Me and Juliet
Encyclopedia
Me and Juliet is a musical
comedy by Richard Rodgers
(music) and Oscar Hammerstein II
(lyrics and book) and their sixth stage collaboration. The work tells a story of romance backstage at a long-running musical: assistant stage manager Larry woos chorus girl Jeanie behind the back of her electrician boyfriend, Bob. Me and Juliet premiered in 1953 and was not considered a success, although it ran for much of a year on Broadway
and returned a small profit to its backers. The show received no Tony Award
nominations.
Rodgers had long wanted to write a musical comedy about the cast and crew backstage at a theatre. After Rodgers and Hammerstein
had another hit with The King and I
, Rodgers proposed the backstage project to his partner. Hammerstein was unenthusiastic, thinking the subject matter trivial, but agreed to do the project. The play required complex machinery, designed by Jo Mielziner
, so that the audience could view action not only on the stage of the theatre where the show-within-the-show (also named Me and Juliet) takes place, but in the wings and on the light bridge (high above the stage, from which the lighting technicians train spotlights) as well.
When Me and Juliet began tryout performances in Cleveland, the duo realized that the show had problems with the plot and staging. Extensive revisions during the remaining Cleveland and Boston tryouts failed to cure the difficulties with the plot, which the critics considered weak and uninteresting. The show was met with less than favorable reviews, though Mielziner's staging won praise from audience and critics. The show closed once it had exhausted its advance sales. With the exception of a short run in Chicago, there was no national tour, and the show is almost never seen—although a small-scale production was presented by London's Finborough Theatre
in 2010.
opened in 1943; it was Rodgers and Hammerstein's first work together and a massive hit. Soon after Oklahoma! opened, Rodgers began considering the idea of a musical set backstage at a theatre staging a musical. The production could explore different areas of the backstage world. Rodgers also saw it as the opportunity to write a pure musical comedy, without the serious themes which had marked their early works—such as the attacks on racism in South Pacific
, and the cultural tolerance in The King and I.
Hammerstein was initially unenthusiastic, thinking the subject matter trivial, but Rodgers pressed the matter. It was Hammerstein's turn to give in to his partner; Rodgers had agreed to the project that became the 1947 musical, Allegro
, their initial failure, under pressure from Hammerstein, who had long dreamed of doing a serious musical about an ordinary man. According to Stephen Sondheim
, a protégé of Hammerstein, "Oscar was able to keep the partnership together by taking Dick's suggestion [for a backstage musical] , which he did not want to take." As the two discussed the backstage idea, Hammerstein became more enthusiastic, suggesting that the show start with the stage entirely bare, as if the audience had come in not at performance time but at another time during the day. Such effects are today well-known following the success of other "backstagers" such as A Chorus Line
; in the early 1950s they were unrealized and novel.
The two discussed the matter at a meeting in Palm Beach, Florida
, in early 1952, where Rodgers was vacationing as he finished his melodic sketches for the television program Victory at Sea
. Rodgers suggested dispensing with the overture, reserving that for the overture of the show-within-the-show. Following another meeting in mid-1952, they called in long-time Rodgers and Hammerstein stage designer Jo Mielziner
and hired him to design the sets. Mielziner confirmed that a scene could be played part onstage and part in the backstage world, but that this would be expensive. In August 1952, Hammerstein began a sketch of the plot; by early October he had a near-complete first draft. As the show was to be musical comedy, the pair hired one of the top musical comedy directors, George Abbott
, who accepted the position without reading the script. He regretted the haste of this decision as soon as he read the script, finding it sentimental and melodramatic. He confided his concerns to the pair; in response, Hammerstein told him to make whatever changes in the script he thought best. With Hammerstein's permission, Abbott made major changes to the plot.
Hammerstein had only briefly described the show-within-the-show. Fearing the show would be uninteresting, Abbott hoped that some highlights would be furnished when the show-within-the-show, as yet only briefly described by Hammerstein, was fleshed out. According to author and composer Ethan Mordden
in his book about the duo's works, Hammerstein thought the show-within-the-show was to be:
Hammerstein included an incident he had seen when he was a neophyte assistant stage manager: a chorus boy came up to a chorus girl and asked to use some of her mascara—to disguise a hole in the boy's black socks. Hammerstein stated, "we were religious in keeping away from the trite things—the kindly old stage door man named Pop, the pretty little understudy who replaces the star on opening night. We steered clear, too, of the backstage story of a company putting on a new show, with all the anxieties of the actors and producers ... It seemed right to focus on a show which is already running because we wanted to tell a story about a community, the backstage community, and this community becomes settled and established after a show opens."
In addition to Abbott, the duo recruited other professionals experienced in musical comedy. Choreographer Robert Alton
had worked in such hits as Panama Hattie
and in movie musicals. Don Walker
was hired to do the orchestrations; his would be simpler than those of Robert Russell Bennett
, who usually performed that function in the pair's musicals. Irene Sharaff
was engaged to design the more than 300 costumes which would be needed. The show was originally named Hercules and Juliet, but they soon changed it to Me and Juliet. The Majestic Theatre, which Rodgers and Hammerstein desired to have for Me and Juliet, was currently occupied by their South Pacific, four years into its run. Arrangements were made to shift South Pacific to the Broadway Theatre, though due to schedule conflicts, this meant moving that show to Boston for five weeks.
The entire action of the show takes place in and close to a Broadway theatre in which the long-running musical "Me and Juliet " (the "show-within-the-show") is playing. The setting is the early 1950s.
Jeanie leaves, and Bob appears. Bob tells Sidney he likes dating Jeanie, but does not plan to marry her. When Sidney jokes that Jeanie can do better than Bob, the larger man momentarily chokes him. Jeanie sees this, adding to her doubts about Bob. Larry, the assistant stage manager, is also attracted to Jeanie (reprise of "That's the Way it Happens").
Stage manager Mac sees to the final preparations, and the overture to the internal show is played by the orchestra, led by Dario, the conductor ("Overture to Me and Juliet"). The internal show's curtain rises ("Marriage Type Love"): the main male character, "Me" (performed by Charlie, a singer), tells the audience about the girl he wants to marry, Juliet (Lily, a singer). He also tells the audience of the girl he is determined not to marry, Carmen, who scares him. "Me" feels Carmen (the lead female dancing role) is better suited to his boss, Don Juan (the lead male dancer). As the internal show continues, Bob and Sidney are on the light bridge. Bob identifies with Don Juan for his reluctance to marry ("Keep It Gay").
Another day at Me and Juliet, and the dancers are practicing under Mac's supervision (conclusion of "Keep It Gay"). At Larry's urging, Jeanie decides to audition for the position of second understudy for the role of Juliet. On learning this, Mac takes Larry aside and warns him never to get involved with a cast member of a show while in charge of it. No sooner has Mac said this than his girlfriend Betty (currently in the show across the street) auditions for the role of Carmen. The producer gives her the role. As Larry looks on with amusement, Mac accepts this professionally, then stamps off in disgust.
Jeanie practices for her own audition ("No Other Love"), and Larry tells her that the audience will accept her if she's "a real kid" like Juliet, but reject her if she's a "phony" ("The Big Black Giant"). Larry desires a romance with Jeannie, but fears the larger and stronger Bob.
Several months pass, during which Jeanie gets the job as second understudy. Larry and Jeanie are meeting secretly and keeping their budding romance from Bob. The rest of the cast is aware of their dates—one dancer spotted them in a chili restaurant on Eighth Avenue
.
