Minskoff Theatre, Broadway - March 13, 1973 605 Performances [synopsis] [show history] [awards]   DIRECTED BY: Sir John Gielgud, later Gower Champion PRODUCED BY: Harry Rigby, Albert W. Selden & Jerome Minskoff MUSIC: Harry Tierney LYRICS: Joseph McCarthy ORIGINAL BOOK BY: Hugh Wheeler & Joseph Stein BASED ON THE ORIGINAL PLAY BY: James Montgomery MUSICAL NUMBERS STAGED BY: Peter Gennaro COSTUME DESIGNER: Irene Sharaff

CAST...  Irene O'Dare Debbie Reynolds Donald Marshall Monte Markham Madame Lucy (Liam O'Dougherty) George S. Irving Emmeline Marshall Ruth Warrick Mrs. O'Dare Patsy Kelly Ozzie Babson Ted Pugh Helen McFudd Carmen Alvarez Jane Burke Janie Sell Jimmy O'Flaherty Bruce Lea Clarkson Bob Freschi Arabella Thornsworthy Kate O'Brady

 

SYNOPSIS:  ACT ONE - The time: 1919. The Place: New York City's West Side, where generations of Irish-Americans have settled. The Girl: Piano tuner Irene O'Dare, who exuberantly demonstrates the optimistic opinion of the time that "The World Must Be Bigger Than An Avenue". Then the local boys ask the girls "What Do You Want to Make Those Eyes At Me For?"

Called to the Long Island home of wealthy Mrs. Marshall to tune the Marshall piano, Irene gets her first glimpse of high society. Mrs. Marshall, by the way, knows all about "The Family Tree" and spells it out to a group of debutantes.

Young Donald Marshall recognizes in Irene a girl of unusual personality and beauty - and with a shrewd head for business. New horizons loom for Irene - personal and professional - as she and Donald fall in love when she sings of her "Alice Blue Gown".

A friend of a friend of the Marshall family is Madame Lucy, a ladies' man who likes to think that "They Go Wild, Simply Wild, Over Me". Donald persuades him that Irene would be a great help to him in his fashion business, and Madame Lucy even recruits Irene's pals Helen and Jane to act as dress models. Irene celebrates her good fortune in "An Irish Girl".

In front of her piano store on Ninth Avenue, Irene and her mother make up a small but strong mutual admiration society as they share a sentimental tribute to each other, "Mother, Angel, Darling".

At a gala ball at the Palais Royale, a stylish Irene (now with a fancy Italian title that sounds like Contessa Irene O'Dahray) joins her high-society companions in the new dance that Everybody Who's Anybody is doing - "The Riviera Rage". The 'contessa' announces that she has come all this way just to shop at Madame Lucy's, and the business is made.

ACT TWO - Irene and Donald quarrel over his insisting that she continue to pose as the Contessa. Irene returns to Ninth Avenue, sadly admitting that "I'm Always Chasing Rainbows", as the ball winds down. Meanwhile, Helen, Jane, Madame Lucy and their friend Ozzie are delighted that "We're Getting Away With It".

Irene's friends soon cheer her up, and Donald, too, comes to her to admit that there is really only one Irene. With the help of Helen and Jane, Donald is transformed into another Valentino. Donald admits his feelings for Irene, and the feelings prove mutual. Mrs. O'Dare - doing her own version of a fashion plate - crashes the garden party at the Marshall's where she unexpectedly finds her old flame Liam O'Dougherty (Madame Lucy). It's evidently not too late to rekindle their romance, and the two echo the words of Donald and Irene as they recall how "You Made Me Love You".

All ends happily, as Donald and Irene join the guests for a jubilant finale. Irene, a vision in blue, removes her wrap to disclose that she is dressed in her own everyday clothes. The Contessa is gone. Long live Irene O'Dare of Ninth Avenue, New York City, U.S.A.! 

HISTORY:  For almost two decades, a musical called Irene held the record for the longest-running show in Broadway history. With a book by James Montgomery, music by Harry Tierney and lyrics by Joseph McCarthy, it opened at New York's Vanderbilt Theatre on November 18, 1919, and ran for 670 performances. The first of seven Broadway musicals with Tierney-McCarthy scores, Irene eventually had seventeen national touring companies. It made a star of its original leading lady, Edith Day, who played Irene on Broadway for five months, then went to London to recreate the role and remained there to become the first lady of West End musicals.

The 1920 London production lasted 399 performances at the Empire Theatre. There were two film versions of Irene: the first was a silent movie in 1926 with Colleen Moore in the title role; the second, in 1940, starred Anna Neagle and contained a color sequence built around the show's most popular song, "Alice Blue Gown".

In 1971, the revival of the 1925 musical No, No, Nanette proved an enormous Broadway hit. The producer Harry Rigby, who had initially and conceived that production, decided that Irene should be the next vintage show to come back to Broadway and he hired the Nanette's designer (Raoul Pene du Bois) and orchestrator (Ralph Burns). Rigby was joined by Albert Selden and Jerome Minskoff in producing the new Irene.

