Enchanted Evenings:The Broadway Musical from 'Show Boat' to Sondheim and Lloyd Webber (111 page)

12
. Stephen Banfield,
Jerome Kern
; Todd Decker, “Do You Want to Hear a Mammy Song,” and a forthcoming volume on
Show Boat
in Oxford’s Broadway Legacies.

13
. Howard Pollack,
George Gershwin
; and Larry Starr,
George Gershwin
.

14
. bruce d. mcclung,
“Lady in the Dark”
; and Tim Carter,
“Oklahoma!”

15
. Thomas L. Riis,
Frank Loesser
.

16
. This footnote indicates the points of overlap between Knapp, Miller, and Swain and the musicals discussed in the first edition of
Enchanted Evenings
:

SHOW BOAT
(Knapp,
The American Musical and the Formation of National Identity
[Knapp 2005]; Swain,
The Broadway Musical
)

ANYTHING GOES
(Knapp 2005)

PORGY AND BESS
(Knapp 2005; Swain,
The Broadway Musical
)

THE CRADLE WILL ROCK
(Knapp 2005; Miller,
Rebels with Applause
)

PAL JOEY
(Miller,
Rebels with Applause
)

LADY IN THE DARK
(Knapp,
The American Musical and the Performance of Personal Identity
[Knapp 2006])

CAROUSEL
(Miller,
From “Assassins” to “West Side Story
; Swain,
The Broadway Musical
)

KISS ME, KATE
(Knapp 2006; Swain,
The Broadway Musical
)

GUYS AND DOLLS
(Knapp 2005; Swain,
The Broadway Musical
)

MY FAIR LADY
(Knapp 2006; Miller,
From “Assassins” to “West Side Story”
; Swain,
The Broadway Musical
)

WEST SIDE STORY
(Knapp 2005; Miller,
From “Assassins” to “West Side Story”
; Swain,
The Broadway Musical
)

17
. Kim Kowalke, Review essay.

18
. Banfield,
Jerome Kern
, 254–56.

19
. Quoted in Pauline Kael,
For Keeps: 30 Years at the Movies
(New York: Plume, 1994): 37.

20
. Ibid.

21
. For a thorough and helpful introduction to
Cabaret
and the work of Kander and Ebb as a whole, see Leve,
John Kander and Fred Ebb
.

22
. Lloyd Webber’s
The Woman in White
(lyrics by David Zippel) ran nineteen months in London but only 108 performances in New York in 2004. Sondheim’s
Road Show
(formerly
Bounce, Wise Guys
, and
Gold
), with a book by John Weidman, and directed and designed by John Doyle, played a two-month Off-Broadway engagement at the end of 2008.

Chapter 1: Introduction

1
. Book musicals contain a narrative and are represented by three discernible types: operas, operettas, and musical comedies. Operas, which come in various styles, including rock, are for the most part sung throughout. Musical comedies normally utilize contemporary urban settings with matching vernacular dialogue and music, the latter often incorporating jazz. Operettas are generally set in exotic locations, including early Americana (e.g., New England in the 1870s in
Carousel
and Oklahoma Territory “just after the turn of the century”) and typically utilize appropriate regional dialects and such nineteenth-century European genres as waltzes and polkas or a non-jazz musical vernacular that somehow sounds American. The largest category of non-book musicals is the revue, which may possess a unifying theme but only rarely a clearly delineated plot. In place of a book, most revues consist of a somewhat loose collection of skits (usually topical), along with dances and songs, often composed by a plethora of writers and composers.

2
. Miles Kreuger, “Some Words about ‘Show Boat,’” 18.

3
.
A Trip to Chinatown
contained “Reuben and Cynthia,” “The Bowery,” and Charles K. Harris’s “After the Ball”;
Little Johnny Jones
introduced “The Yankee Doodle Boy” and “Give My Regards to Broadway.”

