Robert and Elizabeth

Greetings from London and many thanks for the latest Newsletter which I thoroughly enjoyed, especially the articles on the musical Robert And Elizabeth in the feature Notable Production. Sadly I didn’t see the original London cast of this musical but I did see the post-West End tour when it played Bristol Hippodrome for a few weeks in 1967 (Programme pages attached).

Laurence Hardy, Jane Fyffe and Kevin Colson were the leading players then but for some strange reason Jane Fyffe did not sing Elizabeth’s eleven o'clock number 'Woman and Man’ at the performance I attended. Jane’s brother Patrick (famous later for being Dame Hilda Bracket in the popular drag duo Hinge and Bracket) is supposed to have joined the cast of this musical while it was playing Bristol but looking at my programme I obviously saw the musical before he had been added to the cast.

June Bronhill later took the musical to South Africa in 1969 for a short season where her Robert was the actor Neville Jason, who also appeared opposite June in her EMI recordings of Lehar’s The Count Of Luxembourg and Noel Coward’s Bitter Sweet.

BBC television screened extracts from the original West End production in 1964 and June and Keith Michell also appeared on a few TV shows singing songs from the musical. They appeared on Eamonn Andrews ITV show in 1965 and in 1971 on a Keith Michell special, June joins him to sing ‘I Know Now’ (this can be seen on YouTube). A year later in 1972, Keith Michell did a series on shows that had played certain West End Theatres. In the episode on the Lyric Theatre, Shaftesbury Avenue, June again joins Keith to sing the songs ‘I Said Love’ and ‘I Know Now’. (June also sings ‘My Hero’ in that programme as The Chocolate Soldier also played the Lyric.)

Thank you again for such an interesting feature.

All best wishes,

Geoff Bowden

London, UK

Denis Quilley as Robert Browning

souvenir programme

June Bronhill as Elizabeth Barrett

souvenir programme

R&E

THE AUSTRALIAN production of ROBERT AND ELIZABETH opened in Melbourne on May 21st, 1966. By strange coincidence. May 21st is a very important date in this most romantic story of two poets m love, for this was the date on which the handsome brilliant Robert Browning walked into No. 50 Wimpole Street and saw for the first time Elizabeth Barrett. That was 121 years ago, in 1845. Today, their immortal love story has been given new magic with the wonderful musical score by Australian composer RON GRAINER and the lyrics and libretto by RONALD MILLAR.

ROBERT AND ELIZABETH opened in London on October 20th. 1964. Because of the great number of Australians connected with the production, the newspapers quickly dubbed the show "The Australians of Wimpole Street" For apart from the composer, there was not only JUNE BRONHILL who starred as 'Elizabeth', but her 'Robert' was an Australian, and so were 16 other members of the cast. This was so marked that, when I first saw the show in London with my family, none of us would believe that we were 13,000 miles away from Australia.

Our connection with this musical dates back to 1963 when my father released June Bronhill from her engagement in 'The Merry Widow' so that she might return to England for preliminary rehearsals of a musical adaptation of 'The Barretts of Wimpole Street', the famous play by Rudolph Besier. ROBERT AND ELIZABETH became a triumphant success in London's West End; in fact, the opening of the Melbourne season marked its 732nd performance at the Lyric Theatre where it is still playing strongly. Long before its London opening, MARTIN LANDAU, the London impresario, offered Garnet Carroll the Australasian rights and other interests in this musical.

WE ARE OF COURSE THRILLED to have our own JUNE BRONHILL to play the role she created in London, and we are happy to present as her co-star, in the role of 'Robert Browning', the well-known West End and Broadway leading man DENIS QUILLEY.

A young, tall Australian actor first walked the boards of the Princess Theatre as a spear carrier during the Andew McMaster Shakespearian Season about 18 years ago. He is now one of Australia's best-known actors with an international reputation in film and stage productions — none other than FRANK THRING who plays the tyrannical father 'Edward Moulton-Barrett'.

On the production side we are proud to have been able to combine the great talents of our director CHARLES HICKMAN with those of choreographer GEORGE CARDEN. These two artists have been associated with four West End musicals, but this is the first time they have worked together in Australia. As Londoner Charles Hickman considers Australia his second home and is so happily remembered by Melbourne audiences for his many brilliant presentations for this management, his association with Australian George Carden gives our production another Australian link. Settings and costumes were designed by London designer MALCOLM PRIDE but executed in our own workshops, with the exception of some costumes which came direct from London.

IN OUR PRESENTATION of ROBERT AND ELIZABETH we are once again associated with Mr. KENN BRODZIAK and THE AUSTRALIAN ELIZABETHAN THEATRE TRUST, and we are delighted to have Mr MARTIN LANDAU reciprocate our London business connection with him.

John G. H. Carroll

 (Introductory notes from the Princess Theatre souvenir programme)

Frank Thring as Edward Moulton-Barrett

souvenir programme

The Cast and Production Personnel

N.B. Captain Surtees Cook was renamed Captain Brooke in the Australian production

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 The Director 

 The Choreographer 

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Unfair to Mr. B. ?

QUESTION: Was Mr. Edward Moulton-Barrett of Wimpole Street really the tyrannical father he has always been made out to be?

"I think not", claims June Bronhill, star of Robert and Elizabeth which is based on 1930 play The Barretts of Wimpole Street by Rudolph Besier. The play and two subsequent films on the same subject helped to turn Mr. Barrett into a king-sized ogre.

June Bronhill began studying the Barrett family before she was picked for the show.

Her plausible theory goes like this:

"After his wife's death Mr. Barrett had to cope with nine children (ages from 4 to 22), plus money trouble. He had to be firm to keep this brood in line, but there's plenty of evidence to show that his children adored him.

"If anyone dominated that famous household it was surely Elizabeth. She was the eldest. There was nothing much wrong with her, but she was extremely neurotic. When her favourite brother, Edward, drowned she would not allow anyone to mention his name. Most of the time she was also doped up to the eyebrows. Her sweetheart poet, Robert Browning, got her off most of the drugs, except opium. My research suggests she was an opium eater to the end of her life".

June is 4 ft. 11½", and the real Elizabeth, whom she portrays, was tiny, too. She had beautiful white teeth, and big dark eyes fringed with very long lashes. She wore her hair loose in long ringlets.

She was 40 when she married Robert Browning – he was six years younger. She fell in love with Robert before they met. He conquered her with these words in a letter: "I love your books with all my heart and I love you, too"

(notes from the Princess Theatre souvenir programme)

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Elizabeth with her brothers, Charles (Ian Smith), Henry (Rod Anderson) & Octavius (Andrew Guild)

 The Reviews

Handsome musical is here to stay

Robert and Elizabeth
Theatre: Princess

SOMETHING of Browning's confidence spread from the stage on Saturday night and infected everyone at the opening of this new musical. This time it looks at though the Princess has one of those productions which has come to stay.

It has warmth and charm, a nice blend of the romantic and the comic, and a very good cast supporting June Bronhill all the way. There has been no stinting on the mounting and production. It is a mighty handsome musical.

The love affair of Robert and Elizabeth Browning was the great romance of its period. When it was the fashion for fictional heroines to die gracefully, the Brownings proved that truth could be happier — and more respectable.

Rudolph Besier's play, which has become familiar as a film, did not have to twist the facts; the elements of the fairy tale were all on record. Elizabeth is the maiden locked in a tower, at 60 Wimpole Street.

Her father, Edward Moulton-Barrett, is the dragon guarding the door, and Browning the dashing young knight who rescues her from his claws after wooing her like a true troubador.

Ronald Miller has based his book firmly on the play and achieved a workable compromise which sacrifices the verbal subtleties both poets delighted in, but does not vulgarise them.

The lyrics between the lovers were more of a test; one must regard them as part of the spoken dialogue and not in competition with the one Browning poem set to music. This is not presented spontaneously but as a recital of a finished poem.

This is an acceptable middle-brow solution, and Ron Grainger, the prolific London – Australian composer, has echoed it in his musical setting.

The score makes no pretence at novelty, but the writing is craftsmanly and Grainer has the great, popular gift of being able to produce melodies to fit every occasion from a good, beefy love duet to a comic patter-song. Several of them will be whistled around the town for a long time to come.

June Bronhill makes full use of them, and so does Denis Quilley, as the young Browning. Bronhill admirers believe that she can do no wrong, and my faint doubts about her suitability as the intense and intellectual ''Portuguese" were soon discarded. The essence of the character was there, and she commanded the stage without strain.

Quilley's Browning was a good counterpart. An actor before he became a singer, he played the poet with intelligence and a fine touch of fervor. He also made it clear that he was both a scholar and a gentleman, which is important.

As for Frank Thring, he gave a monumentally evil study of the Victorian tyrant, bringing out ugly hints of sexual perversion in the Laughton manner. Some enthusiastic booing showed that he had scored a hit, but he was much more subtle and sinister than a stage villain.

In an even and enthusiastic cast I noted the impulsive Henrietta Barrett, well sung by Valmai Johnston, and her innocent, imposing lover, cleverly done by Elliot Cairnes. The whole family plays as a team.

Madelaine Orr obeys instructions to make Wilson, the personal maid, a comic, an idea which does not quite come off. She is too important to the story. But it was good fun seeing Jon Finlayson playing the tragedian Macready as a roaring ham.

This is a long show, but it does not seem long.

Charles Hickman's production is well timed and speeded up by elaborate stage mechanics.

GEOFFREY HUTTON.

The Age (Melbourne), 23 May 1966, p.5

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A confrontation in the garden between Browning and Barrett, as Elizabeth helplessly looks on. 

Elizabeth gathers strength during her dramatic Soliloquy

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Musical a masterpiece of entertainment

SHOW: "Robert and Elizabeth."
THEATRE: Princess.

THIS is one of those rare masterpieces of entertainment that musicals can become, and, in this production, it has everything working for its success.

June Bronhill is acting better than ever, even in bed and wheelchair, as she must be for a large part of this story of Robert Browning and Elizabeth Barrett.

Her singing is strong and clear, and in this she has good support from leading man Denis Quilley and a balanced chorus.

Quilley’s acting is the feature of the central story, apart from Miss Bronhill’s singing. He is quite dashing in tall hat, yellow gloves and elegant 1845 clothes.

He has good looks and good voice and adds up to an ideal Browning.

Frank Thring can’t sing, which is a pity, but he gets away with his big singing scene by talking the lyric on what could have been a shock number: “I’m The Master Here,” which he, as father Barrett, sings with his six cringing sons.

His slow and even awkward movement on stage actually help build the figure of the cruel, dominating psychopathic father.

The measure of his success was an appreciative friendly booing at the final curtain for his nasty role.

For Bronhill it was a shower of violets and carnations (which patrons had found pinned to their seats on arrival.)

