My Fair Lady Is Another

ARENA’S PAGE stUDY GUIDE COntents Meet Lerner & Loewe “You see…apart from the things one can pick up, the George Bernard Shaw difference between a lady and a flower girl is not Adaptation: how she behaves, but how she is treated.” The Myth, The Play, The Musical Class & Language British Women in the 1900s Three Big Questions Additional Resources The PlaY London is a charming place at the start of the 1900s – if you’re a lady, not a poor “guttersnipe.” Henry Higgins, a professor of the English language and phonetics, believes it’s not what you say, but how you say it that defines a person. After a run-in with Eliza Doolittle, a flower girl with an appalling accent, he tells his colleague Colonel Pickering that the reason Eliza will always be poor is because she can’t speak well. Eliza overhears this and takes her destiny into her own hands. The next day she shows up at Higgins’ door ready to pay for language lessons. Pickering challenges Higgins to back up his claim: can Higgins pass off Eliza as a duchess by teaching her to speak like the wealthy? Manners are one thing, but respect MY faIR LADY is another. As Higgins undertakes his Now playing in the Fichandler grand experiment on Eliza, who will be November 2, 2012 – January 6, 2012 most transformed and at what cost? Based on the play Pygmalion by George Bernard Shaw Book & Lyrics by Alan Jay Lerner phonetics – the science of speech Music by Frederick Loewe sounds and their production, Directed by Molly Smith transmission, and perception, and their analysis, classification, and transcription Major support for this program is provided by the Paul M. Angell Family Foundation. Funded in part by the D.C. Commission on the Arts & Humanities, an agency supported in part by the National Endowment for the Arts. MEET George Bernard Shaw MEET Lerner & Loewe Born in 1856 in Born in 1901, Frederick “Fritz” Loewe Dublin, Ireland, G. was the son of a famous tenor opera Bernard Shaw (he singer. He played piano by age 4; hated his first name) composed musical sketches for his had a childhood dad to perform on tour by age 9; that was in some and by 15 wrote the song “Katrina,” ways similar to Eliza which became a hit in Europe. He Doolittle’s. His studied with some of the most famous father was a whole living musicians, won awards, and grain salesman and an alcoholic was pursuing a career as a concert who drank most of his money (just soloist when he moved to the US. like Eliza’s dad). When Shaw was 15, Jazz was popular, and because he his father cut off his education and disliked the genre, he had trouble turned him out to work as a clerk. In making money with his music. He 1876, Shaw moved to London. went out west, worked odd jobs, and ultimately returned to New York, where There, he made money as a music Alan Jay Lerner was born in 1918, he met Lerner. None of his successes critic, but came to write about and spent his early childhood in a matched the ones he had with Lerner. almost every subject imaginable. He 17-room apartment on Park Avenue (a was a vegetarian, feminist, activist, wealthy part of Manhattan). He started But it wasn’t easy. Lerner and Loewe outspoken socialist, harsh critic and studying piano at age 5 and was sent wrote three musicals together before skilled speaker. Many of Shaw’s to boarding school in England at 12. one took off – Brigadoon. My Fair 55 plays dealt with politics, poverty He then went to Harvard, and lost Lady debuted in 1956 and broke all and women’s rights, the vision in one eye during a boxing records. It ran longer on Broadway challenging his tournament there. This killed his than any other show audiences and dream of being a pilot, but led him to before, winning six the status quo. join Harvard’s theater group. Lerner Tony Awards. It He wrote up discovered he loved writing plays for later became a hit until his death radio (He wrote over 500!). In 1942, movie, starring at age 94. while at the Lambs Club, Fritz Loewe, Rex Harrison and a struggling composer, stopped by Audrey Hepburn. My Fair Lady is his table and asked Lerner to write Picture: Original composition of adapted from his with him. It became one of musical play Pygmalion. “I Could Have Danced All Night” theater’s most famous partnerships. courtesy of the Library of Congress “ We finally arrived at those moments where music and lyrics could reveal what was implied and not repeat what was already in the text and catch the drama at the hilltops when it could ascend no further without the wings of music and lyrics.” –Alan Jay Lerner ADAPTATION: THE MYTH, THE PLAY, THE MUSICAL he myth Pygmalion tells the story of a sculptor Though