Alan Jay Lerner: A Lyricist's Letters (16 page)

    
To this amusing anecdote (which was probably a concoction of the show’s press agent, Richard Maney) Lerner himself added to speculation on
Fair Lady
with an article in the
New York Times
on March 11 titled “Shavian Musical Notes,”
⁹
excerpted below:

    
“Pygmalion” first crossed the path of Frederick Loewe and myself in the winter of 1952. It was suggested to us by Gabriel Pascal, an improbable mid-European impresario, who had, many years before, somehow cajoled, persuaded or amused G.B.S. into handing over to him the motion-picture rights to his plays.…When we met Pascal, he recently had acquired the musical rights [to
Pygmalion
]. Loewe and I were instantly intrigued with the project and spent several months talking it about. For reasons much too diverse and complicated to record here, we then abandoned it. One day in August of 1954, shortly after Pascal had died, we began discussing it again. Our enthusiasm was rekindled immediately.

        
Since that sultry summer day we have been at it like two men possessed. The more we worked, the more we loved it; the more we loved it, the more we worked. In the process of writing it we got half through twice and started over. There are fifteen musical items in the show that will open Thursday night. We actually wrote more than thirty. Two were dispensed with on the road in the normal process of tightening and perfecting. The rest are in the files under “G” for “Groping.” For, in spite of its timeless story, “Pygmalion” is far from a simple play. It would be un-Shavian if it were. Eliza’s development is straight-forward enough, but Professor Higgins is as complex as Shaw himself, and is, in fact, very much Shaw.

        
In a far less tangible way, Higgins goes through as much of a transformation as Eliza, the only difference being that Shaw would never allow the transformation to run its natural course. As a result, for a “potboiler,” it has one of the most perverse fifth acts Shaw ever wrote. Thematically it reaches a subtle climax with Eliza acquiring, if you will, a soul, therefore completing her transformation. Therefore, the play is finished. But on the more human level of Higgins and Eliza, nothing is solved. Much is implied, but nothing stated clearly. Shaw compounded his felonious perversity by writing an epilogue which, delicious though it may be, is maddeningly frustrating.

        
In the epilogue he tells what happens to Eliza and Higgins after the play is over. And it is precisely everything you don’t want to hear and don’t wish to believe at all. It makes good sense, but it’s highly unsatisfactory, as is usually the case when relentless logic is applied to the emotions. I can only assume it’s but one more example of Shaw’s mischievous refusal to join in the chorus of those who look at Man and Woman and murmur the age-old “Vive la différence.” There is a story told that, at the rehearsals of “Pygmalion,” Shaw, the most celebrated vegetarian of our time, complained about the way a certain scene was being performed. Somehow the word “love” crept into the discussion. This was too much for Mrs. Campbell, who turned on him and
said: “What do you know of love? If you ever ate a lamb chop, there wouldn’t be a woman safe in London.” I don’t know if this story is true, but I hope so.

        
Naturally, Loewe and I often speculate as to what the old Boy would say if he saw “My Fair Lady.” Naturally, we hope he would be pleased. Eventually I, as do all we poor mortals, will pass on to meet my Maker. For all of us earthly sinners, it can be rather terrifying. I should hate to think that I might also have to contend with an irate Shaw standing at the gate waiting for me, too.

This statement represents an important dimension of the generation of
My Fair Lady
’s reception history. From the genesis point of view, this was perhaps the first major public statement in which Lerner swept his disagreements with Loewe in 1952 under the carpet; the phrase “For reasons much too diverse and complicated to record here” rings as a firm ceasefire on previous battles. More important, the article plays a key role in the reception of the Higgins-Eliza relationship. Before the critics had even had their say on the success of his adaptation of the beloved play, Lerner was already defending his approach to the story—which allows the audience to decide whether Eliza and Higgins are romantically united at the end, rather than Shaw’s insistence that she marries her young romantic suitor, Freddy—by portraying Shaw as “perverse” and suggesting that he would not let the play “run its natural course.” Only a few days later, Brooks Atkinson’s review of the show in the
New York Times
would pick up on this theme by remarking that “the hero and heroine never kiss in this original comedy,” though he also conceded that the show had “a romantic glow.”
¹⁰

    
The night before the show’s Broadway opening, Lerner and Loewe wrote a brief message of thanks to their beloved director, Hart:

    
To Moss Hart

    
March 14, 1956

    
Dear, dear Mossie,

    
We would like to think that every time you open this in the future and find a play inside that has words and music, they will be by us.

        
How can we thank you enough for everything?

All our love,

Alan & Fritz

From the style of writing, it’s clear that Lerner is the author of this note, and the particular tenderness of the message is a sign of the special connection between the two men, though Loewe was also extremely fond of him. Their appreciation was well placed: the musical opened on March 15 to an ecstatic response, the likes of which had rarely been seen before on Broadway. According to Alistair Cooke’s report of the event in
The Manchester Guardian
, “This is the show that stunned a knowing first-night audience like nothing since ‘Oklahoma’ [
sic
] twelve years ago; that had sophisticates crowding to the orchestra pit…for thirteen show curtains; that started a continuous queue shuffling for eight hours through Friday’s flailing snowstorm.”
¹¹
The
New York Times
added that it “won glowing notices from all New York’s drama reviewers” and noted that the day after the opening, an estimated $18,000 was taken at the box office for future ticket sales.
¹²
Screen icon Fred Astaire (who had worked with Lerner on
Royal Wedding
) wrote to tell Lerner it was “simply the best show that has ever been produced—as you well know” and fellow lyricist Sammy Cahn sent him a message to say “I just had to take the time to let you know that last night (again) I saw
My Fair Lady
and with a capacity audience was again reminded of your monumental achievement.” These are just two of numerous letters Lerner received from his peers in the weeks following the opening,
¹³
all of them expressing a special admiration for the musical.