Mac, true to his principles, has dumped Betty, but the two are still attracted to each other. Betty enjoys acting ("It's Me"). As she performs in the internal show, Bob and Sidney are on the light bridge again.
Bob has been fooled by Jeanie's lies about why they are not going out, and is enlightened when Sidney lets slip that Larry and Jeanie are seeing each other. Bob demands proof, and Sidney tells Bob to watch what happens in the wings during the upcoming Act 1 finale to Me and Juliet. Bob sees Larry and Jeanie kiss after she comes offstage with a tray of flowers, an action caught by Bob's spotlight. Mac enters, grasps the situation, sends Larry away, then puts the tray back in Jeanie's hands and pushes her onstage. She is pursued by Bob's spotlight, which relentlessly follows her around the stage as more and more of the dancers become aware something has gone badly wrong. Bob drops a sandbag from the light bridge; it knocks the tray Jeanie is holding to the ground. Mac orders the curtain lowered in front of a stage in panic.
Ruby, the company manager, sends Larry and Jeannie down to the stage to continue the play. After Bob and Mac recover, Ruby informs Bob that Larry and Jeanie had secretly married earlier that day, and, surprised, the electrician leaves. Mac, fearful of more mayhem, goes in search of him. As Mac exits, the phone rings, and Ruby takes the call. It is the producer, calling for Mac to transfer him to another show, thereby setting him free to resume his romance with Betty.
Onstage, Me and Juliet is concluding. After the internal show finishes ("Finale to Me and Juliet"), Larry, who will be the new stage manager, insists on rehearsing a scene from the show. Seeing Bob enter with a scowl, Larry orders him and Sidney to be present the next morning to re-angle the lights. Taken aback, and rather sheepishly, Bob says "I didn't know you were married" before quietly leaving, after stating, "I'll be here, I guess." Jeanie is congratulated by her showmates, but Larry, all business, waves them to their places to rehearse the scene. As Lily has had to leave, Jeanie stands in for her as Juliet, while Larry sings the part of Me in the scene, as the curtain falls ("Finale of Our Play").
, who had just originated Sister Sarah Brown in Guys and Dolls
, was given the leading role of chorus girl Jeanie. For Larry, the assistant stage manager who falls in love with Jeanie, they cast Bill Hayes, a well-known stage and television actor. William Tabbert
, the original Lt. Joe Cable in South Pacific
was considered for the part of Larry, but lost out because he was thought to be too tall to be afraid of Mark Dawson, hired as the towering bully Bob.
Chorus auditions began March 10, 1953, at Broadway's Majestic Theatre; Rodgers, Hammerstein, and Abbott listened to more than 1,000 people. Rehearsals opened at the Majestic for principals and the Alvin Theatre
for dancers. According to Saul Pett, a freelance reporter who was allowed to observe the rehearsals, "everyone seems relaxed except Hammerstein." The lyricist's son James
served as second assistant stage manager. James Hammerstein remembered having a difficult relationship with Rodgers; the composer suggested James do his work from front of house
, rather than from backstage. "I think he thought it was his show and his bailiwick. Why should a Hammerstein be back there?" James Hammerstein found the lead female dancer attractive, and asked her out. Just before the date, Rodgers fired her, telling James Hammerstein to break the news.
Pett recorded the technical problems which had to be solved to accomplish the complex staging:
During the rehearsals, the duo took out two production numbers, "Wake Up, Little Theatre" and "Dance", concerned that the show was running long. The actress playing Juliet in the internal play proved to be a fine singer but a poor actress; she was replaced by Helena Scott. Abbott had few negative comments after the final New York run-through, and the company entrained for Cleveland, where the first tryouts were to be, in high spirits, sleeping little on the train ride. RCA Records
put up the $350,000 cost of the production in exchange for a fifty-percent interest and rights to the original cast recording
.
The tryouts in Cleveland were at the Hanna Theatre
. The dress rehearsal the night before the initial performance revealed a number of problems with the show; during the first act alone, Hammerstein dictated eight pages of notes. The sandbag which falls from the light bridge near the end of Act 1 dropped off-cue, nearly striking Isabel Bigley, who played Jeanie. Pett remembered that the rehearsal was stopped often, as Rodgers sought to work out each problem as it arose, and the rehearsal, which began at 8 p.m. did not end until 2 a.m.
The Cleveland premiere on the evening of April 20, 1953, saw a distinguished crowd turn out. When the stage backdrop failed to come down on time, Hammerstein was heard to mutter, "Damn and damn and damn! This is a new way: they saved it for the performance!" Nevertheless, the crowd gave the show a rousing welcome. The Cleveland critics thought well of the show, but were concerned about the weak story. After the Cleveland reactions and problems, according to Rodgers biographer Meryle Secrest
, "what had seemed to be a show needing minor adjustments became a musical in serious trouble". Bigley remembered that she had just come from a hit and "there just wasn't the same energy". Expecting an overture to begin the show, the audience talked throughout the initial scenes before being quieted by the internal show's overture; in response, the duo abandoned Hammerstein's concept and opened with an overture.
In contrast to the levity on their first train ride, the company was downcast and exhausted en route from Cleveland to Boston for the final tryouts. The show opened in Boston on May 6. A majority of the Boston critics liked the show, and expressed confidence that Rodgers and Hammerstein could fix the problems with the plot. The pair took out one song, "Meat and Potatoes", which was felt to be too raunchy. After watching it performed by Joan McCracken
, who played Betty (Carmen in the play-within-the-play), the pair decided it had too many double entendres and cut it. It was replaced by "We Deserve Each Other", which the pair had written in a Cleveland hotel room. Another cut song, "You Never Had It So Good", included lyrics which satirized the duo's own earlier efforts. Its lyrics, "I'll sew, I'll bake / I'll try to make your evenings all enchanted. / My honeycake, / I'm yours to take, but don't take me for granted", alluded to two songs from South Pacific
, "Some Enchanted Evening
" and "Honey Bun". Audiences continued to greet the show warmly.
During the Boston previews, the duo heard the audience praise the sets, a reaction which usually augered ill for the show itself. Hammerstein wrote to The King and I director John van Druten:
on May 28, 1953 at the Majestic Theatre. Large advance sales guaranteed a considerable run; by the start of November, it had paid back its advance, and closed after 358 performances, paying a small profit to RCA. Thomas Hischak, in his The Rodgers and Hammerstein Encyclopedia, suggests that business fell off after the advance was exhausted "because audiences had come to expect more from a Rodgers and Hammerstein musical". According to Frederick W. Nolan in his book about the duo's works, "despite a $500,000 advance sale, despite a ten-month run (which, for anyone except Rodgers and Hammerstein, would have represented a major success), and despite an eventual profit in excess of $100,000, Me and Juliet has to be classed as a failure".
The backstage drama portrayed in the musical was matched by actual difficulties among the cast. McCracken, who played Betty, was the wife of choreographer Bob Fosse
and became pregnant during the run. Bill Hayes later wrote that she lost her baby through miscarriage about the same time she lost her husband to Gwen Verdon
. Hayes noted that in the fifteen months he played Larry, he did not recall ever having a conversation with Isabel Bigley, who was supposedly his love interest and wife: "I doubt that the audience ever believed we were deeply in love." The show received no Tony Award
nominations. During the run, Hammerstein followed his usual practice of visiting the theatre now and again to ensure that the performers were not taking liberties with his book. Upon his return, Hammerstein's secretary asked him how the show was going. The lyricist thought for a second, then said only "I hate that show."
