Information/Write-up
THE GRADUATES' SOCIETY OF McGILL UNIVERSITY and Quince Productions presents
MY FUR LADY
AN ORIGINAL MUSICAL COMEDY
Produced by JAMES DOMVILLE – Staged, Directed and Choreographed by BRIAN and OLIVIA MACDONALD
Book by: Timothy Porteous, Donald MacSween, Erik Wong.
Words by: Timothy Porteous.
Music by: James Domville, Galt MacDermot, Harry Garber.
Additional songs by: Roy Wolvin.
“My Fur Lady” opened on February 7th, 1957 as the annual McGill Red and White Revue and met with a reception of unprecedented enthusiasm. The critics were unanimous in their praise of the acting, the direction, the cast, the script, and the music. Through its record-breaking original run the show played to capacity houses – and only the demands of the academic law such as final and revaluation exams, Public demanded its break in the spring term. Only after a summer of rest was such a fur-laden revolution ended. “My Fur Lady” reopened on May 23rd, 1957, under the auspices of the Graduates’ Society. And thus was the show able to fill McGill’s two sold-out auditoriums for 10 more days, and five cities to come.
As the show opens the Eskimo citizens of Mukluko, a postage-stamp indepen dent principality somewhere off Baffin Island, are celebrating the wealth which they have suddenly acquired by unearthing the prehistoric ruins of the Distant Early Warning Line below their town. Their rejoicing is interrupted by the discovery that under the rules of an ancient treaty the principality will lose its independence and become part of Canada in 1957. Their aged Princess Aurora Borealis (Ann Golden), learns that she must marry a Canadian – but that remains before her twenty-first birthday.
So off to Canada to stave off the income taxes, bureaucracy, and the almost total loss of national identity.
It is in south into A New World to find a husband in Canada.
In Ottawa she meets Rex Hammerstein, a Government reporter for “True Canadian Romances Magazine” looking for a glamorous story to boost a sagging circulation. What better than to take an Eskimo Princess and present the Royal romance as an index of immigration in the Dominion. Calculating, he asks her on a invitation to meet the Canadian Press, and introduces her to Radio Tetchy and How Meek, two of the News’s senior editors anxious about the prophetic story of the hour.
Rex’s editorial dreams are not the worst. His real interest in the Canadian Tour begins with a trip to the National Research Council. He is whisked hilariously to a meeting of the Committee on Cultural Sobriety (David Lindars), who finally decide that the Princess’s impact on Canada is immense, culturally speaking. They bring the matter to the attention of the Governor-General who rules the whole idea hopeless – after all, the Dominion’s birthday is rapidly approaching and he and Honey Bender (Nancy Bader) set to a more relevant celebration: bringing French culture to mass communication.
In the Governor-General’s office the Queen Mother calls and finds, completely to 90 r.p.m the Governor-General, Constable Renfrew of the RCMP (Tylor). They declare their mutual feelings in the unusual love ballad We Hate Each Other.
After a visit to the Department of National Defence, the Princess’ tour of Canadian government culminates with the opening of Parliament where the members debate the principle of Dominion and Canadian unity, led by the Minister of Supply and Demand (John Macleod) the Members of both sides who feel the solution is more jobs and, finally, How Meek.
Act II opens in a typical student hangout whose occupants explain that Next Week Is Work Week. After listening to a lecture on Canadian poetry the Princess is taken to the Kappa Kappa Kappa sorority where the nine girls from the women’s house recognize her as a Princess of Aurora. To welcome her, Rex has proposed to Aurora who coyly declines accepting, and Rex goes off and drowns her return.
Political turmoil takes place on the eve of the Governor-General’s annual Protocol Ball which takes place on the eve of her twenty-first birthday. Princess hopes for a man of her dreams; and Honey and the Governor-General, dubbed the Society Gets Higher Every Year. After their presentation that others of the debutantes pay tribute to the Princess’ throne of furs in the So Glad-You-Could-Pay-Me-Deed Waltz.
Eco Decorum is soon abandoned in a frantic rock-and-roll follow as the switch is brought on an abrupt end by the advent of Vice and the Quebec Censorboard (Donald Hair). Finally the scene has become so disordered that Rex must step in it.
Unsuited to the triviality of contemporary music the Princess leaves the fracas and returns home – now no longer a Princess. Rex follows. But at the wedding of How Meek and the Princess, they are interrupted by the Queen Mother. After a hearty reunion with the Governor-General the Princess is in love – for love.
Back in Mukluko preparations are extensive at Mukluko and the Canadian Delegation for the up and coming election. The election campaign is interrupted by the arrival of the Queen Mother who announces the re-integration of Mukluko as a representative province in the Dominion of Canada (severs’ representative) and the Princess’ new man, who Rex renounces himself on the wedding night.
The people celebrate with the Governor-General, political enemies, and the curtain rings down on a romantic, passionate and musical ending.
Mary Bright, Elisabeth Heseltine, Judy Kirkpatrick, Liane Marshall, Shelley McCormick, Nadia Polyhronche, Zena Shore, Jim Brown, Donald Hair, Eric Zeyros, Wilf Hogg, David Booth, Bob Amaron, Trevor Bishop, Frank Blanch, Dave Calderisi, Michael Fried, Peter Duffield, Mike Hyndman, Mike Blain, Roy McTavish, Cliff Walker, Bill Phillips, Ross Elward, Allan White, Pierre Perron, Tommy Scott, Erik Wong, Peter Yalden.
Musical direction and orchestration by Edmund Assaly
A recording of the original college version of “My Fur Lady” is also available: catalogue number MRS-LPM-3.
This recording was produced by the McGILL Recording Service, 3851 University Street, Montreal, and is made according to the RIAA Recording Characteristic. It should be played at 33⅓ r.p.m. with a one-mil stylus.
RECORDED ON JUNE 12th, 1957, BY THE ORIGINAL CAST
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