The Milkmaid Song

Toward the end of their first-draft version of the Wizard of Oz musical, L. Frank Baum and Paul Tietjens have made both the Scarecrow and Tin Woodman kings—of the Emerald City and the Country of the Munchkins, respectively.

GLINDA: Well, everything seems to be turning out splendidly. (To Dorothy) You ought to be proud to have two kings with you.

DOROTHY: They're all right to draw to, but I wouldn't bet much on this pair. I'm not proud. I don't want to be a queen.

Dorothy then performs "The Milkmaid Song," an up-beat number about how she would rather spend her life back on the Kansas farm as a dairymaid, "a farm-yard dignitary."

This is the first time Baum has suggested in script or song that the Kansas farm is a dairy farm. The song predates the introduction of Dorothy's pet heifer, Imogene, as well—Dorothy won't get a pet cow until draft three.

I am delighted to share the first presentation of the original 1901 "Milkmaid Song" in well over a hundred years. But before you listen to it I must share some backstory.

Back in the late 1990s, James Patrick Doyle and I were collaborating on a restoration of the 1903 Wizard of Oz musical. We were not trying to restore it to a particularly "authentic" version, but rather a "best of all possible worlds" version that represented Baum's and Tietjens's desires, included all of their surviving music (including the cut Act 2, Scene 1 from Chicago), and a tasty new Finale that truly tied up all of the loose ends.

One song we particularly wanted to restore was "The Milkmaid Song." Baum had obviously liked his lyric, as he included it in his anthology Baum's Juvenile Speaker (1910), later reissued as Baum's Own Book For Children (1912). But we did not have any music for the lyric. We began looking through the score to see if any of Tietjens's music fit Baum's words. We quickly realized we could sing the chorus to the latter half of the "Winter Jubilation" music from the Act I Finale. Then James found that with a subtle change to the value of a note or two, and a shift from waltz time to common time, the "Happy Maidens" melody from the Act II finale fit the verse of the "Milkmaid" quite nicely.

We were so pleased with our efforts we published the song as sheet music and released an mp3 file James had made. James Patrick Doyle died suddenly in January 2002, and our original plans for restoring the show were ended.

But now, to jump nearly two decades forward, when I finally got access to Baum's original 1901 manuscript I found a marvelous note in Baum's own hand next to the typed lyrics for "The Milkmaid Song": "This song put into 1st act scene 3 . . ." This meant James's and my deduction that the chorus of "Milkmaid" scanned to the second half of the "Winter Jubilation" melody had been accurate.

What we had failed to realize back then was that the entire song fit the full "Winter Jubilation" melody. But without Baum's handwritten clue, this fit had been easy to miss. "Winter Jubilation" wants to be played at a fairly quick tempo, and the music was probably slightly tweaked for its reuse as the Sleigh-bell dominated frolic for the snow sprites. But a careful listen reveals the fit—and so we have another of Baum and Tietjens's songs from the 1901 first draft that survives.

Please listen to Baum and Tietjens's original version first [VIDEO ABOVE]. The music is from Tietjens's piano score for the Finale of Act I. There are a few spots where the lyrics sit oddly on the tune, but stilted lyrics seem a specialty of Baum's.

Then listen to James's and my recreation of the song from 2000 [VIDEO BELOW]—in a performance of the song at OzCon 2016. This version contains a singer, too. Note that James Patrick Doyle "improved" Baum's lyrics in a few spots. The singer is singing James's revised lyric—the captions reflect Baum's original text.

I will be discussing the placement of this song, the evolution of the cow, and the introduction of Imogene in future posts.

Copyright © 2020 David Maxine. All rights reserved.

Opening Prayer - Part VI

CLICK HERE TO READ PART V

After the tedious and talk-heavy second act, Baum seems reengaged for Act III, loading it with action, and multiple scene changes, as well as some daring special effects. But would an audience still be in their seats after two hours of boring dialogue and bad puns? Baum's spirited Act III seems a case of "too much, too late." 

Act III

Scene 1 - "The Forest of Fighting Trees"

The curtain rises on a "row of trees" stretching across the stage in the in-one position, "with movable branches, operated by men concealed behind the trunks." A forest backdrop hangs behind the animated trees, and "at extreme right the outline cabin of the Forest Witch, with practical door."