No national tour was attempted, but the show did have a six-week run in Chicago in 1954. Among those who played in the chorus during the New York run was future star Shirley MacLaine
; Shirley Jones
was a chorus girl in the Chicago performances. Subsequent productions include one by Kansas City's Starlight Theatre
in 1955. Equity Library Theatre produced it in New York in 1970; It returned to New York, though not to Broadway, in 2002 with the York Theatre
. A London production was presented by the Finborough Theatre
in 2010 in a fifty-seat theatre; the production was billed as the show's European premiere.
Act 2
, Rodgers's score "found [Rodgers & Hammerstein] going for impish, nimble, the sound of the Hit Parade as reimagined by [them]". Rodgers borrowed the music for "No Other Love" from his award-winning score for Victory at Sea.
RCA, which had the recording rights, arranged for singer Perry Como
to record "No Other Love". The recording was rushed onto the market to coincide with the show's Broadway opening, and became a number-one hit for Como on the Disc Jockey chart, though #2 as a best seller, remaining on the charts for 22 weeks.
Hischak described the original cast album as "surprisingly lively and mostly enjoyable for a musical that was considered so dull on stage." He pointed to "Intermission Talk" as a number which probably works better in a recording than on stage and states that "there is no mistaking the hypnotic power of 'No Other Love'". The original cast recording was released on compact disc in 1993.
critic Brooks Atkinson
praised the acting and choreography, but stated, "This is their Valentine to show business, expressed in the form of a show-within-a-show; and it has just about everything except an intelligible story." Herald-Tribune critic Walter Kerr
noted that "Rodgers and Hammerstein have come perilously close to writing a show-without-a-show." George Jean Nathan
of the Journal American
stated that "Hammerstein's book has the effect of hanging idly around waiting for an idea to come to him." Robert Coleman of the Daily Mirror
noted, "Having set new high standards for musicals throughout the world, Rodgers and Hammerstein dipped into the lower drawer of their desk for Me and Juliet. It proved a big disappointment for this dyed-in-the-wool R. & H. fan." John Chapman of the Daily News
commented, "It is at its most interesting when Jo Mielziner's sets are in motion". According to Steven Suskin in his compilation of Broadway opening night reviews, the seven major New York critics allotted the production no raves, one favorable review, one mixed, four unfavorable, and one pan.
One well-received number was "Keep It Gay", a song which in rehearsal had been assigned to several different performers before ending with Bob. The song was liked in part due to the novelty of its setting: it begins with Bob singing from the light bridge high above the stage; following a blackout the internal play performers take it up on the stage below, and following another blackout, the performers are seen in their workout clothes, at a rehearsal some weeks later. Hammerstein gave credit for the scene to Mielziner, and suggested that it demonstrated one way in which the book had affected the music.
Abbott stated that there were two reasons for what he considered to be the show's failure. The first was Rodgers and Hammerstein's overconfidence; they thought of themselves as Broadway's "Golden Boys" who could do no wrong. The other was the play-within-the-play, which had not been thoroughly thought out by anyone. According to Abbott, Hammerstein remained "positively Sphinx-like" on the subject. At a loss to understand the characters of the play-within-the play, Alton came up with nothing more than routine song-and-dance numbers. During the run, the duo approached choreographer Jerome Robbins
and asked him if he could fix the dances. Robbins said that he could, but he would not, as "it would kill Bob Alton". According to Hammerstein biographer Hugh Fordin, "[the] intended contrast between onstage and backstage life was never achieved because the onstage show was so tepid and confusing."
"That's the Way it Happens" was included in the 1996 stage version of Rodgers and Hammerstein's 1945 movie
musical, State Fair
. According to David Lewis in his history of the Broadway musical, "The Rodgers and Hammerstein office has, it would appear, given up on[later R&H musical] Pipe Dream and [ Me and ] Juliet ever finding an audience ... so these songs are up for grabs."
Composer and author Ethan Mordden
, in his book on the duo's works, wrote of the conceptual difficulties which Rodgers and Hammerstein had with the musical:
:
Characters in "Me and Juliet" (play-within-the-play):
Musical theatre
Musical theatre is a form of theatre combining songs, spoken dialogue, acting, and dance. The emotional content of the piece – humor, pathos, love, anger – as well as the story itself, is communicated through the words, music, movement and technical aspects of the entertainment as an...
comedy by Richard Rodgers
Richard Rodgers
Richard Charles Rodgers was an American composer of music for more than 900 songs and for 43 Broadway musicals. He also composed music for films and television. He is best known for his songwriting partnerships with the lyricists Lorenz Hart and Oscar Hammerstein II...
(music) and Oscar Hammerstein II
Oscar Hammerstein II
Oscar Greeley Clendenning Hammerstein II was an American librettist, theatrical producer, and theatre director of musicals for almost forty years. Hammerstein won eight Tony Awards and was twice awarded an Academy Award for "Best Original Song". Many of his songs are standard repertoire for...
(lyrics and book) and their sixth stage collaboration. The work tells a story of romance backstage at a long-running musical: assistant stage manager Larry woos chorus girl Jeanie behind the back of her electrician boyfriend, Bob. Me and Juliet premiered in 1953 and was not considered a success, although it ran for much of a year on Broadway
Broadway theatre
Broadway theatre, commonly called simply Broadway, refers to theatrical performances presented in one of the 40 professional theatres with 500 or more seats located in the Theatre District centered along Broadway, and in Lincoln Center, in Manhattan in New York City...
and returned a small profit to its backers. The show received no Tony Award
Tony Award
The Antoinette Perry Award for Excellence in Theatre, more commonly known as a Tony Award, recognizes achievement in live Broadway theatre. The awards are presented by the American Theatre Wing and The Broadway League at an annual ceremony in New York City. The awards are given for Broadway...
nominations.
Rodgers had long wanted to write a musical comedy about the cast and crew backstage at a theatre. After Rodgers and Hammerstein
Rodgers and Hammerstein
Richard Rodgers and Oscar Hammerstein II were a well-known American songwriting duo, usually referred to as Rodgers and Hammerstein. They created a string of popular Broadway musicals in the 1940s and 1950s during what is considered the golden age of the medium...
had another hit with The King and I
The King and I
The King and I is a stage musical, the fifth by the team of Richard Rodgers and Oscar Hammerstein II. The work is based on the 1944 novel Anna and the King of Siam by Margaret Landon and derives from the memoirs of Anna Leonowens, who became governess to the children of King Mongkut of Siam in...
, Rodgers proposed the backstage project to his partner. Hammerstein was unenthusiastic, thinking the subject matter trivial, but agreed to do the project. The play required complex machinery, designed by Jo Mielziner
Jo Mielziner
Joseph "Jo" Mielziner was an American theatrical scenic, and lighting designer born in Paris, France. He is "the most successful set designer of the Golden era of Broadway", and worked on both stage plays and musicals.-Career:He was the son of artist Leo Mielziner, Sr...
, so that the audience could view action not only on the stage of the theatre where the show-within-the-show (also named Me and Juliet) takes place, but in the wings and on the light bridge (high above the stage, from which the lighting technicians train spotlights) as well.
