Lola Montez (musical)

Lola Montez is a 1958 Australian musical. It was written by Alan Burke, Peter Stannard and Peter Benjamin and focuses on four days of Lola Montez visiting the Ballarat Goldfields.

Lola Montez
Original cast recording
MusicPeter Stannard
LyricsPeter Benjamin
BookAlan Burke
Productions1958 Melbourne
1958 Brisbane/Sydney

Background

Stannard, Benjamin and Burke were all friends from university who wanted to write a musical together. Alan Burke says he had never heard of Lola Montez until he heard her mentioned in a program on the ABC. He was attracted to the subject because it was Australian but had international appeal; he did not want to make something along the lines of On Our Selection. Also, since the lead was a performer, the songs would come naturally.[1]

Productions

Original production

Hugh Hunt of the Australian Elizabethan Theatre Trust heard several auditions of the work and agreed to fund a trial production at the Union Theatre Repertory Company in Melbourne in early 1958. It was directed by John Sumner. The production was very popular.

Cast

Australian Elizabethan Theatre Trust production

The Trust took up their option and launched a professional production. George Carden was brought in to direct.[2][3]

Alan Burke says his dream Lola was Vivien Leigh but that he wanted Moyra Fraser to star.[1] Hugh Hunt wanted a star so they imported 25 year old Mary Preston from the United Kingdom to play the lead.[4] Burke said Preston was hopelessly miscast playing a 37 year old aging beauty.[1]

The show trialled in Brisbane for a short season. Michael Cole, who was playing Daniel, was sacked in Brisbane because of his voice. He was replaced by Eric Thornton, who Burke said was too old - a 45-year-old man playing a 19-year-old. The play moved to Sydney, where it opened on 22 October 1958. Burke says it lost £30,000 and "was a show loved by very few people but it went into legend."[1] However the show did run for more than three months.[2][5] Michael Cole's single recording of "Saturday Girl" became a minor hit.[3]

Cast
  • Mary Preston as Lola
  • Frank Wilson as Sam
  • Michael Cole, then Eric Thornton, as Daniel

1962 television play
Lola Montez
Directed byAlan Burke
Written byAlan Burke
StarringBrigid Lenihan
Production
company
ABC
Release date
28 April 1962 (Melbourne)[6]
7 May 1962 (Sydney)[7]
Running time
90 mins
CountryAustralia
LanguageEnglish

Lola Montez was adapted for TV by the ABC in 1962.[8] The TV production was directed by Alan Burke, who had written the book for the musical. Australian TV drama was relatively rare at the time.[9]

Cast
  • Brigid Lenihan as Lola
  • Campbell Copelin as Seekamp
  • Mary Duchesne as Mary in Bavaria
  • Alida Glasbecek as Gisela
  • Patsy Hemingway as Jane
  • Alan Hopgood as Smith
  • John Kendall as Jocko
  • Reginald Newson as Wilson
  • Anne Peterson as Nancy
  • Ron Pinnell as Crosbie
  • Rex Reid as King Ludwig
  • Beverley Richards as Ilsa
  • Johnny Rohan as Daniel
  • Leslie Sinclair as Mac
  • Frank Wilson as Sam

Production

Burke says because he directed, things were not misunderstood. Johnny Rohan was cast as Daniel after Burke saw him singing on a pop show.[1] For the role of Lola, Burke wanted to cast an actress who could sing, and picked New Zealander Brigid Lenihan, who had appeared in shows such as Little Woman, Revue 61 and A Night Out.[10]

It was filmed in the ABC's Southbank Studios in Melbourne. Choreography was by Rex Reid, and Mary Duchesne danced the Lola in the Bavaria sequence. The dance ensemble included Kelvin Coe and Barry Moreland.[3][11] There were 33 actors, singers and dancers.[12]

Songs
  • "Southerly Buster" - sung by miners
  • "Saturday Girl" - sung to by Daniel to Jane
  • "Let Me Sing Let Me Dance" - sung by Daniel to Lola
  • "Maria Dolores Eliza Rosamia" - sung by Sam and Lola
  • "A Lady Finds a Love" - sung by Lola and Dan
  • "I'm the Man"
  • "There's Gold in Them There Hills"
  • "Lady Lady Please Don't Cry"
  • "Summer Been and Fore"
  • I Can See a Town"
  • "he's Mine"
  • "Beware"
  • "I Alone"
  • "Partner Name Your Poison"

