My Fair Lady question

[Deleted]

Jan 28, 2021 11:10:29 GMT TallPaul said:

Probably just me, but I've always called them 'tabs' scenes, as in they take place in front of the tabs. Being quite tall, I always seemed to be allocated tabs duty, as I could pull them closed, then open, faster than anyone else.

To use Guys and Dolls as an example, watching it t'other Christmas at the world-famous Crucible Theatre, which doesn't have tabs of course, I kept thinking to myself "that's a tabs scene...and another tabs scene..."

Yes and it's funny, sometimes those scenes seem redundant watching them through a modern lens especially with contemporary set designs/productions... I remember thinking the same in the Chichester revival in 2014 with G&D. Also for 'The King and I', the Puzzlement reprise sung by Louis/the Prince was done in front of a tab to facilitate the scene change for Anna's bedroom I believe, and that little duet is often dropped now in modern productions because it's not required (the show is already long enough!)

[eulenspiegel]

a bit off topic

but here Diana Damrau singing

My Fair Lady in a german TV show...it was her first role after college

[tmesis]

Damrau gives a good performance (shame about the tasteless accompaniment.) I Could have Danced all Night fares well when sung by opera singers. Te Kanawa is good but a bit bland - she has one of the most beautiful voices in opera but rarely really lets go. Renee Fleming starts off really well in a live performance, you think it's going to be the best ever but then in verse two has a complete lack of taste and starts pulling the vocal line around hideously. My favourite 'operatic' performance is Angela Gheorghiu. She has done it several times and seems to use it as her standard encore when singing live - there's even a version in Romanian. However, nothing can touch Julie Andrews' version from the original Broadway recording - her trademark, slightly under the note attack, is hugely effecting and nobody else comes close to the ecstatic feeling of wide eyed wonder she's able to evoke.

[BurlyBeaR]

I’m listening to Julie Andrews autobiography at the mo and she says that by the end of the West End run of MFL she was well and truly over it, riddled with illness and exhaustion and had to be let out of her contract early. She goes in to say that despite everyone thinking she was peeved at the film role being given to Audrey Hepburn, it was that which allowed Julie to do Sound of Music for which she was very grateful.

[tmesis]

The first Julie Andrews autobiography, 'Home,' is very good but the second one, 'Homework' is quite disappointing - a dull listing of her film roles with few insights.

Incidentally the best book about My Fair Lady is 'Loverly' by Dominic McHugh - he goes into forensic detail about the creation of the musical.

[Deleted]

Jan 30, 2021 12:51:29 GMT tmesis said:

The first Julie Andrews autobiography, 'Home,' is very good but the second one, 'Homework' is quite disappointing - a dull listing of her film roles with few insights.

Incidentally the best book about My Fair Lady is 'Loverly' by Dominic McHugh - he goes into forensic detail about the creation of the musical.

I agree, I started Julie's 'Home Work' book last year and stopped half way through out of boredom. I still have yet to finish it. There's nothing exciting about it, unfortunately.

I agree, McHugh's Loverly is brilliant, quite academic in parts (it's based on his PhD thesis), but some great insights.

[Someone in a tree]

This productions sounds really interesting. Ascot looks like a real coup and I like the idea of Higgins study as as laboratory.

www.nytimes.com/1993/12/10/theater/review-theater-my-fair-lady-a-darker-side-to-the-fable-of-a-flower-girl.html

[dippy]

I gave up on Home Work too, I'll attempt to finish it one day but I felt like it was a lot of stuff that has been repeated over and over again.

I've got a My Fair Lady question, today my sister decided that she had some interest in seeing the film (surprised me, she doesn't like musicals), I then went on a dvd hunt telling her I thought I'd got it in Switzerland and it'd be funny to hear some of the German. Unfortunately I got the dvd here so I was wrong about that but she did then ask me if I had any idea what Eliza sounds like in German. Is it a cockneyised version of German or is it a specific accent? I've seen a production in German but I can't remember. Anyone know? Also what about in other languages?

[Someone in a tree]

My German ex from Stutgart performed in it at High School. Their Eliza apparently had a Berlin accent. I'm not sure if that's a standard countrywide approach though. It's sounds very West German / GDR to me

On YouTube is various clips from the Komishce Oper production. You may find something there (you will also see lots of gramaphones in those clips!).

A German language cast recording is on Spotify. Maybe that could indicate something?

[TallPaul]

Sound of Musicals is currently being repeated on BBC4 and iPlayer, with the final 10 minutes of Episode 1 covering My Fair Lady. Fortunately, I'm a bit behind, so it's still quite fresh in my mind.

Neil Brand attributes its success, especially in America, to it being about the British class system, something Alan Jay Lerner was familiar with from his school days. Does it follow, then, that in those countries with a class system of their own, the characters and their accents can be transplanted, but elsewhere, like the USA, it can't?

Anyway, well worth watching, or re-watching, especially as the 10 minutes before covers the world-famous Crucible Theatre's production of Annie Get Your Gun. 😉

[Mr Snow]

Interesting because in his prologue Shaw stated that class determined by accent, was an English thing. I believe Lerner used this thought to set up the drama. Perhaps they was wrong and it's success is because its a universal problem that we all can recognise. But Ascot etc are specifically English and key scenes written into the telling. Are there theatrical creations more English than Henry Higgins or Alfred P Doolittle?


“It is impossible for an Englishman to open his mouth without making some other Englishman hate or despise him”,

[dippy]

Feb 3, 2021 9:03:25 GMT Someone in a tree said:

My German ex from Stutgart performed in it at High School. Their Eliza apparently had a Berlin accent. I'm not sure if that's a standard countrywide approach though. It's sounds very West German / GDR to me

On YouTube is various clips from the Komishce Oper production. You may find something there (you will also see lots of gramaphones in those clips!).

A German language cast recording is on Spotify. Maybe that could indicate something?

Thanks, a Berlin accent, interesting. Unfortunately my knowledge of different German accents isn't good enough to be able to pin point the location well enough if I have a listen, I'd only really be able to know if it was from southern Germany. I guess I could go on a youtube/spotify exploration one day and see what I discover.