"Chorus of Fighting Trees"

We are here to guard the forest from intrusion

And to overwhelm our foes with dire confusion,

Let the stranger well beware

Ere he penetrate our lair,

Or our mighty limbs will meet him in conclusion;

Back! Back! For we attack

Our foes without the slightest hesitation.

Back! Back! The power you lack

To fight the fiercest trees in all creation.

It's nice to finally read a decent lyric from Baum. Did the novelty of this imaginative setting and non-traditional characters inspire him to do better work than the formulaic drivel he's been producing for so much of the score until now?

Dorothy and the Tin Woodman enter, the Scarecrow is not with them.

TIN WOODMAN: Oh Dorothy, have you no heart?

DOROTHY: Of course I have. I can feel it beating.

TIN WOODMAN: If mine could beat you could hear it and it would sound like a trolly [sic] car gong. But since I've had this new heart, Dorothy, I've discovered that I can't live without you. Oh Dorothy, come with me to my forest home and I will chop all the wood, if you'll get up and make the fires.

DOROTHY: Oh don't be silly. You said you wanted a heart so you could love your little Munchkin girl and now you come around offering it to me. You're a fickle man.

Baum's choice to make the Tin Woodman a horndog feels unsettling in comparison to the Tin Woodman of the book. Baum's willingness to sacrifice his beloved characters to obtain giggles for an adult audience belies the idea that it was the script doctors that warped his fairy tale into a vaudevillian romp. As creepy as it feels, the idea is clever, providing an adult's view of the Tin Woodman's sexual awakening—much like leprechaun Og's in Finian's Rainbow half a century later.
But watching the Tin Woodman get his "heart on" with every female character in the rest of Act III rather rubs one the wrong way.

DOROTHY:  I wouldn't have you or your heart if it was the last heart in the world and I was trying to fill a flush. Where is the Scarecrow?

The Tin Woodman says the last time he saw the Scarecrow, he was "trying to make a democrat believe that the trusts could not be controlled by law. He think he knows everything since he got his new set of brains . . ."  Dorothy exits to go find the Scarecrow. The Tin Woodman, alone, pines for female affection:

TIN WOODMAN: Ah, what is the use of being fitted out with a large pulsing heart, overflowing with affection, when there is no one to lavish it on? [. . .] if only I could get a little advice from Ella Wheeler Wilcox!

Ella Wheeler Wilcox

I have yet to discover the specific joke in why the Tin Woodman wanted advice from American author and poet Ella Wheeler Wilcox [1850-1919] but perhaps the joke is in reference to her book Poems of Passion (1883).  But without such advice, the Tin Woodman's own passion has only grown stronger.

When the Forest Witch emerges from her cabin, the Tin Woodman seizes another chance for love. He pleads, kneels down, and offers his heart to the Forest Witch.

FOREST WITCH: Keep your love. I've no use for it.

The Tin Woodman attempts to woo the witch further, but she explains she's too wicked to love anyone and sings her song "I'm Freakishly Wicked" to prove it.

I'm freakishly wicked,

I'm sneakishly wicked,

No one is so wicked as me

I'm charmingly wicked

Alarmingly wicked

No person more wicked could be.

You may stand in fearful attitudes before a bandit chief,

Or chirp in silly platitudes about a callous thief

The pirates and the franchise-grabbers seem as black as pitch

But there isn't one can hold a candle to this Wicked Witch.

After another verse and chorus the frustrated Tin Woodman asks: "Then you scorn my young love?"

FOREST WITCH: I scorn it with a deep and lasting scorn that would sear your heart if I could reach it.

Hit song from Florodora (1901).

The Witch grabs at the Tin Woodman's chest but he dodges from her clutch, just in time to make a topical joke on the hit song from the hit musical Florodora.

TIN WOODMAN: Ugh! But tell me pretty maiden, are there any more at home like you?

FOREST WITCH: Why don't you sing it?

TIN WOODMAN: I would, but the copyright hasn't expired yet. Isn't there anything around here that wears skirts that I can spring this trusting heart of mine on?

The Forest Witch retires into her cabin and we never see her again. This character seems to be inspired by the Wicked Witch of the West, but she plays no part in the plot or action other than being a romantic foil for the Tin Woodman.

