Loverly:The Life and Times of My Fair Lady (Broadway Legacies) by McHugh, Dominic (best ereader for pc .TXT) 📗

the first time on January 3. Lerner tells us that “Around the edges of the stage Moss had arranged an exhibition of sketches of the scenery and the costumes, and the press was allowed in to do their first-day interviews. … The cast read the script aloud, with Moss reading the stage directions. Whenever they came to a song, Fritz and I performed it. After the first act the enthusiasm was high.”153 The exception was Rex Harrison, who felt that the character of Higgins had been put too much into the background in the second act. The solution was to add the song “A Hymn to Him,” better known as “Why Can’t a Woman Be More Like a Man?” Supposedly, the inspiration for this song came from Harrison himself, while walking down Fifth Avenue during the rehearsal period. Lerner reports that they had been “reviewing our past marital and emotional difficulties and his present one. … Suddenly, he had stopped and said in a loud voice that attracted a good bit of attention: ‘Alan! Wouldn’t it be marvelous if we were homosexuals?!’ I said that I did not think that was the solution and we walked on. But it stuck in my mind and by the time I reached the Pierre I had the idea for ‘Why Can’t a Woman Be More Like a Man?’”154 The lyricist adds that it was finished by the end of the eighth day of rehearsals.

Hart’s rehearsal schedule was distinctive, incorporating an afternoon and evening schedule to leave the mornings free for other aspects of the production process. Andrews reports that “We began working every day at 2:00 p.m., took a break for dinner at 5:30 p.m., and then reassembled from 7:00 until 11:00 in the evening. Stanley Holloway and I kept up the British tradition of a cup of tea at 4:00 in the afternoon, and soon everyone was enjoying that welcome little break.”155 Lerner explains that the choice of this rehearsal schedule was deliberate: “Most directors like to begin in the morning at ten o’clock and rehearse until one or one thirty, returning at three and continuing until seven. Moss did not. He felt that by the end of the day the cast was usually so tired that little was accomplished in the last two hours,” hence the decision to start at 2 p.m.156 Another oft-repeated story about the show is that during rehearsals, Harrison kept brandishing a Penguin edition of Shaw’s Pygmalion and referred to it “at least four times a day, if a speech did not seem right to him,” according to Lerner. He would invariably cry out, “Where’s my Penguin?” and compare the text of the show to that of the play. After a week, Lerner’s response was to go to a taxidermist and purchase a stuffed penguin, which he had rolled out the next time Harrison asked the question. “From that moment on, he never mentioned the Penguin again and kept the stuffed edition in his dressing room as a mascot throughout the run of the production.”157

It was not merely the nervous Harrison who made life challenging for Hart and Lerner during this time; the inexperience of Julie Andrews as an actress in a substantial piece started to cause problems, too. After two weeks of rehearsals “Moss decided drastic assistance was needed. He closed down rehearsals for two days and spent them alone with Julie.”158 Andrews herself adds that “it became obvious … that I was hopelessly out of my depth as Eliza Doolittle. … And that’s where Moss’s humanity came in. … [He] decided … to dismiss the company for forty-eight hours and to work solely with me. … For those two days … [we] hammered through each scene—everything from Eliza’s entrance, her screaming and yelling, to her transformation into a lady at the end of the play. Moss bullied, cajoled scolded, and encouraged.159 Lerner adds: “On Monday morning when rehearsals began again with the full company, Julie was well on her way to becoming Eliza Doolittle.”160 Though Andrews was now feeling more confident, Stanley Holloway in turn became unhappy that insufficient time was being spent on rehearsing his character, but on confronting the director with this issue he was told by Hart, “Now look, Stanley. I am rehearsing a girl who has never played a major role in her life, and an actor who has never sung on the stage in his life. You have done both. If you feel neglected it is a compliment.”161 The actor was mollified.

One important job to be done during this time was for the show to be orchestrated. On January 5 Levin signed a contract with the arranger Guido Tutrinoli and three days later another with Robert Russell Bennett, who orchestrated the show with Phil Lang (and the “ghost” orchestrator, Jack Mason).162 It was Bennett who insisted that Lang be credited with the orchestrations along with himself, writing a letter to Levin on February 11 specifically asking it as “a favor.”163 Other things to be taken care of included ordering floral arrangements for the show from the Decorative Plant Corporation, and items such as necklaces and bracelets from Coro Jewelry, paying for the costumes Beaton had ordered in London, and finishing off the costume order with the Helene Pons Studio.164

After spending January rehearsing the show in New York, the company moved to New Haven, where the New Haven Jewish Community Center had been hired for rehearsals between January 30 and February 1.165 Over at the Shubert Theatre, Biff Liff, the stage manager, “wrestled with the scenery,” and although chaos ensued with the complicated sets, they were in sufficient order by Wednesday night to have a technical run-through.166 It was complete by Friday, and the orchestra arrived in the pit for the first time—“and blew Rex sky high,” according to Lerner.167 The actor’s inexperience as a singer meant that he was extremely intimidated by the overwhelming sound of the orchestra, and Hart promised he could rehearse alone with the orchestra the following