Around the World (musical)

Arthur Margetson as Phileas Fogg

Mary Healy as Mrs. Aouda

Sheet music cover

After he finished shooting his 1946 film The Stranger, Welles decided to make a musical out of one of his favorite childhood books, Around the World in Eighty Days. He visualized an entire circus on stage, a train running through the West, and other extravagant production ideas. He raised money from Mike Todd, producer William Goetz, and Alexander Korda, who held the title's European rights. However, he had no money left for a star cast and used performers who were not well known. Also, according to critical Welles biographer Charles Higham, "Porter wrote the songs far too quickly and badly".[1]^{: 228–29, 232}

The show had a cast of 70 and included four mechanical elephants and 54 stage hands. When Mike Todd pulled out, Welles put up his own money. He also borrowed from Columbia Pictures president Harry Cohn, on a promise to write, produce, direct and star in a film for Cohn for no fee. The result was the 1947 film The Lady from Shanghai.[2]

Playwright John van Druten described the musical as "enormous fun" and Joshua Logan said it was "fresh, witty, magical, exciting". However, with no story and unclear relationships between the characters, the show closed quickly, with Welles losing his savings, and the investors losing "large sums".[1]

Phileas Fogg bets that he can circumnavigate the world in 80 days, and sets out on the journey with his assistant, "Pat" Passepartout. They are pursued by the persistent but incompetent police officer Inspector Fix, who believes Fogg possesses stolen money.

Around the World was a play production by Orson Welles's Mercury Productions. It began pre-Broadway tryouts at the Boston Opera House, Boston on April 28, 1946; moved to the Shubert Theatre, New Haven on May 7; then transferred to the Shubert Theatre, Philadelphia on May 14.

It premiered on Broadway at the Adelphi Theatre on May 31, 1946, and closed on August 3, 1946 after 75 performances.[3]

It was produced and directed by Welles with circus sequences created by Barbette, choreography by Nelson Barclift, costumes by Alvin Colt, set design by Robert Davison, and lighting by Peggy Clark. There were 38 sets, which Welles asked to be designed in the style of the films of Georges Méliès.[4]^: 111

"Some of the more spectacular scenes included a giant eagle snatching an actor from the stage, an authentic Japanese circus troupe, a live elephant, a train crossing the rocky mountains, and a troop of Marines", wrote Welles scholar Bret Wood. "Motion picture footage was shot and integrated into the play to heighten its mad, vaudevillian qualities."[5]^: 61

Technical problems were largely resolved before the New York opening. Welles performed various roles through the play's run, and once was required to play the lead:[5]^: 62 On the last night of the Boston run, when Arthur Margetson lost his voice, Welles read the part of Fogg and an understudy sang the songs. "The audience felt blessed," wrote biographer David Thomson. "It was a spellbinding night, with Welles talking everyone—audience included—through their parts."[6]^{: 270–271}

Although audiences reportedly loved Around the World, its precarious finances—and the theatre's inadequate air conditioning—could not sustain it through the summer, and Welles was forced to close it. He personally lost an estimated $320,000 (equivalent to $4,800,000 in 2022)[7] on the production. Due to bad legal advice, he was unable to claim the loss on his taxes, and it took him many years to pay the debt.[4]^{: 395–396}

After the show's failure, Welles was keen to stage it in London, where Alexander Korda predicted it would be a great success, but British trade union rules forbade the elaborate props and sets built for the American production, and they had to be destroyed. They proved too expensive to reconstruct, and the show never again received a full-scale staging.[4]^: 109

Critic Lewis Nichols of The New York Times calling the musical "only fitfully amusing", noted that the production "has spared no expense in gadgets and effects. There are movies of the flicker era, a miniature train crossing a bridge ... and desperate men and bold clinging to the rails of pounding ships at sea. In other words, Around the World has the making for an hilarious evening. It does not come off because it lacks unity. There are too many styles fighting among themselves ... the dances generally are miles removed from Mr. Welles' burlesque. Finally, Cole Porter has written an inferior score, the songs being on the usual musical comedy subjects and delivered without the zest brought to the show by its mainstay. … Perhaps the best part of the show is a circus, with acrobats, a rope walker and with Mr. Welles, himself, as the magician."[9]

Life magazine called the show "the most overstuffed conglomeration of circus, magic, movies, old-fashioned spectacle and penny peep shows that Broadway has seen since the days of Barnum's Museum. … For part of the time Around the World is wonderful, noisy fun. But, handicapped by Cole Porter's disappointing music and a slapdash production, it ends up like a Victorian whatnot more cluttered with junk than gems."[10]

After New York drama critic Robert Garland wrote disdainfully that the show had "everything but the kitchen sink", Welles had a kitchen sink brought to him onstage during his curtain speech.[4]^: 395[6]^: 271

During the show's run, Bertolt Brecht went to see it, and went to congratulate Welles backstage after the show, declaring it to be "the greatest American theatre he had ever seen".[4]^: 112

After Welles's death in 1985, critic Stanley Kaufmann recalled seeing Around the World, "his exuberant 1945 Broadway production … The show flopped, but sometimes I meet someone who saw it. Immediately we start to bore everyone else in the room by reminiscing about it."[11]

• During the show's run, Welles was also producing, directing, writing, presenting and co-starring in the anthology radio series The Mercury Summer Theatre of the Air. The show's first episode, broadcast on 7 June 1946, was a heavily abridged version of the musical, truncated to meet the radio programme's half-hour format. All of the principal cast participated, and the radio broadcast remains the only recording of any portion of Cole Porter's Around the World score. Songs include "Look What I Found" (Larry Laurence, Julie Warren), "There He Goes, Mr. Phileas Fogg" (Arthur Margetson) and "Should I Tell You I Love You?" (Mary Healy).[12]
• After Welles's elaborate musical stage version of this Jules Verne novel, encompassing 38 different sets, went live in 1946, Welles shot some test footage in Morocco in 1947 for a film version. The footage was never edited, funding never came through, and Welles abandoned the project. Nine years later, the stage show's producer Mike Todd made his own award-winning film version of the book.[13]
• The "Lost Musicals" series presented a concert version at the Lilian Baylis Theatre, Sadler's Wells, London, in June–July 2007.[2]

Wikimedia Commons has media related to Around the World (musical).

• ​Around the World​ at the Internet Broadway Database
• Around the World production, songs, and plot at sondheimguide.com