Dorothy and the Scarecrow enter. Alas, the Scarecrow's new brains have made him "the grandest little wiseacre in the party" and almost as insufferable with his brains as the Tin Woodman is regarding his heart..

TIN WOODMAN: You ought to go down and see President Roosevelt. He's in your class.

This joke comparing the Scarecrow's brains to Teddy Roosevelt's has always been credited to Baum's script doctors, but it was clearly Baum's own. That said, Baum may have worried the reference was uncomfortable, as Roosevelt had only been president a matter of weeks, having attained the office upon the assassination of President McKinley. Baum has scribbled out the typewritten Roosevelt reference and inked in the name "Mark Hanna," the United States Senator from Ohio.

Baum's original "Teddy Roosevelt" joke from the 1901 script. CLICK TO ENLARGE

DOROTHY: Come, come, we're wasting time and we'll never get to Glinda the Good if we don't start. Which way do you think we ought to go?

TIN WOODMAN: Ask the Scarecrow. He's the official thinker of the bunch.

SCARECROW: Follow me and you can't go wrong. (Advances to trees, one of which strikes him with a branch and sends him tumbling back.)

FIGHTING TREES: Back! Back! (All wave branches.)

DOROTHY: Good gracious; what's that?

Deciding the Scarecrow's "thought waves" aren't going to solve the problem, the Tin  Woodman declares he can, "Get through without a ticket." He advances on the trees with upraised axe.

FIGHTING TREES: (sing)

Back! Back! For we attack

Our foes without the slightest hesitation.

Back! Back! The power you lack

To fight the fiercest trees in all creation.

The Tin Woodman chops a limb from the center tree at which all the trees utter moans of pain. The Fighting Trees slide offstage right and left, disappearing into the wings. The Forest drop rises to reveal Scene 2 - "The Rocky Hill of the Hammerheads." Dorothy, the Scarecrow, and Tin Woodman have remained onstage during the scene change. The Scarecrow asks, "But where are we?"

TIN WOODMAN: What's the matter—are those brains of yours off watch? I thought you were going to tell us all about it.

DOROTHY Here is a pathway up the rocks. Let's see where it leads to.

TIN WOODMAN: It looks like the rocky road to Dublin. (Starts to mount rocks when the HAMMERHEADS appear from behind rocks, darting here and there and changing places with one another during Chorus.)

"Song of the Hammerheads"

1st HALF: Well here's a lark
2nd HALF: Ha, ha, ha!
1st HALF: We should remark!
2nd HALF: Ha, ha, ha!
1st HALF: These ninnies think that they can pass our rocky hill.
2nd HALF: Ha, ha, ha!

1st HALF: But we're intent
2nd HALF: Ha, ha, ha!
1st HALF: To circumvent
2nd HALF: Ha, ha, ha!
1st HALF: All trespassing and we'll resent it with will.
ALL: We will . . .

The Hammerheads sing and dance two more rounds of their song and their number comes to a close. With a strong male chorus, this "Song of the Hammerheads" could have been a rousing number.

SCARECROW: Yes, they seem to be a bunch of knockers. But I think I can fix them.

TIN WOODMAN: Oh your thinker is in working order again, is it? You were about half out of your thoughts after the tree landed on you.

SCARECROW: I remember hearing that if you approach a wild animal and look it straight in the eye, you win.

TIN WOODMAN: How are you going to look anything straight in the eye? One of your eyes is upside down and the other one has a kink in it.

[ . . . ]

SCARECROW: Watch me! (Advances to the rocks and is knocked down by a shooting hand, rolling back to the others, who pick him up.)

TIN WOODMAN: If you get knocked out a few more times you will have to go to England to get a fight. Which eye did you try him with?

Unfortunately, Baum provides no description of the Hammerheads, but unlike those in the book, these seem to have shooting hands instead of shooting heads which belies the name of the characters. After his tumble, the Scarecrow wants to call it quits and return to the Emerald City.

DOROTHY: Oh, no, we must go on to Glinda the Good or I will never get back to Kansas. I wish I knew the charm of these silver shoes.

SCARECROW: What charm?

What charm, indeed! Dorothy has never told the Scarecrow and Tin Woodman about her shoes and has not mentioned them since she put them on early in the first act. The Scarecrow asks if the charm might be inside them so Dorothy takes them off.

