A washroom attendant, Louis Blore, has won a sweepstakes, and subsequently quits his job. He is in love with the nightclub singer May Daly, but she is in love with Alex Barton. Alex is the brother of her friend Alice, who is in love with Harry Norton. Meanwhile, Alex is unhappily married to Ann. Charley, Louis's replacement, suggests that Louis slip Alex a Mickey Finn. While trying to do so, Louis inadvertently drinks the Mickey Finn, falls asleep, and dreams he is King Louis XV of France, and that May is Madame du Barry.
In his dream, Charley becomes the Dauphin (later Louis XVI) and Harry becomes the captain of the guard, with Ann as Du Barry's lady-in-waiting, and Alex as a peasant who wrote a rude song about The King and Du Barry (the title song: "Du Barry Was a Lady"). Eventually after various entanglements (including the Dauphin's shooting the King in the posterior with a bow and arrow), Louis wakes up and realizes that Alex is the man for May. He uses the last of his winnings to pay for Alex's divorce from Ann, and (with Charley having just quit his job) goes back to being a washroom attendant.
Productions
1939 Broadway
Bert Lahr in the original Broadway production of Du Barry Was a Lady (1939)
The show has been produced in concert form in both the United States and the United Kingdom. The two London productions, in 1993 and 2001, were by the Discovering Lost Musicals Charitable Trust and featured Louise Gold as May Daly with Barry Cryer as Louis in 1993 and Desmond Barrit in 2001.[5][6] The May 1993 production was at the Barbican Centre. The November 2001 concert was (like the original London production) at Her Majesty's Theatre, recorded for radio by the BBC (it was broadcast on BBC Radio 3 during Christmas 2002).[7]
New York City Center Encores! presented a staged concert in February 1996 with Robert Morse (Louis) and Faith Prince (May).[8] New York's Musicals Tonight! presented a production March–April, 2017.
Du Barry Was a Lady received a fully staged production in May 2014 by San Francisco's 42nd Street Moon Company starring Bruce Vilanch in the Bert Lahr role, directed and choreographed by Zack Thomas Wilde.[10][11]
It Was Written in the Stars – Alex Barton and Ensemble
L'Apres Midi d'un Boeuf – Charley and Zamore
Katie Went to Haiti – Mme. La Comtesse du Barry and Ensemble
Katie Went to Haiti (Reprise) – Alex Barton and Mme. La Comtesse du Barry
Friendship – Mme. La Comtesse du Barry and His Most Royal Majesty, The King of France
Reception
Brooks Atkinson wrote in The New York Times: "Although Miss Merman is jaunty and Mr. Lahr is funny, they have a hard time keeping this show merry. The authors have struck a dead level of Broadway obscenity that does not yield much mirth. As the music-maker Mr. Porter has written a number of accomplished tunes in the modern idiom and one excellent romantic song, "Do I Love You?" but the lyrics are no more inspired than the book; they treat all humor as middling. The performers supply more pleasure than the authors and composer. Betty Grable and Charles Walters, who would also be featured in a free society, dance and sing with remarkable dash."[16]
Life praised the performers, especially Betty Grable "who can dance and sing like a May breeze" and Merman and Lahr "two musical comedy veterans...in top form."[17]
