The original My
Fair Lady poster with art by Al Hirschfeld.
|
It
was called “the perfect musical.” From
that first night on the Broadway stage,
March 15, 1956, at the Mark Hellinger Theatre
audiences leapt to their feet cheering, critics
wore out the Thesaurus in search
of superlatives, trophies could not be cast fast enough. My Fair Lady had to be moved twice
to larger theaters and set a record of 2,717 performances in its first
production. The world, it seemed was
singing its songs.
But
the path to theatrical glory was long.
Very long. It begins with a lost
legend on Cyprus about a Phoenician king named Pumayyaton who the Greeks called Pygmalion. Centuries later the Roman poet Ovid cast
Pygmalion as a sculptor who creates a perfect statue of a woman out of ivory who he named Galatea. After sacrificing
to Aphrodite, Goddess of Beauty on
her feast day, he returns home where he kisses the perfect idol he has created
only to learn that her lips were sweet and breasts yielding. The goddess had granted his wish to turn the
statue into a woman.
The
story of the artist and his art sprung to life resonated, especially during and
after the Renaissance and was told
and re-told many times and was depicted in painting
and sculpture. It was the subject of
many poems in Victorian England. William
S. Gilbert’s blank verse Pygmalion
and Galatea, an Original Mythological Comedy was produced in London in 1871 and was so popular that
it was revived three times in five years and other companies rushed their own
versions of the tale to the stage. A
young Irishman struggling to make
his mark as a critic took notice.
Forty
years later at the height of his powers George
Bernard Shaw recast the themes of a woman metamophisized by her creator into
one of his didactic lessons on social
class and his own pet theory that standardized pronunciation of English could help liberate the poor, who
were stigmatized by their crude accents.
Written in 1912, in his Pygmalion
the creator is Henry Higgins a tyrannical, misanthropic professor linguistics and phonetics and the object of transformation is a Cockney flower girl named Eliza Doolittle.
Shaw
needed another character to who Higgins could expound his theories and to whom
Eliza could turn for comfort. He found
the perfect model in Dr. Watson, Sherlock Holmes’s side kick whose main function
is to listen to the flights of brilliance of the detective. In the play the character is transformed into
Col. Pickering, like Watson a
veteran of the Indian Army.
Pygmalion opened in
London in 1914 with the object of Shaw’s unrequited love, Mrs. Patrick Campbell as Eliza. It was by far the most popular play Shaw had
brought to the stage. But audiences were
dissatisfied with the ending in which the now completely emancipated Eliza
abandons the professor. During the run
of the play the producers substituted a final scene in which Higgins appears at
a window and throws flowers at departing Eliza, hinting that such a gesture
would woo her back to him. Shaw was
furious and added a postscript essay, What Happened Afterwards to printed
editions of the play to explain why that was impossible. He continued to fight attempts to soften the
ending through revivals and other productions of the play.
In
1937 Shaw licensed his plays to Hungarian
producer Gabriel Pascal for the cinema.
He reluctantly agreed to allow Pygmalion
be the first film on the condition that he retain full artistic
control. Shaw collaborated on the
screenplay and wrote whole new scenes, including the ballroom scene where Eliza is put to the test of passing for a lady.
Knowing Pascal wanted a happier ending Shaw offered to write a new final scene
showing Eliza and her callow suitor now husband Freddy Eynsford-Hill tending their flower shop catering to
gentlefolk. Instead, without Shaw’s
knowledge, Pascal inserted a short scene following Eliza’s departure in which
she returns with her bags and the self-satisfied Higgins leans back, cocks his
hat over his face and demands, “Eliza, where the devil are my slippers?” Shaw was outraged, but the scene stayed.
The
1938 film starred Leslie Howard and Wendy Hiller. It was a huge hit on both sides of the Atlantic and even won Shaw an Oscar for his contributions to the
screenplay.
Part
of Shaw’s agreement with Pascal was that none of the plays could be made into a
musical. He had earlier been greatly disappointed
with The
Chocolate Soldier, a Viennese
operetta based on Arms and the Man. Despite numerous pleas over the years, Pascal
could not get Shaw to yield. But when
the old man died in 1950 at the age of 94, the producer approached Alan J. Lerner, the lyricist and librettist who had created Brigadoon with Frederick Loewe and Kurt Weill on Love Life.
Lerner worked on the project intermittently for two years before
abandoning it.
Other
tried their hands at it—Arthur Schwartz
and Howard Dietz and then Richard Rodgers and Oscar Hammerstein II, the reigning
kings of American musical comedy. Rogers told Learner that it was impossible
because “it has no sub-plot.” The other
problem was the talky nature of the play and the lack of big scenes for an
ensemble.
Lerner
had become estranged from Lowe, his original partner on the project. But when he chanced on Pascal’s obituary in
the newspapers, he decided to give the project a second chance. Reuniting with Lowe, Lerner realized that the
key to the production was opening it up from the stage play, as Shaw himself
had done with the addition of the ballroom scene in the film version. Lerner added other “action that takes place
between the acts of the play” as Shaw had written them, notably the Covent Garden scene after Higgins
departs in which Eliza sing Wouldn’t it be Loverly, Alfred P. Doolittle’s rollicking I’m Getting Married in the
Morning number, and the extended Ascot
racetrack scene. In between he
preserved most of Shaw’s witty dialog and even the social messages. He did, however, retain the ending of the
film, not Shaw’s beloved declaration of independence.
