Loverly:The Life and Times of My Fair Lady (Broadway Legacies)

by McHugh, Dominic

  Taken as a whole, it is striking how vastly this plan differs from the final show. Particularly curious is the change of location of the first scene from the flower market in Covent Garden to a space with a more varied crowd of people (including sailors and Chinese) at Limehouse. One senses the desire to introduce Eliza in an atmosphere of Otherness, but it is not quite clear how Lerner intended to provide a legitimate reason for Higgins and Pickering to be there.33 The omnipresence of Doolittle in this scene—albeit inside the pub much of the time—is significant, showing him to have a greater prominence in Eliza’s existence than is the case in the eventual show. It means that the two dominant male forces in her life are around from the very beginning, and the proposed song “I’m a Good Girl, I Am” ends the tableau neatly.

  The early encounter between Higgins and Doolittle is also intriguing: Lerner explains in a note that “The purpose of having Doolittle meet Higgins here, even though their joint interest in Liza has not yet been established, is to break up the long dialogue scene that occurs in the play between them in Act II.” The sense of progression is much poorer in this version because the motivation for the dialogue is not clear; cutting up a long scene is not enough reason to have Higgins, Pickering, and Doolittle meet early on. The unfinished song “The Undeserving Poor” probably expanded on a theme similar to that of “With a Little Bit of Luck,” but we can see how Lerner’s original intention was to diverge from Pygmalion more drastically than he eventually did: the location and scenario are almost completely different here.

  The third scene is initially more familiar from both play and musical: Higgins and Pickering sit in the study listening to phonetic noises in the darkness, and the Colonel is tired of the exercise. But then Lerner introduces something new—a visit from Mrs. Higgins with Miss Clara Eynsford Hill, neither of whom ever sets foot in Higgins’s residence in the finished musical. Mrs. Higgins’s attempt to encourage Higgins to marry Clara is also an innovation, probably based on Shaw’s stage direction in act 3 of Pygmalion that Clara “considers Higgins quite eligible matrimonially.” (Indeed, in the play she goes on to flirt with him during act 3, which depicts Mrs. Higgins’s tea party; much of the scene is transferred to Ascot in My Fair Lady.)34 This gives rise to Higgins’s song “Please Don’t Marry Me.” The number signals the start of a much more conventional discussion of romance in the show, which continues with Pickering’s song about the impossibility of living without “the warmth and affection of the opposite sex” in scene 5, Freddy’s song about loving Eliza (which obviously became “On the Street Where You Live”) in scene 8, Higgins’s and Pickering’s song of praise and flattery, “Lady Liza,” in scene 9, and Eliza’s “Say a Prayer” in the final scene of the act. Originally, the latter song had a more overtly romantic lyric that referred to Eliza praying “that he’ll discover / I’m his lover / For now and evermore,” hence the song belongs in the same category (see chap. 4).

  Also of importance is the description of the end of the first act: “Liza appears at the top of the stairs, dressed like a queen. … In seemingly regal serenity, she requests Higgins’ arm, and the three start off for the ball.” In this formulation, Lerner has Eliza requesting Higgins’s arm, but the published script suggests quite the reverse: “[Higgins] starts briskly for the door. At the threshold, he pauses, turns and gazes at Eliza. He turns to her and offers his arm.”35 The mere presence of this scene is also significant, because Lerner later claimed it was an invention during the New Haven tryouts to cover the cutting of the ballet, “Come to the Ball,” and “Say a Prayer.”36 Instead, it seems from this outline to have been a reinstatement of an idea that had been thought of early on.

