Upstairs at the Downstairs

In a City Saturated with theatrical activity, professional and amateur, on Broadway and off, a New York entrepreneur named Julius Monk has produced four consecutive revues, each more successful than the last. He's done this with a minimum of scenery, costume, or other theatrical apparatus, at an unprepossessing little supper club he calls the Upstairs at the Downstairs (there's also a Downstairs at the Upstairs, which features a singer and pianist). Yet, despite these evident drawbacks, the revues have been different enough, and popular enough, to constitute a minor local phenomenon; virtually every night, a happy doorman at the entrance on West 56th Street hangs out a sign reading, "This Performance Sold Out."

What's the big attraction? Monk himself explains it by a theory he calls "integrated" cabaret. "It occurred to me that, in a fast-paced revue, with plenty of acts and variety, by the sheer law of averages there were bound to be enough show-stoppers to make up for slow spots." On the face of it, this exposition would seem to be something less than startling, with little to distinguish it from the modus operandi of the Ed Sullivan Show and other tours de farce of a like nature; (continued on page 78)Upstairs(continued from page 25) the elements which Monk leaves modestly unmentioned are talent and a point of view.

Monk has a talent for picking talent. Alumni of his charivaris are household words like Ronny Graham and Dody Goodman, and the people in his present revue, a brouhaha in 16 acts called Demi-Dozen, are extremely able performers named Jean Arnold, Ceil Cabot, Jane Connell, Jack Fletcher, George Hall and Gerry Matthews.

Besides ability and variety, the other commodity purveyed by these revuers and their writers is satire, that element which George S. Kaufman once defined as "what closes on Saturday night." Upstairs at the Downstairs, however, this proverbial Saturday has become a perpetual tomorrow that never arrives. In an age like ours, when the mass media don't dare portray any member of society as incompetent for fear his lobby and/or union will storm the studios and throw rocks at the sponsor, whatever Monk's minions do dare is diverting, refreshing, and usually amusing.

Picture, if you are able, a sophisticated song of the Noel Coward school, presented as a comic strip by Mad magazine. You may have to slip spectacles over your mind's eye to make the effort, but if you're successful you'll have a fairly accurate vision of the Monkian method. One song subjected to this Monkish business appeared in the last revue, Take Five, and was called The Pro Musica Antiqua:

What a fool I was to go, but how

could I nonny nonny know.

Well he took me up to his flat, as

he had said,

And he locked the door and he sat

on his great double bed.

And he looked at me with eyes that

lie,

And I knew when I saw that look

in his eye --

That he had no recordings of Des

Prés and Dufay,

From the Pro Musica Antiqua.

Well there I stood, I was rooted in

my place,

As I viewed with dread my deceitful

lover's face.

For I knew from the lovesick look

in his eye

He could lay me low with a single

sigh.

Well he laid me low and he laid

me high,

At the Pro Musica, the Pro Musica,

the Pro Musica Antiqua.

Perhaps the most successful piece in the current show is one called Conference Call, in which three ad agency types (one of whom is on a bongo board) are on a three-way phone hookup, discussing a laboratory report on their client's cigarette filters:

"Am I coming through to both of you?"

"Check."

"Check."

"I just got Baxter's lab report on the filters."

"And?"

"Well, manifestation-wise, it don't look good."

"Well?"

"I'll segue right into the meat of this thing. First, Freddie, you'd better debongo."

"OK, I'm supine."

"You know how they test the little mousies to see if they develop you-know-what?"

"Yeah."

"Yeah."

"Well, you'd better go out and buy a couple of hundred teeny-tiny get-well cards."

"You mean ..."

"You're kidding!"

"You're right, I'm kidding. I was just trying to be easy on you. Matter of fact the little devils will never get well. They diedy-dooed."

"Holy Heston, that's catastrophe time.

What about the elephants?"

"Oh, they're still alive."

"Well, that's something."

"They're coughing like hell, but they're still alive."

"Maybe we can play that up. We get one of our chic-er male models in a howdah ..."

"Negative, B.B., you can't use an elephant in an ad. It's a symbol."

"Republican?"

"No, phallic."

In Take Five, Ronny Graham as "Harry the Hipster" delivered a commencement address to the graduating class at a progressive school of bop. The address has been a classic with the hip set ever since Graham first introduced the routine in a Broadway revue:

"We're gonna have the regular morning exercises, so I want all you cats to rise, turn east, and face Decca. Repeat after me:

Platter, platter spinning slow

Victor 45 must go;

Push the switch and pull the lever,

Presley can't go on forever.

... I am referring to the serving of tea in the classroom, sans cups ... Let's say this is a reefer. I say let's say this is, 'cause this is. This is not a civilian cigarette. This is standard gauge, M-l, sometimes called Progressive Pall Malls, or Left Wing Luckies, or Mexican Laughing Tobacco ... Now, if you will all turn to page 181 in your Federal Narcotics books, we'll sing our school song."

Julius Monk is himself no less interesting than the productions he benevolently despotizes. Born in North Carolina he graduated from the Cincinnati Conservatory of Music an accomplished pianist and moved to New York, where he got a job as accompanist to a then-unknown singer named Dorothy Lamour and played many a nightclub. A stint abroad followed; he pianoed in a gaggle of Parisian and South-of-France boites, until he met and was hired by Herbert Jacoby, owner of Paris' Le Ruban Bleu. When Jacoby decided to open a New York counterpart of his Paris club, Monk took over as impresario. He held the job for 15 years, either discovering or adding luster to such talent as Graham, Imogene Coca, Liberace, Maurice Rocco, Thelma Carpenter, Lisa Kirk, Jonathan Winters, The Four Lads and Professor Irwin Corey.

When Monk was struck by his idea for integrated cabaret, he decided he'd need a special kind of place to test it. He found it in a cellar on 6th Avenue:

"The place was ghastly. The stage was in the worst possible spot -- right in the front, next to the main entrance. To make things even cozier, the building was condemned. Everything about the club was ridiculous, including the laughably small rent, so I decided to take it."

When a combination of three hit shows and a wrecking company figuratively and literally brought down the house, Monk moved to his present quarters, where he expects a long, uninterrupted stay.

Despite his Carolina origin, Monk prefers to speak with a heavy English accent, sports a trim mustache, and is in every sense of the word a model of impeccable grooming and Continental élan, since he was one of the six top male models in this country last year. His elegant person has highlighted advertisements for such products as Kings Ransom Scotch, Jaguar automobiles and Burberry Clothes. Now that his rooms have become so successful, however, he seldom models more than four hours a week.

An intended numerical progression is evident in the titles of Monk's shows. The first was Four Below; it was followed by Son of Four Below; Take Five was next; and Demi-Dozen is current. Two of the shows are available from Offbeat Records: Take Five and Demi-Dozen (Playboy After Hours, Sept. '58 and March '59). Turning to the future, Monk muses:

"Some day, when Demi-Dozen runs its course, perhaps we'll follow up with Lucky Seven, then maybe Eight for Tonight ... who knows?"

Who, indeed, knows? From the enthusiasm they've already displayed, New Yorkers would obviously be happy to see the Monk and his madcaps last long enough to present a show called Monk's Millions.