A couple of months ago a musical theater holy grail became available on DVD. Evening Primrose was made for television and broadcast at the end of 1966. It is based on a short story by John Collier with a teleplay by James Goldman, but most lovers of Broadway will be interested in the music and lyrics of a post-Do I Hear a Waltz?/pre-Company Stephen Sondheim. All Sondheim fans will want to see this fascinating DVD.

Evening Primrose is a bizarre story. A poet, Charles, played by Anthony Perkins, drops out of the world to live secretly in a department store where all his needs can be met by night and where he can hide out in comfort by day. Here is the wonderful opening number.

But Charles soon discovers that he is not alone. The department store provides sustenance to a stratified culture that includes nobles as well as an underclass, weird rules, and a constant threat from the “dark men,” who turn transgressors into mannequins. Charles finds love, but also danger in a relationship with a member of the “servant” class, Ella, played by Charmian Carr, who also plays the eldest daughter of the Von Trapp family in the movie with Julie Andrews. (Yes, folks. Psycho and Liesl sing together in this DVD.)

Evening Primrose is very much a variation of Cinderella, since “Ella,” who has been stuck in a life of servitude longs to have a poetic prince marry her and live happily ever after. I don’t want to give away exactly what happens, but there is a kind of evil queen, a climactic ball, and eerie chases through dark displays and up and down escalators. The final scene in both stories involves a wedding, but in Evening Primrose there is a Twilight Zone twist.

I wonder what Sondheim’s mentor, Oscar Hammerstein II, would have thought of this dark variation, especially since ten years or so before Evening Primrose, Rodgers and Hammerstein contributed their sunny version of Cinderella starring Julie Andrews (1957). These days, more people will remember the later versions—one with Lesley Ann Warren (1965) and more recently one with Brandy (1997). Here is Liesl’s stepmom from the beguiling original: “In My Own Little Corner.”

There have been quite a few musicals written for television, but most have not survived. Fortunately, these two show a torch passed as well as an innocence lost.

“Broadway Fred” appears every Wednesday.

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