Wednesday, March 13, 2013

MUSICAL THEATRE: MUSICAL REPORT: MY FAIR LADY MUSICAL

Taking Notes on a Musical:

"MY FAIR LADY"

01. Title:


02. Composer:

03. Lyricist:



04. Date originally composed: (film:1964) 
1956

05. If this musical is based on an historical event or literary story please name it and also identify the name of the author if applicable:
Event or Story:"Pygmalion"

Author (If applicable):

1856-1950 (aged 94) Dublin, Ireland (playwright, critic, political activist) He was most angered by what he perceived as the exploitation of the working class, and most of his writings censure that abuse. causes, which included gaining equal rights for men and women, alleviating abuses of the working class, rescinding private ownership of productive land, and promoting healthy lifestyles

He is the only person to have been awarded both a Nobel Prize for Literature (1925) and an Oscar (1938), for his contributions to literature and for his work on the film Pygmalion, respectively. Shaw wanted to refuse his Nobel Prize outright because he had no desire for public honors, but accepted it at his wife's behest: she considered it a tribute to Ireland. He did reject the monetary award, requesting it be used to finance translation of Swedish books to English.
B) Gabrial Pascal's Motion Picture
The Hungarian producer Gabriel Pascal wished to create a set of films based on Shaw's works, beginning with Pygmalion, and went to see Shaw in person to gain permission to do so. Shaw was reluctant to allow a film adaptation of Pygmalion owing to the low quality of previous film adaptations of his works, Pascal had tried to convince Shaw to let Pygmalion be turned into a musical, but the outraged Shaw explicitly forbade it, having had a bad experience with the operetta The Chocolate Soldier, based on Shaw's Arms and the Man. Pascal died in 1954, and it was not until 1956 that Pygmalion became My Fair Lady but Pascal managed to convince him (on the condition Shaw retained full control over the adaptation) and later went on to also adapt Major Barbara, Caesar and Cleopatra and Androcles and the Lion.
Pygmalion by Jean-Baptiste Regnault, 1786, Musée National du Château et des Trianons
D) Other stories with the “Pygmalion” theme:
Ovid, Metamorphoses X. Pygmalion was a sculptor who fell in love with a statue he had carved. He was not interested in average women and could not find one that was good enough for him so he carved his vision of the ideal woman out of marble. His statue was so realistic that he fell in love with it. He offered the statue gifts and eventually prayed to Venus (Aphrodite). She took pity on him and brought the statue to life as Galatea.

Friedrich Schiller's poem "Ideals"
Mary Shelley's novel Frankenstein
Nathaniel Hawthorne's short story "The Birth-Mark"
John Dryden's poem "Pygmalion and the Statue"
John Updike's short story Pygmalion

William Shakespeare reference wrote a version of the legend in The Winter's Tale when Hermione is seen as a lifelike statue in the final scene.

W. S. Gilbert's Pygmalion and Galatea (1871)
Jean-Philippe Rameau's 1748 opera, Pigmalion
Gaetano Donizetti's first opera, Il Pygmalione
Georg Benda's one act opera, Pygmalion
Song "Turn of the Century" by the British rock band Yes
Delibes' ballet Coppélia, about an inventor who makes a life-sized dancing doll, has strong echoes of Pygmalion.
Pinocchio where a wooden puppet is transformed into a real boy
Movie "Educating Rita"
Movie "She's All That" with Freddie Prinze Jr.
Movie "The Stepford Wives" (1975)

06. What the story is about:
This story about a confirmed bachelor and egotistical professor of phonetics, Henry Higgins (also an expert in spoken dialects), who makes a wager with his friend, Colonel Pickering, that he can transform in just six months a unrefined Cockney flower girl, ("metamorphose the guttersnipe into a paragon of verbal correctitude") Eliza Doolittle, into a lady (speak, dress and act like a duchess) and at an embassy ball and fool everyone into thinking she really is one, too. http://www.draytonentertainment.com/season_2008/my_fair_lady/