Reception

The Age praised the "superb acting" of Lenihan but felt apart from Frank Wilson that "others in the show... gave stereotyped performances."[13] The Sydney Morning Herald thought the character of Lola remained "the most intractable fact" of the production thinking she was better used to "material for a sensitive play which hardly in with the lusty, simplicity of a musical that sounds like a marriage of Oklahoma and Paint Your Wagon... All the same, it was interesting to have the chance of seeing again a. musical that promised so much for the talents that combined to devise it; and also a little saddening to think how little has been heard of these talents since."[14]

The Sunday Herald said "it was a brilliant piece of work, sizzling in pace from start to finish, with a cast and chorus as perfectly rehearsed and drilled as an Army platoon. "Lola Montez" was good on stage; it emerges on television even better; almost as though it had been originally written with the small screen in mind. The only flaw in the entire 90 minutes so far as I was concerned, and it was a minor one, was [the]... dream sequence flashback to Lola's days as a court beauty. It was competently done, but it dragged a little toward the end."[15]

Frank Roberts of The Bulletin admitted to missing the first half of the broadcast but still ran his review saying "the part I did see was so lacking in entertainment values that the use of 90 minutes of prime viewing time for a show of that standard would not prove courage, but sheer foolhardiness... On “Lola Montez’s” showing, very little of the talent on view deserved encouraging. It is difficult to criticise the production piecemeal because nearly all of its ingredients were uniformly dreadful."[16]

Revised edition

The musical has been much revived since in amateur and school productions.[17]

The musical was heavily revised in 1988 for a production in Canberra.[3][18][19]

gollark: So I appear to have been timed out: obviously, this is a clear sign that Cap and WS's views are correct and stand up by themselves.
gollark: Please pay attention.
gollark: As I said, I lost *ironically* with knowledge of what would happen.
gollark: Anyway, your arguments are unconvincing. I will now explain briefly why politics is unimportant.
gollark: Only ironically, such that I was not wrong while doing so.

See also
  • List of television plays broadcast on Australian Broadcasting Corporation (1960s)

References
  1. "Alan Burke interviewed by Bill Stephens in the Esso Performing Arts collection". National Library of Australia.
  2. Alan Burke obituary at Sydney Morning Herald
  3. "Lola Montez the musical". Janus Entertainment.
  4. "English star is "Lola Montez"". The Australian Women's Weekly. 26 (21). Australia, Australia. 29 October 1958. p. 39. Retrieved 9 April 2016 – via National Library of Australia.
  5. "Women's Letters". The Bulletin. 23 November 1960. p. 56.
  6. "Lola Montez, and Rodeo Edition of Revue 62". The Age. 26 April 1962. p. 12.
  7. TV Guide May 7 Sydney Morning Herald 1962
  8. 1962 TV adaptation at Ausstage
  9. Vagg, Stephen (18 February 2019). "60 Australian TV Plays of the 1950s & '60s". Filmink.
  10. "Casting Surprise". The Age. 22 February 1962. p. 12.
  11. "Lola Montez for Sydney". Sydney Morning Herald. 23 April 1962. p. 14.
  12. "Lola Montez on TV". The Age. 26 April 1962. p. 14.
  13. "A Vivid Lola Montez was not enough". The Age. 3 May 1962. p. 13.
  14. ""Lola Montez" Televised". Sydney Morning Herald. 8 May 1962. p. 10.
  15. "TV Merry Go Round". Sydney Morning Herald. 13 May 1962. p. 102.
  16. Roberts, Frank (19 May 1962). "REVIEWS TELEVISION ESSAYING A POOR LODE". The Bulletin. p. 55.
  17. Lola Montez at David Spicer Productions
  18. "Arts and entertainment Lola Montez inspired Australian musical". The Canberra Times. 63 (19, 411). Australian Capital Territory, Australia. 28 November 1988. p. 17. Retrieved 27 May 2018 – via National Library of Australia.
  19. "Goldfield spirit in light, bright 'Lola'". The Canberra Times. 63 (19, 418). Australian Capital Territory, Australia. 5 December 1988. p. 20. Retrieved 27 May 2018 – via National Library of Australia.
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