Ron Grainer’s music matches the plot and characters superbly, and is full of Puccini-like climaxes that thrill an involved audience – and you can’t help being involved in this human story.

Musical director Alan Barker conducted with more understanding of the needs of a musical than anyone we have had for years.

The orchestra was kept down, so we heard the words and the voices, yet it built its climaxes, and retained a good balance.

The eight Barrett children, apart from Elizabeth, are a major character and choral part of the show and casting here is excellent.

The choreography and their several big scenes are as important, and effective, as their songs.

Producer Charles Hickman must have been pleased when the complicated scene changes worked so smoothly, especially the transformation scene from house to garden that brought a round of applause mid scene.

The show ranks with “My Fair Lady” and “West Side Story,” and is practically an established hit after only one night.

HOWARD PALMER

The Sun News-Pictorial (Melbourne), 23 May 1966, p.28

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Bella Hedley (Judy Banks) flaunts herself before Barrett telling him "What's natural".

Bella encounters Browning in the Cremorne Gardens in fashionable Chelsea.

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GAIETY AND STRENGTH IN MUSICAL

MUSICAL: "Robert and Elizabeth", by Ron Grainer and Ronald Millar.
THEATRE: Princess.
SEASON: Indefinite.

THIS long awaited musical based on the play "The Barretts of Wlmpole Street" proves to be satisfying entertainment in every way.

It is a solid, real story, the music by Australian Ron Grainer is lively and only occasionally reminiscent, and the casting and production are first-class.

On Saturday night it was flowers, flowers all the way from the violets and carnations pinned to the seats to the showering of the stage at the end.

The story of the love of Robert Browning and Elizabeth Barrett and of her emancipation from the monstrous domination of her father is told with both strength and gaiety.

We are never in doubt, though there is little direct quotation, that they are both poets, both people who are larger than life-size.

FINE BLENDING

June Bronhill, whose voice is so well known to Melbourne audiences, plays the 40-year-old hypochondriac Elizabeth with the same intelligence that she reveals in her straight-from-the-shoulder program note on the woman poet's character.

Denis Quilley is a sound actor with a most pleasing voice, and makes an admirable Browning.

Frank Thring, as Barrett the father, gives a careful and characteristic performance in an unaccustomed area of theatre.

Valmai Johnston as Henrietta Barrett, Judy Banks as the lively, lisping cousin Bella and Jon Finlayson as actor Macready—stand out in the generally even cast.

The only part about which I was not happy was that of Elliott Cairnes, as a Guards officer. He seemed to have been chosen entirely for the comic effect of his great height.

Under Charles Hickman's direction the grouping and movement was always pleasant. The sets are elaborate in design and brilliant in operation —much might have gone wrong and so very little did.

The orchestra, directed by Alan Barker, was never intrusive. We heard every word.

—H. A. STANDISH

The Herald (Melbourne), 23 May 1966, p.6

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Barrett spits out his abomination of "What the World Calls Love", which Elizabeth repudiates.

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THEATRE

It's Got It

Robert and Elizabeth. Directed by Charles Hickman. Princess, Melbourne.

WHEN the Rons Millar and Grainer settled down to write themselves a hit musical they very sensibly took a leaf or three from the book and score of Lerner and Loewe. Like the MFL men, their starting point was a successful play, and while "The Barretts of Wimpole Street" is no "Pygmalion" it's not without its useful similarities.

The setting remains gas-lit London, so the designers can go to town on elegant gowns, interiors, and street-scenes. Foremost phoneticist Higgins becomes famous poet Browning, and the central conflict once again concerns the hero's determined efforts to transform a reluctant heroine. Where the authoritarian Professor took a flower-girl and made her into a lady, Robert's alchemy is to change a bed-ridden neurotic into a woman. In fact, the scene in which Browning makes Elizabeth walk is so like that in which Higgins triumphs over Eliza's vowels that, at the sight of her first tottering steps, one waits for him to cry "By George, she's got it! I think she's got it!"

While Eliza, out in the cold, warbles that all she wants is a room somewhere, Elizabeth, locked far away from the cold night air, sings poignantly of "The World Outside." And both girls have their father troubles. Alfred Doolittle and Edward Moulton-Barrett are poles apart socio-economically, but they do give their respective proceedings a touch of villainy and most of the laughs.

Ron Grainer's apt and vivid themes for "Steptoe," "Maigret," and "Dr. Who" show his inventiveness as a pop composer, but his talk-songs for Robert and Edward are unashamedly derivative. The lyrical numbers are more individual, but are hampered by the lyricist. Millar, who dramatised C. P. Snow's "The Masters," dares for example to have one of England's greatest poets sing that the Moon fell like a rocket right into his pocket.

But enough nit-picking. The show will, of course, be a thumping success. The ingredients are proven and the production unstinting. Sets, costumes, and supporting cast aren't brilliant, but they're bright, and Alan Barker's orchestra is the best we've heard in a musical for years. Then there are the principals, all liberally endowed with star quality. Frank Thring plays Father Barrett like a Tory Dracula. Most women would climb happily in or out of bed for Denis Quilley's Browning, while the diminutive June Bronhill delivered her lines, songs, and curtain-speech with supreme skill and assurance.

She also contributes some program notes, gleanings from her personal research into the Barretts. She considers incestuous Edward maligned. It was the neurotic Elizabeth that dominated 50 Wimpole Street. And far from being a Doulton figurine, she was "an opium eater" to her dying day.

Thus, two perfectly good illusions are shattered.

PHILLIP ADAMS

The Bulletin (Sydney), 4 June 1966, p.48

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A happy finale as Robert and Elizabeth arrive in Florence, while Wilson (Madeleine Orr) attends to Flush the dog.

Production photos by F. R. Johnson taken at the Tivoli Theatre, Sydney in November 1964 (Mitchell Collection, State Library of New South Wales)

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WET WELCOME FOR COMPOSER

• Brisbane's weather – a near-cyclone with eight inches of rain, followed by bitter westerlies – let down Ron Grainer, famous Queensland-born composer of enchanting music, home after 14 years.

AND this after he had told friends in London he had never known rain in Brisbane in June.

But the fair-haired, handsome 44-year-old composer was not disturbed. He said mildly, "The sun will shine again."

Ron Grainer wrote the music for "Robert and Elizabeth," the story of poet Robert Browning, his frail wife, Elizabeth, and her stern father, now playing in Melbourne with June Bronhill as the star.

He flew to Australia to see the Melbourne production and to visit his parents, Mr. and Mrs. Ron Grainer, sen., of Clayfield, whom he hasn't seen since he left for overseas 14 years ago.

After Melbourne, he plans to visit his sister Marjorie, Mrs. J. Scully, of Mysterton, Townsville, North Queensland.

The London production of "Robert and Elizabeth," which also opened with June Bronhill, still packs crowds after a two-year run.

And Ron Grainer often goes to the London show to "keep an eye on the production."

He explained, "Things can change very gradually, without performers or orchestra being aware, particularly if you haven't seen it for a while.

"There can be changes in tempo, in interpretation, in dynamics. It tends to flatten out. If you don't have dynamic contrasts, you get almost a Minnie Mouse kind of production."

Ron Grainer said the music he had written for "Robert and Elizabeth" was quite different from any of his TV themes known to Australian viewers – "Steptoe," "Maigret," the "Comedy Playhouse" series, and "Dr. Who."

"Certain kinds of stories force the composer into a pattern," he said. "The effect I get in TV themes has to do partly with the instruments I choose."

How did he find the unusual and different-sounding melodies that have won him fame?

"Sometimes I may get a distinct idea – perhaps in the bath or driving – a sequence of notes or a particular sound in my head that may be the eventual thing," he said. "It may be rather rough.

"Normally I have to be by myself to get it in the initial stages.

"I have often written with people around me, but nearly always people on the same job.

"Atmosphere plays a great part. I cannot work when there is music. It blocks my mind. I can work in aeroplanes . . . jets . . . they don't affect me at all."

Success has brought Ron Grainer what he describes as "an awful lot to do."

"There is little time for leisure, but the life I lead in England has its own stimulation because I am mixing with many people – and minds sharpen themselves on other minds."

Ron Grainer has worked hard for his success. He had jobs in nightclubs, variety, and cabarets when he arrived in London. He got his first break in 1955, when a TV producer wanted music for a mandolin and piano.

"I have seen both sides of life, the really lean, and the successful," he said. "To have had a struggle makes one more realistic about it, inclined not to sit back and fear the alternative to success."

When not at his flat in the West End of London, Ron Grainer is at his home in Portugal. His daughter Rel is there now.

"In Portugal I love the water, the swimming, sun-bathing, and walking," he said. "It is a lovely climate very similar to Brisbane, except the other way round. They normally have their rain in winter and Brisbane usually has its rain in summer.''

But this time Brisbane proved him wrong!

- JEAN BRUCE

The Australian Women's Weekly, Wednesday, 29 June 1966, p.4

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June Bronhill recalled her final London performance and the lead up to the subsequent Australian production

It really was quite the most extraordinary closing night for me. I had been with the show for nineteen months, and apart my short holiday, I'd only missed four performances. Everybody gave me the most beautiful presents, lovely things that I will always treasure.

During those last few weeks, I had discovered that I was having a bit of trouble with my throat. I was not singing as well in certain parts of my voice as I knew I should be, and I was coughing a lot. My speaking voice offstage was very husky and I felt that I was very tired — after all, I was at the end of a nineteen-month season of eight performances a week, which is a lot of singing! But I thought a few days in Honolulu on the way to Australia and a couple of days rest when I got to Sydney and I would be all right. But it wasn't to be, was it! We flew to Honolulu and had five days there during which my throat became steadily worse. When I eventually arrived in Australia I knew that there was something very wrong with me.

We arrived in Sydney at about 7.30 in the morning and I was met by my dear singing teacher, Madame Mathy, who had arrived with a couple of bottles of chilled champagne. A couple of other friends and quite a barrage of press also met me. I skilfully hid my husky voice and carried it off well. The following day there was a big welcoming party to meet the Australian cast. My Robert was a wonderful English actor, Denis Quilley, and my father was a man we all love dearly, Frank Thring, a marvellous actor and a wonderful character. Halfway through the cocktail party, my throat was really getting very bad. I said to Richard that I thought I should go back to the hotel and not talk any more. My voice was really very husky indeed. John Carroll, of Garnet Carroll Productions, who were putting on the show, made an appointment for me to see Melbourne's top throat specialist the following morning. The specialist said I definitely had a nodule, something all singers are terrified of getting. He was an elderly gentleman and he said, ‘I’m too old to do the operation and I wouldn't know who to recommend. All I can suggest is that you just keep quiet — you don't speak for four weeks.' I thanked him and left. I said to Richard, 'Well, the show opens in four weeks, so how am I not going to rehearse?' Then I decided to phone dear old Madame Mathy to see if she could suggest anything.