When Me and Juliet began tryout performances in Cleveland, the duo realized that the show had problems with the plot and staging. Extensive revisions during the remaining Cleveland and Boston tryouts failed to cure the difficulties with the plot, which the critics considered weak and uninteresting. The show was met with less than favorable reviews, though Mielziner's staging won praise from audience and critics. The show closed once it had exhausted its advance sales. With the exception of a short run in Chicago, there was no national tour, and the show is almost never seen—although a small-scale production was presented by London's Finborough Theatre
Finborough Theatre
The Finborough Theatre is a fifty seat theatre in the Earls Court area of London, United Kingdom , which presents new British writing, UK and premieres of new plays, primarily from the English speaking world including North America, Canada, Scotland and Ireland, music theatre, and rarely seen...
in 2010.
Inception
The origins of Me and Juliet can be traced to the early days of the relationship between Rodgers and Hammerstein. The musical Oklahoma!Oklahoma!
Oklahoma! is the first musical written by composer Richard Rodgers and librettist Oscar Hammerstein II. The musical is based on Lynn Riggs' 1931 play, Green Grow the Lilacs. Set in Oklahoma Territory outside the town of Claremore in 1906, it tells the story of cowboy Curly McLain and his romance...
opened in 1943; it was Rodgers and Hammerstein's first work together and a massive hit. Soon after Oklahoma! opened, Rodgers began considering the idea of a musical set backstage at a theatre staging a musical. The production could explore different areas of the backstage world. Rodgers also saw it as the opportunity to write a pure musical comedy, without the serious themes which had marked their early works—such as the attacks on racism in South Pacific
South Pacific (musical)
South Pacific is a musical with music by Richard Rodgers, lyrics by Oscar Hammerstein II and book by Hammerstein and Joshua Logan. The story draws from James A. Michener's Pulitzer Prize-winning 1947 book Tales of the South Pacific, weaving together characters and elements from several of its...
, and the cultural tolerance in The King and I.
Hammerstein was initially unenthusiastic, thinking the subject matter trivial, but Rodgers pressed the matter. It was Hammerstein's turn to give in to his partner; Rodgers had agreed to the project that became the 1947 musical, Allegro
Allegro (musical)
Allegro is a musical by Richard Rodgers and Oscar Hammerstein II , their third collaboration for the stage. Opening on Broadway on October 10, 1947, the musical centers on the life of Joseph Taylor, Jr.—Joe follows in the footsteps of his father as a doctor, but is tempted by fortune and fame at...
, their initial failure, under pressure from Hammerstein, who had long dreamed of doing a serious musical about an ordinary man. According to Stephen Sondheim
Stephen Sondheim
Stephen Joshua Sondheim is an American composer and lyricist for stage and film. He is the winner of an Academy Award, multiple Tony Awards including the Special Tony Award for Lifetime Achievement in the Theatre, multiple Grammy Awards, a Pulitzer Prize and the Laurence Olivier Award...
, a protégé of Hammerstein, "Oscar was able to keep the partnership together by taking Dick's suggestion
A Chorus Line
A Chorus Line is a 1975 musical about Broadway dancers auditioning for spots on a chorus line. The book was authored by James Kirkwood, Jr. and Nicholas Dante, lyrics were written by Edward Kleban, and music was composed by Marvin Hamlisch....
; in the early 1950s they were unrealized and novel.
The two discussed the matter at a meeting in Palm Beach, Florida
Palm Beach, Florida
The Town of Palm Beach is an incorporated town in Palm Beach County, Florida, United States. The Intracoastal Waterway separates it from the neighboring cities of West Palm Beach and Lake Worth...
, in early 1952, where Rodgers was vacationing as he finished his melodic sketches for the television program Victory at Sea
Victory at Sea
Victory at Sea is a documentary television series about naval warfare during World War II that was originally broadcast by NBC in the USA in 1952–1953. It was condensed into a film in 1954. The music soundtrack, by Richard Rodgers and Robert Russell Bennett, was re-recorded and sold as record albums...
. Rodgers suggested dispensing with the overture, reserving that for the overture of the show-within-the-show. Following another meeting in mid-1952, they called in long-time Rodgers and Hammerstein stage designer Jo Mielziner
Jo Mielziner
Joseph "Jo" Mielziner was an American theatrical scenic, and lighting designer born in Paris, France. He is "the most successful set designer of the Golden era of Broadway", and worked on both stage plays and musicals.-Career:He was the son of artist Leo Mielziner, Sr...
and hired him to design the sets. Mielziner confirmed that a scene could be played part onstage and part in the backstage world, but that this would be expensive. In August 1952, Hammerstein began a sketch of the plot; by early October he had a near-complete first draft. As the show was to be musical comedy, the pair hired one of the top musical comedy directors, George Abbott
George Abbott
George Francis Abbott was an American theater producer and director, playwright, screenwriter, and film director and producer whose career spanned more than nine decades.-Early years:...
, who accepted the position without reading the script. He regretted the haste of this decision as soon as he read the script, finding it sentimental and melodramatic. He confided his concerns to the pair; in response, Hammerstein told him to make whatever changes in the script he thought best. With Hammerstein's permission, Abbott made major changes to the plot.
Hammerstein had only briefly described the show-within-the-show. Fearing the show would be uninteresting, Abbott hoped that some highlights would be furnished when the show-within-the-show, as yet only briefly described by Hammerstein, was fleshed out. According to author and composer Ethan Mordden
Ethan Mordden
Ethan Mordden is an American author.-Biography:Mordden was raised in Pennsylvania, in Venice, Italy, and on Long Island, and is a graduate of Friends Academy in Locust Valley, New York, and the University of Pennsylvania...
in his book about the duo's works, Hammerstein thought the show-within-the-show was to be:
something bizarre, to stand out and amaze us, the better to set off the plain life of the actor ... We shall imagine some rather advanced musical of the near future, something beyond even AllegroAllegro (musical)Allegro is a musical by Richard Rodgers and Oscar Hammerstein II , their third collaboration for the stage. Opening on Broadway on October 10, 1947, the musical centers on the life of Joseph Taylor, Jr.—Joe follows in the footsteps of his father as a doctor, but is tempted by fortune and fame at...
, with archetypical characters—a simple hero and his lovable Juliet, the rapacious Don Juan and his volatile Carmen. Then the audience will always know where it is. Contrast is the key. The show-within must look and sound, at every moment, as far from real life as possible.
Hammerstein included an incident he had seen when he was a neophyte assistant stage manager: a chorus boy came up to a chorus girl and asked to use some of her mascara—to disguise a hole in the boy's black socks. Hammerstein stated, "we were religious in keeping away from the trite things—the kindly old stage door man named Pop, the pretty little understudy who replaces the star on opening night. We steered clear, too, of the backstage story of a company putting on a new show, with all the anxieties of the actors and producers ... It seemed right to focus on a show which is already running because we wanted to tell a story about a community, the backstage community, and this community becomes settled and established after a show opens."
In addition to Abbott, the duo recruited other professionals experienced in musical comedy. Choreographer Robert Alton
Robert Alton
Robert Alton was an American dancer and choreographer, a major figure in dance choreography of Broadway and Hollywood musicals from the 1930s through to the early 1950s...
had worked in such hits as Panama Hattie
Panama Hattie
Panama Hattie is a musical with music and lyrics by Cole Porter and book by Herbert Fields and B. G. DeSylva. It is also the title of a 1942 MGM musical based upon the play...
and in movie musicals. Don Walker
Don Walker (orchestrator)
Don Walker was a prolific Broadway orchestrator, who also composed music for musicals and one film and worked as a conductor in television.-Biography:...
was hired to do the orchestrations; his would be simpler than those of Robert Russell Bennett
Robert Russell Bennett
Robert Russell Bennett was an American composer and arranger, best known for his orchestration of many well-known Broadway and Hollywood musicals by other composers such as Irving Berlin, George Gershwin, Jerome Kern, Cole Porter, and Richard Rodgers. In 1957 and 2008, Bennett received Tony Awards...
