My Fair Lady

My Fair Lady
Original Broadway Poster by Al Hirschfeld
Music	Frederick Loewe
Lyrics	Alan Jay Lerner
Book	Alan Jay Lerner
Based upon	George Bernard Shaw's play Pygmalion
Productions	1956 Broadway 1958 West End 1964 Film 1976 Broadway revival 1979 West End revival 1981 Broadway revival 1993 Broadway revival 2007 Broadway concert
Awards	Tony Award for Best Musical

My Fair Lady is a musical based upon George Bernard Shaw's Pygmalion and with book and lyrics by Alan Jay Lerner and music by Frederick Loewe. The show's 1956 Broadway production was a smash hit, setting a new record for the longest run of any major theatre production in history. It was followed by a hit London production, a popular film version, and numerous revivals. It has been called "the perfect musical."^[1]

Background

In the mid-1930s, film producer Gabriel Pascal acquired the rights to produce film versions of several of George Bernard Shaw's plays, Pygmalion among them. He asked lyricist Alan Jay Lerner to write the musical adaptation. Lerner agreed. Lerner and writing partner Frederick Loewe began writing, but they quickly realized the play was incapable of obeying the rules for constructing a musical. First, there was no place for an ensemble. Second, there was no subplot or secondary love story. Pygmalion has just one story, and it is a nonlove story. Many people, including Oscar Hammerstein II, told Lerner that converting the play to a musical was impossible, so he and Loewe abandoned the project for two years. During this time, the collaborators separated, Gabriel Pascal died, and the American musical theatre changed. Lerner had been trying to musicalize Lil' Abner when he read Pascal's obituary and found himself thinking about Pygmalion again. When he and Loewe reunited, everything seemed to fall into place. All the insurmountable obstacles that stood in their way two years earlier had disappeared with the transformation of the musical theatre, and they excitedly began writing the show.

However, Chase Manhattan Bank was in charge of Pascal's estate, and the musical rights to Pygmalion were fought for by Lerner and Loewe and MGM, whose executives called Lerner to discourage him from challenging the studio. Loewe famously said to him, "We will write the show without the rights, and when the time comes for them to decide who is to get them, we will be so far ahead of everyone else that they will be forced to give them to us."^[2] For five months Lerner and Loewe wrote, hired technical designers, and made casting decisions. By the time the bank had to give away the rights, it chose Lerner and Loewe.

After much deliberation, Rex Harrison agreed to play Professor Higgins. Julie Andrews was "discovered" when the creative team went to see her Broadway debut in The Boy Friend. Moss Hart agreed to direct after hearing only two songs. The show quickly went into rehearsal.

Productions

The musical had its pre-Broadway tryout at New Haven's Shubert Theatre. On opening night Rex Harrison, who was unused to singing in front of a live orchestra, "announced that under no circumstances he would go on that night . . . with those thirty-two interlopers in the pit."^[3] He locked himself in his dressing room and came out only a little more than an hour before curtain time. The whole company had been dismissed but were somehow rounded up by assistant stage manager Bernie Hart, Moss's brother. The result: opening night was a triumph.^[4]

Beginning on February 15, 1956, the show played for four weeks at the Erlanger Theatre in Philadelphia. It then opened on March 15 1956, at the Mark Hellinger Theatre in New York City. It ran for 2,717 performances, a record at the time. Moss Hart directed and Hanya Holm was choreographer. The original cast included Rex Harrison, Julie Andrews, Stanley Holloway, Robert Coote, Cathleen Nesbitt, John Michael King, and Reid Shelton. Edward Mulhare and Sally Ann Howes replaced Harrison and Andrews later in the run.

The show's title comes from one of Shaw's provisional titles for Pygmalion -- Fair Eliza. Other titles considered included "Come to the Ball" and "Liza," but everyone agreed that a marquee reading "Rex Harrison in 'Liza'" would be imprudent. So they took the title they disliked least -- "My Fair Lady." This title also created a pun on "Mayfair lady", which is how the title sounds when pronounced with a Cockney accent. The original Playbill and cast recording sleeve featured artwork by Al Hirschfeld, who depicted Eliza as a marionette being manipulated by Henry Higgins, whose own strings are being pulled by a heavenly puppeteer resembling George Bernard Shaw.

London's West End production, in which Harrison, Andrews, Coote, and Holloway reprised their roles, opened on April 30 1958, at the Theatre Royal, Drury Lane, where it ran for 2,281 performances. Veteran stage star Zena Dare made her last appearance in the musical as Mrs. Higgins.

Revivals, tours and concerts

The show has been revived on Broadway three times -- in 1976, under Jerry Adler's direction and with Ian Richardson, Christine Andreas, and George Rose; in 1981, with Harrison and Nesbitt recreating their roles, and Milo O'Shea; and in 1993, with Richard Chamberlain, Melissa Errico, and Paxton Whitehead.

