Wake Up and Dream
Encyclopedia
Wake Up and Dream is a musical revue
with a book by John Hastings Turner and music and lyrics by Cole Porter
and others. The most famous song from the revue is the Porter standard "What Is This Thing Called Love?
"
The revue opened in London while Porter's Paris
was still running on Broadway. Producer Charles B. Cochran
asked Porter to write the score, even though in their previous dealings Porter had treated him with some discourtesy. Opening on December 30, 1929, the production was the last to open on Broadway in the 1920s.
The title later would be used for unrelated films in 1934, 1942 and 1946
.
style. The elaborate ballet for the song "Wake Up and Dream" uses folklore and history. "Coppelia
" is danced as seen from the wings. According to critic Brooks Atkinson
of The New York Times
, "A 'Gothic' number, to music by Bach
, brings the reverence of the cathedral into the theatre."
Act II
Several songs in the London production, most notably "Let's Do It, Let's Fall in Love", were not included in the Broadway version.
, England. It then opened on 27 March 1929 at the London Pavilion
and ran for 263 performances. The production was directed by Frank Collins with choreography by Jack Buchanan
, Tilly Losch
, and Max Rivers, with a cast that featured Jessie Matthews
, Sonnie Hale
, Tillie Losch, Douglas Byng
and Elsie Carlisle
.
After the London production closed, a Broadway
production opened at the Selwyn Theatre on 30 December 1929 and closed on 26 April 1930 after 136 performances. Produced by Arch Selwyn in association with Cochran, the London director and choreographers reprised their work, and the cast featured Jack Buchanan
(replacing Hale), Matthews and Losch.
affected the Broadway box office.
Brooks Atkinson (The New York Times) wrote that when the revue was at its best "which is not all the time, it is entertainment of a very superior style--light, swift and beautiful... For half the length of the new revue ... the superb grace of the dancing ... the dainty, wry touch of comedy ... the meaningful splendor of the costumes, the lyrics, the frank make-believe of the scenery turn this revue into a hippodrome of civilized delights. But when the material is flimsy, as it is through most of the second half, the perfection of the talent is merely wasted."
The critic for The New Yorker
wrote that it was "one of the dullest revues ever put on the local boards." However, columnist Walter Winchell
praised the revue and Porter's songs, especially noting that "What is This Thing Called Love?" was one of the "newest breed of love songs."
Revue
A revue is a type of multi-act popular theatrical entertainment that combines music, dance and sketches. The revue has its roots in 19th century American popular entertainment and melodrama but grew into a substantial cultural presence of its own during its golden years from 1916 to 1932...
with a book by John Hastings Turner and music and lyrics by Cole Porter
Cole Porter
Cole Albert Porter was an American composer and songwriter. Born to a wealthy family in Indiana, he defied the wishes of his domineering grandfather and took up music as a profession. Classically trained, he was drawn towards musical theatre...
and others. The most famous song from the revue is the Porter standard "What Is This Thing Called Love?
What Is This Thing Called Love?
"What Is This Thing Called Love?"is a 1929 popular song written by Cole Porter, for the musical Wake Up and Dream. It was first performed by Elsie Carlisle in March 1929. The song has become a popular jazz standard and one of Porter's most often played compositions.Wake Up and Dream ran for 263...
"
The revue opened in London while Porter's Paris
Paris (1928 musical)
Paris is a musical with the book by Martin Brown, and music and lyrics by Cole Porter, as well as Walter Kollo and Louis Alter and E. Ray Goetz and Roy Turk . The musical, which premiered on Broadway in 1928, was Porter's first Broadway hit. The musical introduced the song "Let's Do It, Let's Fall...
was still running on Broadway. Producer Charles B. Cochran
Charles B. Cochran
Sir Charles Blake Cochran , generally known as C. B. Cochran, was an English theatrical manager. He produced some of the most successful musical revues, musicals and plays of the 1920s and 1930s, becoming associated with Noel Coward and his works.-Biography:Cochran was born in Sussex and educated...
asked Porter to write the score, even though in their previous dealings Porter had treated him with some discourtesy. Opening on December 30, 1929, the production was the last to open on Broadway in the 1920s.
The title later would be used for unrelated films in 1934, 1942 and 1946
Wake Up and Dream (film)
Wake Up and Dream is a Technicolor film unrelated to the 1930s musical of the same name. It was directed by Lloyd Bacon and written by Elick Moll based on the novel by Robert Nathan...