, who usually performed that function in the pair's musicals. Irene Sharaff
Irene Sharaff
Irene Sharaff was an American costume designer for stage and screen. Her work earned her five Academy Awards and a Tony Award.- Background :...
was engaged to design the more than 300 costumes which would be needed. The show was originally named Hercules and Juliet, but they soon changed it to Me and Juliet. The Majestic Theatre, which Rodgers and Hammerstein desired to have for Me and Juliet, was currently occupied by their South Pacific, four years into its run. Arrangements were made to shift South Pacific to the Broadway Theatre, though due to schedule conflicts, this meant moving that show to Boston for five weeks.
Plot
- For theatrical terminology, see Stage (theatre)Stage (theatre)In theatre or performance arts, the stage is a designated space for the performance productions. The stage serves as a space for actors or performers and a focal point for the members of the audience...
.
The entire action of the show takes place in and close to a Broadway theatre in which the long-running musical "Me and Juliet " (the "show-within-the-show") is playing. The setting is the early 1950s.
Act 1
A half hour remains before the show is to begin. Electrician Sidney and chorus girl Jeanie are irritated at Sidney's fellow electrician, Bob, for not being there. Sidney needs Bob's help; Jeanie, Bob's girlfriend, is annoyed at being stood up. Sidney warns Jeanie that Bob may not be the right man for her; these are doubts she has too (Musical numbers: "A Very Special Day"/"That's the Way it Happens").Jeanie leaves, and Bob appears. Bob tells Sidney he likes dating Jeanie, but does not plan to marry her. When Sidney jokes that Jeanie can do better than Bob, the larger man momentarily chokes him. Jeanie sees this, adding to her doubts about Bob. Larry, the assistant stage manager, is also attracted to Jeanie (reprise of "That's the Way it Happens").
Stage manager Mac sees to the final preparations, and the overture to the internal show is played by the orchestra, led by Dario, the conductor ("Overture to Me and Juliet"). The internal show's curtain rises ("Marriage Type Love"): the main male character, "Me" (performed by Charlie, a singer), tells the audience about the girl he wants to marry, Juliet (Lily, a singer). He also tells the audience of the girl he is determined not to marry, Carmen, who scares him. "Me" feels Carmen (the lead female dancing role) is better suited to his boss, Don Juan (the lead male dancer). As the internal show continues, Bob and Sidney are on the light bridge. Bob identifies with Don Juan for his reluctance to marry ("Keep It Gay").
Another day at Me and Juliet, and the dancers are practicing under Mac's supervision (conclusion of "Keep It Gay"). At Larry's urging, Jeanie decides to audition for the position of second understudy for the role of Juliet. On learning this, Mac takes Larry aside and warns him never to get involved with a cast member of a show while in charge of it. No sooner has Mac said this than his girlfriend Betty (currently in the show across the street) auditions for the role of Carmen. The producer gives her the role. As Larry looks on with amusement, Mac accepts this professionally, then stamps off in disgust.
Jeanie practices for her own audition ("No Other Love"), and Larry tells her that the audience will accept her if she's "a real kid" like Juliet, but reject her if she's a "phony" ("The Big Black Giant"). Larry desires a romance with Jeannie, but fears the larger and stronger Bob.
Several months pass, during which Jeanie gets the job as second understudy. Larry and Jeanie are meeting secretly and keeping their budding romance from Bob. The rest of the cast is aware of their dates—one dancer spotted them in a chili restaurant on Eighth Avenue
Eighth Avenue (Manhattan)
Eighth Avenue is a north-south avenue on the West Side of Manhattan in New York City, carrying northbound traffic. Eighth Avenue begins in the West Village neighborhood at Abingdon Square and runs north for 44 blocks through Chelsea, the Garment District, Hell's Kitchen's east end, Midtown and the...
.
Mac, true to his principles, has dumped Betty, but the two are still attracted to each other. Betty enjoys acting ("It's Me"). As she performs in the internal show, Bob and Sidney are on the light bridge again.
Bob has been fooled by Jeanie's lies about why they are not going out, and is enlightened when Sidney lets slip that Larry and Jeanie are seeing each other. Bob demands proof, and Sidney tells Bob to watch what happens in the wings during the upcoming Act 1 finale to Me and Juliet. Bob sees Larry and Jeanie kiss after she comes offstage with a tray of flowers, an action caught by Bob's spotlight. Mac enters, grasps the situation, sends Larry away, then puts the tray back in Jeanie's hands and pushes her onstage. She is pursued by Bob's spotlight, which relentlessly follows her around the stage as more and more of the dancers become aware something has gone badly wrong. Bob drops a sandbag from the light bridge; it knocks the tray Jeanie is holding to the ground. Mac orders the curtain lowered in front of a stage in panic.
Act 2
In the downstairs lounge, a few minutes before the Act 2 curtain for Me and Juliet rises, the ushers comment on the remarkable conclusion to Act 1—although the audience has noticed nothing unusual ("Intermission Talk"). As Act 2 of the internal show starts, an enraged Bob is searching the theatre for Jeannie and Larry. Unable to find them, he takes up position at a bar across the street where he can watch the theatre doors ("It Feels Good"). The perspective shifts to the onstage action in Me and Juliet, where Don Juan and Carmen are on a date ("We Deserve Each Other"), before moving to the manager's office where Larry and Jeanie are hiding out ("I'm Your Girl"). Mac has only just begun his lecture to them when Bob enters through the window, having heard familiar voices. In the ensuing fight, Bob knocks out Mac, but when the electrician grabs for Jeannie, Larry strongly defends her. The fight ends when Bob accidentally hits his head on a radiator and is knocked out as well.Ruby, the company manager, sends Larry and Jeannie down to the stage to continue the play. After Bob and Mac recover, Ruby informs Bob that Larry and Jeanie had secretly married earlier that day, and, surprised, the electrician leaves. Mac, fearful of more mayhem, goes in search of him. As Mac exits, the phone rings, and Ruby takes the call. It is the producer, calling for Mac to transfer him to another show, thereby setting him free to resume his romance with Betty.
Onstage, Me and Juliet is concluding. After the internal show finishes ("Finale to Me and Juliet"), Larry, who will be the new stage manager, insists on rehearsing a scene from the show. Seeing Bob enter with a scowl, Larry orders him and Sidney to be present the next morning to re-angle the lights. Taken aback, and rather sheepishly, Bob says "I didn't know you were married" before quietly leaving, after stating, "I'll be here, I guess." Jeanie is congratulated by her showmates, but Larry, all business, waves them to their places to rehearse the scene. As Lily has had to leave, Jeanie stands in for her as Juliet, while Larry sings the part of Me in the scene, as the curtain falls ("Finale of Our Play").
Rehearsals and tryouts
The cast consisted mostly of unknowns, though Isabel BigleyIsabel Bigley
Isabel Bigley was an American actress, perhaps best remembered for originating the part of Sarah Brown in Frank Loesser's Guys and Dolls.-Biography:...