07.
A) Where the story takes place (ex: name of city, country, etc.):
London, the time 1912
https://www.google.com/search?q=London+1912&hl=en&sa=G&gbv=2&prmd=imvns&tbm=isch&tbo=u&source=univ&ei=SJ3JTviKK4qwiQLzk9DJDw&ved=0CDEQsAQ&biw=993&bih=605

B) Possible clues in the movie that tell you this location (ex: famous landmarks, speech accents, etc.):
Covent Garden (famous London opera house)Link
Ascot (famous London race track)
English accents and slang expressions 
Big Ben
08. Setting of the story (ex: farm, big city, slums, affluent neighborhood, etc.):
Tenement Section (poor area)
Ballroom of the Embassy
Opera House
Row Housing (affluent area)

09.
A) Time frame the story takes place in (historical time period, era, or date):
Edwardian England

B) Possible clues in the movie that tell you the time frame (ex: style of clothes and hair, types of transportation, modern inventions, etc.):
Horse and wagons, early automobiles
Women wear long dresses
Gramophone (early record player)
Telephone (early form)
Indoor plumbing is a new invention

10. Names of main characters and short descriptions of each (ex: John Smith-salesman, Mary Smith-wife of John Smith, etc.):

http://civic.bev.net/sme/MyFairLady/My_Fair_Lady_info.html#characters
CAST OF CHARACTERS
(* principal vocal part)



01. ELIZA DOOLITTLE 
* (voice dubbed by Marni Nixon)
Singer Marni Nixon dubbed for Audrey Hepburn 
in the movie "My fair Lady."
In this video however, Julie Andrews'
(who played the original "Eliza" role on Broadway) 
voice is made to dub Audrey Hepburn's voice.



Eliza Doolittle is a cockney flower girl from Lisson Grove (a poor section of London) working outside Covent Garden. Her potential to become “a lady” becomes the object of a bet 
between Higgins and Pickering.
02. PROFESSOR HENRY HIGGINS
A British, upper class professional bachelor, world famous phonetics expert, 
teacher and author of “Higgins’ Universal Alphabet.

03. ALFRED P. DOOLITTLE *
Eliza’s father; an elderly but vigorous dustman who does everything he can to get out of doing work. He "does little."

04. COLONEL HUGH PICKERING *
He is a retired British officer with colonial experience and the author of “Spoken Sanskrit.


05. FREDDY EYNSFORD-HILL *
Upper class young man who becomes completely smitten with Eliza.

06. MRS. HIGGINS
She is Henry’s long-suffering mother.

07. PROFESSOR ZOLTAN KARPATHY
A bearded Hungarian; former phonetics student of Henry Higgins.

08. MRS. PEARCE *
She is Henry Higgins’ housekeeper.

11. Inner messages within the story (ex: morals, ethics, etc.) that have moral or social significance. 
Explain the message you think the author of the movie is trying to display:
01. Women in society now and then.
02. Importance of language and financial
      success. 
03. Communication between men and women:
      Do we understand each other?
04. Make-Overs:
        What are the consequences?
        Can you change the inside by changing the outside?
05. Class system in England (middle class 
      morality, rich versus poor).
http://www.portifex.com/LArts/PygMFL.htm
Mrs Higgins: But, my dear Mr. Doolittle, you need not suffer all this if you are really in earnest. Nobody can force you to accept this bequest. You can repudiate it. Isn't that so, Colonel Pickering? Pickering: I believe so. Doolittle: That's the tragedy of it, ma'am. It's easy to say chuck it; but I haven't the nerve. Which of us has? We're all intimidated. Intimidated, ma'am; that's what we are. What is therefore me if I chuck it but the workhouse in my old age? I have to dye my hair already to keep my job as a dustman. If I was one of the deserving poor, and I had put by a bit, I could chuck it; but then why should I, a cause the deserving poor might as well be millionaires for all the happiness they ever has. They don't know what happiness is. But I, as one of the undeserving poor, having nothing between me and the pauper's uniform but this here blasted three thousand a year that shoves me into the middle class (Excuse the expression, ma'am: you'd use it yourself if you had my provocation.) They've got you every way you turn: it's a choice between the Skilly of the workhouse and the Charybdis of the middle class; and I haven't the nerve for the workhouse. Intimidated: that's what I am. Broke. Bought up. Happier men than me will call for my dust, and touch me for their tip; and I'll look on helpless, and envy them. And that's what your son has brought me to. [He is overcome by emotion.] One wonders how on earth Doolittle ever picked up Scylla and Charybdis.