.
Synopsis
The show was a revue with 24 sets, 500 costumes, a large international cast, and "a thread of a book." The song "Let's Do It, Let's Fall in Love" (performed in London) had "sensual choreography," and was set in front of a large African idol, with a tom-tom beat with Tilly Losch dancing and Elsie Carlisle singing in torch singerTorch Singer
Torch Singer is a 1933 film made by Paramount Pictures, directed by Alexander Hall and George Somnes, and starring Claudette Colbert, Ricardo Cortez and David Manners and Lyda Roberti.The screenplay was written by Lenore J...
style. The elaborate ballet for the song "Wake Up and Dream" uses folklore and history. "Coppelia
Coppélia
Coppélia is a sentimental comic ballet with original choreography by Arthur Saint-Léon to a ballet libretto by Saint-Léon and Charles Nuitter and music by Léo Delibes. It was based upon two macabre stories by E. T. A. Hoffmann, Der Sandmann , and Die Puppe...
" is danced as seen from the wings. According to critic Brooks Atkinson
Brooks Atkinson
Justin Brooks Atkinson was an American theatre critic. He worked for The New York Times from 1925 to 1960...
of The New York Times
The 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...
, "A 'Gothic' number, to music by Bach
Johann Sebastian Bach
Johann Sebastian Bach was a German composer, organist, harpsichordist, violist, and violinist whose sacred and secular works for choir, orchestra, and solo instruments drew together the strands of the Baroque period and brought it to its ultimate maturity...
, brings the reverence of the cathedral into the theatre."
Songs (Broadway)
Act I- Wake Up and Dream
- More Incredible Happenings (music and lyrics by Ronald Jeans)
- I Loved Him (but He Didn’t Love Me)
- Coppelia (music by Léo DelibesLéo DelibesClément Philibert Léo Delibes was a French composer of ballets, operas, and other works for the stage...
) - Operatic Pills
- Why Wouldn’t I Do? (music and lyrics by Desmond Carter and Ivor NovelloIvor NovelloDavid Ivor Davies , better known as Ivor Novello, was a Welsh composer, singer and actor who became one of the most popular British entertainers of the first half of the 20th century. Born into a musical family, his first successes were as a songwriter...
) - She's Such a Comfort to Me (lyrics by Douglas Furber and Donovan Parsons; music by Arthur SchwartzArthur SchwartzArthur Schwartz was an American composer and film producer.Schwartz supported his legal studies at New York University and postgraduate studies at Columbia University by playing piano before concentrating his talents on vaudeville, Broadway theatre and Hollywood.Among his Broadway musicals are The...
) - The Banjo That Man Joe Plays
- Entrance of Emigrants
- Farruca
- Saragossa Jota
Act II
- What Is This Thing Called Love?What Is This Thing Called Love?"What Is This Thing Called Love?"is a 1929 popular song written by Cole Porter, for the musical Wake Up and Dream. It was first performed by Elsie Carlisle in March 1929. The song has become a popular jazz standard and one of Porter's most often played compositions.Wake Up and Dream ran for 263...
- Fancy Our Meeting (lyrics by Douglas Furber; music by Joseph MeyerJoseph Meyer (songwriter)Joseph Meyer was an American songwriter who wrote some of the most notable songs of the first half of the twentieth century....
and Philip Charig) - Gothic (music by Johann Sebastian Bach)
- An Old English Folk Song (music and lyrics by Douglas Furber; Jack BuchananJack BuchananWalter John "Jack" Buchanan was a British theatre and film actor, singer, producer and director. He was known for three decades as the embodiment of the debonair man-about-town in the tradition of George Grossmith Jr., and was described by The Times as "the last of the knuts." He is best known in...
and Charles Prentice) - Romba
- (After All, I’m) Only a Schoolgirl
- Which Is the Right Life?
- I’m a Gigolo
Several songs in the London production, most notably "Let's Do It, Let's Fall in Love", were not included in the Broadway version.
Productions
The piece originally was called Charles B. Cochran's 1929 Revue. Tryouts began on 5 March 1929 at the Palace Theatre in ManchesterManchester
Manchester is a city and metropolitan borough in Greater Manchester, England. According to the Office for National Statistics, the 2010 mid-year population estimate for Manchester was 498,800. Manchester lies within one of the UK's largest metropolitan areas, the metropolitan county of Greater...
