A Trip to Chinatown

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A Trip to Chinatown is an 1871 musical comedy in three acts by Charles H. Hoyt with music by Percy Gaunt that became a silent film featuring Anna May Wong half a century later. The play opened at Broadway’s Madison Square Theater 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. The show was such an enormous success that road companies were performing the play in every section of the country simultaneously with the Broadway production, and at one point a secondary company was opened in New York while the original company was still performing on Broadway.

Hoyt was born in Concord, New Hampshire (USA), on July 26, 1859. He had a difficult childhood (his mother died when he was nine years old) and both his first wife, actress Flora Walsh, and his second wife, actress Caroline Miskel, died after only a few years of marriage. The death of his second wife in 1898 led to Hoyt's being committed to an insane asylum in 1900. Although his stay was brief, he returned to his Charlestown, New Hampshire home and died four months later.

A Trip to Chinatown was Hoyt's 10th of 18 plays produced between 1883 and 1899. Hoyt's plays emphasized individualized characters drawn from the everyday experiences of ordinary people. Most of his plays were non-musical farces. Two of the songs from the show are still known, "The Bowery" and "Reuben and Cynthia." There were many interpolations of songs into A Trip to Chinatown due to the many touring companies, the most famous being Charles K. Harris's "After the Ball," which was not part of the 1891 Broadway production.

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.

1 Roles
2 Musical numbers
3 1926 Film
4 External links

[edit] Roles

Mrs. Guyer
Flirt
Wilder Daly
Willie (a trouser role)

[edit] Musical numbers

The Bowery
Reuben and Cynthia
The Widow
Push Dem Clouds Away
The Chaperone
Out for a Racket
After the Ball
Love Me Little, Love Me Long (the music to this song is lost)
Do, Do, My Huckleberry, Do (the music and chorus to this song are lost)

[edit] 1926 Film

There is a 1926 silent film version of the play called A Trip to Chinatown that features Margaret Livingston, Anna May Wong, and Charles Farrell. The movie was scripted by Beatrice Van from Charles Hale Hoyt's play and directed by Robert P. Kerr. Livingston played the "Woman from the City" the following year in F. W. Murnau's Sunrise, the rival to Farrell's future screen partner Janet Gaynor.