Bells are ringing

“Bells Are Ringing” is a fable about the big city, about the telephone, and about loneliness. A fable from the 1950s (already!), imagined by a group of young creatives—Betty Comden and Adolph Green—who, along with Leonard Bernstein and Stanley Donen, were in the process of revolutionizing musical theatre. They tackled ultra-contemporary subjects to re-enchant everyday life.

It’s a fable about the virtual relationships between New Yorkers, which today feels delightfully vintage, at a time when we use every means available—Internet, phone, smartphone apps—to connect with one another. It’s amusing to see that the fundamental issue remains unchanged: to attract someone, we often construct an imaginary persona—one that rarely survives contact with reality. Real-life encounters are rare.

“Bells Are Ringing” is an optimistic work that relentlessly confronts imagination with reality. Its prologue sets the tone by juxtaposing an advertisement for a telephone answering service (the ancestor of voicemail) with its neat row of perfect operators—only to then reveal the grimy little office where the company’s three actual employees work. The successful playwright our heroine falls in love with (over the phone) turns out to be an artist in the depths of depression.

So why call it an optimistic piece? Because imagination prevails—thanks to a series of eccentric characters: a composer-dentist, a diva with a cold, an out-of-work actor, a warm-hearted cop, a music-loving con artist, and at the center of them all, our lovestruck switchboard operator. Through her generosity and enthusiasm, she achieves the impossible: bringing people together and weaving a network of solidarity.

As our young librettists affirm in their foreword: in the anonymous sprawl of big cities, people who possess this kind of strength truly exist. Jule Styne, one of Broadway’s great stylists, underscores this positive energy with a score rich in subtle counterpoints of deep melancholy. “Bells Are Ringing” is not naïvely optimistic—it’s hopeful with depth.

Costumes and sets were created by the workshops of the Opéra de Saint-Étienne.

The piece was originally created by Jerome Robbins for The Theatre Guild, with choreography by Jerome Robbins and Bob Fosse.