, England. It then opened on 27 March 1929 at the London Pavilion
London Pavilion
The London Pavilion is a building located on the corner of Shaftesbury Avenue and Coventry Street on the north-east side of, and facing, Piccadilly Circus in London...
and ran for 263 performances. The production was directed by Frank Collins with choreography by Jack Buchanan
Jack Buchanan
Walter John "Jack" Buchanan was a British theatre and film actor, singer, producer and director. He was known for three decades as the embodiment of the debonair man-about-town in the tradition of George Grossmith Jr., and was described by The Times as "the last of the knuts." He is best known in...
, Tilly Losch
Tilly Losch
Ottilie Ethel Leopoldine "Tilly" Losch, Countess of Carnarvon was an Austrian-born dancer, choreographer, actress and painter who lived and worked for most of her life in the United States and United Kingdom....
, and Max Rivers, with a cast that featured Jessie Matthews
Jessie Matthews
Jessie Matthews, OBE was an English actress, dancer and singer of the 1930s, whose career continued into the post-war period.-Early life:...
, Sonnie Hale
Sonnie Hale
Sonnie Hale was an English theatre and cinema actor and director.John Robert Hale-Monro was born in London, the son of Robert Hale and Belle Reynolds. His father and sister, Binnie Hale were actors. He worked chiefly in musical and revue theatre, but also acted in several films with occasional...
, Tillie Losch, Douglas Byng
Douglas Byng
thumb|right|200px|Portrait by [[Allan Warren]]Douglas Byng was a British comic singer and songwriter in West End theatre, revue and cabaret. Billed as "Bawdy but British", Byng was famous for his female impersonations. His songs are full of sexual innuendo and double entendres...
and Elsie Carlisle
Elsie Carlisle
Elsie Carlisle was a popular English female singer.Originally from Manchester, Elsie became extremely popular during the 1920s and 1930s, recording with many of the big dance bands of the time, as well as solo. She recorded very little after the beginning of the Second World War, and retired from...
.
After the London production closed, a 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...
production opened at the Selwyn Theatre on 30 December 1929 and closed on 26 April 1930 after 136 performances. Produced by Arch Selwyn in association with Cochran, the London director and choreographers reprised their work, and the cast featured Jack Buchanan
Jack Buchanan
Walter John "Jack" Buchanan was a British theatre and film actor, singer, producer and director. He was known for three decades as the embodiment of the debonair man-about-town in the tradition of George Grossmith Jr., and was described by The Times as "the last of the knuts." He is best known in...
(replacing Hale), Matthews and Losch.
Critical reaction
The London show had mixed reviews from the critics but still had a run of 263 performances, but the 1929 stock market crashStock market crash
A stock market crash is a sudden dramatic decline of stock prices across a significant cross-section of a stock market, resulting in a significant loss of paper wealth. Crashes are driven by panic as much as by underlying economic factors...
affected the Broadway box office.
Brooks Atkinson (The New York Times) wrote that when the revue was at its best "which is not all the time, it is entertainment of a very superior style--light, swift and beautiful... For half the length of the new revue ... the superb grace of the dancing ... the dainty, wry touch of comedy ... the meaningful splendor of the costumes, the lyrics, the frank make-believe of the scenery turn this revue into a hippodrome of civilized delights. But when the material is flimsy, as it is through most of the second half, the perfection of the talent is merely wasted."
The critic for The New Yorker
The New Yorker
The New Yorker is an American magazine of reportage, commentary, criticism, essays, fiction, satire, cartoons and poetry published by Condé Nast...
wrote that it was "one of the dullest revues ever put on the local boards." However, columnist Walter Winchell
Walter Winchell
Walter Winchell was an American newspaper and radio gossip commentator.-Professional career:Born Walter Weinschel in New York City, he left school in the sixth grade and started performing in a vaudeville troupe known as Gus Edwards' "Newsboys Sextet."His career in journalism was begun by posting...
praised the revue and Porter's songs, especially noting that "What is This Thing Called Love?" was one of the "newest breed of love songs."
External links
- Wake Up and Dream at MusicalHeaven.com
- Wake Up and Dream London Production with information about recordings
- 2002 recording