- Performances: 1,063
- Open / Close: May 13, 1954 – November 24, 1956
- Theater: St. James.
- Tony Awards: Won all 5 awards it was nominated for, including Best Musical and one of the rare “Best Producer” Tonys. Bob Fosse picked up the first of the nine he would eventually win.
- Weird Fact: Doris Day, who starred in the movie adaptation, died on May 13, 2019, 65 years to the day after “The Pajama Game” opened.
Podcast
The best thing about “The Pajama Game,” besides the Bob Fosse dance numbers? It’s another perfect excuse to bring in Phil Crosby, Executive Director of Richmond Triangle Players, to talk about a classic show once again. There were so many firsts associated with this show, those alone comprise a good slice of the chat. But there is still time to get into Phil’s personal anecdotes, including working with John Raitt and George Abbott.
“The Pajama Game” was one of the most popular shows of the ‘50s, so it’s weird that it gets remembered today for facts tangential to the show itself. Most famously, Shirley MacLaine lived out the Broadway cliche of being plucked from the show’s chorus and thrust into stardom. (If you haven’t heard the story before it’s really worth a quick read.)
- Fun Fact: After “The Pajama Game,” MacLaine never appeared in a Broadway show again.
And so many epic firsts! The show was Bob Fosse’s first high-profile gig as a choreographer and the first hit by songwriting team Richard Adler and Jerry Ross. First-time co-producer Hal Prince would go on to steer Broadway’s biggest hits to the stage, from co-producing “West Side Story” to directing “Phantom of the Opera.”
- Fun Fact: Broadway stalwart and budding film star John Raitt starred in both the stage and movie version of “The Pajama Game.” Everyone knows his daughter is Bonnie Raitt. But did you know his grandson, Bay, created the computer-generated face of Gollum for the “Lord of the Rings” movies?
There were darker or more problematic facts related to the show. It marked the arrival of star Carol Haney, who won a Tony as the quirky company secretary, Gladys. It was Haney who MacLaine stood in for and, while MacLaine would become a movie star, “Pajama” was the apex of Haney’s career. Suffering from stage fright, health issues, and reportedly alcoholism, she died at 39 from complications from diabetes.
“The Pajama Game” transitioned to the stage with its cast mostly intact. But like the next show put together by Adler, Ross, Fosse, et. al, “Damn Yankees,” the movie producers wanted one bona fide movie star on board. They landed one of the biggest of the time, Doris Day. The star of the stage version, Janis Paige, had a long and admirable career of her own but never reached the heights of Day.
Paige was also a “pin-up girl.”
- Fun Fact: At 97 years old, Paige is one of precious few surviving actors from the so-called “Golden Age of Hollywood.”
As to the show itself, plenty of people seem to love it. I can only judge from the movie version but that seems valid given that, according to the New York Times, it transferred pretty faithfully from stage to screen. And in my humble opinion, it’s whole ends up being way less than the sum of its parts. For every highlight, there is a contradictory, and often ‘50s-era awkward, lowlight.
Raitt plays Sid, a new supervisor at a garment factory who falls in love with, then has a falling out with, Babe, a straight-talking manager of the mostly female workforce. As with other workplace stories like “Newsies,” the focus on unions and labor revolt ends up playing out oddly. Here, the union workers win their 7 ½ cent raise but it’s insinuated, without being confirmed or denied, that the company president used the labor unrest to cook the books and embezzle money.
Raitt has a great scene where he sings into a dictaphone and then accompanies himself during playback, surely a real innovation at the time. Haney delights with her truly unique brazen charm. And the character of Babe is forceful and a borderline feminist, telling Raitt’s character “stop treating me like a baby.”
Songs like “Steam Heat” and “Hernando’s Hideaway” are a treat and Fosse’s choreography dazzles. But “Steam Heat” almost exactly mirrors the “Who’s Got the Pain” number in “Damn Yankees” by being completely extraneous to the plot.
And, of course, the relationship dynamics are nutso by modern standards. Sid basically grabs Babe at the company picnic, lays a kiss on her and, boom, they’re a couple. Within a week, he’s hanging around her house saying “this feels like home.” That Babe, solidly over 30, lives with her dad isn’t noted as odd (Paige was 32 and Raitt was 35 when the show opened). Worse is the second-tier relationship with Gladys. Her jealous suitor gets shit-faced and violently threatens her, throwing knives at her at the office. They end up together, of course.
Less wrong than just surreal is the company picnic scene. As the fine song “Once a Year Day” plays, employees cavort maniacally, singing “once a year we lose our senses.” It’s like the purge, only happy!
- More: For a lively deep-dive from a woman’s perspective on everything wrong with “The Pajama Game,” check out this review by Danielle Mohlman. My favorite line: “I wonder if this is where Bob Fosse learned how to be a dick.”
The original NYT review called “The Pajama Game” an “energetic, amusing show,” bolstered by an “exuberant” score. In their “101 Greatest Shows of All Time,” Bloom and Vlastick go overboard, calling it “one of the influential and innovative musicals ever.” They point to a scene where Babe takes off her dress on stage, clearly signifying that she and Sid are going to get it on, as a breakthrough of sexual frankness.
- Fun Fact: “The Pajama Game” was revived at New York’s City Center just 6 months after it closed
Maybe that’s true. And maybe the show’s peppy playfulness was particularly charming for the time and maybe Raitt and Paige had some incredible onstage chemistry that doesn’t translate to the Raitt/Day pairing on screen. Still, even trying to look beyond the problematic parts, the show plays out in disjointed scenes with romantic wackiness hung on a plot way too thin to power it to a satisfying conclusion. It’s one “Game” I’d just as soon pass on.
- Final Grade: C+.
You can actually watch the entire movie online for FREE!