  Outline 2: Complete Early Structure (1952)

  Outline 2 probably dates from roughly the same period as its predecessor; the substance of the first act is almost exactly the same in both, hence scenes 2–9 are omitted in the reproduction of Outline 2 in tables 3.2 and 3.3. Evidently, this second outline is an elaboration of Outline 1, as well as adding Lerner’s plans for act 2.37 Aside from the way in which it diverges from the final show, Outline 2 is notable largely for Lerner’s clarity regarding the derivation of the script’s different components. For instance, in act 1, scene 1, Lerner writes “From here to end of scene, same as play,” and in the final scene of the act he indicates: “This will be portion of scene that occurs in play in Act V.” Elsewhere, reference is made to the “motion picture.” So although the events depicted in act 1 of Outline 2 are largely the same as in act 1 of Outline 1, Outline 2 acts as a kind of loose map around the Pygmalion play and film that Lerner proposes as the basis for his adaptation.

  Table 3.1. Outline 1, Act 1 only

  Table 3.2. Outline 2, Act 1

  New musical numbers are indicated here, too. In place of “I’m a Good Girl, I Am,” Outline 2 has “The Like of ’im and the Like of Me,” which presumably indicates Eliza’s view of the social distinction between her and Higgins. It is reprised in act 2 at the end of the scene of the argument between the two characters in the same position as the tearful reprise of “Just You Wait” in the published script; it is interesting that the expressive function of a reprise at this point in the show was in place early on. Also, Pickering’s act 1 “ballade” is reprised twice in the second act, signaling his more prominent function in this early version. Scene 4 seems also to be roughly in its definitive state, but scenes 5–8 are quite different because of a crucial change to the story: Doolittle’s wedding becomes a focal point. Upon discovering Eliza has fled, Higgins traces her to her father’s wedding; the gathering of the significantly “Middle Class” guests outside the church is a way of illustrating Doolittle’s social mobility; Doolittle blames Higgins for his new circumstances to his face (as in Pygmalion) rather than via Eliza (as in Fair Lady); there is no scene at Mrs. Higgins’s house (the argument takes place outside the church instead); and Eliza leaves “triumphantly” with Freddy after her argument with Higgins, rather than departing alone and reappearing at Higgins’s house in the final scene. The ending, however, seems to have been conceived as the proper conclusion for the musical all along, hinting that Lerner always saw the close of the Pygmalion movie as his preferred ending to the piece.

  Like Outline 1, Outline 2 portrays romance between Higgins and Eliza in a different way than in the published show. Suddenly, Eliza’s feelings seem to matter: Pickering says that “she’s perfectly equipped now to find a job in a flower shop,” indicating a concern with her future that is not portrayed in the final show, and he “maintains it isn’t fair to Liza to allow her to go through with [the bet].” Higgins agrees with this, apparently mirroring Pickering’s compassion and common sense, and then is secretly “delighted” when she decides to go on, indicating how emotionally bound up with her he is (though the experiment is unquestionably a huge motivator here too, of course). A significant difference between Outlines 1 and 2 is that whereas the first indicates that Eliza “requests Higgins’ arm,” this second outline merely has the three “departing for the ball.” Ultimately, Lerner would reinstate the gesture with the arm and give it huge significance.

  The outline of act 2 continues the overall trend toward overt discussions of love. We see, for instance, the crucial inclusion of a duet for Higgins and Eliza—something missing from the final show, and yet something that would have united them in music in a classic gesture of romance. Pickering’s character is strikingly at odds with his Fair Lady persona: he is “amused” at Higgins’s behavior, intimating that the motivation for the Professor’s irritability is romantic jealousy. He reprises his first-act song and “facetiously suggests to Higgins that he try it again with another flower girl—create another woman precisely to his own taste,” whereupon Higgins “stomps off” and Pickering “laughs.” This outline also reveals initial plans for the ball scene: whereas the definitive show ends the first act in the middle of the dance and tantalizes us with Eliza’s fate until “You Did It” at the start of act 2, Outline 2 shows the events in
real time. “You Did It,” of course, is a great showcase for Higgins and Pickering in which they relate the evening’s events to Mrs. Pearce and the servants, but Outline 2 has all this happen onstage instead, and even includes reference to Liszt’s Hungarian Rhapsody in the same ironic way that Loewe would eventually evoke it in “You Did It.” The third scene of act 2 is also unfamiliar, in the sense that it depicts the trio in a “period limousine” with Pickering driving, but Higgins self-satisfied behavior is familiar from both Pygmalion and the published Fair Lady.