The show has also had a 1979 West End revival at the Adelphi Theatre with Tony Britton, Liz Robertson, Dame Anna Neagle, Richard Caldicot, and Peter Land. Produced by Cameron Mackintosh, it was first directed by Robin Midgley and then by the Lerner himself; Gillian Lynne was choreographer. Mackintosh again produced the show in 2001 at the Royal National Theatre and later the Theatre Royal Drury Lane, with Martine McCutcheon as Eliza Doolittle and Jonathan Pryce as Professor Henry Higgins. This revival won three Olivier awards: Best Actress in a Musical (Martine McCutcheon), Outstanding Musical Production, and Best Theatre Choreographer (Matthew Bourne).

In 2007 the New York Philharmonic held a full-costume concert presentation of the musical. The concert had a four-day engagement lasting from March 7th to 10th at Avery Fisher Hall. It starred Kelli O'Hara as Eliza Doolittle, Kelsey Grammer as Professor Henry Higgins, Charles Kimbrough as Colonel Pickering, and Brian Dennehy as Alfred Doolittle. This presentation is notable for its featuring Marni Nixon as Henry's mother. Nixon had provided the singing voice of Audrey Hepburn in the film version.

A US Tour began on September 12 2007 in Tampa, Florida, and is scheduled to end on June 22 2008 in Tempe, Arizona.^[5] The production stars Lisa O'Hare as Eliza Doolittle, Christopher Cazenove as Professor Henry Higgins, Walter Charles as Colonel Pickering, Tim Jerome as Alfred Doolittle^[6] and Sally Ann Howes as Mrs. Higgins. Sally Ann Howes had previously portrayed Eliza Doolittle in the first Broadway production, following the departure of Julie Andrews.

Synopsis

Henry Higgins, an arrogant, irascible professor of phonetics, boasts to fellow linguist Colonel Pickering that he can train any woman to speak so properly that he could pass her off as a duchess. (In the terms now used by linguists, and which did not yet exist in the period of the show, Higgins said he could take a speaker of basilect and teach her to speak acrolect.) Pickering is intrigued by Higgins's boast and wagers that Higgins cannot make good on his claim. Higgins takes on the challenge. He chooses Eliza Doolittle for tutoring. She is a poor girl with a strong Cockney accent whom he encounters selling flowers in Covent Garden. An intensive makeover of Eliza's speech, manners, and dress begins in preparation for her appearance at the Embassy Ball.

Complicating matters is Eliza's father, Alfred P. Doolittle (Stanley Holloway), a cheerfully amoral and drink-loving dustman. He shows up to extract money from Higgins, claiming that Higgins is compromising Eliza's virtue. Higgins is impressed by the man's natural gift for language and his brazen lack of moral values ("Can't afford 'em!"). So he flippantly recommends Doolittle to an American millionaire who is seeking a lecturer on moral values. In the end, Doolittle gets a surprise bequest of four thousand pounds a year from the millionaire. This raises him uncomfortably into middle-class respectability.

Meanwhile, Eliza endures speech tutoring, endlessly repeating phrases like "In Hertford, Hereford and Hampshire, hurricanes hardly ever happen” (to demonstrate that "h"s must be aspirated) and "The rain in Spain stays mainly in the plain" (to practice the "long a" phoneme). Just as things seem hopeless, she suddenly "gets it" after Higgins eloquently speaks of the glory of the English language. Thereafter her pronunciation is transformed into that of impeccable upper class English. For her first public tryout, Higgins takes her to Ascot Racecourse. There she makes a good impression with her polite manners but shocks everyone by her vulgar Cockney attitudes and slang (thus establishing one of the show's themes: good elocution is only "skin deep"). But she captures the heart of an eager young man named Freddy Eynsford-Hill.

The final test requires Eliza to pass as a lady at the Embassy Ball. She does this admirably, even fooling a rival of Higgins, a Hungarian phonetician named Zoltan Karpathy: Karpathy claims Eliza was "born Hungarian." After the ball, Higgins's ungrateful boasting about his triumph and his pleasure that the experiment is now over leave Eliza feeling used and abandoned. She walks out on Higgins, leaving the clueless professor mystified by her ingratitude. But Higgins soon realizes his feelings for her: he has "grown accustomed to her face." When Eliza tentatively returns to him, the musical ends on an ambiguous moment of possible reconciliation between teacher and pupil.

