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Hans Christian Andersen

Music & Lyrics by Frank Loesser
Movie 1952

Synopsis

ACT ONE

Act One: The scene is an 1830s village square in Odense, Denmark. There we see a schoolhouse, a town hall, and the cobbler shop of Hans Christian Andersen. Nearby stands a two-wheeled cart, which is large enough to hold all his equipment, and a smaller cart that can be pushed by a young boy. In “I’m Hans Christian Andersen” he introduces himself as a world-class storyteller, who will, “mend your shoes and fix your boots when I have a moment free.” The towns’ children gather round him. At the end of the song, Hans leads them around the stage a la the Pied Piper, ending up in front of his shop for story time.

The schoolmaster rings the bell to announce the beginning of school—the children gather closer to Hans. He rings it again and the children continue to ignore him. In a rage, this dry, angry, apoplectic little man returns to the schoolhouse, puts the bell on his desk, picks up his hat and storms into Town Hall.

The other children tease Anna, the smallest child in the group, until she cries. For Anna, Hans chooses the tale of “Thumbelina,” a little girl “no bigger than my thumb.” He sings “Oh, Thumbelina, What’s the difference if you’re very small? When your heart is full of love, you’re nine feet tall.” Hans’ apprentice is Peter, a serious boy of 12 or 13, who enters frantically at the end of the song, reporting that the schoolmaster has complained about Hans to the Burgomaster, and the town council is on its way over. The schoolmaster issues an ultimatum: “either Hans leaves the town, or I do.” Peter pleads that the children learn from Hans’ stories,” but the Burgomaster reluctantly goes along with the schoolmaster and announces a meeting this afternoon at which he will decide who must leave the town. The Burgomaster sends the children off with the schoolmaster, and Hans and Peter are left alone.

Hans begins work on a shoe, and Peter, whom Hans rescued from an orphanage, is worried sick about losing Hans. Hans criticizes Peter’s handiwork and wonders if Peter really wants to be a cobbler. In the background, the children sing a repetitive, rote recital of their addition tables and Hans picks a marigold and point out an inchworm worrying away: he sings “Inchworm, Inchworm, measuring the marigolds, seems to me you’d stop and see how beautiful you are.” Hans crosses to the schoolhouse as Peter continues singing. The schoolmaster shuts the door in his face. Hans determines to leave the town. Peter is elated to find that Hans will take him along. They load the large cart and post a sign in the shop window that he’s gone to Copenhagen. They reprise “Hans Christian Andersen” as the scene becomes the wonderful seaside town of Copenhagen.

On the road they encounter Truls, a sea captain, who gives them a hand to speed their journey. Upon arrival in the market square, they encounter vendors singing their calls for fish, milk, sausages, newspapers, matches, chimney sweeping and vegetables. Truls introduces Madam Doro, Prima Ballerina of the Royal Ballet, accompanied by her handmaid Celine. Hans is smitten by the diva’s beauty; Peter snickers. Hans wants to follow her; Truls explains that she can always be found at the Opera House where she dances.

Peter is eager to get to work. They set up shop in the Town Square under the kind and watchful eye of the statue of the King. Truls exits, wishing them luck. Hans sings “Wonderful, Wonderful Copenhagen” as the town’s children gather round to listen and be drawn into Hans’ tale of his mighty ship “Dauntless.” At the end of the song, the children “disembark”. The school bell rings, and Peter reminds Hans that the children must go. Hans leads the children over the bridge to school.

Niels, the handsome lead dancer and director of the Royal Ballet, storms on followed by Otto, the impresario. Madam Doro wants new shoes NOW to accomplish a particular effect in her dance. She needs a shoe that is silent and soft so that she can appear to be dancing on air. Otto is sent off to find a cobbler. Peter leads him to Hans, who is taken to the Madam: “Our first job in Copenhagen, and it’s for her!”

At the Opera House, several dancers are working out at the barre. Rik, the stage manager, calls the company; Doro takes the stage. The first variation is a solo for Madam Doro, followed by the second movement in which she is accompanied by the ensemble. The third variation is to be a pas de deux between her and Niels. He bows; she curtseys to the floor. And there she stays. Otto reminds Niels that Madam has refused to go any further without her special shoes. Hans is brought forth. Madam Doro explains the effect she wishes to create; Hans says he can make the shoes. Doro impulsively kisses him on the cheek. Hans is stunned and dazedly goes off to find Peter and begin work on Madam’s new shoes.

