'Over Yip's Rainbows' celebrates a Broadway lyricist who battled McCarthyism

“Why are there so many songs about rainbows?” Kermit the Frog once sang.

Well, it’s because of Yip Harburg.

Although not a household name, Harburg is the lyricist behind “Over the Rainbow.” He also wrote the lyrics to the critically acclaimed musical “Finian’s Rainbow” including the song, “Look to the Rainbow.”

Besides optimistic, rainbow-themed songs, Harburg’s contributions to the great American songbook include “It’s Only a Paper Moon” and “Brother, Can You Spare a Dime?” among other classics.

“Over Yip’s Rainbows,” a biographical musical by local playwright Jerry Labinger, tells the story of Harburg’s life through his music. A committed antiracist and political progressive who believed in social and economic justice, Harburg’s lyrics drew the ire of Republican anti-communist crusader Sen. Joseph McCarthy, who got Harburg blacklisted from Hollywood for 12 years and had his passport revoked.

“Yip Harburg knew what it was like to live in a police state and have his rights taken away,” Labinger said.

The story is personal for Labinger, who grew up in New York City in the 1950s and saw McCarthy destroy the careers of people he knew.

“I went to school with this guy named Danny. His father was a screenwriter who was blacklisted by McCarthy and the House Un-American Activities Committee,” Labinger said. “He was a really top screenwriter, but he couldn’t get work for years and years, and it really destroyed him, among so many other people.”

Having lived through the McCarthy era, Labinger sees history repeating.

“I started writing this even before the (presidential) election, but it really couldn’t be more timely,” he said. “It is definitely repeating today. I’m very political, and I’m very, very upset about what’s going on.”

The musical is directed by Talia Pura, who acknowledged the political relevance of Labinger’s vision, but said, “On the other hand, ‘Over Yip’s Rainbows’ is also offering hope and a little bit of escapism and a little bit of joy.”

Labinger agreed. He said he was inspired by Harburg’s own subtlety as a writer.

“He was definitely political,” Labinger said, “but he wrote with humor. He used a scalpel instead of a hammer, as they used to say.”

In “Over Yip’s Rainbows,” Labinger worked to keep the heavy political themes from flattening his characters. Even when writing his version of McCarthy, he made sure to show different sides of the senator.

“I tried to make him not the evil ogre,” Labinger said. “Because in real life, what he used to do — and I have that in the play — he used to denounce people with his committee hearings and call them all kinds of things, then, when it was over, he’d go up to them and say, ‘Let’s go have a drink.’ … He was just divorced in some ways from reality.”

Most villains, whether fictional or historical, don’t see themselves as villains.

“As Yip says at the end, ‘Joe did try to spread good, even though he ran around the country like a demon Johnny Appleseed,’” Pura said.

Labinger’s play operates in a space between fantasy, reality and memory, where McCarthy’s paranoid delusions meld into the dreamlike fictions of Harburg’s musicals.

“The whole play is a kind of reminiscence,” Pura said, “which is why we can wave a magic wand and bring Judy Garland onto the stage with us. There’s a complete unreality, yet it’s still true, and it’s beautifully woven.”

“Over Yip’s Rainbows” is a poignant and sometimes surprisingly funny portrait of a courageous writer who responded to political repression with the beauty of music.