A Trip to Chinatown is a musical comedy in three acts with a book by Charles H. Hoyt, music by Percy Gaunt and lyrics by Hoyt. In addition to the Gaunt and Hoyt score, many songs were interpolated into the score at one time or another during the run, as was fashionable for musicals of the era. The story concerns a widow who accidentally maneuvers two young suburban couples into a big city restaurant and brings romance to them and herself. It is loosely based on an 1835 English one-act farce, A Day Well Spent, by John Oxenford.
After almost a year of touring, the musical opened at Broadway’s Madison Square Theatre on November 9, 1891, and ran for 657 performances, or just short of two years. This was the longest-running Broadway musical in history up to that time (although London had seen a few longer runs), and it held that record until Irene in 1919.[1][2] The show was such a hit that several road companies played it throughout the country simultaneously with the Broadway production, and at one point a second company was even opened in New York while the original company was still performing on Broadway. The cast included Trixie Friganza and Harry Conor, who introduced the song "The Bowery". The musical also ran in London for 125 performances.[1]
Hoyt was born in 1859 in Concord, New Hampshire. In the 1870s, he became the music and drama critic for The Boston Post. Beginning in 1883, he began a career as a playwright, producing a series of twenty farcical comedies (roughly one per year until his death) and a comic opera. Hoyt had his own theater, the Madison Square Theatre, where A Trip to Chinatown premiered. It was Hoyt's 10th stage work. His plays and musicals emphasized individualized characters drawn from the everyday experiences of ordinary people. Most of his plays were non-musical farces. Two of the songs from A Trip to Chinatown are still known, "The Bowery" and "Reuben and Cynthia". There were many interpolations of songs into A Trip to Chinatown written for the many touring companies, the most famous being Charles K. Harris's "After the Ball", which was not part of the 1891 Broadway production but became a big hit and was later interpolated into Show Boat to exemplify the 1890s style.[4] Versions of the script can be found in the 1941 Princeton University Press collection, Five Plays by Charles Hoyt edited by Douglas L. Hunt. In addition the George Washington University has microfiche copies of three versions of Hoyt's script, which changed as the cast changed, and differed from tour to tour.
Two young men in San Francisco tell their wealthy but strict guardian, Uncle Ben, that they are going on an educational sightseeing trip to Chinatown. They really plan a double date night out on the town, with dinner and dancing. The men have engaged a chaperone, Mrs. Guyer, but her letter of acceptance is received by Uncle Ben, who misinterprets it as an invitation to a rendezvous. At "The Riche", the restaurant mentioned in the letter, where the young people have booked a table, the old man gets drunk. He does not see the young couples or Mrs. Guyer, and when he gets everyone's bill, it turns out that he has forgotten his wallet, which leads to humorous complications. Ben is unable to scold the young people for deceiving him, as they point out that they know about his own night out.
Roles and original Broadway cast
A poster with lyrics to "The Bowery", 1890
Welland Strong (a man with one foot in the grave) – Harry Conor
Ben Gay (a wealthy bachelor) – George A. Beane, Jr.
^The 1897 musical A Trip to Coontown, by Bob Cole, spoofed the title of the show. See Moon, Krystyn R., David Krasner and Thomas L. Riis. "Forgotten Manuscripts: A Trip to Coontown", African American Review, Saint Louis University, Vol. 44, Numbers 1-2, Spring/Summer 2011, pp. 7-24