TIN WOODMAN: There isn't so much charm about them now as there was when you had them on. Maybe you would call a bellboy by rubbing them like Alladin's [sic] wonderful lamp.

(She rubs them)

[ . . . ]

DOROTHY: Oh, dear, why can't I find that charm? Here I am, a thousand miles from home, standing around in my stocking feet looking for a hateful old charm that won't appear. 

Dorothy and the Silver Shoes from the original book (1900).

Dorothy, holding one shoe in each hand, sings and dances "The Stocking Song." The music for this number is not known to survive, but the verse fits the melody of the verse to Baum and Tietjens's "Love is Love" from their unproduced comic opera, The Octopus, though the last note of each stanza needs to be made a triplet for reasons you'll see below.

DOROTHY:

Oh, it's really quite provoking
While the charm we are invoking,
That my little tootsie-wootsies must go bare, bare, bare.

Though each foot has still a stocking,
Such a sight is very shocking,
And I hope no naughty man will dare to stare, stare, stare.

(Dancing.)

'Tis a horrid sight,
Yet my feet so light,
Go tripping and slipping quite merrily.

ALL: Quite merrily!

[ . . . ]

(Dancing)

Yet I'll be discreet
While my stocking'd feet
Go tripping and skipping quite merrily!

ALL: Quite merrily!

DOROTHY:
Do not be dismayed
If you feel afraid
Why you need not look up, necessarily.

ALL: No, verily.

Dorothy knocks the heels of the shoes together three times as a little fillip to end the song, echoing the "dance, dance, dance" motif, accidentally discovering the charm of the silver shoes. Baum has combined the Silver Shoes and the Golden Cap—clicking the shoes together three times has called the Winged Monkeys.

WINGED MONKEYS: (heard without) Here—we—come.

The Winged Monkeys descend from the flies. This would be a major scenic effect, flying in multiple actors in Winged Monkey costumes. Only the Monkey Leader speaks, so perhaps the other monkeys would have been two dimensional?

MONKEY LEADER: (to Dorothy) We are the slaves of the silver shoes and whoever wears them can command us.

TIN WOODMAN: Oh, if I could only get those shoes on! I know a place where they have steins that high. (indicating.)

The Scarecrow asks if the monkeys could make him a cheese sandwich, but Dorothy stays focused on her goal.

DOROTHY: We want to go at once to the palace of Glinda the Good. How can you get us there?

MONKEY LEADER: We cannot carry you because the forest is too dense, but we can transport you in a balloon.

TIN WOODMAN: Where did you get the balloon?

MONKEY LEADER: It sailed down out of the sky and we captured it.

DOROTHY: Oh, it must be the balloon of the poor wizard, Oz. He is lost.

SCARECROW: He's as well off as he would be if he stayed in the Emerald City. They were getting ready to give him twelve hours to leave town.

Baum has provided an unfortunate demise for the poor wizard. Is the wizard wandering the Quadling Country, or a prisoner or plaything for the monkeys? Dorothy's matter-of-fact "He is lost" seems to indicate the wizard is dead.

Scientifically, such a demise for the wizard seems logical—how far can one really go in a hot-air balloon with no on-board heating source? But why would Baum choose to kill off the title character, and to do it "off-stage," at that? Couldn't the Wizard have rescued the trio from the Hammerheads? It would have given the actor another scene and a more important part. Never mind how disturbing the suggested "death by monkey" might seem to a child in the audience. But Dorothy and her friends accept the story with no further questioning.

TIN WOODMAN: Well, let's be on our way. Bring out your balloon.

(Balloon and basket swing in from the wings, guided by the winged monkey. All clamber in.)

DOROTHY: Now for Glinda and Kansas!

TIN WOODMAN: If we ever get to Glinda I'll try to worry along without Kansas.

(Balloon rises into flies. Dark change to scene 3.)

CLICK HERE TO READ PART VII

Copyright © 2020 David Maxine. All rights reserved.

Putting it Together - Minuet Chorus

Today's post provides a rich backstory on my latest YouTube video, the "Minuet Chorus" from L. Frank Baum and Paul Tietjens's 1901 first draft version of The Wonderful Wizard of Oz. This video recording marks the first time anyone has paired these lyrics to this music since 1901.