12.
A) Personal opinion (your enjoyment factor; why you liked or disliked the musical):

I liked or disliked this musical because.....

B) Personal opinion on the quality of the artistry in this musical (ex: how well acted, quality of the singing voice(s), cinematography, memorable melodies, etc.):

I found the quality of the artistry to be.....

13.
Song titles (hint: listen for repeated words or phrases in the song and make an educated guess of the name of the song if you don’t know it):

LIST OF MUSICAL NUMBERS
ACT ONE
01. OVERTURE




Reprise: With A Little Bit of Luck










Reprise: WOULDN'T IT BE LOVERLY
13. GET ME TO THE CHURCH ON TIME
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Get_Me_to_the_Church_on_Time
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P9pdnSy_nWQ
Alfred P. Doolittle, a dustman, the father of the main character Eliza Doolittle, has received a surprise bequest 
of four thousand pounds a year from an American millionaire, raising him to middle-class respectability. 
Consequently he feels he must marry Eliza's "stepmother," the woman he has been with for many years. 
This song is about Doolittle and his friends having a bachelor party the night before Doolittle's wedding.
http://www.stlyrics.com/lyrics/myfairlady/getmetothechurchontime.htm



14. 
Terms/ names in the movie that are new, unusual to you, and/or not often used:

Aristocratic
Ascot races
Atone
Ball
Bellow
Bequest
Bit off the spoon
Blackguard
Blackmail
Blasted
Blighters
Blinkin'
Bloke
Bloodhound
Bloody
Bloomin'
Boisterous
Brazen
Budge
Buck you up
Budapest
Budge
Calculating
Capri
Chaps
Chum
Cockney
Compass
Concise
Contemplate
Content
Contrite
Converse
Cornishman
Counsel
Covent Garden
Crept
Crumpets
Cue
Dashed
Dashing
Descend
Despise
Dialectician
Dome
Dote
Ducky
Duke
Dustman
Earl
Easy street
Eccentric
Elevated fool
Embassy Ball
En mass
Enthralling
Ecstatic
Eternal strife
Exasperating
Faces flushing
Falter
Farce
Fetch
Flat
Flower Girl
Frenzied
Garn
Gavotte
Glum
Governor
Grammarian
Gramophone
Gripping
Gutter
Guttersnipe
Hags
Hail
Hailed
Hampshire
Hark
Hartford
Heiress
Hereford
Humanities
Hungarian
Hurdled
Hussy
Hymn
Impetant
Infantile
Irrational
Jabber
Ja wohl
Jewels in the crown
Keats
Keyed up
Knight
Lark
Liquor
Lisson Grove
London
Lull
Meditate
Metamorphose
Milk of human kindness
Milton
Muddle
Mutton-headed
Noble
On land, or sea, or foam
Paree
Peer
Pensive
Philandrin'
Philosophical
Phonetics
Pinched it
Plain
Plods
Poignant
Pounds
Prim and proper
Prime
Reelin'
Repentant
Reverberated
Ripping
Royal Opera House
Rue it
Rumpus
Run amuck
Sabbatical
Scotland Yard
Selsey
Serenity
Shirk
Simultaneously
Slighted
Smashing
Soho Square
Spanish Inquisition
Spectacle
Spruced up
Staunchly
St. James
Strife
Sturdy as Gibraltar
Swindle
Tar and feather
Temptation
Thrive
Tie the knot
Till
Tomb
Transylvania
Triumph
Tuppence
Trace
Uttered
Vacillating
Verbal class distinction
Vow
Wagnarian mother
Walk the straight and narrow
Whewt
Whim
Windsor Castle
Woes
Wooin'
Wretch
Wretched
Yorkshireman


THE FOLLOWING IS A LIST OF TERMS HEARD IN THE MOVIE THAT I MADE INTO A DEFINITION WORKSHEET:



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