4
. Both
Irene
and
No, No, Nanette
(670 and 321 performances, respectively, in their inaugural runs) enjoyed popular revivals in the early 1970s (
No, No, Nanette
in 1971 [861 performances] and
Irene
in 1973 [604 performances]).

5
. The film version of
Naughty Marietta
(1935) starred Jeanette MacDonald and Nelson Eddy, and
The Student Prince
(1954) featured the voice of Mario Lanza dubbing for Edmund Purdom.

6
. Included among these early hits are the following: Berlin (
Watch Your Step
[1914]); Kern (Princess Shows [1915–1918],
Sally
[1920], and
Sunny
[1925]); Porter (numerous interpolated songs in shows by other composers between 1919 and 1924 before making a hit with
Paris
in 1928); Hammerstein (
Wildflower
[1923],
Rose-Marie
[1924],
Sunny
[1925], and
The Desert Song
[1926]); George and Ira Gershwin (
Lady, Be Good!
[1924],
Oh, Kay!
[1926], and
Funny Face
[1927]); and Rodgers and Hart (
The Garrick Gaieties, Dearest Enemy
, [1925], and
A Connecticut Yankee
[1927]); and Weill (
Die Dreigroschenoper
[
The Threepenny Opera
] [1927, in Germany]). Several months before the premiere of
Show Boat
, the team of Ray Henderson (music) and B. G. DeSylva and Lew Brown (lyrics) presented their first book musical hit,
Good News
.

7
. The term “anxiety of influence” is borrowed from literary critic Harold Bloom’s
The Anxiety of Influence: A Theory of Poetry
(Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1973).

8
. Richard Crawford,
The American Musical Landscape
, 87.

9
. For a valuable perspective on the development of cultural hierarchies, authentic versus accessible approaches to Shakespeare, and “the sacralization of culture” in nineteenth-century America, see Lawrence W. Levine,
Highbrow Lowbrow: The Emergence of Cultural Hierarchy in America
(Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1988).

10
. Charles Hamm, “The Theatre Guild Production.”

11
. Kerman,
Opera as Drama
. While under current attack for its elitism and restricted vision of dramatic worthiness, Kerman’s study remains a central text for any exploration of the relationship between music and drama. Another excellent and less judgmental study of opera with concepts that can be applied to Broadway musicals is Robinson.

12
. Kivy,
Osmin’s Rage
, 10–11.

13
. Some exceptions are Banfield,
Sondheim’s Broadway Musicals
; Block, “Frank Loesser’s Sketchbooks”; Hamm, “The Theatre Guild Production”; Carol Oja, “Marc Blitzstein’s
The Cradle Will Rock
”; and Wayne Shirley, “
Porgy and Bess
” and “Reconciliation on Catfish Row.”

14
. The literature on gender studies in music is considerable and growing exponentially. The most influential work to appear is probably Susan McClary,
Feminine Endings: Music, Gender, and Sexuality
(Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1989).

15
. The top forty also includes four musicals that premiered before
Show Boat
(
The Student Prince, Blossom Time, Sally
, and
Rose-Marie
, nos. 31, 33, 37, and 40 in the 1920–1959 list) and four that first appeared after
West Side Story
(
The Sound of Music, The Music Man, Fiorello!
, and
Gypsy
, nos. 4, 6, 20, and 26 in the 1920–1959 list).

16
.
West Side Story
(1980);
My Fair Lady
(1981, 1993);
Show Boat
(1983, 1994);
On Your Toes
(1983);
The Cradle Will Rock
(1983);
Porgy and Bess
(1983, 1986, 1989);
Anything Goes
(1987);
The Most Happy Fella
(1992);
Guys and Dolls
(1992–1994); and
Carousel
(1994). See A New Preface for major New York and London performances after 1994.

