William Gibson's 1958 two-character play Two for the Seesaw took some bumps on its way to becoming the 1973 musical Seesaw. The story of an unhappily married WASP lawyer's affair with a Jewish woman in New York was updated to the early ‘70s with an eclectic score composed by
Cy Coleman that incorporated elements of funky pop/rock and Latin pop along with old-time Broadway show music and
Coleman's familiar ‘50s-style jazz-pop, while
Dorothy Fields' lyrics frankly referenced the sexual revolution going on outside the theater (notably in the X-rated businesses blocks away on 42nd Street). After the book writer and director were fired out of town, choreographer Michael Bennett took over both jobs, so it shouldn't be surprising that a new character was introduced who was a choreographer (played by
Tommy Tune) and who got to perform a big, schmaltzy production number, "It's Not Where You Start." That song, actually, had been written for
Coleman and
Fields' unproduced late-‘60s musical Eleanor (that's right, it was to be about Eleanor Roosevelt), just as another big number, "Poor Everybody Else," sung by female lead Michele Lee, was written for, but cut from, their previous musical, Sweet Charity. Such Broadway-style tunes didn't sit very well with
Coleman's attempts to go funky with "My City" (a celebration of New York's underside) and "Ride Out the Storm," or with the Latin rhythm of "Spanglish." Meanwhile, the love story played by Lee and male lead Ken Howard, expressed in a series of so-so love songs, seemed to get lost, making
Seesaw an unwieldy collection of different musical elements that failed to coalesce. ~ William Ruhlmann