  Outline 3: Scenic Outline (ca.1954)

  Outline 3 (reproduced in table 3.4) also comes from Herman Levin’s papers. It gives less specific information about the action, has no mention of songs, no title or date, and takes up only three pages. However, the outline does show a mixture of some scenes held over from the previous outline and some advanced to the familiar scenario, implying it must be an intermediate version. Act 1, scene 9 contains a note: “I am hoping that by the time we come to England, we will have a choreographer, and this sequence might be a little more precise than it is at the moment.” This strongly implies that the document dates from either the end of 1954 or early 1955, because it is likely to be an explanation to Rex Harrison—whom Lerner and Loewe visited in London—of how the scene might play. Therefore, Lerner’s subsequent claim that he and Loewe recommenced the composition of Fair Lady in autumn 1954 because they had decided they “could do Pygmalion simply by doing Pygmalion” (i.e., following the progress of the film “and adding the action that took place between the acts of the play”), in fact he simplified the matter.38 Clearly, more work was done on the story than Lerner would have us believe.

  Table 3.3. Outline 2, Act 2

  Although the first scene in Outline 3 has been moved back to Covent Garden from Limehouse and several of the other scenes are in a familiar form, scene 6 still has a telephone call between Higgins and his mother that does not appear in the published show or in Pygmalion. Scene 8 has a Policeman who was eventually not included, and scene 9 still contains a scene in which Higgins persuades Eliza to continue with the experiment, followed by the ballet which stayed in the show until New Haven. Act 2, scene 4 is “undetermined”; apparently, Lerner had not yet finalized the scene where Higgins and Pickering discover Eliza’s disappearance and resolve to track her down. This part of the story is not shown in the Pygmalion play or film and is a key example of Lerner “filling in the action” between the play’s acts. The next scene is also interesting in that it appears to preserve the action of Pygmalion by including Doolittle, who departs from the show after the return to Covent Garden in the published version, and Pickering, whose final appearance in Fair Lady is in scene 4. The Colonel also appears in the ensuing scene, along with some “Street Folk”; the purpose of this tableau is unclear, however, though the final scene is in its familiar form. In summary, Outline 3 moves us much closer to the definitive structure of the musical, but several scenes were still in a different form. Of particular relevance is the scene of Higgins’s near-“seduction” of Eliza in act 1, when he persuades her to continue with the experiment: this shows that Lerner was continuing to overplay the Higgins-Eliza relationship, even though as a whole his plan moves back toward Pygmalion as a model.

  Outline 4

  Finally, Outline 4 (table 3.5) comes from the papers (housed in the New York Public Library) of the show’s choreographer, Hanya Holm. It undoubtedly postdates her agreement to create the dances for the show because it includes a reference to “Miss Holm.” This places it somewhere between late September 1955 and the rehearsal period in January 1956, probably nearer the former than the latter. By this stage the structure of the show was much more strongly in place. Reflecting this, Outline 4 is very thorough in mentioning the locations, times, musical numbers, and characters involved in each scene, in contrast to the previous outlines.

  At first glance, it may seem that Outline 4 represents the published show, but there are several important additions and omissions. At the start, there is reference to a song for the Buskers. Assuming that this is not the orchestral “Opening” that depicts Covent Garden after the Overture, this could have been an additional scene-setting song in the style of “Wouldn’t It Be Loverly?” Neither of Doolittle’s songs has a title, hinting they had not yet been written, and scene 4 does not have the reprise of his first number either. Scene 5 has a “montage of lessons” song (which became “Poor Professor Higgins”) both before and after “Just You Wait,” whereas it only appears after Eliza’s song in the published version. Another obvious difference is that “I Could Have Danced All Night” had not yet been written and an earlier song, “Shy,” was in its place. On the other hand, scene 6 is similar to the published script, except that Higgins appears to have been the person talking to his mother outside the racecourse, rather than Pickering; obviously, the latter character benefited from an extra moment of humor in the final show, especially in light of the extent to which Pickering’s role had been reduced from the initial outlines.