She told me to come up to Sydney straightaway because she had a wonderful throat specialist, Dr Barat, whom she would recommend to anybody. I flew to Sydney and saw Dr Barat that night. He said that he could remove my nodule, but that it was a tricky operation. If the chord was nicked by just the slightest misplacement of the instrument, there would be no voice left. I discussed it with Richard and Mathy and we decided that we would risk it.

The following morning, while I was under local anaesthetic, Dr Barat put an incredibly fine instrument down my throat. Then, very gently, he pulled it out and said, ‘Put out your hand.' I did and he put a little grey ball that looked exactly like a Beluga caviar egg in it. He said (in his wonderful Hungarian accent), 'Now, you do not speak for one week, you just write everything down, you then can whisper very, very softly for one week, the third week you can start speaking but very quietly, and on the fourth week you can start singing and you will be all right for your opening night.' So I nodded. He said, 'Now, I want you to come to me tomorrow morning and I just have a look and see how it is healing.'

The following morning I wrote a note to a taxi driver and went to see Dr Barat again. He looked down my throat and said, 'It is a miracle. If I had not known that you had a nodule yesterday, I wouldn't be able to tell where it was; it has healed very quickly. Now you can start whispering for a few days, then you can start speaking. You can sing in ten days' time.'

I can't tell you what it was like when I opened my mouth to sing for the first time in about three weeks and to hear that I could sing! There were no croaks, no scratchy sounds. The voice was back, thanks to Dr Barat.

Once again, we had a splendid cast for Robert and Elizabeth, and our opening night was something that I don't think I'll ever forget. The outside of the Princess Theatre had been made to look like London's Wimpole Street. All along the walls were wonderful old carriage lamps; the fan lights were lit up beautifully; the inside of the theatre was red-carpeted everywhere; and up the marble staircase were the flowers which would be presented to us on stage at the end of the performance. It was just like a florist's shop or a garden — quite magnificent! And inside the auditorium every seat had a little bottle of 4711 Eau de Cologne, because of the song, 'Pass the Eau de Cologne for God's Sake'. There were also a little bunch of violets for the women and a carnation for the men, for their lapels. The theatre had been gently sprayed with eau de cologne and the whole effect was really quite beautiful! They certainly knew how to do things in those days!

The opening night was a sensation. I don't think they'd seen anything like it in Australia for a long while. Of all those beautiful bouquets up the staircase, twenty-two of them, would you believe, were for me! I had nowhere to put them all at home, so I got in touch with all the hospitals the following morning and some nurses came over to collect about eighteen or nineteen of them.

Frank Thring was playing my father. He's a marvellous character and a great actor. At every performance I used to wear a beautiful ring. It was a black opal, surrounded by diamonds. It sounds flashy, but it wasn't. At one matinee performance, I had just returned from a morning press function, and I didn't wear the black opal but another lovely ring, an amethyst surrounded by pearls and diamonds. So I thought I'd wear that on stage. In our first scene, Thring took one look at my hand and was suddenly reduced to laughter. Offstage I asked, 'What was so funny?'

'It was just suddenly noticing that you didn't have the opal on. It just seemed so strange and I couldn't help laughing.'

I thought, 'Right! Every so often, at a matinee, I'll do something silly with the ring situation and just see what his reaction is.'

The first thing I did was get some of those awful big pearls you buy at Woolies with great big holes that you thread through. I threaded it on string and tied it underneath my finger. When he looked down, he couldn't believe what he saw. After that, at each performance he'd look down to see what I had on my finger. I'd lull him into a sense of false security and then do another. Next I put a Bandaid around my finger and on the top of it, I put a bit of glue and stuck red glitter all over it. Once again he went completely sky-high. I did all sorts of evil things and he got to the stage where, even if I didn't do anything silly, he still had the giggles!

Charlton Heston happened to be visiting Melbourne during our season. Frank had appeared with him in many epics like Ben Hur, so lovely Thring decided he would give a party after the performance for the company to meet Charlton Heston. He was really quite splendid, very handsome and wonderful to meet, and it was a great thrill for all of us. … Eventually I got home at about 6.30 in the morning, had about three or four hours sleep, then had to go in for the matinee! I was still on a high of excitement but I didn't realise it was also the alcohol in me! In my first scene, the dialogue was fine but when it came to singing, my co-ordination of music and words, for the first time in my life, was a little haywire. A large dose of Vitamin B soon put that right, I'm happy to say!

At another matinee, at the beginning of Act II when Elizabeth was back in her room once more on her chaise-longue, with Papa standing over her making her drink a tankard of porter, because he thought it was the best thing for her health, Frank Thring put the tankard into my hand and I was just about to drink this dreadful stuff when a male voice from the front row of the stalls said, 'Oh, he's got her back on the beer again!' in the broadest Australian accent you've ever heard! How we managed to carry on with the show I don't know.

The show was a fantastic success in Melbourne. We played to capacity houses for seven and a half months before moving on to Sydney. Before going to Sydney I took a day off and flew up to find an apartment to live in while we did the show in Sydney. I went to my favourite estate agent in Double Bay and on the way I passed the dear old Tivoli Theatre. There wasn't a sign outside to say that we were opening in a fortnight's time. There wasn't even a poster. I couldn't believe it. When I got to the estate agent, they asked me what I was doing in Sydney.

'Well, I'm opening in a fortnight at the Tivoli Theatre in Robert and Elizabeth.'

'But there's been no publicity. We haven't seen or heard anything. Everybody thinks that the old Tiv's closed because they had a closing-down gala night recently with everybody weeping and wailing because it was the end of the old Tivoli — it was being pulled down. This was about a month or so ago, and everybody thinks that's it.'

'Well, it isn't it. We'll be there in a fortnight.'

I flew back to Melbourne and told everybody, including John Carroll, all of this. John said, 'Oh, it's OK. It'll all be OK,' which of course it wasn't. The people who came to see the show absolutely loved it. This was also just before Christmas, which was not a good time to open a show without a lot of pre-publicity. Consequently we only lasted five weeks in Sydney, which was ridiculous. When the 'last two weeks' notices appeared in the newspapers and on the boards outside the theatre, people just flocked to it! People still hadn't known it was on. How sad that we closed! I'm sure there was an enormous Sydney audience deprived of seeing a great show, Robert and Elizabeth.

… During the Australian run I had word from London to say that negotiations had gone through for us to do Robert and Elizabeth on Broadway. Keith Michell would be doing it with me but John Clements wasn't available and Rupert Davies, of Maigret fame, would be playing Edward Moulton-Barrett. It was all very exciting. Money had been discussed; when we would start rehearsals had been discussed; contracts were ready to be signed; I'd given up my apartments in London and in Melbourne, and I was due to leave in about ten days time. I was going to fly via the South of France and have a holiday there, visit a few friends in London and then go off to America. Then I had a cable to say that the American production had been cancelled because of a dispute over the American rights. The case was eventually thrown out of court, but the show never did get to Broadway.

extracts from The Merry Bronhill (Methuen Haynes, North Ryde, NSW: 1987), pp. 112 - 118

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The Canberra Times (Thursday, 6 April 1967, p.11)

The Canberra Times (Wednesday, 12 July 1967, p.1) 

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Recollections by original Australian cast member Andrew Guild

 When June arrived in Australia at the old Essendon Airport it was like a royal visit. John Carroll had his 2 Rolls Royce cars parked at the curb-side and a van was on hand to transport Miss Bronhill’s considerable luggage to the Hotel Windsor.

June arrive with an entourage consisting of husband Richard, daughter Biddy, a nanny and a secretary. In 1966 there was little or no airport security so the meeting party, John and Anne Carroll, Charles Hickman the show’s director, Bill Gordon the extraordinary and legendary publicist and advertising manager at the Princess and countless camera wheedling press photographers and film cameramen (yes, all men in those days) were allowed onto the tarmac to meet the TAA T-Jet as it arrived from Sydney. The stairs were driven up to the door of the aircraft and once opened June made her appearance and made an entrance down the stairs. A true star returning to Australia.

I was working FOH in the publicity department at the Princess at the time as well as on standby for the start of rehearsals of R&E in which I had already been cast as Octavius Barrett, the youngest of the Barrett brothers. I was assigned to driving the 2nd of the Carroll’s Rolls. I could hardly see over the steering wheel of the huge 1955 Roller.

It was an exciting arrival and an exciting beginning of the R&E project.

The production was directed by Englishman Charles Hickman who had directed a number of major musicals for the Carroll’s. Charles was a lovely man. On the opening night and after only one or two dress rehearsals – there were no drawn out previews back then – rehearse for 4 weeks, a couple of Dress rehearsals and on you went – Charles brought the entire cast into the stalls for one last notes session and to offer his congratulations to the entire cast. His very last comment was one that has stuck with me for just on 59 years as most beautiful, moving and inspiring. Charles said, “You’ve done the work, the production is marvellous and all you need to do, and do every night, is to sprinkle your magic over the stage at every performance,” and with that he held up his hand and, as if he had a palm full of magic dust, he made a sprinkling motion. It was a magical, memorable moment.

Charles Hickman was a nervous director, on edge, alert, living all the characters as he directed. He never expressed his nerves in temper of frustration, but he took them out on a copious number of white cotton handkerchiefs. After each rehearsal session the cleaners would find pieces of shredded hanky all through the stalls….

Charles once told us a funny story about his small mews house in London. The house was in Belgravia in one of those perfect back streets that tourists love to wander down. The sitting room had a tiny bay window looking out to a cobbled street. Charles and his partner had a small table set in the bay window, which usually had a delicate small vase of flowers set in the middle. On one afternoon Charles came into this room only to find two American tourists sitting at the table… “tea and scones for two please, waiter” said his unannounced guests,

The transformation scene from the interior of the Barrett’s Wimpole Street house to the garden was a complicated set change. No remote computer controlled modules in 1966; no magic pullies of electric motors. Just manpower! Hidden inside the two main set pieces were two burly stage hands. On cue it was their job to unpin the trucks and then shuffle down stage turning the set pieces as they went. This set change was very impressive and often received a round of applause all of its own. However on one Saturday at the Princess disaster struck. It was a hot two show day and some of the stage crew, including a chap who’s one big job in the production was to be inside the set prior to the end of the interval in readiness for the “big scene change“, had partaken of light refreshments between the matinee and evening shows at The Imperial on the corner of Spring and Bourke Streets. One had more "refreshments" than the others.

Just as the big change was about to happen, coughing and spluttering could be heard emanating from inside one of the major aforementioned set pieces. Then spluttering and splashing. Shortly followed by an unpleasant stream of red wine seeping out from under the set and flowing down stage. The blackout couldn’t come fast enough that evening. The offending stage hand was hauled out of the set piece and never seen again!!

