First Impressions: A Musical Comedy Review

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First Impressions: A Musical Comedy ReviewCurrently there's some noise being made about a forthcoming picture in which the characters of Pride and Prejudice find themselves attacked by zombies or aliens, and this set me back into thinking about "First Impressions," the 1959 Broadway musical. In the wake of the incredible success of "My Fair Lady," pragmatic producers were working hard trying to think of what apparently impossible to adapt literary classic from English literature they should take to next, and among the many unlikely properties was Austen's famous novel; and what writer should they try to secure to dramatize it, and work with the composers and lyricists to insert musical numbers at the proper places? Why not Abe Burrows? He wrote "Guys and Dolls"! Well, people scoffed at the idea when they read it in Variety, and when they got to the theater they were still scoffing.
But as I read it today, the libretto is pretty great! Burrows manages to present most of the more interesting storylines of P&P, concentrating of course on the main conflict between Fitzwilliam Darcy of the high aristocracy, and the defiant, freethinking Elizabeth Bennet, one of five daughters of an impoverished country couple. I always forget, going in, who is going to turn out to be the "Pride," and who the "Prejudice," but perhaps the musical blurs these lines a little; Lizzie seems too proud of her own willfulness (she has a perfectly horrible song, and reprise, called, "I'm Me," like some Whitney Houston number of the 1980s), whereas Darcy is prejudiced against the Bennets because they're middle class and gold diggers--which they are, by and large, but for Lizzie and Jane. Plus Burrows peppers the script with some good B'way wisecracks of his own, Every page has something of the kind. When Lizzie denies that the Bennets are "impoverished," Lady Catherine de Bourgh retorts, "Then what are you?" and Mrs. Bennet says, "We prefer to think of ourselves as unwealthy."
So then what happened and why do even the greatest show queens reject "First Impressions"? It sounds as if the casting were off, badly, for who would buy Farley Granger or Polly Bergen as British lovers of the Regency period? And I have to say that the lyrics of this musical are the most banal I've ever had the misfortune of stumbling across, My wife's cat Quincy could write better lyrics in her sleep. Just awful! But I think what sinks the show finally for me is the way the script had to be continually rewritten so that Hermione Gingold's part was expanded and expanded--she plays Mrs. Bennet, and emerges with by far the most lines, and more musical numbers than any other two characters together. I can see Gingold now, refusing to come out of her dressing room unless the big duet was taken away from Bergen and Granger, and re-written as an 11 o'clock number for herself. That's how it reads, it is a grave warning for what happens when you hire second rate Beatrice Lillies and let them run your show into the ground with their hissy fits.First Impressions: A Musical Comedy Overview

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