The triumph of Ruby Keeler in the Nanette revival demonstrated that Broadway audiences would flock to see film stars on stage. Rigby built Irene around movie star Debbie Reynolds, who was eager to make her Broadway debut in the show and brought along her daughter, Carrie Fisher, to be one of the "debutantes" in the ensemble. Peter Gennaro, who had choreographed Reynolds in the film version of The Unsinkable Molly Brown, signed on as choreographer. Far more surprising was the hiring of Sir John Gielgud to direct his first musical production.

As with the Nanette revival, the material of the original Irene underwent considerable revision for the new production. Rigby began by making his own adaptation of Montgomery's book, then asked a more experienced librettist, Hugh Wheeler, to take over. Irene O'Dare's occupation was changed from an upholsterer's assistant in the original to a piano tuner in the revival. Only five songs - "Alice Blue Gown", "We're Getting Away With it", "The Family Tree", "The Last of Ev'ry Party" and the title song - were retained from the 1919 score. Added songs included several with lyrics McCarthy had written to tunes by other composers, while others were completely new: Charles Gaynor and Otis Clements were credited with "additional music and lyrics", and Wally Harper and Jack Lloyd also contributed material.

From the start of rehearsals to the show's arrival on Broadway, the new Irene fell victim to one calamity after another, and the show's travails became the subject of endless newspaper and magazine articles. First, comedian Billy De Wolfe, who was rehearsing the role of couturier Madame Lucy, was forced to withdraw owing to failing health, and George S. Irving was brought in to replace him. The show opened its tryout in Toronto on November 28, 1972, to divided reviews. On December 11, Reynolds, who had been suffering from a throat ailment, found that she could neither speak nor sing. Her understudy, supporting player Janie Sell, was not yet prepared to go on in the lead, but the management refused to cancel the sold-out performance. It proceeded, with director Gielgud standing on the side of the stage, reciting Reynolds' lines and lyrics, and Reynolds moving through her blocking and performing her dances. A hostile audience protested loudly, forcing Reynolds to speak up and tell them, "I don't have to be here. I could be at home with my seven maids."

Reviews were even less good on the next stop in Philadelphia, and it was clear that drastic measures were called for. Joseph Stein came in to rewrite the book, Gielgud was dismissed, and Gower Champion, with whom Reynolds had appeared in a movie twenty years earlier called Give a Girl a Break, was hired to take over the show, with Gennaro retaining credit as the choreographer. Reynolds would later state in her autobiography, "the show had been saved by Gower."

Irene postponed its New York arrival, taking on a third tryout engagement in Washington, D.C During that run, President Nixon and his family saw the show, and the president's prediction that Irene would be a big hit on Broadway ran in every newspaper, boosting the already strong advance-ticket sales in New York.

Irene premiered on Broadway on March 13, 1973, as the first attraction at the new Minskoff Theatre. After all the road difficulties, the New York reviews were mixed but moderately favorable; Clive Barnes in The New York Times called the show "undemanding, raucous, frequently cheerful, and the best 1919 musical in town." George S. Irving won a Tony Award for his Madame Lucy, while Tony nominations went to Reynolds, Kelly and Gennaro.

On February 7, 1974, another former MGM star, Jane Powell, made her Broadway debut as the replacement for Reynolds. (The two actresses had played sisters in the 1950 film Two Weeks With Love.) A song cut from the show during the tryouts - "I'm Always Chasing Rainbows" - was restored for Powell. (Reynolds had recorded the song for the cast album even though she no longer sang it on Broadway when the recording was made.)

Irene returned to the headlines at the time of Powell's takeover. First, it was reported that Champion had refused to direct her, stating that he was not happy with the show and did not really consider it his, even though he was billed as its director. On the day Powell took over from Reynolds, Irene was the subject of a front page story in The New York Times. The article by Mel Gussow revealed that while the musical had been Broadway's highest grosser for the past year, its 167 backers had yet to see a cent of their $800,000 investment returned to them. Part of the problem was that an additional $700,000 had been loaned to the production by Minskoff and Selden during the tryout to cover the costs of all the changes and the hiring of new personnel, and that loan had to be repaid before the backers would see any return. Irene had thus opened on Broadway at a record cost of $1.5 million.

The show closed on September 7, 1974, after 605 performances, with a reported deficit of about $900,000. Reynolds returned to play the final week in New York, then took the show on tour, playing for five months before being replaced by Powell. The Broadway revival led to an Australian production starring singer Julie Anthony, who then went on to star in a London revival in 1976 that lasted 974 performances.

While the Broadway revival of Irene was crowd-pleasing, old-fashioned entertainment, it was generally felt that it did not equal the excitement of No, No, Nanette's revival. Rigby followed Irene with one more revival in 1974, bringing back the 1927 hit Good News with Alice Faye as the star.

The new Good News played a year on the road but closed rapidly on Broadway. Later Reynolds made another appearance in a book musical on Broadway, when she became the third (after Lauren Bacall and Raquel Welch) and final star of Woman of the Year. Irene stands as Debbie's only Broadway cast recording.

AWARDS & NOMINATIONS:

• Antoinette Perry Award Nomination (Tony Award Nomination) - Best Performance By An Actress
• Cue Magazine "Entertainer of the Year" Award
• Outer Critics Circle Award for Outstanding Performance in "Irene"
• Ruby Award for Outstanding Performance in "Irene"
• Actors Fund Award for Outstanding Performance in "Irene"
• Broadway Woman of the Year