The season at the Sydney Tivoli was an huge disappointment lasting just 4 weeks. The most memorable moment of that short season actually happened on the very last performance. At the big finale, the steam train arrived in Italy, Miss Barret alighted with her small King Charles spaniel, met Robert Browning, and dog, Elizabeth and Robert moved down stage in full song towards in anticipation of the final curtain falling. Then, right smack bang centre stage, the King Charles decided to show his contempt for Sydney audiences.. The animal turned upstage, squatted as dogs do and did one almighty, unmissable poo! Curtain on the Australian season of Robert and Elizabeth ….

Cast Members:

Ian Smith who played George Barrett (one of the Barret boys) went on the become mega-famous for his much loved character, Harold Bishop, in Neighbours.

Paul Thompson, another Barrett boy – Septimus, has become a pre-eminent landscape architect and horticulturalist.

Graeme Ewer – Alfred Barrett, joined Opera Australia and was an audience favourite for over 4 decades.

Frank Thring was one of those unforgettable characters. A wonderful colleague, a mentor and a friend. After R&E he continued being Frank Thring, being a friend to all and supporting the people who make Mylanta.

Andrew Guild

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

Musical Director Alan Barker remembers Robert and Elizabeth

Archival "live" recording of the original 1966 Melbourne Princess Theatre production of Robert and Elizabeth starring June Bronhill, Denis Quilley and Frank Thring (posted by permission of Kurt Gänzl for Talent Artists.)

Act 1:

Act 2:

Postscript:

'Robert and Elizabeth'

JUNE BRONHILL is to appear as Elizabeth with Neville Jason as Browning and Dennis Folbigge as Barrett when "Robert and Elizabeth" is staged by African Consolidated Theatres of South Africa. The musical, to be produced and directed by Joan Brickhill and Louis Burke, opens at the Alhambra, Cape Town, on July 11 and is to visit Port Elizabeth, Durban, Pietermaritzburg and Johannesburg. Miss Bronhill leaves London to attend rehearsals in South Africa on June 19.

The Stage (London) – Thursday, 15 May 1969, p.8

The 1987 revival of Robert and Elizabeth starring Mark Wynter and Gaynor Miles played at the Chichester Festival Theatre commencing with 4 preview performances from Friday, 24 to Tuesday, 28 April, followed by a limited season of 38 performances between Wednesday, 29 April to Saturday, 27 June (which played in repetoire with a revival of Oscar Wilde's An Ideal Husband starring Joanna Lumley).

The revival curtailed the extended dance and ballet sequences of the original production and eliminated the entire Cremorne Gardens scene, together with the Act 1 duet “Want to be Well” for Browning and Elizabeth, Bella Hedley’s song “What’s Natural” and Browning’s “Under a Spell” in Act 2 and relocated Henrietta and Capt. Cook’s “Hate Me Please” to a new setting; resituated an extended “Escape Me Never” to the beginning of the second Act and restored the Act 2 solo for Browning “Long Ago I Loved You”, cut from the score during its original pre-London run in 1964.

A proposed London transfer of the revival did not eventuate when Miss Miles decided that she could not sustain the vocally demanding role of Elizabeth for eight performances a week during an open-ended West End run.

Mark Wynter as Robert and Gaynor Miles as Elizabeth

The cast and Production personnel

The reviews:

CHICHESTER

Mick Martin

Robert and Elizabeth

FIRST seen in Wendy Toye's 1964 production, Robert and Elizabeth offers an old-fashioned sentimental account of the power of love to overcome all obstacles as it traces the romance between Robert Browning and Elizabeth Moulton-Barrett from initial correspondence to eventual elopement.

Stewart Trotter's uneven revival, which launches the new season at Chichester's Festival Theatre suggests that Ron Grainer's fluent tuneful score has worn well. But by hinting at, rather than exploiting, the dramatic potential of the underlying tensions between energy, authority and repressed desire, Ronald Millars book seems too firmly rooted in a world of golden daffodils and lollipop trees where the course of true love runs, if not exactly smoothly, at least with sugar-coated predictability.

Mark Wynter as Browning is a considerable revelation, powerfully combining a fine singing voice and a commanding stage presence in the persuasive creation of a tenacious and debonair romantic hero of irresistible appeal.

Gaynor Miles has no less fine a singing voice (though its operatic quality does not always sit easily with the overall tone of the show). But her acting rarely penetrates the frail, wan and statuesque exterior of Elizabeth to reveal the passion and sensitivity that burn within.

John Savident provides a laudibly convincing study of pre-Freudian patriarchal tyranny, and he and Wynter make the most of such opportunities as the book allows to give substance to the central clash of wills.

The proceedings are lent a pleasing vitality by the slick ensemble work of the supporting cast, among whom Jacinta Mulcahy, as Elizabeth's spirited sister Henrietta, particularly catches the eye.

Stewart Trotter’s spritely direction gains in shape and definition as it proceeds, but fails to strike the necessary balance between the sombre and the bright. Especially in the early stages it also seems unnecessarily cluttered, threatening to engulf rather than inhabit the open stage.

And what Tim Goodchild's overbearing rustic hayloft of a set is intended to convey is anybody's guess.

The Guardian (London), 1 May 1987, p.21

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

 Theatre

By CLIVE HIRSCHHORN

A sumptuous treat

THIS year’s Chichester festival opens in fine style with a sumptuous revival of the musical ROBERT AND ELIZABETH, one of the better British efforts of the Sixties.

And if much of Ron Grainer and Ronald Millar's music and lyrics owe an unashamed debt to Rodgers and Hammerstein, not to mention Lerner and Loewe, at least they are borrowing from two impeccable sources.

For a generation unfamillar with the original, or for those who may have forgotten it, Robert and Elizabeth, based on a famous stage play by Rudolf Besler, is the story of the Barretts of Wimpole Street and the tyrannical hold Mr Edward Moulton-Barrett exercised over his nine grownup children, including the sickly Ellzabeth (Gaynor Miles), the oldest and most favoured of the Barrett brood.

TUNEFUL

The claustrophobia of Ellzabeth’s confined, airless existence is penetrated by “versifier” Robert Browning (Mark Wynter), whose love for the ailing poetess helps restore her health long enough for her to defy her father by marrying Browning and travelling to Italy with him.

Structured by Ronald Millar with a professionalism rare in British musicals, this relentlessly tuneful show, niftily directed by Stewart Trotter, benefits from a lively, full-throated cast (John Savident is particularly imposing), some simple but effective choreography by Mike Fields, and from Tim Goodchild's evocative sets and costumes.

Indeed, this is the best production Chichester has offered in years.

The Sunday Express (London), 3 May 1987, p.19

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* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

Poetic love tale is real delight

By Showpage Editor Colin Clark

A FINE, excellently-cast production of Robert and Elizabeth delighted last Wednesday's Chichester Festival Theatre audience.

This work by Ronald Millar and Ron Grainer may present a strange amalgam of mood and musical style but, with Chichester’s outstanding cast, its romance, passion, comedy and even farce are tackled with equal aplomb.

The production marks a stunning Chichester debut for new singing sensation Jacinta Mulcahy impressing equally in powerful near-operatic numbers and tender duets in her role of Henrietta opposite Mark Wynter as Robert Browning. [sic – the critic curiously confused Gaynor Miles in the co-title lead role of Elizabeth with that of Miss Mulcahy in the secondary role of her sister, Henrietta].

Mark’s performance as the exuberant yet gentle poet shows a vocal and acting strength surpassing his already long list of stage musical credits. This, however, is a Stewart Trotter-directed production which enjoys vocal strength in depth with faultless performances by Elizabeth's six brothers and two sisters.

Ultimately, the production's undoubted success owes much to John Savident, direct from Phantom of The Opera, in a superb portrayal of a tyrannical and sadistic Edward Moulton-Barrett.

Robert and Elizabeth continues in repertory until June 27.

Worthing Gazette & Herald, Friday, 8 May 1987, p.26

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

The Chichester season has opened with two smart fairy-tales of London, legends of the West End. The open stage of the Festival Theatre seems cut out to represent the Octagon Room of the Chilterns' place in Grosvenor Square, where An Ideal Husband begins...

A more surprising Chichester revival is Robert and Elizabeth, tunefully opening "on a corner of Wimpole Street and Cavendish Square." The verses of Robert and Elizabeth Browning are not often set to music: they are too crunchy and chunky. But some singable Browning lines are included in this pleasant libretto: "Escape me never" and "All’s right with the world."

Two Ronnies, Millar and Grainer, created this show in 1964 from a play of 1930 by Rudolph Besier, "The Barretts of Wimpole Street." Besier was old enough to remember the era of the Victorian heavy father—and modern enough to blame Elizabeth's possessive father for incestuous feelings. This heavy matter is not allowed to overwhelm the light musical, though John Savident is powerful enough to do it justice, and he does look rather like Cedric Hardwicke, the original Mr Barrett.

Stewart Trotter, the director, has set up a proscenium stage in the midst of the Chichester expanse, as if his show was being performed by strolling players, but it opens up with a Victorian railway train to take Robert and Elizabeth off to sunny Florence. We enjoyed the powerful voice of Gaynor Miles as the bedridden Elizabeth and the robust operetta style of Mark Wynter as Robert: he used to be merely a famous pop star. All the performers can sing well and the band does justice to Grainer's melodious score.

D.A.N. JONES

Sunday Telegraph (London), 17 May 1987, p.17

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

In the Press

 MILES AHEAD

By SUE WILKINSON

SITTING pretty is Gaynor Miles — so far, the find of Chichester Festival Theatre summer season. With a strong soprano voice and fine acting talent, the Southend star has charmed both critics and audiences with her role in the musical “Robert and Elizabeth”. She has transformed the traditional picture of poetess Elizabeth Barrett as a frail and frightened female into a memorable madam of the musical stage. The love story between Elizabeth and the robust and romantic Robert Browning was chronicled in a stage play and later the film “The Barretts of Wimpole Street” in which Charles Laughton gave a terrifying performance as the tyrannical patriarch. in the Chichester version emphasis is on fun and comedy but with no attempts to gloss over the seamier almost incestuous relationship which existed between Elizabeth and her father.

Frailty

But to arrive at the slick, enjoyable end product Gaynor has worked and thought hard to make Elizabeth Barrett come alive from the score.

"I have to be stronger on stage. You cannot get away with that kind of frailty”, she says. "She can be irritating because you feel ‘Why doesn't she get up and go?’ But you have to realize it is 1845 and take into consideration the oppression of her father. She also genuinely believed she was dying and she loved her father.

“It was a very hard decision to make and create the scandal,” explains Gaynor. “It is certainly the most difficult character I have had to portray, simply because she can come across so negatively."

In the second half Gaynor is helped by some superb music, particularly a powerful soliloquy. On the opening night she had the audience hanging on her every word and carried them on to a heartwarming finale.

Gaynor managed to stun the audience into attention and from then on it did not waver.

