played by Gary Tushaw) is a man of principles, an honest Joe, the sort of guy you would find in a Frank Capra movie. So you know he will do the right thing.
