My Fair Lady

What you saw is often done with the production. I presume Act I ended as Eliza has been helped with her coat or cape by Higgins and they all sweep out the door on the way to the ball. Honestly, I kind of like that ending to Act I. Then Act II starts when they return to the house from the ball and Pickering and Higgins sing You Did It and tell what happened at the ball.

The scene cut is actually at the ball and includes a waltz number (The Embassy Waltz). There's a bit of a scene of people entering and being introduced and then Eliza's grand entrance and presentation to the Queen of Transylvania who pronounces her "charming". We see the skeptic checking her out and Higgins and Pickering nervous about her passing as a lady. It's all the stuff they tell in You Did It opening Act II. Frankly, I always like the production better where we don't see that, we only hear about it.

The ball scene is sometimes cut for budget reasons (huge set and lots of costumes), or to help with the length of the show. But I frankly think it is a rather unnecessary scene and destroys the opening to Act II which becomes boring as we hear about what we already saw.

Updated On: 8/16/08 at 02:26 PM

Well in one production when I was playing Pickering, the actual cue for the curtain drop was when Higgins and Pickering make an "OK" aknowledgement facially to each other -- knowing it's going well. The dance is going on at that time, and the curtain comes down with the dancers swirling around and of course a spotlight on Eliza. It's not a big musical finale or anything, the music continues on as the curtain falls.

I've also seen the curtain come down just as Zoltan Karpathy (the linguist skeptic) is just about to start dancing with Eliza. I guess that is supposed to leave it as a little more of a cliffhanger -- will she be discovered or not?

Updated On: 8/16/08 at 03:24 PM

"It's a very effective cut, I think, letting the audience see the ball, but without the recap by Higgins and Pickering."

I'm curious what you mean by "without the recap". Are you saying they don't do You Did It? To me that number is the recap.

The original Act One ending of MY FAIR LADY and the one in the published script is, indeed, Zoltan Karpathy dancing with Eliza Doolittle at the Embassy Ball as Higgins and Pickering look on. The idea was to leave the audience wondering if she would pass the "Karpathy test" or fail as she did at Ascot.

Let me rephrase my description of ending with Pickering and Higgins doing a nod, or ending with Zoltan Karpathy starting to dance with Eliza. Both are essentially the same. When I described the curtain cue in our production, it was as Karpathy goes to Eliza. The "look" that the director wanted the audience to see before the curtain coming down was a confident "everything's OK" from Higgins, and a questioning "Oh, my God, what if she is going to be found out" from Pickering. Such a subtle addition from a director may or may not be apparent, but in our case the director wanted that extra little touch (no words spoken). That kind of subtlety is NOT an infraction of the licensing agreement to do the play, any more that changing the inflection of a spoken line (not the words) might be used to indicate a different feeling between two different productions -- that sort of thing is simply interpretation, not changing.

HamletwasBipolar is right, of course, that you can't cut out scenes or change dialogue legally. There is some leeway I believe that might allow the director to bring down the curtain on the exit of Higgins and Eliza going to the ball, and bringing it up again for Act II as the ball is starting. That doesn't change anything in the script, only the timing of the curtain. I'm not sure if that is considered an infringement or not.
Meanwhile, let me say that I have seen a major national tour of My Fair Lady in which the entire ballroom scene was cut and Act I did end with Eliza going off to the ball. Whether they had approval to do it or not, I'm not sure, but it seems likely they would have to, to do such a major cut.

Similarly, I do know that many productions of many old three act plays, now find a suitable point in the middle of Act II for a single intermission instead of having two. Today's audiences just can't stand two intermissions. Whether that is an infraction of the rights I don't really know.

Updated On: 8/17/08 at 10:04 AM

i would assume the starlight is a professional production... it's pretty much san diego's civic light opera... so maybe they did get permission to cut that scene... eh... a part of me was glad it was cut... the first act was already long and the airplanes only made it go longer!

This is a very interesting subject to me. You're right, Patash. Times and audiences do change. That's why the three-act play became out of fashion and the two-act form came in. Now, we seem to be entering a time when plays are becoming shorter and someday no intermission may become the norm. Should we then do all the two-act plays without a break and edit them accordingly? Playwrights may not have freely chosen the act structure for their work, but the good ones designed their plots and act breaks with that structure in mind. Every production of YOU CAN'T TAKE IT WITH YOU that I've seen was in three acts and works beautifully. When I see one that breaks as the Kirbys enter, I'll let you know what I think of it. As for Shakespeare, I'm not an expert, but I believe the scenes and act breaks were put in when the plays were published, years after they were first written and performed. If anyone knows how many intermissions were customary in Elizabethan times, or if indeed there were formal intermissions, I'd be curious to know. Anyway, changing the act breaks in 20th century plays is certainly less heinous than cutting scenes like the Embassy Ball in MY FAIR LADY and I'm sure theatres do get away with it. But I'm still not sure it's such a good idea.

Hmm. I've never seen "My Fair Lady" without the embassy waltz. I've always seen act one end with them leaving for the ball, and act two pick up as they arrive.

Did that become the customary thing to do when the movie came out? I'm pretty sure that's how they cut it in the movie.

oh i also thought the act 1 finale was actually eliza doing her faux pas at the race... that would've made a good finale... eh or maybe not... whatever... in fact a lot of people thought it was the finale and they started getting up to leave! haha