In act two Elizabeth is desperate to get well. The song tells of defiance, woman, man, it exalts love and denies everything her father has taught her.

Gaynor intensively researched the part. The characters are based loosely on real life — it is musical comedy not biography.

“I read their letters and went to the house in Florence where they lived after they eloped. It was not really helpful with the interpretation but it was interesting to know something about the real characters.”

Although the two women are decades and cultures apart Gaynor does not think there is that much difference between them.

“We are both feminists, believing in equality. When she was younger she was very unorthodox and tearaway. We are both interested in English Literature and during my university degree I made a special study of Browning.”

Gaynor’s unorthodoxy is clear in the way she entered life on the stage. “I drifted into it," she says, after jobs editing a railway engineers' magazine and teaching English.

She says she was very academic and embarked on a degree course with thoughts of being a journalist or politician.

Training was done privately and part-time at a well known drama and music school which she is reluctant to name.

"It did not like part-timers saying where they trained so now I am here I don't think I will, ” she says with a hint of comic wickedness.

Barriers

Singing in a restaurant earned her an Equity card and since then she has played Mabel in “The Pirates of Penzance" in the West End and the famous soprano role of Sombra in a revival of “The Arcadians” at Exeter.

Subsequent roles include Jenny Lind in a USA production of “Barnum” and Queen of the Night in “The Magic Flute.”

But she does not want to be pigeon-holed as an opera singer. “I like both acting and singing. In opera the voice is the most important thing, dramatic interpretation is second.

“I would like to broaden my sphere of performance and take on straight acting. One should not be pigeon holed and I want to break down the barriers and go into other fields of performance.”

Her mother, from whom Gaynor says she inherited her singing voice, wants her to play Carmen but she says her voice is wrong.

But who knows where the girl from Southend, which she denies is all cockle-shells and winkle stalls, candy floss and kiss-me-quick-hats, will turn up next, or in which guise.

Portsmouth Evening News, Saturday, 30 May 1987, p.20

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

Musical Theatre historian Kurt Gänzlrecalls the Chichester revival
(recorded for Musical Theatre Melodies hosted by Rob Morrison broadcast on Melbourne community radio 96.5 Inner FM on 13 November 2012.)

   English stage Director (and Shakespearean scholar) Stewart Trotter recalls the Chichester revival

photo by Peter Trimming / Chichester Festival Theatre, Sussex / CC BY-SA 2.0

 The Third Kiss – c.1960 New York demo recording

Selections from Fred G. Moritt’s score for his unproduced musical version of The Barretts of Wimpole Street were recorded at the Bell Sound Studios at 237 West 54th Street in New York City around 1960 with musical accompaniment arranged by Ray Ellis and featuring mezzo-soprano Kay Armen (who performed the songs allotted to Elizabeth Barrett), and vocalists Rosemarie Jun and Bernard Knee (who chiefly sang the lighter numbers in Moritt’s score). The resulting non-commercial Demonstration Record was issued on a 12” 33-1/3 rpm Long Playing record with the assigned inventory number of FM 10764-B. (After auditioning Moritt’s libretto and score for The Third Kiss, Martin Landau considered it unsuitable for production and contracted Ron Grainer and Ronald Millar to write a new musical version of the Besier play with the additional credit “from an original idea by Fred G. Moritt.”)

Kay Armen

Rosemarie Jun

Bernard Knee

Audio from the demo recording of The Third Kiss made available to THA by permission of Kurt Gänzl for Talent Artists.

1964 HMV Lp

1981 Australian World Record Club reissue

Robert and Elizabeth – 1964 original London cast

U.K. His Master's Voice catalogue nos.: HMV CSD 1575 (stereo) & HMV CLP 1820 (mono)

Released as a 12” 33-1/3 rpm Long Playing record

Australian issue: Cat no.: EMI OCSD 1575 (stereo)

Vocal Gems (including “I Said Love”, “I Know Now”, “Escape Me Never” & “The Girls That Boys Dream About”) issued on a 45 rpm Ep (Extended Play) – cat. no. His Master's Voice 7EG 8897

Reel-to-Reel tape recording, 3¾ ips, ¼”, 2-Track mono - cat. no.: His Master’s Voice TA-CLP 1820

Original cast member June Bronhill also recorded solo cover versions of “I Know Now” and “You Only to Love Me” with Alyn Ainsworth & His Orchestra issued on an HMV 45 rpm. single record with cat. no.: POP 1349

1980 Lp reissues
Cat. no.: EMI ON532

Cat. no.: Stet DS 15021
Notes: U.S. release by Stet Records

1981 Lp reissue
Cat. no.: WRC R 09096
Notes: Australian issue by World Record Club

1982 Lp reissue
Cat. no.: AEI 1111
Notes: U.S. reissue by The Council for Musical Theatre

1993 EMI CD reissue
Label: West End Angel – UK: CDANGEL 2
Cat. no.: 0777 7 89059 2 9
Release Date: 9 November 1993
Notes: U.K. release

Cat. no.: ZDM 7243 5 65069 2 3
Notes: U.S. release

Audio from the original London cast recording may be heard on YouTube at https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLTWT7p-szqEnO89LxmdeU-PhzIGRUlKiz 

2007 EMI CD selections
Six songs from the 1964 original London cast recording were included on the 3 CD set: June Bronhill – The Platinum Collection (compiled by Tony Locantro) issued by EMI Australia

Cat. no.: EMI Classics 0946 3891632 1

Release Date: 17 April 2007

Notes: includes June Bronhill’s solo version of “I Know Now” and cover version of "You Only to Love Me" with Alyn Ainsworth & His Orchestra (originally issued on a 45 rpm single) plus Angela Richard’s London cast recording of “You Only to Love Me” mistakenly in place of "The Real Thing", which was otherwise omitted, although listed in the CD booklet and rear jewel case insert.

1987 Chichester revival cast recording

Robert and Elizabeth – 1987 Chichester revival cast

Cat. no.: Cast 8
Released as a 12” 33-1/3 rpm Long Playing record by First Night Records

Also issued on CD with cat. no.: Cast CD32

2003 CD reissue
Cat. no.: OCR CD6032

Release Date: 17 June 2003

Audio from the Chichester revival cast recording may be heard on YouTube at  https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=OLAK5uy_n6IXUDcAMO3wrqwSI2Zwz6o7esUm_QBIY

Fred G. Morritt’s initial involvement in the musical adaptation of the Besier play was documented in the following article published in The New York Times in early 1960.

SHOW SCORE DONE BY A CITY JUSTICE

Fred Moritt Writes Music, Lyrics for Barretts — Musical Option Lapses

By SAM ZOLOTOW

Municipal Court Justice Fred G. Moritt has written the score and lyrics for a musical version of "The Barretts of Wimpole Street," Katharine Cornell's greatest hit to date.

At first, the 54-year-old Justice hesitated yesterday to confirm his extra-curricular activity, saying he was not seeking publicity. When told it was verified elsewhere, he acknowledged his contribution to the show, which lacks an adapter.

It is to be produced in the fall under the auspices of Roger L. Stevens and Jay Blackton, musical director of "Redhead."

No one is set for the cast but three of the principal roles might be delineated by Julie Andrews or Sally Ann Howes as Elizabeth Barrett, John Raitt or Richard Kiley as Robert Browning and Charles Laughton as the dour Edward Moulton-Barrett.

In the first Broadway presentation of 1931, those parts were interpreted in the foregoing order by Miss Cornell, Brian Aherne and Charles Waldron.

Two years ago Jean Dalrymple was planning to introduce a song-and-dance treatment of the successful play. Helen Thomas had provided the adaptation, music and lyrics. Miss Thomas' option on the property expired last year.

Friend Got Option

A friend of Justice Moritt, Dr. Franco Colombo, president of the music publishing house of G. Ricordi & Co., obtained a four-year option on the drama in 1959 from Mr. Besier's estate. Dr. Colombo said the mission occupied him for three years.

Before contracts were signed, Justice Moritt, an accomplished pianist, played the score for the estate's representatives. AIthough the Justice had been a baritone soloist on radio programs and in night clubs, he said he recited the songs the way Rex Harrison did in "My Fair Lady."

Justice Moritt had studied music with tutors, taught music and has been composing all his life. He is a member of the American Society of Composers, Authors and Publishers. Before his election to the bench two years ago, he served as a State Assemblyman for seven years and a State Senator for thirteen years.

“The Barretts” has had a notable career. Besides the 1931 offering, which ran for 370 performances on Broadway, Miss Cornell was seen in the local revivals of 1935 and 1945. Despite its subject material, the play was taken by Miss Cornell in 1944 to Europe, where it was performed at American Army installations for 140 performances.

Two screen versions were released by Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer. One with Norma Shearer in 1934; the other with Jennifer Jones in 1957.

The New York Times, 15 January 1960, p.38

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However, when the mooted New York production failed to materialise, Moritt turned instead to London producer Martin Landau, but when his score was subsequently replaced by that of Grainer and Millar and despite the resulting musical's West End success (and consequent financial compensation to Morrit for his “idea”), the miffed songwriter turned to the British courts in an attempt to secure a greater share of the glory.

Brooklyn Judge Loses Stage Suit in London

LONDON, May 10 (AP)—

A New York judge who dabbles in theatricals went into a British high court Tuesday to seek bigger billing for himself in a West End musical. He lost.

Judge Fred George Moritt of Brooklyn sued the producers of the musical "Robert and Elizabeth”. He wanted his name to match those of Ronald Millar and Ron Grainer, who wrote the libretto and music.

Justice Denys Burton Buckley conceded that Mr. Moritt conceived the idea of the musical, but pointed out that his music and lyrics were discarded along the way.

The New York Times, 11 May 1966, p.38

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

Fred Moritt’s subsequent legal injunction to prevent Robert and Elizabeth from being staged in New York (in the hope that his musical The Third Kiss might eventually be produced there), effectively derailed the projected 1967 Broadway production, chiefly because the producer did not want to engage in a possible costly court case to overturn the injunction (especially given Moritt’s connection to the New York judiciary.)

Although Moritt still held out hopes that The Third Kiss would reach the stage, a compromise of sorts was worked out with the Broadway producer some 3 years later, as related in the NY Times:

News of the Rialto

‘Elizabeth’…

By LEWIS FUNKE

IT isn't often that contending parties in a long, legal hassle walk out of a courtroom, each whistling a happy tune. But that is apparently what happened the other day when the plaintiff, Fred G. Morilt, a judge of the Civil Court, and L. Slade Brown, the theatrical producer, signed an agreement ending a battle that began more than four years ago.

At that time. Brown was preparing a production of the musical "Robert and Elizabeth," which had been a success in London. But Judge Moritt put a stop to that, contending that the London producer of the musical, which had its origin in the judge's own original script, “The Third Kiss,” had no right to make a deal for the American production.