, who had just originated Sister Sarah Brown in Guys and Dolls
Guys and Dolls
Guys and Dolls is a musical with music and lyrics by Frank Loesser and book by Jo Swerling and Abe Burrows. It is based on "The Idyll of Miss Sarah Brown" and "Blood Pressure", two short stories by Damon Runyon, and also borrows characters and plot elements from other Runyon stories, most notably...
, was given the leading role of chorus girl Jeanie. For Larry, the assistant stage manager who falls in love with Jeanie, they cast Bill Hayes, a well-known stage and television actor. William Tabbert
William Tabbert
William “Bill” Tabbert was an American actor and singer primarily remembered as Lieutenant Joseph Cable in the original Broadway production of Rodgers and Hammerstein’s musical South Pacific.-Early life:...
, the original Lt. Joe Cable in South Pacific
South Pacific (musical)
South Pacific is a musical with music by Richard Rodgers, lyrics by Oscar Hammerstein II and book by Hammerstein and Joshua Logan. The story draws from James A. Michener's Pulitzer Prize-winning 1947 book Tales of the South Pacific, weaving together characters and elements from several of its...
was considered for the part of Larry, but lost out because he was thought to be too tall to be afraid of Mark Dawson, hired as the towering bully Bob.
Chorus auditions began March 10, 1953, at Broadway's Majestic Theatre; Rodgers, Hammerstein, and Abbott listened to more than 1,000 people. Rehearsals opened at the Majestic for principals and the Alvin Theatre
Neil Simon Theatre
The Neil Simon Theatre, formerly the Alvin Theatre, is a Broadway venue built in 1927 and located at 250 West 52nd Street in midtown-Manhattan....
for dancers. According to Saul Pett, a freelance reporter who was allowed to observe the rehearsals, "everyone seems relaxed except Hammerstein." The lyricist's son James
James Hammerstein
James Hammerstein was an American theatre director and producer. He was the son of Oscar Hammerstein II and his wife Dorothy ....
served as second assistant stage manager. James Hammerstein remembered having a difficult relationship with Rodgers; the composer suggested James do his work from front of house
Front of House
Front of house is primarily a theatrical term, referring to the portion of the building that is open to the public. In theatre and live music venues, it typically refers to the auditorium and foyer, as opposed to the stage and backstage areas...
, rather than from backstage. "I think he thought it was his show and his bailiwick. Why should a Hammerstein be back there?" James Hammerstein found the lead female dancer attractive, and asked her out. Just before the date, Rodgers fired her, telling James Hammerstein to break the news.
Pett recorded the technical problems which had to be solved to accomplish the complex staging:
A number of key scenes required the audience to both see the play-within-the-play and at the same time observe the realism of the stage manager's operations in the wings. To achieve this result and to make both elements simultaneous, the major part of the production had to hang on specially-constructed overhead steel tracks. Synchronized electric motors slowly moved the stage pictures off into the wings far enough to expose the stage manager's desk and actors and stagehands offstage awaiting their cues.
During the rehearsals, the duo took out two production numbers, "Wake Up, Little Theatre" and "Dance", concerned that the show was running long. The actress playing Juliet in the internal play proved to be a fine singer but a poor actress; she was replaced by Helena Scott. Abbott had few negative comments after the final New York run-through, and the company entrained for Cleveland, where the first tryouts were to be, in high spirits, sleeping little on the train ride. RCA Records
RCA Records
RCA Records is one of the flagship labels of Sony Music Entertainment. The RCA initials stand for Radio Corporation of America , which was the parent corporation from 1929 to 1985 and a partner from 1985 to 1986.RCA's Canadian unit is Sony's oldest label...
put up the $350,000 cost of the production in exchange for a fifty-percent interest and rights to the original cast recording
Cast recording
A cast recording is a recording of a musical that is intended to document the songs as they were performed in the show and experienced by the audience. An original cast recording, as the name implies, features the voices of the show's original cast...
.
The tryouts in Cleveland were at the Hanna Theatre
Hanna Theatre
The Hanna Theatre is a theater on Playhouse Square in downtown Cleveland, Ohio, United States. It is one of the original five venues built in the district, opening on March 28, 1921...
. The dress rehearsal the night before the initial performance revealed a number of problems with the show; during the first act alone, Hammerstein dictated eight pages of notes. The sandbag which falls from the light bridge near the end of Act 1 dropped off-cue, nearly striking Isabel Bigley, who played Jeanie. Pett remembered that the rehearsal was stopped often, as Rodgers sought to work out each problem as it arose, and the rehearsal, which began at 8 p.m. did not end until 2 a.m.
The Cleveland premiere on the evening of April 20, 1953, saw a distinguished crowd turn out. When the stage backdrop failed to come down on time, Hammerstein was heard to mutter, "Damn and damn and damn! This is a new way: they saved it for the performance!" Nevertheless, the crowd gave the show a rousing welcome. The Cleveland critics thought well of the show, but were concerned about the weak story. After the Cleveland reactions and problems, according to Rodgers biographer Meryle Secrest
Meryle Secrest
Meryle Secrest is an award-winning American biographer, primarily of American artists and art collectors.-Biography:Secrest was born in Bath, England and educated there. Her family emigrated to Canada, where she began her career as a journalist...
, "what had seemed to be a show needing minor adjustments became a musical in serious trouble". Bigley remembered that she had just come from a hit and "there just wasn't the same energy". Expecting an overture to begin the show, the audience talked throughout the initial scenes before being quieted by the internal show's overture; in response, the duo abandoned Hammerstein's concept and opened with an overture.
In contrast to the levity on their first train ride, the company was downcast and exhausted en route from Cleveland to Boston for the final tryouts. The show opened in Boston on May 6. A majority of the Boston critics liked the show, and expressed confidence that Rodgers and Hammerstein could fix the problems with the plot. The pair took out one song, "Meat and Potatoes", which was felt to be too raunchy. After watching it performed by Joan McCracken
Joan McCracken
Joan McCracken was an American dancer, actress, and comedian who became famous for her role as Silvie in the original 1943 production of Oklahoma!. By age 11, she was studying dance with Catherine Littlefield. She dropped out of high school to join Littlefield's ballet company...
, who played Betty (Carmen in the play-within-the-play), the pair decided it had too many double entendres and cut it. It was replaced by "We Deserve Each Other", which the pair had written in a Cleveland hotel room. Another cut song, "You Never Had It So Good", included lyrics which satirized the duo's own earlier efforts. Its lyrics, "I'll sew, I'll bake / I'll try to make your evenings all enchanted. / My honeycake, / I'm yours to take, but don't take me for granted", alluded to two songs from South Pacific
South Pacific (musical)
South Pacific is a musical with music by Richard Rodgers, lyrics by Oscar Hammerstein II and book by Hammerstein and Joshua Logan. The story draws from James A. Michener's Pulitzer Prize-winning 1947 book Tales of the South Pacific, weaving together characters and elements from several of its...
, "Some Enchanted Evening
Some Enchanted Evening (song)
"Some Enchanted Evening" is a show tune from the 1949 Rodgers and Hammerstein musical South Pacific.In the musical, it is sung as a solo by Emile de Becque, the French plantation owner, who falls in love with the American navy nurse Nellie Forbush. In this song he sings of seizing the moment so...
" and "Honey Bun". Audiences continued to greet the show warmly.
