Here’s a good idea for a musical: A girl is struggling to make ends meet. She’s selling all that she has. A man comes along and is willing to buy what she has to offer, though what she is selling is not what he wants.
If the girl is selling flowers in Covent Garden, we have, of course, Julie Andrews and Rex Harrison in “My Fair Lady,” which, as far as I am concerned, is the perfect musical.
But let’s imagine she’s selling something else. Let’s imagine she’s selling herself.
And instead of Rex Harrison, let’s cast Richard Gere.
And instead of Julie Andrews, let’s cast Julia Roberts.
And now we have the new version of “My Fair Lady.”
It’s called “Pretty Woman.”
And it made $500 million at the box office.
I’m surprised it’s taken this long for someone to figure out that the 1990 megahit could be a musical.
But — “all I want is a room somewhere” — somebody has: Garry Marshall, who directed that terrific movie.
He’s in town this week with producer Paula Wagner, and they’re meeting with composers, lyricists and directors, all of whom are vying to bring “Pretty Woman” to the stage.
J.F. Lawton, who wrote the screenplay, is going to write the script, and he has a lot of sway in how this show will come together.
I’ve looked up Mr. Lawton’s other credits and I’m concerned. He wrote “Under Siege” and “Blankman.”
Clearly, we’re not working with Arthur Laurents here.
There is no “Gypsy” or “West Side Story” listed among his Wikipedia entries.
But I’m willing to give Lawton the benefit of the doubt. He reinvented “My Fair Lady” for a new generation with “Pretty Woman.”
And that’s exactly what Alan Jay Lerner and Frederick Loewe did when they took George Bernard Shaw’s play “Pygmalion” and turned it into “My Fair Lady.”
So long to an old friend, the critic and writer Martin Gottfried:
If you’re reading this column, then I have no doubt you have on your bookshelf Martin’s 1979 book, “Broadway Musicals.”
It was published by Abrams back in the day when publishers had the money to spend on lavishly illustrated coffee table books. Martin’s book was, as my friend John Barlow calls it, “the bible of musical theater.”
Martin captured in prose and pictures the history of the Broadway musical, from Irving Berlin to Stephen Sondheim, from “Oklahoma!” to “A Chorus Line.”
I read that book cover to cover on the day I got it from the Fireside Book Club (a primitive version of Amazon.com) when I was 15.
Most kids fall in love with musical theater when they do “Bye Bye Birdie” in high school.
I fell in love with musical theater the day the Fireside Book Club sent me Martin Gottfried’s “Broadway Musicals.”
Boy, does Martin have a lot to answer for!