    
Now that
Fair Lady
had opened and was a success, it quickly became apparent that something was going to have to be done to safeguard its future when the first cast needed to be replaced. For a while, theater producers and writers had been frustrated by the stringent rules of both the American and British actors’ unions, which raised objections whenever successful productions were mooted to cross the Atlantic in either direction. There was a general lack of cooperation between the two sides, as happened in the case of Harrison’s delayed departure from
Bell, Book and Candle
, which caused the deferral of the opening of
Fair Lady
. In the case of
My Fair Lady
, of course, the need to retain the original cast for the London transfer was especially sensitive, since it was a Broadway show with all-British leads. The issue also affected producers who wanted to take their Broadway productions to Britain with American casts. Therefore, Lerner called a meeting with others in the same predicament—Rodgers and Hammerstein, and the playwright Augustus Goetz
¹⁴
—in order to try to set up a better channel
of communication between the British and American theater communities on this subject. Lerner wrote to Irene Selznick—who produced the internationally successful plays
A Streetcar Named Desire
and
The Chalk Garden
, and therefore had a special interest in the matter—to report on the plan of action:

    
To Irene Mayer Selznick

    
March 30, 1956

    
Irene, darling,

    
We had a very successful lunch Tuesday: Dick, Oscar, Gus Goetz and myself. The plan of action goes something like this:

        
The Dramatists Guild is going to ask Actors Equity if we can appoint a small committee to sit in at the next meeting between the Theatre League and Equity. At that meeting we are going to ask if we, the dramatists, could undertake mediating between Actors Equity and British Equity, either in London or New York, and see if some long-range program can be devised to relax the barriers of each. The idea will come up at the meeting as if it’s something spontaneous, just thought of.

        
We shall also ask them, if they consent to this, to leave their present laws as is and not change them until this meeting has had a chance to take place. One thing that certainly became clear to all at lunch is that those mainly affected by any decision of Equity are the authors, and therefore it’s up to the authors to take the lead in their own defense.

        
I hope you had a nice trip over. Do give Binky [Beaumont] my best regards. Miss you. Will write longer letter in a week or two, when I dig my way out of the telegrams and letters.

Love, darling,

Alan

It is important to note Lerner’s keen involvement in these sorts of industry issues, as well as his collegiality toward Rodgers and Hammerstein. Evidently, they were not the bitter rivals that some might imagine, and the Broadway community often came together when issues such as this arose.

    
With not just a hit but the biggest hit in years on their hands, Lerner, Loewe, and the team reacted strongly to their success. After the opening, Moss Hart immediately left for Barbados with his wife.
¹⁵
Sadly, the weather was not quite what the Harts had hoped for, as is clear from the following amusing letter, which Lerner quoted in his autobiography and frequently read out in his public talks:
¹⁶

    
From Moss Hart

    
[Undated; c. March/April 1956]

    
Dear chaps

    
I am a true friend—the vrai!

        
I could tell you that it has been marvelous—but it would not be the vrai. Wretched is the word for Mossie! We arrived in a downpour and it has been torrential since. Did you send Richard Ahearne
¹⁷
ahead?

        
Only one thing has dissipated the gloom for me—in yesterday’s local newspaper there occurred a glorious—a collectors’ item—typo error. They were reporting a wedding and went into great detail on the
bride’s costume. Then—the last paragraph read—“And the groom, not to be outdone, wore a large red carnation in his bottomhole.”

        
If the rain keeps on I may stick one in mine!

Your dolorous friend,

Moss

My Fair Lady
’s cast album was recorded on March 25, then, like Hart, Loewe quickly left Manhattan for “a rest in Europe on the advice of his physician.”
¹⁸
This immediately brought to an end their next planned show, an adaptation of the 1941 novel
Saratoga Trunk
by Edna Ferber (1885–1968). Ferber was one of the most distinguished American writers of the twentieth century, with credits including the novels
Show Boat
(1926) and
Giant
(1952) and the plays
Stage Door
(1926) and
The Royal Family
(1926; both were co-authored by George S. Kaufman). Rodgers and Hammerstein had first considered
Saratoga Trunk
as suitable material for a musical but they decided to pass on it, and with the success of
My Fair Lady
behind them, Lerner and Loewe decided to do the same.

    
In this letter, Lerner refers to some of the reasons for their decision, including Loewe’s health, which had certainly been strained. But by May, they were already discussing the possibility of writing
Gigi
as a film for MGM. This shows that they had simply lost enthusiasm for
Saratoga Trunk
(which was eventually written as a musical by Harold Arlen, composer of
The Wizard of Oz
, and Johnny Mercer, lyricist of
Seven Brides for Seven Brothers
and
Li’l Abner
):