During the Boston previews, the duo heard the audience praise the sets, a reaction which usually augered ill for the show itself. Hammerstein wrote to The King and I director John van Druten:
Me and Juliet looks like a great big hit. It is a change of pace for us and in some quarters we may be criticized because it is not as high-falutin' as our most recent efforts. It is in fact an out and out musical comedy. If this be treason, make the most of it.
Production
The musical opened on BroadwayBroadway theatre
Broadway theatre, commonly called simply Broadway, refers to theatrical performances presented in one of the 40 professional theatres with 500 or more seats located in the Theatre District centered along Broadway, and in Lincoln Center, in Manhattan in New York City...
on May 28, 1953 at the Majestic Theatre. Large advance sales guaranteed a considerable run; by the start of November, it had paid back its advance, and closed after 358 performances, paying a small profit to RCA. Thomas Hischak, in his The Rodgers and Hammerstein Encyclopedia, suggests that business fell off after the advance was exhausted "because audiences had come to expect more from a Rodgers and Hammerstein musical". According to Frederick W. Nolan in his book about the duo's works, "despite a $500,000 advance sale, despite a ten-month run (which, for anyone except Rodgers and Hammerstein, would have represented a major success), and despite an eventual profit in excess of $100,000, Me and Juliet has to be classed as a failure".
The backstage drama portrayed in the musical was matched by actual difficulties among the cast. McCracken, who played Betty, was the wife of choreographer Bob Fosse
Bob Fosse
Robert Louis “Bob” Fosse was an American actor, dancer, musical theater choreographer, director, screenwriter, film editor and film director. He won an unprecedented eight Tony Awards for choreography, as well as one for direction...
and became pregnant during the run. Bill Hayes later wrote that she lost her baby through miscarriage about the same time she lost her husband to Gwen Verdon
Gwen Verdon
Gwenyth Evelyn “Gwen” Verdon was an actress and dancer who won four Tony awards for her musical comedy performances. With flaming red hair and an endearing quaver in her voice, Verdon was a critically acclaimed dancer on Broadway in the 1950s and 1960s...
. Hayes noted that in the fifteen months he played Larry, he did not recall ever having a conversation with Isabel Bigley, who was supposedly his love interest and wife: "I doubt that the audience ever believed we were deeply in love." The show received no Tony Award
Tony Award
The Antoinette Perry Award for Excellence in Theatre, more commonly known as a Tony Award, recognizes achievement in live Broadway theatre. The awards are presented by the American Theatre Wing and The Broadway League at an annual ceremony in New York City. The awards are given for Broadway...
nominations. During the run, Hammerstein followed his usual practice of visiting the theatre now and again to ensure that the performers were not taking liberties with his book. Upon his return, Hammerstein's secretary asked him how the show was going. The lyricist thought for a second, then said only "I hate that show."
No national tour was attempted, but the show did have a six-week run in Chicago in 1954. Among those who played in the chorus during the New York run was future star Shirley MacLaine
Shirley MacLaine
Shirley MacLaine is an American film and theater actress, singer, dancer, activist and author, well-known for her beliefs in new age spirituality and reincarnation. She has written a large number of autobiographical works, many dealing with her spiritual beliefs as well as her Hollywood career...
; Shirley Jones
Shirley Jones
Shirley Mae Jones is an American singer and actress of stage, film and television. In her six decades of television, she starred as wholesome characters in a number of well-known musical films, such as Oklahoma! , Carousel , and The Music Man...
was a chorus girl in the Chicago performances. Subsequent productions include one by Kansas City's Starlight Theatre
Starlight Theatre (Kansas City)
Starlight Theatre is a 7,947-seat outdoor theatre in Kansas City, Missouri, United States that stages touring Broadway shows and concerts. It is one of three remaining self-producing outdoor theatres in the U.S.-History:...
in 1955. Equity Library Theatre produced it in New York in 1970; It returned to New York, though not to Broadway, in 2002 with the York Theatre
York Theatre
The York Theatre is an Off-Broadway theatre at 619 Lexington Avenue at the corner of 54th Street in the East Midtown section of Manhattan, New York City. It is dedicated to the production of new musicals and concert productions of forgotten musicals from the past. Each season consists of three or...
. A London production was presented by the Finborough Theatre
Finborough Theatre
The Finborough Theatre is a fifty seat theatre in the Earls Court area of London, United Kingdom , which presents new British writing, UK and premieres of new plays, primarily from the English speaking world including North America, Canada, Scotland and Ireland, music theatre, and rarely seen...
in 2010 in a fifty-seat theatre; the production was billed as the show's European premiere.
Musical numbers
Act 1- "A Very Special Day" – Jeanie and trio
- "That's the Way It Happens" – Jeanie and trio
- "That's the Way It Happens" (Reprise) – Larry
- "Dance Impromptu" – Chorus, George, and trio
- "Overture to Me and Juliet" – Dario and orchestra
- "Opening of Me and Juliet" – Lily, Jim, Susie, and Charlie
- "Marriage Type Love" – Charlie, Lily, and singers
- "Keep It Gay" – Bob, Jim, and chorus
- "Keep it Gay" (Reprise) – Betty and Buzz
- "The Big Black Giant" – Larry
- "No Other LoveNo Other Love (1953 song)"No Other Love" is a show tune from the 1953 Rodgers and Hammerstein musical Me and Juliet.Richard Rodgers originally composed this tune for the NBC television series Victory at Sea...
" – Jeanie and Larry - "Dance" – Ralph, Francine, and Elizabeth
- "The Big Black Giant" (Reprise) – Ruby
- "It's Me" – Betty and Jeanie
- "First Act Finale" – Lily, Betty, Charlie, Jim, Jeanie, and chorus
Act 2
- "Intermission Talk" – Herbie and chorus
- "It Feels Good" – Bob
- "We Deserve Each Other" [Sequence in Second Act of Me and Juliet] – Betty, Jim, and dancers
- "I'm Your Girl" – Jeanie and Larry
- "Second Act Finale" – Charlie, Lily, Betty, Jim, and chorus
- "Finale" – Company
Musical treatment and recording
One source of Rodgers's excitement for the concept that became Me and Juliet was his view that a contemporary musical gave him the opportunity for a contemporary score. At the time Rodgers wrote the score, a Latin dance craze had swept the United States, and its influence found its way into the music for Me and Juliet. Rodgers put an onstage jazz trio in the production and encouraged the members to improvise. Among the trio was jazz artist Barbara Carroll as Chris, rehearsal pianist. According to author and composer Ethan MorddenEthan Mordden
Ethan Mordden is an American author.-Biography:Mordden was raised in Pennsylvania, in Venice, Italy, and on Long Island, and is a graduate of Friends Academy in Locust Valley, New York, and the University of Pennsylvania...
, Rodgers's score "found [Rodgers & Hammerstein] going for impish, nimble, the sound of the Hit Parade as reimagined by [them]". Rodgers borrowed the music for "No Other Love" from his award-winning score for Victory at Sea.
RCA, which had the recording rights, arranged for singer Perry Como
Perry Como
Pierino Ronald "Perry" Como was an American singer and television personality. During a career spanning more than half a century he recorded exclusively for the RCA Victor label after signing with them in 1943. "Mr...
to record "No Other Love". The recording was rushed onto the market to coincide with the show's Broadway opening, and became a number-one hit for Como on the Disc Jockey chart, though #2 as a best seller, remaining on the charts for 22 weeks.
