Мен және Жюльетта: Роджерс пен Хаммерштейннің мюзиклы

1953 musical by Rodgers and Hammerstein

Me and Juliet is a musical with music by Richard Rodgers, and lyrics and book by Oscar Hammerstein II. The sixth stage collaboration by Rodgers & Hammerstein, it 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 considered a modest success — it ran for much of a year on Broadway and had a limited run in Chicago (altogether nearly 500 performances), and returned a small profit to its backers. 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 in 1951, 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 the show had problems with plot and staging. Extensive revisions during the remaining Cleveland and Boston tryouts failed to fix the difficulties with the plot, which the critics considered weak and uninteresting. The show was met with poor reviews, though Mielziner's staging won praise from audience and critics. The show closed once it had exhausted its advance sales. Bill Hayes, the show's star, states in his autobiography Like Sands Through the Hourglass (2005): "We played nearly five hundred performances, all to full houses. Production costs were paid off and substantial profits went into the R&H till. So, though not in the same category as the storied five that were made into films Oklahoma!, Carousel, South Pacific, The King and I and The Sound of Music our show must be considered a success". With the exception of a short run in Chicago, there was no national tour, and the show has seldom been seen. A small scale production was presented by London's Finborough Theatre in 2010.

The origins of Me and Juliet can be traced to the early days of the relationship between Rodgers and Hammerstein. The musical Oklahoma! 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 early 1952 in Palm Beach, Florida, where Rodgers was vacationing as he worked on melodic sketches for the television documentary 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 but who was not available. 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.

For theatrical terminology, see Stage (theatre). 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.

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 rehearsing 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.

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 the surprised 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").

The musical opened on Broadway 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 sales were 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. The baby was in fact aborted, because the pregnancy would have endangered McCracken's health as a result of her diabetes. 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 "I hate that show." According to Bill Hayes in his autobiography Like Sands Through the Hourglass (2005), We played nearly five hundred performances, however, all to full houses. Production costs were paid off and substantial profits went into the R&H till. So, though not in the same category as the storied five that were made into films Oklahoma!, Carousel, South Pacific, The King and I and The Sound of Music our show must be considered a success. No national tour was attempted, but the show did have a six week run at the Shubert Theatre in Chicago in spring 1954. Rodgers & Hammerstein, with their spouses, attended the opening night performance. 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, and she at least once substituted for an indisposed Isabel Bigby, "downed with a virus." 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 that city, 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.

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. "Intermission Talk", the chatter among audience members early in the second act, is given a bouncy melody and sly references to a number of shows then on Broadway—including the duo's own The King and I. According to author and composer Ethan Mordden, 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," a tango, from his award winning score for Victory at Sea. RCA, which had those rights, arranged for Perry Como to record the song, and it was rushed onto the market to coincide with the show's Broadway opening. The record 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.