Brown gave up, though he already had signed his staff, as well as two stars of the London production, June Bronhill and Keith Michell. In fact, Brown already had booked the production into theaters in New Haven, Toronto and Detroit when the whistle blew.

Now, according to the agreement, Brown can—and is—going ahead with his project, hoping for an opening in the fall. And Judge Moritt is free to proceed, if he wishes, with any plans he may put together for “The Third Kiss," which, the truth be told, has given him more heartache than he ever bargained for.

The tale is a 15-year history of frustration. Judge Moritt happens also to be a musician—a pretty good baritone in his day, when he was performing on radio.

Some 15 years ago he got the notion to set to music the romance of Elizabeth Barrett and Robert Browning. Later he acquired the rights to the celebrated "The Barretts of Wimpole Street," which all over-30's know gave Katharine Cornell one of the great roles of her life.

The judge wrote the book, music and lyrics for what he called “The Third Kiss” derived from a line out of “Sonnets from the Portuguese.” It took him seven years of his spare time. American producers were interested. But, in 1963, Associated British Pictures Corp. Ltd. put up most of the money to enable Martin Landau to mount a production in London. Landau gave the judge's work to Ronald Millar and Ron Grainer who wound up turning out a new book, score and lyrics. When the musical opened in 1964, the program simply stated that the show was “From an idea by Fred G. Moritt.”

The judge, to be sure, received payment, though he asserts it was only partial—as of the moment the London producer, according to Judge Moritt, is in bankruptcy proceedings. Thus "everybody in London will be left holding the bag" unless “Robert and Elizabeth” has a big American success.

So, where does it all stand? Brown has gotten in touch with both Miss Bronhill and Michell in the hope that they will be available to resume their roles. He also hopes that Robin Phillips, who was to stage the American production, will be able to take on the directing assignment. Judge Moritt? He says he'll do everything he can to get his "Third Kiss" produced, but, he adds, since his judicial duties have always come first, he expects to be "the tortoise" in the race with Brown.

P.S. The first time around Brown budgeted the musical at $500.000. Inflation now makes that $150,000 more.

The New York Times, 6 April 1969, p. 1 & 20

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For whatever reason the rescheduled Broadway premiere of Robert and Elizabeth did not eventuate and so it was left to a regional theatre company to present its U.S. debut at the Forum Theatre, Chicago on Wednesday, 30 October 1974 in a production directed by William Pullinsi, with choreography by John Landovsky, starring Stephen Arlen and Catherine Christensen in the title roles, with Richard Woods as Moulton-Barrett.  The limited run season closed on Sunday, 15 December 1974.

Chicago Tribune, 13 December 1974, p.53

"ROBERT AND ELIZABETH", the highly acclaimed London musical hit, opens its American premiere at the Forum Theater with low priced previews Wednesday, October 30 and Thursday, October 31 and opening Friday, November 1. Based on "The Barretts of Wimpole Street" by Rudolph Besler with book and lyrics by Ronald Miller and music by Ron Grainer, "Robert and Elizabeth is the tempestuous love story of poet Robert Browning and poetess Elizabeth Barret, his headlong wooing and their triumphant elopement. "Robert and Elizabeth", which ran four years in London, was acclaimed as "the most outstanding musical in London" with an excellent score. Cast in this highly comic, dramatic and romantic musical comedy are Stephen Arlen as Robert Browning, Catherine Chrlstensen as his adored poetess Elizabeth Barrett and Richard Woods as her domineering, unyielding and uncommunicative father Edward Moulton-Barrett. Iris Lieberman and Neil Hunt appear as Elizabeth's younger sister Henrietta and her comic beau Capt. Surtees Cook. The rest of Elizabeth's larger cluttering family comprised of six brothers and another sister are played by Danius Turek, Robert Alton, Ed Krieger, Gary Giocomo, Peter Anster, Larry Russo, and Paul Scrofano. Others in this happy-as-heart musical are Pat Fraser as Wilson, the maid; David [sic] Hitt as Elizabeth's bewitching Cousin Bella; Barbara Cooke as Lady Mary; Dennis Kelly as Dr. Chambers; and Richard Ashford as Richard Macready. William Pullinsi will produce and direct; Neil Vender is musical director; Choreography by John Landovsky; Scenery is by Anthony D'Angelo; Costumes by James Campbell and Sandy Tignor of New York Costume Company and Lighting by Ed Krieger. Tickets range from $5 to $7. Preview tickets will be specially priced at a 20 percent discount.

Berwyn Life, (Chicago, Illinois), 25 October 1974, p.13

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Director - William Pullinsi

The production was nominated for 9 awards of which it won 4 major awards at the Chicago-based 7th Annual Joseph Jefferson Awards (aka the Jeff Awards) for Best Actor in a Principal Musical Role (Stephen Arlen); Best Supporting Musical Actress (Iris Lieberman in the role of ‘Henrietta’); Best Director of a Musical (William Pullinsi); and Best Costume Designer (James Campbell and Sandra Kay Tignor).

Following its nine-week run in Guildford and Brighton, England, the British revival of Robert and Elizabeth directed by Val May and starring Jeremy Brett, Sally Ann Howes and Michael Denison premiered in the Canadian city of Ottawa at the Opera House in the National Arts Centre on 1 March 1977 as the first stop in what was billed as its pre-Broadway tour. Further limited runs followed in Hamilton and at Toronto’s O’Keefe Centre, but the production failed to cross the border into the U.S., possibly due to the largely negative reviews it received from the Canadian critics.

The Ottawa Citizen, 19 February 1977, p.41

The musical’s second major U.S. production was mounted by Brunswick Music Theater for a season at the Pickard Theatre at Bowdoin College in Brunswick, Maine from 21 August to 2 September 1978, directed by Charles Abbot and choreographed by Dennis Grimaldi with Mark Jacoby and Carol Wilcox in the co-lead roles and Bernard Wurger as Moulton-Barrett.  

Brunswick programme

Brunswick cast

A premiere at Brunswick

The first full-stage American premiere of Robert and Elizabeth opens a two- week run Monday at the Brunswick Music Theater.

Based on the love story of poets Robert Browning and Elizabeth Barrett staged so successfully a generation, or two ago, as The Barretts of Wimpole Street, this musical version is the work of Ronald Millar, who is responsible for the book and lyrics, and Ron Grainer, composer.

The idea of a musical version of The Barretts was originated by Judge Fred G. Moritt of Brooklyn, N.Y. In the mid-‘50s, he and Victoria Crandall played many backer's auditions work. Mr. Moritt later sold his rights to the idea to Grainer and Millar which they adapted into the present version. Miss Crandall's connection with the musical is long and very personal. She is presently considering a New York production of Robert and Elizabeth.

Mark Jacoby as Robert Browning has played in several productions at Brunswick this summer. He is a featured soloist with the Norman Luboff Choir and the National Chorale and has recorded with the Gregg Smith Singers, 'Renaissance’ a 1975 Carnegie Hall Concert, America in Song, Charles Ives, the Celestial Country with the Gregg Smith Singers and a modern opera, Einstein on the Beach.

Elizabeth will be played by Carol Wilcox, another popular member of the Brunswick company. Following her graduation from the University of Kansas, she traveled in Eastern Europe, visited the North Pole on USO tours. After two summers as an apprentice with the Santa Fe Opera Company, she studied at the Manhattan School of Music as a scholarship student and was offered a contract with the Metropolitan Opera Company. She has sung with the Houston Grand Opera, The Opera Guild of Greater Miami, the New Orleans Opera, Lyric Theatre, Caracas National Opera of Venezuela, Portland and Pittsburgh Opera Companies. In July she appeared with the St. Louis Municipal Opera and the Kansas City Starlight Musicals.

Sun-Journal (Maine), 18 August 1978, p.3

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"The Family Moulton-Barrett" at Brunswick Music Theater

The Reviews:

Victoria Crandall launches a show with a real future

By Sukie Rice

It is indeed a pleasure to have the opportunity to see, and review a play as exceptional and moving as is Robert and Elizabeth which opened Monday night at Victoria Crandall's Brunswick Music Theater. Viewed for one of the first times by American audiences, this musical version of the story of Robert and Elizabeth Barrett Browning is based on the old-time favorite "The Barretts of Wimpoie Street." The story has charm and substance, is restrained when one most fears the melodramatic, buoyant and warm where one tends to expect a certain slackness. It offers an unusual opportunity for acting and character development, an opportunity of which the cast takes full advantage.

The music and lyrics by Ron Granier and Ronald Millar are perhaps the best we've heard all season. Generally more complex and subtle than that of most musicals, the score carries an important role in bringing out essential elements and transitions in the play — weaving a thread that guides one through the many soul moods of the story.

Robert and Elizabeth are lovers before they meet — through their letters, their poetry and their spirits destined to affect one another's lives. The barrier: Elizabeth's crippled state, and her tyrannical father whose severity and possessive hold on his family is the counterpoint for all that is beautiful and free in the play. In contrast to the submissive manner in which Eiizabeth’s brothers and sisters seem to accept their father's rule, is the self-possessed directness of Robert Browning, a man of confrontation.

It is through his challenge to Elizabeth's strength of will along with his forthright love which she is bound to trust that Elizabeth conquers her inability to stand on her own two feet. Her struggle to be well — to gain control of her life and choice of love — then becomes very important and very real for all in the theatre, her brothers and sisters, and audience alike.

Carol Wilcox is a genuine, warm and poised Elizabeth. Mark Jacoby is a gracious, passionate and strong Robert. Each with powerful, rich voices, they sing their duets (especially “I Said Love" and "In a Simple Way") beautifully. Bringing us some of the most convincing performances of this season, they make us realize that Vicki Crandall has proven an excellent matchmaker, pairing them to each other, and the two of them to this play.

Opposite Robert and Elizabeth stands Edward Barrett. Elizabeth’s father, whose distorted love and soul-numbing egoism is passionate and strong the primary source of the drama's tension. Edward Barrett is rendered as a man too forbidding to pity, too destructive to love; but all the way through, Bernard Wurger's playing of the man also makes him too human to dismiss. It is s difficult role, requiring an exceptional player. Bernard Wurger, Brunswick Music Theater's premiere veteran actor, is excellent.

A particular credit to the play is the essential importance that the supporting cast has for the whole. Elizabeth's two sisters and six brothers are gems in themselves — funny, alive and very credible. Special praise goes to her youngest brother Octavius (Robert Johanson) whose elfish ways and stutterings just at the right moment make him quite endearing; to Arabel (Joyce Tomanec), the sister prone to fainting at the slightest expression of emotion or enthusiasm; and most definitely to Henrietta (Christina Britton) the impulsive sister determined to throw off her cocoon and emerge joyful. As fully a "member" of this family as the rest is Wilson, the beloved maid. Lorna Ericson, playing Wilson, once more creates a character with humor and heart, giving others something solid and dependable to play off.