Hischak described the original cast album as "surprisingly lively and mostly enjoyable for a musical that was considered so dull on stage." He pointed to "Intermission Talk" as a number which probably works better in a recording than on stage and states that "there is no mistaking the hypnotic power of 'No Other Love'". The original cast recording was released on compact disc in 1993.
Critical reception and assessment
Critics' views were neutral to unfavorable. The New York TimesThe New York Times
The New York Times is an American daily newspaper founded and continuously published in New York City since 1851. The New York Times has won 106 Pulitzer Prizes, the most of any news organization...
critic Brooks Atkinson
Brooks Atkinson
Justin Brooks Atkinson was an American theatre critic. He worked for The New York Times from 1925 to 1960...
praised the acting and choreography, but stated, "This is their Valentine to show business, expressed in the form of a show-within-a-show; and it has just about everything except an intelligible story." Herald-Tribune critic Walter Kerr
Walter Kerr
For the RN admiral see Lord Walter KerrWalter Francis Kerr was an American writer and Broadway theater critic. He also was the writer, lyricist, and/or director of several Broadway plays and musicals.-Biography:...
noted that "Rodgers and Hammerstein have come perilously close to writing a show-without-a-show." George Jean Nathan
George Jean Nathan
George Jean Nathan was an American drama critic and editor.-Early life:Nathan was born in Fort Wayne, Indiana...
of the Journal American
New York Journal American
The New York Journal American was a newspaper published from 1937 to 1966. The Journal American was the product of a merger between two New York newspapers owned by William Randolph Hearst: The New York American , a morning paper, and the New York Evening Journal, an afternoon paper...
stated that "Hammerstein's book has the effect of hanging idly around waiting for an idea to come to him." Robert Coleman of the Daily Mirror
New York Daily Mirror
The New York Daily Mirror was an American morning tabloid newspaper first published on June 24, 1924, in New York City by the William Randolph Hearst organization as a contrast to their mainstream broadsheets, the Evening Journal and New York American, later consolidated into the New York Journal...
noted, "Having set new high standards for musicals throughout the world, Rodgers and Hammerstein dipped into the lower drawer of their desk for Me and Juliet. It proved a big disappointment for this dyed-in-the-wool R. & H. fan." John Chapman of the Daily News
New York Daily News
The Daily News of New York City is the fourth most widely circulated daily newspaper in the United States with a daily circulation of 605,677, as of November 1, 2011....
commented, "It is at its most interesting when Jo Mielziner's sets are in motion". According to Steven Suskin in his compilation of Broadway opening night reviews, the seven major New York critics allotted the production no raves, one favorable review, one mixed, four unfavorable, and one pan.
One well-received number was "Keep It Gay", a song which in rehearsal had been assigned to several different performers before ending with Bob. The song was liked in part due to the novelty of its setting: it begins with Bob singing from the light bridge high above the stage; following a blackout the internal play performers take it up on the stage below, and following another blackout, the performers are seen in their workout clothes, at a rehearsal some weeks later. Hammerstein gave credit for the scene to Mielziner, and suggested that it demonstrated one way in which the book had affected the music.
Abbott stated that there were two reasons for what he considered to be the show's failure. The first was Rodgers and Hammerstein's overconfidence; they thought of themselves as Broadway's "Golden Boys" who could do no wrong. The other was the play-within-the-play, which had not been thoroughly thought out by anyone. According to Abbott, Hammerstein remained "positively Sphinx-like" on the subject. At a loss to understand the characters of the play-within-the play, Alton came up with nothing more than routine song-and-dance numbers. During the run, the duo approached choreographer Jerome Robbins
Jerome Robbins
Jerome Robbins was an American theater producer, director, and choreographer known primarily for Broadway Theater and Ballet/Dance, but who also occasionally directed films and directed/produced for television. His work has included everything from classical ballet to contemporary musical theater...
and asked him if he could fix the dances. Robbins said that he could, but he would not, as "it would kill Bob Alton". According to Hammerstein biographer Hugh Fordin, "
"That's the Way it Happens" was included in the 1996 stage version of Rodgers and Hammerstein's 1945 movie
State Fair (1945 film)
State Fair is a 1945 film directed by Walter Lang. The film a musical adaptation of the 1933 film of the same name, with original music by Rodgers and Hammerstein. The film starred Jeanne Crain, Dana Andrews, Dick Haymes, Vivian Blaine, Fay Bainter and Charles Winninger...
musical, State Fair
State Fair (musical)
State Fair is a musical with a book by Tom Briggs and Louis Mattioli, lyrics by Oscar Hammerstein II, and music by Richard Rodgers.Rodgers and Hammerstein originally adapted the Phil Stong novel of the same name for a 1945 movie musical, which was remade in 1962...
. According to David Lewis in his history of the Broadway musical, "The Rodgers and Hammerstein office has, it would appear, given up on
Composer and author Ethan Mordden
Ethan Mordden
Ethan Mordden is an American author.-Biography:Mordden was raised in Pennsylvania, in Venice, Italy, and on Long Island, and is a graduate of Friends Academy in Locust Valley, New York, and the University of Pennsylvania...
, in his book on the duo's works, wrote of the conceptual difficulties which Rodgers and Hammerstein had with the musical:
[Me and Juliet] was the first of their plays without a powerful sense of destiny, of characters consequentially interconnected. In Oklahoma!, Carousel, South Pacific and The King and I especially, the principals—whether noble or weak, just or impetuous—change each other's lives. Me and Juliets characters appear to be thrown together by chance and—except for the lovers—will part company unaffected by each other as soon as the show closes. This left Hammerstein with nothing to seek out in his people, and Rodgers with nothing to illustrate.
Characters and opening night cast
Principal characters- Jeanie, chorus singer — Isabel BigleyIsabel BigleyIsabel Bigley was an American actress, perhaps best remembered for originating the part of Sarah Brown in Frank Loesser's Guys and Dolls.-Biography:...
- Bob, electrician — Mark Dawson
- Larry, assistant stage manager — Bill Hayes
- Mac, stage manager — Ray WalstonRay WalstonRay Walston was an American stage, television and film actor best known as the title character on the 1960s situation comedy My Favorite Martian. In addition, he is also remembered for his roles as Luther Billis in South Pacific , Mr. Applegate in Damn Yankees , J.J...
- Dario, conductor — George S. IrvingGeorge S. IrvingGeorge S. Irving is an American actor, known primarily for his character roles on Broadway. Born George Irving Shelasky in Springfield, Massachusetts, he made his debut in the original 1943 production of Oklahoma!, only to be drafted days later to serve in World War II...
- Sidney, electrician — Edwin Phillips
- Herbie, candy counter boy — Jackie Kelk
- Ruby, company manager — Joe Lautner
- Buzz, principal dancer — Buzz Miller
Characters in "Me and Juliet" (play-within-the-play)
- Charlie (Me), featured lead — Arthur Maxwell
- Lily (Juliet), singing principal — Helena Scott
- Jim (Don Juan), principal dancer — Robert Fortier
- Susie (Carmen), principal dancer — Svetlana McLee
- Betty, successor to Susie as principal dancer — Joan McCrackenJoan McCrackenJoan McCracken was an American dancer, actress, and comedian who became famous for her role as Silvie in the original 1943 production of Oklahoma!. By age 11, she was studying dance with Catherine Littlefield. She dropped out of high school to join Littlefield's ballet company...