I am quite proud of this discovery, reuniting Baum's lyrics of the "Minuet Chorus" from  Act II of the 1901 first draft Wizard of Oz script with the original Tietjens music, though it took me awhile to fit the puzzle pieces together. While the "Minuet Chorus" was cut from the show by the next draft, Baum and Tietjens liked the music well enough that Baum wrote new lyrics for it, turning it into the "Poppy Song."

When I first obtained a copy of Baum's 1901 libretto I did not immediately make a connection between Baum's "Minuet chorus" lyrics and Tietjens's "Poppy" music, in part because Baum's lyrics seldom sit on the melody well, so the relationship of the "Minuet" lyrics to the published "Poppy Song" sheet music was not particularly evident. But the performance version of the "Poppy Song" in Witmark's stock-rental package contains a much longer version of the "Poppy Song," including a "B" section not in the sheet music version. The B section is part of the Poppy ballet in the produced show. This B section perfectly fits Baum's lines "Glide—with proud and stately stride!" I sang the "Minuet" lyrics to the full length Poppy arrangement and the rest of the words fell right into place.

Paul Tietjens was very proud of this piece of music. In November of 1903, when Tietjens was in New York City preparing to sail for Europe, he visited W. W. Denslow and his wife in their new NYC home. Also attending the dinner were Grace Duffie Boylan and Denslow's old friend Charles W. Waldron, who later wrote of that evening in the Lewiston [ME] Journal on Feb 17:

After dinner we listened to some of the finest music it has ever been my luck to hear, as Paul Tietjens treated us to selections from The Wizard of Oz. Some of the music was grand. A minuet from the opera was one of the sweetest numbers, full of melody and well balanced. It was a regret to the composer that more was not made of it in the opera. Denslow suggested that it could come in during a snow storm after the poppy field scene and should be stepped out by eight maidens dressed in spotless white and arrayed in furs. It was a happy thought and may be arranged in the future. This minuet should be as popular as the lullaby in Erminie. It was to my ear much prettier.

But Baum and Tietjens had been fond of this music even before it was introduced into the early draft of The Wonderful Wizard of Oz. Tietjens originally wrote the music for his first collaboration with Baum, the now-abandoned comic opera The Octopus.

Through Tietjens's journal we can follow the writing process of the song.

On the morning of April 18, 1901, Paul Tietjens arose and went for a morning walk. He'd had a quarrel with his friend Ike Morgan the night before and the two were not speaking to each other. After the walk Tietjens spent all morning working on his piano technique, took a break for lunch, and returned to the piano to continue his exercises. But during his afternoon exercises he developed "the nucleus of a Minuet. I think it promises to be a real good one." The next morning Tietjens and Morgan made up their differences at breakfast.

Ten days later, Tietjens again mentions that "the Minuet is in the nucleus," but makes it clear he intends to use it in Act II of The Octopus.

On May 4 Tietjens recorded, "I worked at the Minuet this morning and have now all of the material for it, but have not decided how to put it in the opera."

That evening Tietjens walked to the Studebaker Theatre to see The Pirates of Penzance, which Tietjens liked very much indeed.

The Pirates of Penzance at the Studebaker Theatre, Spring 1901.

[The Pirates of Penzance] is not the style of opera we are writing. The second act consisted of nothing but music, and the comic element was subordinated to it. While it has very little music in it that can be remembered or whistled by the average operagoer, it is replete with beautiful music that is not above the heads of the audience.

Tietjens also jotted down . . .

. . . a remark that was made by a young lady sitting behind me. She spoke of it not being funny in a dissatisfied sort of way. The people want to be amused after all, and that is the reason our opera ought to be a success, for it certainly is funny enough . . .

Tietjens continued his work on The Octopus, seemingly jumping from number to number, each in a different state of completion. On May 6, he noted, "Have made some alterations in the Minuet and have now gotten it almost the way I want it." Tietjens finished arranging "The Minuet" on May 9, 1901.

Years later, in the July 7, 1909, issue of the San Francisco Call, Baum told a fanciful story about how the Wizard of Oz stage show came to be written. Baum has compressed the history and deleted any mention of The Octopus, but he ends the story stating that Tietjens used the "Minuet" as an audition piece to entice Baum into adapting The Wizard of Oz for the stage.

