First Impressions Totally Explained

Everything about First Impressions totally explained

First Impressions (1959) is a Broadway musical with music and lyrics by George Weiss, Bo Goldman, and Glenn Paxton, and book by Abe Burrows, based on the stage adaptation by Helen Jerome of Jane Austen's classic novel Pride and Prejudice. The Broadway production premiered at the Alvin Theater, New York City, on March 19, 1959, and played 84 performances. The stars of the original cast were Hermione Gingold (as Mrs. Bennet), Polly Bergen (as Elizabeth Bennet), and Farley Granger (as Mr. Darcy), supported by Phyllis Newman (Jane Bennet), Ellen Hanley (Charlotte Lucas), Christopher Hewett (Mr. Collins), and James Mitchell (Capt. Wickham). Hewett replaced Tony Award-winner Hiram Sherman after the show's out-of-town tryout, while Hanley replaced Bergen shortly into the run.
Like the novel, the musical is concerned primarily with the rocky courtship between Elizabeth Bennet, a poor gentlemen's daughter with four sisters, and Mr. Fitzwilliam Darcy, a wealthy aristocrat who arrives in Miss Elizabeth's rural village in 1813. The course of true love is hindered by minor character flaws on both sides--his pride and reserve, which look like arrogance to her, and her tendency to jump to erroneous conclusions based on little evidence, as well as her verbal assertiveness, which mildly scandalizes him--but as both Elizabeth and Mr. Darcy are good and sensible people, all ends happily. The musical concentrates more than the novel does on Mrs. Bennet's attitude toward all this, and on her tireless attempts to marry off her five marriageable daughters, despite the family's lack of money. The emphasis on Mrs. Bennet, no doubt, is the result of having cast a star (Hermione Gingold) in what was meant by Austen to be a secondary role.
The score, which mixes early-19th-century "period" music with standard Broadway idioms of the 1950s, includes the following principal songs:

"Five Daughters" (Mrs. Bennet)
"I'm Me" (Elizabeth and her sisters)
"Rumor" (Mrs. Bennet and company)
"A Perfect Evening" (Elizabeth and Mr. Darcy)
"As Long As There's A Mother" (Mrs. Bennet and her daughters)
"Love Will Find Out the Way" (Elizabeth)
"Gentlemen Don't Fall Wildly In Love" (Mr. Darcy)
"Fragrant Flower" (Rev. Collins and Elizabeth)
"What a Day to Fall in Love" (Jane Bennet, Mr. Bingley, and company)
"Agreeable" (Elizabeth and Mr. Darcy)
"This Really Isn't Me" (Elizabeth)
"A Simply Lovely Wedding" (Charlotte Lucas, Mrs. Bennet, Elizabeth, and company)
"A House In Town" (Mrs. Bennet)
"The Heart Has Won the Game" (Mr. Darcy)
"Let's Fetch the Carriage" (Mrs. Bennet and Elizabeth)

In addition, there were two dance numbers for Mitchell and the ensemble, choreographed by Jonathan Lucas. After decades out of print, the original cast album was rereleased on CD in 2002.
According to Granger, the musical was beset by a series of disasters, the most notable all involving the frequently dangerous sets. Several dancers were injured during rehearsals and the tryout in New Haven. Moreover, reports Granger, Gingold and Bergen disliked each other, and Mitchell felt ill-used (Granger 123-30). Stuart Hodes, Mitchell's understudy and one of the dancers injured, says that Granger's account is exaggerated, and also notes that Lucas' several replacements in the choreographer's slot included an uncredited Herbert Ross. First Impressions was Austen's original, pre-publication title for Pride and Prejudice. The show's brief run was a good fortune for at least one of its cast members. Fifteen-year-old Lauri Peters left a good enough first impression on one attendee that he invited her to audition for his next musical. Oscar Hammerstein II agreed with the impression of Richard Rodgers, and that November Peters created the role of Liesl, the eldest daughter, in The Sound of Music on Broadway. Peters shared a Tony Award nomination for the role, and stayed with the show for two years.

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