Song list

My Fair Lady around the world

The musical has been translated into many languages, with Eliza speaking Berlin, Vienna, Stockholm, Amsterdam, and Prague dialects. Here is Higgins' linguistic exercise and well-known song "The rain in Spain stays mainly in the plain" in various languages:

• Czech: "Déšť dští ve Španělsku zvlášť tam kde je pláň"
• Danish: "En snegl på vejen er tegn på regn i Spanien"
• Dutch (Version 1): "Het Spaanse graan heeft de orkaan doorstaan"
• Dutch (Version 2): "De franje in Spanje is meestal niet oranje"
• Finnish: "Vie fiestaan hienon miekkamiehen tie"
• French: "Le ciel serein d'Espagne est sans embrun"
• German: "Es grünt so grün wenn Spaniens Blüten blühen"
• Hebrew: "ברד ירד בדרום ספרד הערב" ("Barad yarad bidrom sfarad haerev")
• Hungarian: "Lent délen édes éjen édent remélsz"
• Icelandic: "A Spáni hundur lá við lund á grund"
• Italian (Version 1): "La rana in Spagna gracida in campagna"
• Italian (Version 2): "La pioggia in Spagna bagna la campagna"
• Norwegian (Version 1): "Det gol og mol i sola en spannjol"
• Norwegian (Version 2): "De spanske land har altid manglet vand"
• Polish: "W Hiszpanii mży, gdy dżdżyste przyjdą dni"
• Portuguese (Version 1): "O rei de roma ruma a Madrid"
• Portuguese (Version 2): "Atrás do trem as tropas vem trotando"
• Russian (Version 1): "На дворе трава а на траве дрова" ("Na dvorye trava a na travye drova")
• Russian (Version 2:) "Карл у Клары украл коралы" ("Karl ooh Klary ukral koraly")
• Spanish (Version 1): "La lluvia en Sevilla es una pura maravilla"
• Spanish (Version 2): "La lluvia en España los bellos valles baña"
• Swedish: "Den spanska räven rev en annan räv"

Film adaptation

Main article: My Fair Lady (film)

An Oscar-winning film version was made in 1964 with Harrison again in the part of Higgins. Controversy surrounded the casting of Audrey Hepburn instead of Julie Andrews for the part of Eliza -- partly because theatregoers regarded Andrews as perfect for the part and partly because Hepburn's singing voice had to be dubbed. (Marni Nixon sang all songs except "Just you wait," where Hepburn's voice was left undubbed during the harsh-toned chorus of the song but Nixon sang the melodic bridge section.) Meanwhile, Andrews won 1964's Oscar for Best Actress in Mary Poppins.

Lerner in particular disliked the film version of the musical: he thought it did not live up to the standards of Moss Hart's original direction. He also was unhappy that the film was shot entirely on the Warner Brothers backlot rather than, as he would have preferred, in London.

Awards and nominations

1957 Tony Award nominations

• Tony Award for Best Musical - Book by Alan Jay Lerner; Lyrics by Alan Jay Lerner; Music by Frederick Loewe; Produced by Herman Levin (WINNER)
• Tony Award for Best Actor in a Musical - Rex Harrison (WINNER)
• Tony Award for Best Actress in a Musical - Julie Andrews
• Tony Award for Best Featured Actor in a Musical - Robert Coote and Stanley Holloway
• Tony Award for Best Scenic Design - Oliver Smith (WINNER)
• Tony Award for Best Costume Design - Cecil Beaton (WINNER)
• Tony Award for Best Choreography - Hanya Holm
• Tony Award for Best Conductor and Musical Director - Franz Allers (WINNER)
• Tony Award for Best Direction - Moss Hart (WINNER)

1956 Theatre World Award

• Theatre World Award - John Michael King (WINNER)

1976 Tony Award nominations

• Tony Award for Best Actor in a Musical - Ian Richardson, George Rose (WINNER)

1976 Theatre World Award

• Theatre World Award - Christine Andreas (WINNER)

1976 Drama Desk Award nominations

• Drama Desk Award for Outstanding Actor in a Musical - Ian Richardson (WINNER)
• Drama Desk Award for Outstanding Featured Actor in a Musical - George Rose (WINNER)
• Drama Desk Award for Outstanding Director of a Musical - Jerry Adler
• Drama Desk Award for Outstanding Revival - Produced by Herman Levin

1982 Tony Award nomination

• Tony Award for Best Reproduction of a Play or Musical - Produced by Mike Merrick, Don Gregory

1994 Drama Desk Award nominations

• Drama Desk Award for Outstanding Musical Revival - Produced by Barry & Fran Weissler, Jujamcyn Theaters (James H. Binger: Chairman; Rocco Landesman: President; Paul Libin: Producing Director; Jack Viertel: Creative Director); Produced in association with PACE Theatrical Group, Inc., Tokyo Broadcasting System Intl., Inc., Martin Rabbett
• Drama Desk Award for Outstanding Actress in a Musical - Melissa Errico
• Drama Desk Award for Outstanding Costume Design - Patricia Zipprodt

See also

Pygmalion effect

References

1. ^ See, e.g., Steyn, Mark. Broadway Babies Say Goodnight: Musicals Then and Now, Routledge (1999), p. 119 ISBN 0415922860 and this 1993 NY Times review
2. ^ Lerner, The Street Where I Live, p. 47
3. ^ Lerner, p. 104
4. ^ History of the show
5. ^ name="2007Tour">US Tour information at MyFairLadyTheMusical.com
6. ^ Tim Jerome bio

External links

• My Fair Lady at The Internet Broadway Database
• My Fair Lady Audition Advice & Show Information from MusicalTheatreAudition.com

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