Le monde des musicals

Act I
A party of Gaiety girls and young society ladies are invited to a garden party given by the officers of the Life Guards at Windsor, as are a judge of the divorce court, Sir Lewis Gray, and a chaplain, Dr. Montague Brierly. The officers neglect the society girls and focus on the Gaiety girls, while the judge, who married his housemaid, and the chaplain both amuse themselves at the party in a most unprofessional manner, the judge telling stories of ladies who have appeared before him in court, and the clergyman dancing in an inappropriate manner. The society ladies are chaperoned by a Lady Virginia Forest, who is worried that the judge will not remember her case. One of the Gaiety girls, Alma Somerset, is falsely accused of theft.

Act II
At a beach on the Riviera, all the ladies appear in bathing costumes, and the judge and chaplain flirt with Lady Virginia. Miss Somerset eventually marries Charles Goldfield, a wealthy cavalry officer.

It opened at Prince of Wales Theatre in London, produced by George Edwardes, on 14 October 1893 (later transferring to Daly's Theatre) and ran for 397 performances. The show starred C. Hayden Coffin, Louie Pounds, Decima Moore, Eric Lewis, W. Louis Bradfield, and later Rutland Barrington, Scott Russell, Huntley Wright, Marie Studholme and George Grossmith, Jr. Topsy Sinden and later Letty Lind danced in the piece. Choreography was by Willie Warde. Percy Anderson designed the Japanese costumes for the musical, while the non-Japanese costumes were supplied by leading fashion houses. Blanche Massey was one of the Gaiety Girls in the piece. It also had a successful three-month Broadway run in 1894, followed by an American tour and a world tour.

Importance in the development of the modern musical
A Gaiety Girl followed Tanner's and Edwardes's success with In Town (1892), and would lead to a series of musicals produced by Edwardes that would pack the Gaiety Theatre for decades. Although the earliest of these shows have the same sound one expects from Gilbert and Sullivan's operas, Edwardes called them "musical comedies", leading some writers to incorrectly credit him with inventing a form that Harrigan & Hart had established on Broadway a decade earlier. Although Edwardes was not the true inventor of musical comedy, he was the first to elevate these works to international popularity. According to musical theatre writer Andrew Lamb, "The British Empire and America began to fall for the appeal of the British musical comedy from the time when A Gaiety Girl was taken on a world tour in 1894."

The plot of A Gaiety Girl is a simple intrigue about a stolen comb and includes a few tangled romances. Hall's satirical book includes lines which jab at society conventions in the style of an upmarket gossip columnist. The smart society back-chat irritated several people in high places in London who wrote to Edwardes asking for alterations. The public, on the other hand, loved it, even when the Reverend Brierly, a character depicted as a man of doubtful moral rectitude, was demoted, after pressure from Lambeth Palace, to being just plain Dr. Brierly. Satire is also directed, among other things, at the army, and the story ridicules a judge of the divorce court, which caused some controversy.

A Gaiety Girl's success confirmed Edwardes on the path he was taking. He immediately set Hall, Jones and Greenbank to work on their next show, An Artist's Model. A Gaiety Girl led to some fourteen copies (including The Shop Girl, The Circus Girl, and A Runaway Girl), which were very successful in England for the next two decades, and were widely imitated by other producers and playwriting teams.

ACT I - The Cavalry Barracks at Winbridge.

No. 1 - Chorus - "When a masculine stranger goes by, array'd in a uniform smart..."
No. 2 - Chorus & Sir Lewis - "O sing a welcome fair to Mr. Justice Grey." & "I'm a judge..."
No. 3 - Goldfield - "Beneath the skies of summer sweet I linger where two pathways meet..."
No. 4 - Chorus - "Here come the ladies who dazzle Society..."
No. 5 - Lady Virginia & Chorus - "I am favourably known as a high-class chaperone..."
No. 6 - Concerted piece, with Girls & Major - "To the barracks we have come..."
No. 7 - Dr. Brierly & Rose - "Oh, my daughter, there's a creature known as man..."
No. 8 - Lady Virginia, Sir Lewis & Dr. Brierly - "When once I get hold of a good-looking He..."
No. 9 - Dr. Brierly - "Little Jimmy was a scholar and his aptitude was such..." (five verses)
No. 10 - Waltz
No. 11 - Goldfield - "Oh, we take him from the city or the plough..." (four verses)
No. 12 - Finale Act I - "To my judicial mind there's not a doubt..."
ACT II - On the Riviera.

No. 13 - Chorus - "Here on sunlit sands daintily we figure..."
No. 14 - Concerted piece - "That ladies cannot bathe, if so they please, without encount'ring creatures such as these..."
No. 15 - Rivers, Fitzwarren & Goldfield - "Buck up, buck up, old chappie!..."
No. 16 - Mina - "When your pride has had a tumble, and you've set your cap too high..."
No. 17 - Sir Lewis, Dr. Brierly & Lady Virginia - "When in town you're safely landed, and the doctor far away..."
No. 18 - Rivers & Rose - "Unlucky the morn on which I was born the youngest of several brothers..."
No. 19 - Lady Edytha, Gladys & another - "We're awfully anxious to join in the fun..."
No. 20 - Chorus - "Let folly reign supreme today, for carnival is holding sway..."
No. 21 - Rivers & Chorus - "Mesdames, messieurs, je suis Pierrot. (I'm nothing of the sort, you know...) "
No. 22 - Goldfield - "Sunshine above, and sunshine in my heart! Laughter and love hold carnival today..."
No. 23 - Finale Act II - "I find it's really better far to keep my pranks for Bench and Bar..."

Aucun dossier informatif complémentaire concernant A Gaiety Girl

Aucun dossier informatif complémentaire concernant A Gaiety Girl