Learner
and Lowe went ahead with their work not knowing if they could get the rights
from Pascal’s estate which was being managed with flinty business no-nonsense
by Chase Manhattan Bank. There were other bidders, most notably MGM which tried threats to muscle
Learner aside. He bet that when the time
came the fact that he and Lowe had a completed libretto and music would tilt
the bank in their direction. It did and
they won the right to mount the musical on the stage. MGM would latter have to spend a ton of money
to buy Learner and Lowe’s show from them for the big screen.
After
securing the services of one of Broadways most successful directors, Moss Hart, attention turned to
casting. Everyone’s first choice for
Higgins was Noel Coward but he
turned down the part. He did suggest
that they try Rex Harrison who had
starred in other film adaptations of Shaw’s work. Harrison was a huge star in Brittan once
dubbed Sexy Rexy for his appearances
as a leading man in the ‘30’s and ‘40’s but he was less well known in the
U.S. Harrison was interested but both he
and the creative team were concerned with one little problem. Harrison could not sing, or rather he had a
very narrow vocal range. After some
tinkering by Lowe and handing the most soaring melodies off to other
characters, it was agreed that Harrison could sing/speak his numbers.
Casting
Eliza was more difficult. The part was
first offered to Texas born Mary Martin who wisely concluded that
she was unsuited to play a Cockney. Gertrude Lawrence who Learner had
envisioned for the role when he first started work on the project in 1950 had
inconveniently died in 1952 and was unavailable. They finally settled on a young English
singer/actress, Julie Andrews. Legend would have it that she was plucked
from obscurity for the part, but she already had one Broadway hit under her
belt, The Boyfriend.
The
cast was rounded out with veteran character actor and music hall performer Stanly
Holloway as the philosophic dustman
Alfred P Doolittle; Robert Coote as
Col. Pickering; John Michael King as
Eynsford-Hill who got to sing On
the Street Where You Live, the show’s only love song; and Kathleen Nesbitt as Higgins’s mother.
The
title My Fair Lady made oblique
reference to the title Shaw used in early drafts of Pygmalion, Fair Eliza and
to the repeated refrain from the nursery
rhyme London Bridge is Falling Down.
The
show almost did not go on for its first performance in out of town tryouts in New
Haven, Connecticut. Hours before the
curtain Harrison became frightened by the pit
orchestra that was much larger than anything he had encountered in rehearsals. Fearing that they would down him out he told
producers that, “that under no circumstances would he go on that night...with
those thirty-two interlopers in the pit.”
He then locked himself in his dressing room. After fruitless pleading, producers decided
to dismiss the company for the night and make an announcement to the audience
that was beginning to assemble. Less
than an hour before curtain time, Harrison got a grip on himself and emerged
from the dressing room. Producers
frantically recalled the cast and the show went on. It ended with a thunderous standing ovation. Everyone knew that this would be a hit.
Indeed
it was. The original cast album became a perennial hit. After Edward
Mulhare and Sally Anne Howes took
over the parts on Broadway, Harrison, Andrews and most of the original cast
took the show to London where it debuted
at the Theatre Royal, Drury Lane in
the West End on April 30, 1958. The show would run for 2,281 performances
there.
Since
then there have been numerous revivals in both New York and London, each wining
slews of awards for its casts as the original production swept the Tony Awards. There have been touring companies, productions in almost every language conceivable—an
interesting challenge for a play revolving around English pronunciation,—regional, community, college, and high school productions.
In
1964 MGM brought My Fair Lady to the
screen as one of the grandest of its musicals.
But not without controversy. Although
Harrison, Holloway, and other members of the Broadway cast were signed, studio
big wigs did not think Julie Andrews was a big enough star to carry the
expensive film. They cast Audrey Hepburn as Eliza. Broadway fans were furious. Many vowed never to see the film—a threat
virtually none of them carried out.
Hepburn’s songs were dubbed by Marni
Nixon, the soprano behind many non-signing Hollywood actresses.
Recently
the Wouldn’t It be Loverly scene has surfaced with Hepburn singing. She turns out to have a pleasant, if breathy
voice, and acquitted the song quite well.
But convention decreed a traditional stage soprano sing the parts. If the movie could be made today, she would
probably be allowed to sing her own songs.
Andrews
got her revenge, however, when she was cast the same year in Mary
Poppins which became Disney’s biggest
grossing live action picture. She also
took home the Academy Award for Best Actress. Hepburn herself was not
even nominated despite turning in a charming performance.
Not
the My Fair Lady was snubbed at the
Oscars. The film took home the
statuettes for Best Picture; Best
Director, George Cukor; Best Actor for Harrison; and five other
awards. In addition Learner was
nominated for Best Adapted Screen Play,
Holloway for Best Supporting Actor,
and Gladys Cooper for Best Supporting Actress as Mrs.
Higgins. It remains one of the most
beloved films of all time.
I have done The Beautiful Galatea, as a matter of fact I met my wife during rehearsals of it. I was lighting designer, she was house manager.
ReplyDeletehttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=urY_9vHGJlY