17
. The figure 467 is deceptively low since
Lady in the Dark
returned to Broadway after a tour for another 310 performances. The grand total of 777 performances would place this show
as the ninth longest running musical of the 1940s and no. 20 in the 1920–1959 list. See Lys Symonette and Kim H. Kowalke, eds.,
Speak Low
, 274.

18
. In any event,
Pal Joey’
s revival (542 performances) falls only five performances and one show below the top forty, and the combined number of performances of its two runs (916) would place it just below
Bells Are Ringing
at No. 14.

19
. Before
Porgy and Bess
arrived at the Metropolitan Opera in 1986, no American opera had been performed there more than fifteen times. See Carl Johnson, “American Opera at the Met: 1883–1983,”
The American Music Teacher
35/4 (February–March 1984): 20–25. Virgil Thomson’s and Gertrude Stein’s
Four Saints in Three Acts
(1934), which premiered on Broadway one year before
Porgy and Bess
, lasted only forty-eight performances.

20
. The composers, composer-lyricists, or teams that produced two or more musicals in “The Forty Longest Running Musicals on Broadway 1920–1959” include the following: Adler and Ross (
Damn Yankees, Pajama Game
); Arlen and Harburg (
Bloomer Girl, Jamaica
); Berlin (
Annie Get Your Gun, Call Me Madam
); Rome (
Fanny, Wish You Were Here
); Styne (
Bells Are Ringing, Gentlemen Prefer Blondes, Gypsy, High Button Shoes
); and Wright and Forrest (
Kismet, Song of Norway
). Also missing is Gene de Paul’s
Li’l Abner
(with lyrics by Johnny Mercer) that debuted between the premieres of
Show Boat
and
West Side Story
. The contributions by Rudolf Friml, Ray Henderson, and Sigmund Romberg preceded
Show Boat;
Meredith Willson’s
The Music Man
followed
West Side Story
by two months.

21
. Since Rodgers and Hammerstein produced
Annie Get Your Gun
, this leaves
Kiss Me, Kate
as the only show among the top five musicals of the 1940s that was not created or produced by the ubiquitous team.

22
. Engel,
The American Musical Theater
, 35–36.

23
. See Kurt Gänzl and Andrew Lamb,
Gänzl’s Book of the Musical Theatre
; Daniel Kingman,
American Music: A Panorama
; and Herbert Kupferberg,
The Book of Classical Music Lists
(New York: Facts on File, 1985).

24
. Similar criteria motivate Gänzl’s criteria of selection: “Firstly, we chose those pieces which a theatre-goer would be likely to encounter on the current stages of … America, the hits of today and the hits of yesterday which have been brought back for the further enjoyment of the theatre-going public. Secondly, we chose those shows which had a notable success in their own times, those which have left a particular legacy of favourite songs, those which are significant historically or artistically and those which are just plain good and which deserve a reappearance on the modern stage. Thirdly, we added our own particular favourites among the shows of yesteryear which we hope, if we bring them to your notice, might become favourites of yours as well.” Gänzl and Lamb,
Gänzl’s Book of the Musical Theatre
, p. xii.

25
. See Block, “The Broadway Canon.”

26
. Northrop Frye,
Anatomy of Criticism: Four Essays
(Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1957), 4.

Chapter 2:
Show Boat

1
. Ronald Byrnside, Andrew Lamb, and Deane L. Root, “Jerome Kern,”
The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians
, ed. Stanley Sadie (London: Macmillan, 1980), vol. 10, 1–2; a slightly expanded version of this entry appeared in
The New Grove Dictionary of American Music
, ed. H. Wiley Hitchcock and Stanley Sadie (London: Macmillan, 1985), vol. 2, 623–26.

2
. Byrnside, Lamb, and Root, “Jerome Kern,” 1.

3
. The
New Grove
authors do not mention that the New York City Opera selected
Show Boat
perhaps more for financial than artistic reasons. See Martin L. Sokol,
The New York City Opera: An American Adventure
(London: Collier Macmillan, 1981), 126.