audiences clamored for it, Shaw was who, sick of the imperfections of women, sculpts adamant that Pygmalion not become a musical. Tthe perfect woman and falls in love with her. Only after his death did Lerner and Loewe tackle Venus, the goddess of love, answers his prayers and the adaptation. Other famous Broadway writers turns his statue into a woman, whom he marries. had tried to fit Shaw’s words into the classically Shaw’s play Pygmalion also tells the story of a man comedic musical theater style. Rodgers and molding the perfect woman, but through language Hammerstein worked on it for a year and gave Pygmalion and Galatea and manners. up. However, as realism became more popular in by Jean Léon Gér�me musicals, Lerner and Loewe achieved the difficult To Shaw’s horror audiences compared his play, meant task but also took some liberties with the story. In a retelling of this to be a social commentary on classism and feminism, Even in its success, Lerner expressed some myth, the statue- to Cinderella. Audiences wanted the happily-ever- fear about meeting Shaw in the Hereafter and now-woman is named after with Henry Higgins as the prince. Shaw thought answering for those changes. l “Elise,” inspiring the such an ending would be “a revolting tragedy.” name “Eliza Doolittle.” “ Anyone can spot an Irishman or Yorkshireman by LaNGUAGE AND SOCIAL CLASS his brogue, but I can place a man within six miles.” –Professor Henry Higgins here was a chasm between classes Where Eliza grew up, just streets away, Henry Higgins is certain that teaching in England in the early 1900s with language education was almost non- Eliza to speak like a lady will allow her Tlittle chance of social mobility. existent because desperate poverty to become a lady, opening the doors meant children worked. The working to a higher class and its advantages. l The upper class was a world of class lived in slums and was nicknamed gracious manners, garden parties, “The Great Unwashed” because of the fashion, balls and diversions, like scarcity of clean water and soap. ACTIVITY: How do people horseracing. Membership came with from different areas, classes many advantages, especially education One of the easiest ways to tell a and backgrounds speak in which students cultivated “The person’s class was the way they spoke. differently in the US? Make a list of Queen’s English” and mingled with For example, people in lower class words, phrases and speech patterns those who shared that dialect. regions might drop the “h” sound (such heard in the US which cause you to as a “’urricanes ‘ardly ‘appen”), while make an assumption about the higher classes dropped the “r” speaker. What is the relationship sound (“proper” sounds almost between speech and prejudice in like “prop-ah”). Prejudice America today? based on speech was common and still exists today. The costumes, designed by Judith Bowden, also help distinguish the classes. Costumes for the lower class Henry Higgins uses have a steampunk the most modern aesthetic to create methods in phonetics. a feeling of danger. Steampunk combines Edwardian and Victorian fashions with edgy, industrial elements. The upper- class costumes have the regal style of Alexander McQueen. BRITISH WOMEN IN THE EarLY 1900S omen’s roles in British society were slowly changing. In 1869, the first petition Wfor women suffrage (voting rights) was presented to Parliament, and from 1911 to 1915 the on marriage. Becoming a lady in a flower shop movement reached a frenzy. Suffragists did radical would mean Eliza could make 300 pounds a year, things like smashing windows, planting bombs but how could she make this transition? How and going on hunger strikes to get attention. could poor women assert their independence? In what ways were upper-class women also The movement was mostly led by women who trapped? had the ability (money) to do so. Women like Eliza, who made only 38 pounds a year, could not How does the musical depict the role of women? afford to get an education. This paralyzed them How is Eliza treated by the men in her life? How in a low social class and made them dependent does Eliza respond to this? l Helpful Hints for Theater Audiences As an audience member at the theater, FROM THE DIRECTOR’S NOTEBOOK YOU are part of the show! Just as you see and hear the actors onstage, they “My Fair Lady is a potent story about class – and the rigid can see and hear you in the audience. social structures, which confine us. This musical hits the To help the performers do their best, please remember the following: sweet spot of our contemporary awareness of class.

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