Doro calls for her lunch, which Celine brings out. Niels and Otto discuss Doro. We discover that Niels and Doro are married and drive each other nuts! She tortures him; he criticizes her. They sing “No Two People” over lunch: “No two people have ever been so in love as my lovey dove and I.” Alas, Niels verbally attacks her, alleging limitations in her dance abilities and an insane preoccupation with the silent shoes she’s commissioned from Hans. She slaps him, then slaps him again. He turns her over his knee and spanks her. She struggles, bursts free, and runs weeping from the stage.

Hans, having witnessed this scene, is appalled. Hans, transfixed, fantasizes. His recorded voice is heard: “How could you do it? How could you marry him?” Doro appears, dancing in and out of distinct pools of light on the stage, saying, “No one can help me! No one…he makes me dance for him…I can only dance…dance…” She continues to dance as Hans sings, “Anywhere I Wander.”

Back at the Market Place, Hans crosses to his cart, sits on a stool and begins writing. Peter enters to distract Hans; Hans dismisses Peter, but Peter’s rosy spirits won’t be dampened. Mrs. Olsen enters grandly, authoritatively, to do her shopping. When she leaves, vendors Gustave and Henrich close their carts and exit. Hans finishes writing, and shows the pages to Peter: ‘The Little Mermaid – A Story for Madam Doro by Hans Christian Andersen.” Peter is shocked! Madam is, after all, married. Hans resolves to help her somehow; through his story he hopes to show Doro she has a friend in him.

Madam Doro enters to thank Hans for the shoes. They are perfect and silent! Niels follows, saying, “Now, if you could only do something to silence her!” Hans is saddened. Peter embarrasses Hans deeply by giving the pages to Doro. Doro is visibly moved, and tells Hans she’ll read it on tour. Hans is shocked to hear she’s leaving. Niels notes Hans’ reaction to his wife and concludes that it’s a good thing they’re leaving town for awhile. Act One Ends.

ACT TWO

Act Two begins at the marketplace, where Hans now has added a rod to his cart from which hang eleven pairs of new ballet shoes. Everyone is onstage: Peter the friendly policeman, all the children, townspeople and vendors. They reprise “Wonderful, Wonderful Copenhagen.” Our attention is directed at the end of the chorus to a young boy, Lars, and his mother, Mrs. Holm. She’s walking him to school today because he played hooky yesterday. He begs her to let him go alone; she reluctantly agrees when he promises to go to school. As he passes, the girls giggle and the boys shun him.

Music rises again; the singers promenade and the dancers waltz. Peter waltzes with the Little Match Girl. Hans waltzes with Anna. A school bell is heard as the applause fades. Girls exit by twos; the boys surround Lars and grab his hat. We see that he is bald as an egg. The policeman intervenes and the boys disperse. Hans takes the cap from the cop and crosses to Lars, who is visibly upset by the harassment. Hans comforts Lars, whose doctor had shaved his head when the child was ill. Hans sings Lars the story of “The Ugly Duckling,” who becomes a beautiful swan. Lars, whistling and smiling, exits, presumably to school.

Mrs. Hofgaard enters and Peter drives a hard bargain for a three kroner job. Hans takes the twelfth pair of ballet shoes from behind the cart and hangs it from the rod. It has been twelve weeks since the Ballet Company went on tour, and Peter, who has become quite a businessman, is concerned that they won’t be paid for the ballet shoes. Hans, oblivious to Peter’s frustration, falls into a reverie, his second fantasy, in which he and Doro sing, “No Two People,” and all the shoes fit her perfectly. The fantasy ends and Peter and Hans are as they were.

Editor Holm is the father of Lars, the Ugly Ducklings. He comes to pay Hans a visit and thank him for making his son feel so much better. He asks if it is true that the schoolchildren visit Hans before and after school for the cobbler’s special stories. Hans, who has been evicted from one town for distracting the children there, admits that, yes, the children come to him. Far from sending Hans packing, Editor Holm offers to publish the story of “The Ugly Duckling,” if Hans can complete its writing in two hours. Hans sets right to work. “Tick Tock” is an open-ended, time passage number in which everyone who encounters Peter is shushed apace: vendors mouth their calls and the townspeople tiptoe around as Hans writes in quiet. Upon the story’s completion, Hans hands the story to Lars for his father and everyone utters a collective sigh of relief.

Madam Doro returns from her tour with the ever-pompous Niels. He is still jealous of Hans’ attention, but they invite him to narrate the ballet they have created of Hans’ “The Little Mermaid.” He consults with Peter, his “business manager.” Peter holds out for more money and requires payment for the twelve pair of shoes. Doro asks Hans to see the shoes. Peter is sent to get hot chocolate for Doro and Niels goes off to the theatre with instructions for the others to hurry along. Doro and Hans are left alone in the street. He confesses that his story was for her, that he knows haw unhappy she must be, having witnessed their terrible fight those weeks ago. “No,” she says, “I’m not miserable. That’s just the way we are sometimes. I love my husband, Hans.” Hans feels like a fool. Doro comforts him and wonders if he knows the strength of his gift for speaking to the heart. “Even where there seems to be no heart,” she says, “you waken one.” He has given her a treasure in “The Little Mermaid,” and she promises to remember him privately and thank him publicly each time she performs it. She goes to the theatre, instructing Hans to hurry along. Hans reprises “Anywhere I Wander.”

Peter arrives with hot chocolate, but Madam is gone. Hans tells Peter to drink it himself. And what about the shoes? Did she pay for them? Peter is a little annoyed. Hans explains that she more than paid him for she shoes; that there are some things Peter doesn’t yet understand. Peter, frustrated, sends Hans off to the theatre.

The next scene is the actual “Little Mermaid” ballet, based on Andersen’s tale in which a young mermaid girl dreams of her future freedom to explore the surface of the sea. She saves the life of a wounded sailor and falls in love with him, even as rescuers carry him away. She watches night and day for his return, and journeys to visit the sea witch who has powers to turn her into a human so she might find her love.

At the end of the ballet, the curtain closes, the company bows, and congratulations are extended to Hans, Niels and Doro. Stage Manager Rik goes home and Doro kisses Hans in thanks. Niels thanks Hans as well, and they invite him to supper. Hans declines: “My head is bursting with ideas, so many stories to tell and who knows if there’s time to tell them.” He vows not to forget these lovely dancers who, in Hans’ words, “opened up my life for me.”

In the next scene we find Hans seated again by his cart, but he has returned to Odense, where there is a banner stretched across the schoolhouse to "Welcome Home Hans!” The village turns out and a beaming schoolmaster stands next to Hans. The children are gathered around him with adults around the periphery. He’s just finishing the story of “The Little Match Girl,” when the children beg for one more story. Hans demurs: “No, no…I’ve learned my lesson. It’s time you were in school. Isn’t that right, Schoolmaster?” The Schoolmaster replies that the children have missed him, as have the townspeople and – Heaven forbid – so has he. “Let’s have one more story.” He tells the story of “The King’s New Clothes,” including children in the pantomime of the action and the song. The Villagers applaud.

The Burgomaster announces that emissaries from King Frederick VI have arrived to see Hans. The emissaries turn out to be Doro and Niels, who acknowledge Hans as the undisputed “King of Stories” and bestow a medal from the grateful monarch and a Royal pension voted by a grateful people. Doro hangs the order around Hans’ neck and kisses him on both cheeks. He looks after her with longing.

The chorus sings “Anywhere I Wander, Anywhere I Roam.” Hans looks front and smiles as the orchestra plays, “I’m Hans Christian Andersen, That’s Me.” Curtain.

Song List

Overture
Thumbelina
This Town
Dare To Take A Chance
Truly Loved
For Hans Tonight
Dare To Take A Chance (Reprise)
Jenny Kissed Me
Inchworm
Ecclesiasticus
Anywhere I Wander
Wonderful Copenhagen
I'm Hans Christian Andersen
Happy Days
Have I Stayed Away Too Long?
Ugly Duckling, The
No Two People
King's New Clothes, The
Anywhere I Wander (Reprise)

Info

Related

Hans Christian Andersen MIDI Files
Hans Christian Andersen (1952 Film) / The Court Jester (1956 Film) [2 on 1] [SOUNDTRACK] -- Frank Loesser, et al; Audio CD
Frank Loesser Sheet Music

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