  Table 3.4. Outline 3

  Lord and Lady Boxley (scene 7) later became Lord and Lady Boxington, and in this version the Policeman in scene 8 has been replaced by possible Street Strollers. The sequence of musical numbers in scene 9 was still in its original form, unsurprisingly, but the next few scenes seem to be roughly in their published state. A crucial exception is Liza’s apparent exclusion from the group reprise of “Wouldn’t It Be Loverly?” Scene 4 is now in place, with the exception of “A Hymn to Him” (which was added much later), and only the location of scene 5 is unfamiliar: this outline has it in Mrs. Higgins’s garden, rather than her conservatory (in the final show). It is also worth noting that the reprise of “You Did It,” with which Higgins interrupts Eliza’s “Without You,” is already fixed and not a late addition as Lerner claimed in his memoir. The setting for Higgins’s final song is also unfamiliar: the location by the Thames is still an anomaly since, as noted above, a scene in Higgins’s house cannot “immediately follow” one on the Embankment because the two are geographically displaced. The final scene is crowned by a reprise of “Shy” rather than “I Could Have Danced All Night” because the latter had not yet been written. It is interesting to note that this aspect of the structure of the show—the reprisal of Eliza’s first-act putative “love song”—was already firmed up. One might easily have thought that the last-minute return to the “I Could Have Danced” music was a way of bringing the curtain down on what the composer and lyricist guessed could be the show’s hit song, but gesture was clearly the highest priority all along. In conclusion, Outline 4 reveals that although the musical follows Pygmalion quite closely, many factors had to be created or changed along the way, as the numerous differences between this late outline and the published script demonstrate. By extension, this shows how deliberate, considered, and thoughtfully contrived the piece is.

  REFINING THE TEXT

  The main text to be considered in this section is the document labeled “Rehearsal Script” in Herman Levin’s papers.39 There are a couple of hundred differences between the musical’s identified rehearsal script and the published script, and these afford an insight into the last-minute polishing done by Lerner and the director, Moss Hart, during the rehearsal period. Curiously, the authorship of Lerner’s book has sometimes been called into question, with the suggestion that Moss Hart was in effect the co-author. For instance, his wife, Kitty Carlisle Hart, mentions that Lerner and Hart “went to Atlantic City for a week to work on the script” and adds that when she asked Hart about it, he replied that “he was hired as the director, and the fact that he was a writer-director didn’t make any difference.” On the other hand, Steven Bach reports that Lerner’s production associate Stone Widney—who was present during the writing and rehearsal stages—remembered Hart contributing “very little to the book.” No evidence remains in Moss Hart’s papers in Wisconsin of the director’s additions either, and the issue cannot easily be resolved. Therefore, for the purposes
of this book Lerner is referred to as the author of the script, even though there is no doubt that Hart’s contributions were vital to its success.40

  Diction seems to be one of the main concerns of Lerner’s revision of the script. Often he changed just a couple of words or the word order to make it as convincing as possible, especially in the cockney scenes. For example, Eliza’s “Two bunches of violets trod into the mud” (rehearsal script [hereafter RS], 1-1-1) becomes simply “ … trod in the mud” (published script [PS], 2).41 This is a small change, but it makes the line sound shorter and more abrupt, as well as introducing a grammatical mistake (Shaw’s Pygmalion has “into”).42 Rather than detailing all such changes, however, this section deals mainly with the ways in which the differences between the rehearsal and published scripts had implications for the central relationships in the piece.

  Defining Doolittle

  The biggest changes made during rehearsals were to the part of Alfred Doolittle, Eliza’s father, one of the show’s most vibrant characters. His relationships to the other characters shifted in focus, and some of the darker aspects of his personality were obscured. For example: