"Broadway looks well in pajamas. The bright, brassy, and
jubilantly sassy show that opened at the St. James Thursday is not just
the best new musical of the season. That would be fairly easy. It's a
show that takes a whole barrelful of gleaming new talents, and a handful
of stimulating ideas as well, and sends them tumbling in happy profusion
over the footlights. The Pajama Game has a fresh and winning grin
on its face from the outset."
- Walter Kerr, New York Herald Tribune (May 14, 1954)
"The last new musical of the season is the best. It is The
Pajama Game, which opened at the St. James last evening with all the
uproar of a George Abbott show. He and Richard Bissell put the book
together out of Mr. Bissell's recent novel, 7 1/2 Cents.
Applying the good old football spirit to a strike in a pajama factory,
the book is as good as most though no better. For, like the customers
who are now going to pour into the St. James, Mr. Abbott is really
interested in the color, humor and revelry of a first-rate musical
rumpus. The Pajama Game fits those specifications exactly.
Richard Adler and Jerry Ross have written an exuberant score in any
number of good American idioms without self-consciousness. Beginning
with an amusing satire of the work tempo in a factory, they produce love
songs with more fever than is usual this year; and they manage to get
through a long evening enthusiastically in other respects also." The
Pajama Game, which opened at the St. James last evening with all the
uproar of a George Abbott show. He and Richard Bissell put the book
together out of Mr. Bissell's recent novel, 7 1/2 Cents.
Applying the good old football spirit to a strike in a pajama factory,
the book is as good as most though no better. For, like the customers
who are now going to pour into the St. James, Mr. Abbott is really
interested in the color, humor and revelry of a first-rate musical
rumpus. The Pajama Game fits those specifications exactly.
Richard Adler and Jerry Ross have written an exuberant score in any
number of good American idioms without self-consciousness. Beginning
with an amusing satire of the work tempo in a factory, they produce love
songs with more fever than is usual this year; and they manage to get
through a long evening enthusiastically in other respects also."
The
Pajama Game, which opened at the St. James last evening with all the
uproar of a George Abbott show. He and Richard Bissell put the book
together out of Mr. Bissell's recent novel, 7 1/2 Cents.
Applying the good old football spirit to a strike in a pajama factory,
the book is as good as most though no better. For, like the customers
who are now going to pour into the St. James, Mr. Abbott is really
interested in the color, humor and revelry of a first-rate musical
rumpus. The Pajama Game fits those specifications exactly.
Richard Adler and Jerry Ross have written an exuberant score in any
number of good American idioms without self-consciousness. Beginning
with an amusing satire of the work tempo in a factory, they produce love
songs with more fever than is usual this year; and they manage to get
through a long evening enthusiastically in other respects also."
- Brooks Atkinson, The New York Times (May 14, 1954)
The
dangers of a workplace romance are explored to hysterical effect in this
romantic comedy from the creators of “Damn Yankees.” Conditions at the
Sleep-Tite Pajama Factory are anything but peaceful, as sparks fly between
new superintendent Sid Sorokin and Babe Williams, leader of the union
grievance committee. Their stormy relationship comes to a head when the
workers strike for a 7˝-cent pay increase, setting off not only a
conflict between management and labor, but a battle of the sexes as well.
Bright and brassy, this unconventional, fast-paced Broadway favorite is
every bit the embodiment of legendary director George Abbott at his very
best. The energetic score by Richard Adler and Jerry Ross is brimming with
songs and dances, which have become popular and musical theatre standards
(among them “Hey There,” “Steam Heat” and “Hernando’s
Hideaway”) and features plenty of splashy, fun production numbers,
including a comic “dream ballet.” For solid, classic musical comedy,
it’s hard to beat “The Pajama Game.”