[Tietjens] sat down at the piano and began to play. It was a minuet, a delicate, dreamy morceau, so dainty in conception, so rippling with melody that I drew a long breath when the last sweet notes died away. It was afterward the famous "Poppy chorus" in The Wizard of Oz.

While Baum's chronology is out of order, his fondness for Tietjens's melody seems authentic. The music began as a number in the Fancy-Dress Ball in The Octopus, it became a "Minuet Chorus" for the Attendants of the Wizard in the earliest draft of The Wizard of Oz, and finally found its home in the deadly Poppy Field.

Copyright © 2019 David Maxine. All rights reserved.

Opening Prayer - Part V

The following in an excerpt from my forthcoming book. Please note, this early draft does not reflect corrections, changes, and more recent discoveries. There may be substantial differences between the following text and that to be included in the final work.  —David Maxine

CLICK HERE TO READ PART IV

“But tell us,” asks the Tin Woodman, “how you handed out the hot air to these Emerald City folks, and held your job so long when we got onto you the first rattle out of the box.” 

The Wizard sings his reply:

When you want to fool the public you will

Find that all you need to do

Is just to blink your eyes

And look extremely wise

And tell ’em you are quite a few!

For everybody loves to feed a fake

They love to cry “Gee Whiz!”

“How wonderful it is!”

No matter how absurd your schemes;

That’s right,

It’s a sight

To watch the ninnies bite!

Just humbug the people well

If ever you wish to excel;

Their future foretell or work ’em a spell—

They’ll never get on to the fact that it’s a sell.

SCARECROW:
It’s a cinch you never let any of the Emerald City people hear you sing or you’d be looking for a new job long ago.

“Hold on a minute,” says Oz. “I’m not a wizard, but it may be I can fix you up with what you want. “ Oz goes to a cupboard [somewhere on stage] to retrieve a “book of recipes”  left behind by the previous wizard.

OZ:

Let’s see.—brains—brains—calves’ brains—

SCARECROW:

That won’t do. I draw the line right there. I’m willing to stand for any old kind of brains you’ve got left over, shop-worn goods, marked down, from the bargain basement or any other kind except calves’ brains.

Oz continues flipping through the recipe. “Here we are—“brains for scarecrows.” Oz returns to the cupboard, to fetch a bowl, a box of bran, and needles and pins. Dorothy asks why Oz is adding the latter ingredients.

OZ:

To make him sharp, of course.

TIN WOODMAN:

(to Scarecrow) You’re stuck.

Oz rips open the Scarecrow’s head, inserts the brains, and sews it back up—much like he does in the book. Oz is now ready for the Tin Woodman, offering a heart that was left behind by a young fellow who had committed suicide.

Baum seems unable to make up his mind who his audience is. The tone of this script shifts wildly from the child-friendly and overly-cute Munchkins, forced to box each other’s ears, to this gruesome origin for the Tin Woodman’s heart. Horrors aside, the scene is long and over complicated. The Tin Woodman and Oz discuss the suicide victim’s former girlfriend, if the Tin Woodman will take the heart with him or have it sent, finally enacting some awkward stage business where the Wizard cuts open the Woodman’s chest and then patches it after installing the heart. 

OZ:

(To Dorothy) And now it’s your turn. Is there anything in the book that will help you out?

DOROTHY:

Is there a first-class ticket to Kansas there, including a lower berth in the sleeper?

OZ:

I’m afraid not. The old wizard who got up this book never heard of Kansas and did all his riding on a broomstick.

DOROTHY:

Then must I stay forever in this awful country?

SCARECROW:

You ought to be able to stand it. You have lived in Kansas.

The Wizard suggests Dorothy travel to Glinda the Good, who lives in the South. “She is not a humbug and therefore has never become as powerful with the people as I am.” The wizard lets the trio in on a secret, too. 

OZ:

I’m going away myself just as soon as I can. [. . .] I’ve got a big balloon here ready to make my escape [. . .] I’m afraid there is something doing right now and I’m going to have the airship ready to sail at a moment’s notice.

He asks Dorothy if she would like to accompany him in the balloon.

DOROTHY:

Could we reach Glinda’s country?

OZ:

That depends on how the wind blows. We’ll see this afternoon.

