The Story of Fiorello!

Fiorello!'s plot, hewing close to the story line of history runs as follows:

We open documentary-style, with the Marine Hymn and some film clips of the second world war and the real Fiorello H. La Guardia in a role of his most famous moments, reading the comics over WNYC radio during a 1945 newspaper strike. Something jogs his memory, he begins to reminisce, and we flash back about 30 years, to a Greenwich Village law office shortly before America's entry into World War I.

The waiting clients look like a poster captioned "Give me your tired, your poor..." Trampled by one bureaucracy or another they look for help to the crusading Mr. La Guardia, but crowd-control falls to his long-suffering staff: Marie his faithful and loving though he doesn't notice the later secretary; Neil his idealistic young law clerk; and Morris his seen-it-all office manager. They agree that they are happy, if weary, to be ON THE SIDE OF ANGELS.

Into this bustling scene comes Marie's friend Dora also looking for help: Dora and her co-workers at the Nifty Shirt waist Corp. have been on strike against sweatshop working conditions and their leader, Thea, has been unjustly arrested by cops on the take from factory bosses for soliciting prostitution.

Fiorello himself now arrives and takes the case, but he's preoccupied with something new: he's heard that the perennially-losing Republicans can't find a candidate for Congress from his district, and he plans to put himself forward. As an aside, we also learn the source of La Guardia's hatred of corruption: his father died during the Spanish-American War of "rotten food" sold to the army.

A short distance away, at the local Republican clubhouse on West Third Street, it is business as usual--POLITICS AND POKER--with the latter clearly taking precedence. Ben Marino and his fellow pols are so desperate that Fiorello has little trouble claiming the nomination, but it's evident he'll get no support for what the Republicans see as one more losing campaign against the all-powerful Tammany Hall Democratic Club.

Outside the factory, Fiorello takes up the cause of the women strikers, who are being bullied not only by cops --including Floyd--but by paid hecklers. After informing the women that he has already got Thea out of jail, Fiorello intimidates the men into backing off, and proceeds to teach the women how a real strike ought to be conducted: UNFAIR.

In the flush of victory, relations between Fiorello and Marie seem to take a turn, and for the first time he invites her out to dinner, but just then Thea arrives, and everything changes. Not only is she as feisty and fearless as he is, she is also Italian, from Trieste, near where Fiorello has served as a U.S. consul, and he is plainly smitten.

Later, Marie has returned to the office, where Fiorello phones her and-no surprise-cancels their date. Marie, both angry and resigned, spells out for legislation to govern relations between men and women: MARIE'S LAW.

On a street corner in Greenwich Village--then a teeming, mostly Italian neighborhood of immigrants and poor--the La Guardia campaign gets underway, and we see why he's going to win: he speaks passionately about oppression and the underdog, not only in English, but in Italian and Yiddish: THE NAME'S LA GUARDIA.

A few weeks pass, and Fiorello is in fact elected, to the stunned surprise of the Republicans: THE BUM WON, Bock and Harnick's wonderfully cracked barbershop number.
More time passes. As evidence that love is thicker or something) than politics, Dora has taken up with Floyd the cop, who is now climbing the Tammany ladder. When Marie arrives, Dora is sheepish but emphatic: I LOVE A COP.

In Washington, Fiorello has been stirring up trouble with Congress and his constituents--potential draftees--by taking the hawkish position that America should enter the war. He will not ask the voters to do anything he wouldn't do himself, however , and shocks Ben with the news that he himself has enlisted in what will become the Army Air Corps. At his going-away party, he proposes marriage to Thea, who doesn't accept but leaves the door open, telling him half jokingly that he'll first have to liberate Trieste. In farewell, she sings a lovely period waltz: 'TIL TOMORROW.

Newsreel film clips take us through the remainder of the war, until Fiorello is walking down a gangplank--right past Marie, to Thea--with the key to the city of Trieste. This time she accepts his proposal, and as the first act curtain comes down, the company welcomes him: HOME AGAIN.

You've hardly had time to go out for a cigarette, but ten years have passed, and Congressman La Guardia has found a new mountain to climb: the Republicans are going to put him against the incumbent, highly popular mayor, James J. Walker. At the La Guardias' apartment, Thea reflects on her happy marriage: WHEN DID I FALL IN LOVE. Dora--long married to Floyd--comes by to visit, and we learn that altogether he left the Police force, his Tammany career continues to proper: he has gone from sewers to garbage collection, pocketing payoffs all the way. We also see that Thea, while she tries to minimize it, is ill.

Dora and Floyd live in a Tammany-funded penthouse uptown, where a Walker campaign party is in typically wild progress, with entertainment provided by a Broadway chorus line headed by Miss Mitzi Travers the golden-voiced star of Yoo-Hoo Yah-Hoo: GENTLEMEN JIMMY.

The next few songless scenes show us the hard truth: with 20's prosperity still in bloom, Fiorello stands no chance against the charismatic Walker--even though the stock market crashes a few days before the election. At the same time, Thea dies. Personal loss and crushing defeat do not daunt Fiorello, however: he will continue to fight Tammany corruption in the courts.

Almost another four years go by. The Great Depression now reigns, and an investigation headed by Judge Seabury has begun to reveal the truth about the Walker administration. At the Republican clubhouse, Ben and his cronies revel in newspaper accounts of the hearings, full of implausible excuses and denials: LITTLE TIN BOX.

With the political breeze now blowing from an entirely different quarter, Fiorello decides to run for mayor on a "fusion" ticket. But Marie, who's remained loyal through everything, tells Ben this is her last campaign. Looking out for herself for a change and tired of waiting, she'll marry THE VERY NEXT MAN who asks her.

With the campaign gathering steam Fiorello finally wakes up and proposes to Marie, who of course accepts: FINALE. The curtain call shows him taking the oath of office for the first of his three mayoral terms.

---Marc Kirkeby
---Broadway Classics, Original Broadway Cast Album Notes