What we become immediately aware of is the tremendous closeness of this family — united in their common experience of Father Barrett's cold iron rule. For their excellent staging (the witty "The Family Moulton-Barrett” and spell-binding “The Girls That Boys Dream Of”), their contagious sense of humor, and their minor attempts at revolution we offer them a special round of applause.

Three things more deserve notice. First a fellow by the name of Robert Browning — a fine actor who plays with originality Henrietta's loveable suitor, Capt. Cook. Second is the dancing, which is comparatively minor in this play. But “The Real Thing" — particularly the ballet of Susan Whelan — is delightful. Third, the sets, designed by Karen Sparks Mellon, are magnificent. Having been touched for the first time opening night, however, they were the cause of a number of technical problems, now a marked regularity of BMT openings which the audience seems happily to accept as a part of the entertainment.

A grateful hand goes to Victoria Crandall for having the courage to put on an unknown musical play. Because of her excellent choice, Brunswick audiences are given the chance to be a part of the "discovery" of an exciting show with a real future. Let us give it the warm send-off it so well deserves.

The Times-Record (Maine), 23 August 1978, p.21

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 Elizabeth (Carol Wilcox), expresses her longing for "The World Outside" to her sister, Henrietta (Christina Britton).

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'Robert and Elizabeth' a charmer

By FURST KNIGHTOR

It's a first! Victoria Crandall has brought to the Brunswick Music Theater the complete stage production of "Robert and Elizabeth" — the first in the United States by an all-professional company.

If you've ever been enchanted by the stage presentation, "The Barretts of Wimpole Street,'' you'll be more than impressed with this musical biography of Elizabeth Barrett and Robert Browning.

Monday night, this critic entered the Victorian period of England and remained enthralled. The furnishings, sets and costumes satisfied the historian, but it was the beautiful voices of the cast which make Robert and Elizabeth the toast of the season.

Elizabeth, played by Carol Wilcox, gives her role the perfect touch. Her acting and singing are superb. The audience is hushed into complete silence as Elizabeth emerges from a wheelchair to the world of love. The portrayal of the confined Elizabeth is done with the best of acting.

Robert Browning is re-enacted by Mark Jacoby — and what a choice! Mark sings his way so successfully in this role, the viewers fall in love and are spellbound by the beloved poet. His acting reaches great heights.

Because Bernard Wurger lives his role as the father of Elizabeth, you'll not like him. Wurger is magnificent as Mr. Barrett. He is the dreadful villain whom psychologists would take great pleasure in analyzing. Bravo Mr. Wurger, the audience detested you!

Barretts' six sons and two daughters give the performance delight with their interpretations of the unique roles. They lift their voices to comedy, yet become sober when father Barrett appears on the scene. Lorna Erickson, a favorite of Brunswick audiences, pleases again with her role of Wilson. The scenes with Wilson and the beautiful dog are priceless. The dog paces through and deserves "paws" and Lorna is rewarded with "applause'' for her endeavor.

Dennis Grimaldi, choreographer and Charles Abbott, director, took on a challenge with "Robert and Elizabeth." They have succeeded and this writer is impressed.

It will be worth your while to end summer with this musical biography of Robert and Elizabeth. It has Victorian charm, marvelous talent and music for a summer night. You'll laugh and you'll feel sad, but you'll not forget your evening spent at the Brunswick Music Theatre.

When the curtain falls on Sept. 2. the 20th season will have concluded on what can only be termed as a successful tour de force. In spite of spiralling production costs, which may be reflected in next year's projected schedule change, 1978 saw 11 weeks and five productions of superior offerings. These topped previous Brunswick Music Theatre years in artistic achievement with one possible exception.

Kennebec Journal (Maine), 23 August 1978, p.6

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Robert (Mark Jacoby), and Elizabeth express their love for each other "In a Simple Way".

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The following review betrayed an unfortunate lack of research by the critic, as evidenced by the headline and opening paragraph.

'Robert and Elizabeth'—Its world premiere indicates it has a future

BRUNSWICK – 'Robert and Elizabeth' is the musical rendition of the romance of Robert and Elizabeth Barrett Browning. It had its world premiere here Monday evening as the Brunswick Music Theater rendered a truly delightful performance. It is the hope of Vicky Crandell that the show, which is based on 'The Barretts of Wimpole Street' by Rudolph Besier, will make it to New York.

The audience definitely enjoyed the performance in spite of the obvious need of some condensation and smoother changes between scenes. This unusual musical centers around the love story of the two famous 19th century poets and the tyrannical father of Elizabeth, Edward Moulton Barrett. Also entering the story in a minor key are Elizabeth's two sisters and six brothers.

Those in both major and minor roles performed admirably. The many songs by Ron Grainer were generally pleasing, while the score featured some excellent lyrics.

Casting for 'Robert and Elizabeth' was ideal. Carol Wilcox played the role of the invalid Elizabeth to perfection.  Her highs, as she discovered she could walk, and her lows as her dictatorial, self-centered father committed her to permanent invalidism, were portrayed effectively. As those have heard Ms. Wilcox as 'Margot' in the 'Desert Song' know, her voice is strong and rich. It achieved its ultimate in her solo, 'Woman and Man’.

The versatility of Mark Jacoby was in evidence in his depiction of Robert Browning. The role was a significant shift from such previous ones as Beauregard in 'Mame’ and 'Rikard' In 'Song of Norway.' Whether engaged in a serious effort to get Elizabeth to overcome her psychosomatic illness, or playing the clown in his delightful duet, 'In a Simple Way' with Ms. Wilcox, Jacoby struck the proper nuances. The voices of the two blended handsomely in such duets as 'Want to be Well,' ‘I Know Now' and 'Frustration.' Furthermore, during their conversations both hit exactly the right note and displayed effective reactions to each other.

The third major role of the father was given a most praise worthy performance by the veteran of the cast, Bernard Wurger. He was the perfect symbol of Victorian parental dictatorship in the extreme. And his utterly selfish intention of keeping his oldest daughter came through in a strong rendition of 'What the World Calls Love.' To know Burger as Edward Moulton Barrett is to hate him, and this is exactly what the role demands.

The lesser, but important parts, were handled fittingly by Christina Britton as Henrietta, the boldest of the Barrett menage, and by the way this is amusing, Robert Browning, her soldier lover, Capt. Surtees Cook. One of the most entertaining parts of the show was their comic duet, 'Hate Me Please’.

All of those depicting the Barrett children did well. Special kudos belong to Robert Johanson for his role as Octavious, the stuttering youngest of the offspring. Melanie Helton as the lisping cousin, Belle Hedley also won high favor with the audience, as did Joyce Tomanec in the part of the oft fainting Barrett sister, Arabel. Lorna Erickson was effective as usual in her portrayal of Wilson, the Barrett maid.

'Robert and Elizabeth' was one of the most entertaining productions at Brunswick in recent years. The fact that it ran somewhat overlong in its first night is something that can be readily corrected, but even with this problem the show is a definite winner. The music is pleasing and the lyrics for the same and the conversational segments of the show are witty and, where appropriate, dramatic.

This musical is remarkable conversion of one of the last century's most tender and unusual love stories – F. P.

Sun-Journal (Maine), 23 August 1978, p.3

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At Vauxhall Station Elizabeth seeks the approval of her father for her marriage to Browning.

Elizabeth tries to reason with her father (Bernard Wurger)

Further resources:

1978 Brunswick Music Theater - Robert and Elizabeth programme - 1978 Brunswick Music Theater - Robert and Elizabeth production photos

Courtesy of Maine State Music Theatre (formerly Brunswick Musical Theater), with thanks to Maya Edgerley

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The next major production to open in the U.S. was staged at the Paper Mill Playhouse in Milburn, New Jersey for a season from 30 October to 19 December 1982, with the following cast, which included the Australian-born actor  Ron Randell in the role of 'Edward Moulton-Barrett' and Mark Jacoby reprising the role of 'Browning' from the earlier Brunswick staging.

(courtesy of Kenneth Kantor) 

The Reviews:

'Robert and Elizabeth' delights at Paper Mill

By BETTE SPERO

"Robert and Elizabeth" is a perfect attention-getter to herald the Paper Mill Playhouse's return to the New Jersey theatrical fold.

It is a big, splashy show, more like an operetta, really, than a musical.

Colors cascade from Paul Wonsek's overwhelming sets, complemented by Guy Geoly's Victorian costumes, like multi-hued rainbows on parade.

In fact, the sets almost steal the show. There are nine of them, ranging from stunning interiors of the Barrett house in London to a train that carries the hero and heroine to Italy. Their slick execution underscores a technological complexity not possible in the old Paper Mill.

Jim Coleman, musical director and vocal arranger, robustly conducts a 20 member orchestra so the score, if not memorable, is memorably performed.

Especially impressive as singers are Robert and Elizabeth, Mark Jacoby and Leigh Beery, both of whom have operatic experience.

The other principal, Ron Randell, is a competent vocalist but a far more commendable actor as Elizabeth's strong, stern father. Edward Moulton-Barrett.

Snapping all the multitudinous elements together—not to mention a 28 member cast—is director-choreographer Robert Johanson. He is much like the ringmaster in a circus as he keeps all the diverse, disparate activities colorfully moving while always keeping a central focus on the center ring. His ability to organize, to interpret and to excite is admirable.

There are some nice touches of balletic-like dancing but dance is not really at the fore. Song is. The cast's rousing vocal renditions translate totally forgettable tunes into enthusiastic production numbers and emotional solos and duets.

Everything is larger than life—some might say overblown—in operetta. Such gargantuan grandeur is appropriate, however, for the reopening of Paper Mill and its awesome, $5 million edifice along Brookside Drive in Millburn, where "Robert and Elizabeth" continues through Dec. 19.

Among all the technological advancements is a new microphone system designed to make all the words and music audible to every one of a performance's potential 1,192 patrons. Thus performers wear hidden microphones—a procedure now common on Broadway—so they do not have to project to the mezzanine, or to the orchestra, for that matter.

"Robert and Elizabeth," which is about a decade old, is a British musical by composer Ron Grainer and author-lyricist Ronald Millar. Their musical about poets Robert and Elizabeth Barrett Browning is based on Rudolf Besier's play, "The Barretts of Wimpole Street.”

Such subject matter perhaps is of more interest to English audiences than to their American counterparts. The Brownings, writers during the mid-19th Century, are among the famous figures whose pictures are in the National Portrait Gallery in London.

Most American students who study English literature come across the Brownings, however, and are familiar with their exalted place in literary history. While non-scholars may be pressed to recall specific passages, nearly everyone knows Elizabeth Barrett's most famous poetical phrase: "How do I love thee? Let me count the ways."