This curious bit of information means that all of Act II up to this point has been happening before noon.

OZ:
In the meantime I will have some of my people do a few stunts so you can see how it feels to be a real potentate.

Oz announces, “Let the revels begin,” and invites Dorothy, the Scarecrow, and Tin Woodman to join him on the throne to watch the entertainment—much like Clara watches the Russian, Chinese, and Arabian dances in the ballet of The Nutcracker. These Emerald City “revels” will be developed into the “Ball of All Nations” celebration the Wizard calls for in the produced show. And the script doctors will have the sense to allow the stars to perform, not just sit and watch the chorus.

The Wizard’s attendants enter (sixteen men and women) dressed in court costumes trimmed with mystic emblems. They sing and dance a Minuet. The music is that of the “minuet” from the fancy-dress ball in Act II of The Octopus. This same music will eventually become the “Poppy Song” in the produced version of the show.

“Minuet Chorus”

Sung and danced by eight men and eight women

In the throne room of Oz,

the Mighty one,

We daintily tread,

Who so graceful and so fascinating?

Who so coy and captivating?

All the mazes of courtly minuets

We skillfully tread,

We are glowing with delight while

Into the dance we are led.

While the strains of soft music float

Our very souls to ensnare,

We can never, never, tire of dancing—

Every motion is entrancing!

[Line missing here]

Ev’ry heart free from care;

There’s an ecstasy in each step

That’s far beyond all compare!

Glide—with proud and stately stride!

And then with spirits gay

We slowly whirl away.

Bow—to ev’ry partner now!

And then with perfect grace

We chassez to our place.

Oz introduces Dorothy and her friends to his Courtiers, presenting the trio as fellow wizards come to learn a few new tricks before traveling on to visit Glinda the Good.

The Guardian of the Gates enters and warns they will never reach Glinda. “The road is beset with dangers. The woods are full of terrible monsters.”

TIN WOODMAN:

You are the worst man I ever saw for trying to stir up trouble.

The Guardian also warns Oz that the people of the Emerald City think the Wizard’s powers may be waning. Oz decides it’s time to depart.

“Finale Act II”

OZ and CHORUS

OZ: A man may circumnavigate the globe—

CHORUS: In sixty days

OZ: Or fly through the air, the birds to emulate—

CHORUS: In many ways!

OZ: The secrets of the planets he may probe—

CHORUS: With microscopes!

OZ: But no one yet has ever conquered fate!

CHORUS: Or ever hopes—

To conquer fate—

To conquer fate!

Though your strength be great,

Though of wisdom you may prate

Though you bluster like an eastern potentate;

Though you early work and late,

Though you’re strictly up-to-date—

’Tis beyond your power to ever conquer fate!

TIN WOODMAN: A man may win the love of any maid—

CHORUS: If he can last!

SCARECROW: Or in his head a pot of brains locate—

CHORUS: Of knowledge vast!

DOROTHY: Or face an awful danger undismayed

CHORUS: By any fear!

DOROTHY: But trembles when he’s face to face with fate—

CHORUS: And that is queer!

No man is great

Enough for fate!

Though his strength be great,

Though of wisdom he may prate

Though he blusters like an umpire at the plate

Though to knuckle he may hate,

Though he’s not a cowardly skate—

’Tis beyond your power to ever conquer fate!

ENSEMBLE:

Then let us bow to fate’s most stern decree,

Since from her thrall, we never are free;

Men are but puppets, buffeted through life,

Helpless to stem the tide of woe and strife.

Yet there’s a Fate that kindly seems to be,

Granting us pleasures, as you’ll agree;

Courage will often coax a smile from Fate,

So let us courage cultivate!

Baum's Act II finale does little to advance the plot, but perhaps the last couple lines were Baum's attempt at working the "courage" theme back into the show after cutting the Cowardly Lion at the end of Act I.

The "Finale Act II" is followed by a “Transformation scene showing outside of palace with Oz ascending in balloon, others waving goodbye to him."

Baum's own description of the "Transformation" at the end of Act II.

There is no indication of any action or point when Oz leaves to prepare the balloon. And no further discussion of his taking Dorothy to Glinda. We must assume the winds were blowing the other way.

Curtain.

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Copyright © 2019 David Maxine. Allrights reserved.