Monte Cristo Jr.

Burlesque of opera or classical works was popular in Britain from the 1860s to the 1880s. Other examples at the Gaiety include The Bohemian G-yurl and the Unapproachable Pole (1877), Blue Beard (1882), Ariel (1883, by F. C. Burnand), Galatea, or Pygmalion Reversed (1883), Little Jack Sheppard (1885), Miss Esmeralda (1887), Frankenstein, or The Vampire's Victim (1887), Mazeppa, Faust up to Date (1888), Ruy Blas and the Blasé Roué (1888), Carmen up to Data (1890), Cinder Ellen up too Late (1891), and Don Juan (1892, with lyrics by Adrian Ross).[3]

John Hollingshead managed the Gaiety Theatre from 1868 to 1886 as a venue for variety, continental operetta, light comedy, and numerous musical burlesques composed or arranged by the theatre's music director, Wilhelm Meyer Lutz. Hollingshead called himself a "licensed dealer in legs, short skirts, French adaptations, Shakespeare, taste and musical glasses."[4] In 1886, Hollingshead ceded the management of the theatre to George Edwardes, whom he had hired in 1885. Edwardes expanded the burlesque format from one act to full-length pieces with original music by Lutz, instead of scores compiled from popular tunes, and choreography by the theatre's dance-master, John D'Auban.[5] Nellie Farren, as the theatre's "principal boy", and Fred Leslie starred at the Gaiety for over 20 years. Leslie wrote many of its pieces under his pseudonym, "A. C. Torr".[6] In the early 1890s, as Burlesque went out of fashion, Edwardes changed the focus of the theatre from musical burlesque to the new genre of Edwardian musical comedy.[7]

Lottie Collins as Mariette in Monte Cristo Jr. (1886)

• Edmond Dantes, a young sailor – Nellie Farren
• Fernand, a Catalan fisherman – Jennie McNulty
• Mércedes, betrothed to Dantes – Marion Hood / Agnes Delaporte
• Mariette, a lively young person – Lottie Collins / Letty Lind (from 1887)
• Albert, a fast youth – Lizzie Wilson
• Valentine, Morel's daughter – Sylvia Grey
• Carconte, a charming hag – Linda Verner
• Noirtier, Conspirator – Fred Leslie
• De Villefort, his son – E. J. Lonnen
• Danglars, a supercilious super cargo – E. Haslam
• Caderousse, tailor and toper – George Stone
• Morel, a shipowner – Charles Danby
• Boy at the Wheel – Charlie Ross

Monte Cristo Jr. later toured the United Kingdom with much of the London cast before a production by the London Gaiety Burlesque Company Tour opened at Dockstader's Theatre in New York on 2 April 1888[8] It then toured Australia in mid-1888 with Alfred Cellier as the conductor and a cast including Danby, Farren, Grey, Hood, Leslie and Lind.[9] The Gaiety cast including Farren but augmented by a pretty female American chorus opened on 15 November 1888 in a reworked production at the Standard Theatre on Broadway. While the American audience was largely unappreciative of the play in general and its doggerel verse in particular, it did start a new craze for dancing in long and "swishy" skirts as displayed by the female chorus.[2][8]

Sheet music cover for "Sahara" from the Broadway version (1919)

A musical with the same name played in New York at the Winter Garden Theatre running for 254 performances from February to October 1919 and was suspended for a month during the Actor's Equity strike. This show had songs with music by Sigmund Romberg and Jean Schwartz, and a book and lyrics by Harold R. Atteridge. Additional music was by Maurice Abrahams, Fred E. Alhert and Earl Carroll, with lyrics by Earl Carroll, Sam M. Lewis and Joe Young. The cast for this version included Sam Ash, Gordon Dooley, Flore Revalles, Charles "Chic" Sale and Esther Walker.[10]