A New Life in Pasadena for a Cole Porter Show : Stage: The star-crossed ‘You Never Know’ is one of many centennial celebrations of the composer’s birth.

It’s been a little over 50 years since the opening of a musical that Cole Porter described as “the worst show with which I was ever connected.”

The Pasadena Playhouse is making an effort to prove Porter wrong with a completely new production of the star-crossed “You Never Know”--one that dramatically revises the Broadway version by reaching back to the show’s very first draft.

“When I saw that initial script by Porter and his adapter, Rowland Leigh, I was completely intrigued,” director Paul Lazarus says. “It was much more modern than most musicals from the period in the sense that the play was written in a way which allowed it to set up the musical numbers, and vice versa. I was convinced that it had started out as a very good show, and that maybe we could find a way to recover it.”

It is, at the very least, an unusual and, in many respects, a courageous way to celebrate Porter’s centennial (he was born June 9, 1891 in Peru, Ind.).

“You Never Know” was a work that seemed doomed almost from the start. Based on a blithe, 1929 drawing-room comedy that starred Leslie Howard and Gertrude Lawrence, it appeared, as Lazarus points out, to provide a perfect foundation for an urbane Porter tour de force. But the problems began immediately. In October, 1937, less than six months before the out-of-town tryouts for “You Never Know” were to begin, Porter had a horseback riding accident that produced compound fractures in both his legs.

In typically puckish fashion, he once claimed that he pulled out a pencil and paper to work on the lyrics for the show’s hit number, “At Long Last Love,” while lying on the ground waiting for help to arrive. Much of the remaining score was written during the uncertain months of his recuperation.

Once the tryouts (in 12 different cities) started, it soon became apparent that the show was failing to come into focus. The Shubert theatrical organization brought in play doctor George Abbott to help brighten the production. New, non-Porter songs were added, and the emphasis shifted from drawing-room farce to large-scale extravaganza.

But even with all the changes, even with a cast that included Clifton Webb, Libby Holman and Lupe Velez, “You Never Know” only lasted 78 performances. The major trouble with Porter’s score, wrote John Mason Brown, was that “it forces one to keep on expecting, without getting much during the evening.” Walter Winchell, usually a Porter fan, called the show “draggy.”

“It obviously wasn’t a good experience for Porter,” says Lazarus, “even though he clearly had the clout at the time to have insisted that the show be done his way. He was so distracted by his accident, and by other things he was working on, that he just let it slip away. And that, I think, is why he had such bad feelings about it when he told his biographer, George Eells, that he disliked it so much.”

Lazarus’ Pasadena Playhouse production is a virtually new show. The first draft script that is its foundation contained no specific indications for musical numbers.

“I had to guess Leigh and Porter’s intentions--hopefully using my long-term study of Porter’s work,” explains Lazarus. “But, to be perfectly frank, there’s no question that I had to take license in many places with my reconstruction.”

Lazarus deleted the material written by outside composers and added three Porter songs that had been dropped. Four other Porter pieces from other sources have also been interpolated.

“I tried not to just stick in the big hits; I hate it when people do that,” says Lazarus. “And I tried to take songs that were at least vaguely from the same era of Porter’s writing.

“Whenever I could make it work out properly, I used some real gems that were cut from other shows,” he continues. “Things like ‘Let’s Misbehave,’ which was dropped from ‘Paris,’ and a very rare song called ‘I Happen to Be in Love,’ which was dropped from the film ‘Broadway Melody of 1940.’ ”

Two other Porter songs, “Ridin’ High,” from “Red, Hot and Blue” and “Let’s Not Talk About Love,” from “Let’s Face It” complete the newly added material.

The Pasadena Playhouse version of “You Never Know” reflects Lazarus’ belief that the show should be staged as a chamber musical. Limited to a single set--if a fairly elaborate one, with several levels and a staircase--it has become a six-character ensemble performance. Sudden, unexpected entrances and exits occur with enough bravado and panache to suggest that Lazarus may have had a glimmer of commedia dell’arte in mind, as well.

The story remains as frothy and weightless as it was in the Broadway production but without, of course, the extravagant chorus spectaculars. The recovered songs (those discarded in the tryouts) and the additional interpolations fit perfectly into Lazarus’ vision of the script. They sound as though they might have been composed for it.

At best, however, the new “You Never Know” continues to be a Porter oddity--an interesting oddity, to be sure, but one that is unlikely to attain any list of Porter’s greatest hits.

Nonetheless, it is a fascinating choice for a Porter centennial that appears to be receiving only casual notice--vastly unlike the recent Irving Berlin 100th birthday celebration.

One of the differences, of course, is the fact that Berlin was still alive when his century anniversary rolled around. Equally important, Porter’s public image was far removed from the just-one-of-the-guys portrait of the Berlin doughboy singing “Oh How I Hate to Get Up in the Morning” and “God Bless America.”

But one suspects that Porter would have no objection to being remembered as an unparalleled master of long, arching melody and--most of all--a craftsman of witty, sophisticated lyrics that will doubtless retain their bittersweet juices until the second centennial.

Appropriately, given the tenacious resiliency of the Porter song catalogue, much of the anniversary notice has come from record companies.

RCA/BMG Records has issued “Cole Porter: A Centennial Celebration,” a grab-bag of selections ranging from the 1987 original cast recordings of “Anything Goes” to a 1932 Fred Astaire recording of “Night and Day.” The most appealing tracks are three numbers performed by Porter--”Anything Goes,” “You’re the Top” and “Be Like the Bluebird.” Recorded in 1934-35, they are engaging examples of the composer’s own interpretations; with five others, they represent Porter’s sole commercial recordings as a performer.

A CBS Records collection, “Cole Porter in Hollywood: The MGM Years,” is even more eclectic. Selections range from Kathryn Grayson & Howard Keel’s “So in Love” to Jimmy Stewart’s sweet tenor reading of “Easy to Love.”

Polygram’s Verve jazz collection--”Night and Day,” featuring Louis Armstrong, Dinah Washington and Ella Fitzgerald, among others--has already sold over 50,000 copies. The company is also releasing two more jazz-oriented sets on Verve: “Charlie Parker Plays the Cole Porter Song Book” and “Anita O’Day Swings Cole Porter.” Blue Note’s “Blue Porter,” another jazz compilation, includes the likes of Cannonball Adderley, Lee Morgan and Dexter Gordon performing instrumental versions of Porter tunes.

Many older anthologies--”Ella Fitzgerald Sings Cole Porter” on Verve is a particularly classic example--continue to be vital entries in any serious collection of the composer’s music. On the other side of the musical spectrum, the interpretations by younger performers in the recent “Red, Hot & Blue” album are worth hearing as examples of the persistence of the Porter musical catalogue.

Finally, a version of “You Never Know,” the ugly duckling show that somehow has managed to persist for more than half a century, is available from the Florida-based musical theater specialist, Blue Pear Records. The recording chronicles a 1973 production, which had a brief run at New York’s Eastside Playhouse and sounds remarkably similar to the Pasadena Playhouse rendition. Also staged as a chamber musical, it too restores several of the dropped Porter songs and adds “Ridin’ High” to the score.