Miss Barrett was not a woman destined for a great romance. Since age 15 she was bedridden from a spinal injury and other complications. She led a reclusive life—not so unlike American poetess Emily Dickinson—except Miss Barrett had a virtual tribe of eight brothers and sisters and an extremely autocratic and authoritarian father.

One gift the gentle Elizabeth possessed was a talent for writing. Her published poems made her famous, and financially solvent, in her own time—both remarkable achievements for a woman in 1845.

Elizabeth's writing captured the attention of Robert Browning, himself a famous poet and playwright of their day. After a year of writing to one another, and expressing admiration for each other's work, Browning prevailed upon Miss Barrett to allow him to meet her.

She was a frail, 39-year-old spinster, scared of angering her caring but domineering father. Yet, after many protests, she succumbed to the flamboyant, 33-year-old Browning's impulsive proclamations of love.

At times the deliciously melodramatic musical takes on the characteristics of a high-toned soap opera. Robert encourages Elizabeth, literally and figuratively, "to stand on your own two feet." Despite her frailty, Elizabeth responds with courageous conviction.

As the curtain falls on Act I, Elizabeth walks. At night's end, she weds. It's all so marvelous. On one hand, it is very entertaining and, on the other,  it is truly touching.

Beyond their writing. Elizabeth Barrett and Robert Browning remain legendary figures because of their romance and its undeniable flair.

While the show's inspirational tone occasionally conjures up visions of Helen Keller learning to talk, complete with music, "Robert and Elizabeth" at heart is a great love story. And they never really go out of style, do they?

The Star-Ledger (New Jersey), Tuesday 9 November 1982, p.39

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A MUSICAL REOPENS PAPER MILL

By Alvin Klein

MILLBURN — WE'VE been waiting 18 years for ''Robert and Elizabeth,'' but it isn't quite what we've been waiting for. The popular English musical based on ''The Barretts of Wimpole Street,'' a play about the real-life love between the poets Robert and Elizabeth Barrett Browning — opened in London in 1964, and the original-cast album, still available, became something of a cult favorite.

It is now having its first major production in this country at the restored Paper Mill Playhouse. And what a major production it is — unstintedly so — with nine handsome sets and an enormous cast decked out in stunning, splendidly detailed costumes.

For openers, ''Robert and Elizabeth'' has plenty going for it: anticipation, opulence, an initially enticing outpouring of melody and the beginning of a love story that one actually cares about.

Indeed, ''The Wimpole Street Song'' isn't just an opening number of just another show. The company extols the joys of England, circa 1845.

''What a salubrious neighborhood,'' the chorus sings, as the music swells majestically. It sounds as if literacy, not just melodiousness, is in the offing, and it looks as if the scenery and lighting are going to ''illuminate the Victorian scene,'' as Ronald Millar's lyrics prescribe.

Visually, the show never lets us down. However, after a time, words fail Mr. Millar, who also wrote the book, and Ron Grainer's music dissolves into derivitiveness and repetition.

As the story progresses, the lyrics regress from elegance to banality — ''I love you in a simple way'' rhymes, fittingly, with ''pardon the cliche'' — and the story, which starts sweetly, has miles to go before it ends with a big yawn.

There are moments that stay with us. The buildup to the lovers' first meeting, after they have conducted one of literature's most legendary correspondence courses, really pays off. (At the time, Robert Browning was a household name and Elizabeth was a comer.)

In an attack of anxiety, Elizabeth spills all her pills. Robert picks them up. ''I cannot have Mr. Browning sprawled at my feet,'' she says with dread. ''My dear, he's been there for months,'' he replies with ardor. ''You are the centre of my life,'' he tells us. No shameless romanticist in the house is going to resist the line, or the soaring song that follows, ''I Said Love.'' Corny as it sounds, the musical's simplest moments are Elizabeth's first step, the lovers' first kiss, a tender dance in the garden and a walk around it.

The first ray of sun that pours into Elizabeth's room ought to be more overwhelming than it appears here, and Robert Johanson has over-directed the family scenes with more fuss than real musical theatre feeling.

As the book plods on from a first act that gracefully establishes people, period and place to a second act that's full of filler, it never seems clear whether Elizabeth's invalidism is hysterically induced or medically based. (She had a spinal injury as a teen-ager.)

Edward Moulton-Browning, her father, turns from an overbearing but human — and, at times, tender — figure into a merely mean man, and there's one cumbersome or superfluous song after another.

''I'm the Master Here,'' wherein the elder Barrett intimidates his sons into total submissiveness before he ships the whole family off to the country, is surely the most unfortunate of the lot. Suddenly, out of nowhere, the choo-choo train appears to chug the newly married lovers off to Florence.

As Elizabeth's father, Ron Randell gives the evening's surest performance. He can pile a lifetime of inflicted guilt into the proclamation, ''I'm cut to the heart,'' and make it pierce.

Leigh Beery is a serviceable Elizabeth, but a frailer presence and more voluptuous soprano would be the ideal combination here. The role's high-flying vocal demands are fierce indeed.

Mark Jacoby sings Robert with a resounding tenor and acts with brio. (Overall, the indistinct sound of music and voices suggests that the restored playhouse's acoustics — or is it amplification? — need work.)

Thomas Barbour is fine as Mr. Macready, a temperamental actor, and Jeannine Taylor is a perky Henrietta, one of the 11 Browning siblings.

Once ''Robert and Elizabeth'' begins its descent from grace, however, there isn't much anyone can do, short of a reconstruction job, like the one the Playhouse has happily had.

The New York Times (National edition), 14 November 1982, Section 11,p. 26

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Musical: The Brownings

By MEL GUSSOW

MlLLBURN, N.J.

THREE years ago the historic Paper Mill Playhouse, the official state theater of New Jersey, burned down. Recently rebuilt at a cost of $4.5 million, the handsome, spacious house has re-opened with "Robert and Elizabeth," a British musical adaptation of Rudolf Besier's "The Barretts of Wimpole Street." Unfortunately, the opening show is a musical potboiler.

For decades, Mr. Besier's original warhorse served as a vehicle for Katharine Cornell — and it was never more than serviceable. The musical version by Ronald Millar and Ron Grainer, first presented in London in 1964, turns this romantic melodrama into a cartoon.

What do you do with a musical heroine who spends more than half the evening lying on her couch? Cough, cough, swoon — and on with a production number as Elizabeth Barrett's six brideless brothers dance all over the furniture.

It is difficult to say lines such as "I've crushed the vileness in my nature," but Ron Randell makes Elizabeth's father unnecessarily overbearing, and it is no help to have him momentarily lapse into a Tartuffish lechery. As Robert Browning, Marc Jacoby seems to spend half of the evening on his knees proposing. Of the three principals, only Leigh Beery as Elizabeth has any believability, and her voice is one of the evening's few distinct assets. Another is a cocker spaniel, subtly underplaying the role of Flush.

Using scenery designed by Paul Wonsek, Robert Johanson's production is elaborate, shifting from Cavendish Square to the Barrett's baronial home. In this time of theatrical retrenchment, it is novel to see real scenery, moved mechanically and not by actors, but because the stage is over-miked, the scene changes are audible.

"Robert and Elizabeth" runs through Dec. 19, to be followed by an Ellis Rabb production of "You Can't Take It With You." As a year-round theater, the Paper Mill Playhouse has a worthwhile community purpose, and because of its proximity to New York, it could become a suburban cultural alternative.

The New York Times, 18 November 1982, p.C19

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 Cover of Opening Night booklet for Robert and Elizabeth (courtesy of Kenneth Kantor)

Cast member Kenneth Kantor recalls the Paper Mill production:

The 1982 Paper Mill Playhouse production of ROBERT AND ELIZABETH sadly promised so much more than it delivered.

The theatre had been partially destroyed and subsequently rebuilt for a grand reopening in 1982.

Casting began almost a year ahead of this highly anticipated event.  Many of us had been promised participation in a very grand production.

The cast was anticipated to star Julie Andrews, Robert Goulet and Alfred Drake.  It turned out the stars would be Leigh Berry, Mark Jacoby and Ron Randall.  All competent but quite a come down from the cast we were told would be in place.

We were also promised a swift transfer to the St. James Theatre on Broadway.

The show was selected with an eye towards pleasing the predilections of the Paper Mill audience.  They wanted an operetta that would also carry the promise of being a “new”show.

The show was massively designed and in many ways overtaxed the capabilities of the theatre.

The director was so in love with the show that additional material was added from the play that the musical was based on.  As a result, the show became an overlong overstuffed production that did not accurately represent the original material of the musical.

Quite frankly, the musical came off as a lumbering production that was, frankly, a bit of a bore.

The music program of the show was well served within the limitations of some of the casting choices.

From onstage we saw audience members dozing off during a far too overwritten Act Two. 

Sadly, the major reviews reflected the shortcomings of the production as presented.

Unfortunately, the Paper Mill production tarnished the reputation of this charming show here in the United States. 

Mr. Macready's acting troupe join in the production number "Moon in My Pocket" (courtesy of Kenneth Kantor - seen in the centre)

Cast members celebrate at the Opening Night party - l to r: Kenneth Kantor, Gene Masoner, Joyce Campana, John Foster, a member of the wardrobe staff and David Mallard. (courtesy of Kenneth Kantor)

Paper Mill Playhouse, Milburn, New Jersey (Wikimedia Commons)

Postscript:

The Third Kiss was not the only musical that Fred G. Moritt had written and tried to get produced, as the following report in the New York Daily News from 1974 detailed:

The Daily News (New York), 14 April 1974, p.136

It had been alleged by State Special Anti-Corruption Prosecutor, Maurice H. Nadjari that Judge Moritt had conspired to put lawyer, Theodore Mann on the city payroll as his pretended law secretary, in order to divert part of the secretary's $18,500-a-year salary into Participating Investors Ltd., a company he had set up to produce The Love Lottery. After further legal wrangling by both prosecutor and defendant (detailed on Wikipedia), the case against Moritt was dismissed in February 1977 and the judge died 18 years later in May 1995 at the age of 89 with his ambition of seeing The Third Kiss and The Love Lottery receive professional productions remaining unfulfilled.

The Daily News (New York), 4 February 1976, p.25

Robert and Elizabeth is an unashamedly romantic musical with a score that reaches operatic dimensions. It is based on the true story of fellow poets Elizabeth Moulton-Barrett and Robert Browning's mutual admiration of each other's work and their eventual marriage. Elizabeth was 39 and Robert's senior by six years when they met. In her teens she developed tuberculosis and this had weakened her spine. This together with the emotional effect of the death of her elder brother on a boating trip while they were together in Torquay made her bedridden. After their marriage in 1846 they moved to Pisa and later Florence where they stayed until Elizabeth's death in 1861. Their marriage produced a son, Robert Barrett in 1849. After his wife's death Browning moved back to London with his son where he continued to write until his death in 1889.