Bloomer Girl and South Pacific

Bloomer Girl. Music by Harold Arlen. Lyrics by E.Y. Harburg. Book by Sig Herzig and Fred Saidy. 1944 Broadway.

South Pacific. Music by Richard Rodgers. Lyrics by Oscar Hammerstein. Book by Oscar Hammerstein and Joshua Logan. 1949 Broadway.

One of these shows is better known than the other but both concern race relations in war time. Both were considered progressive for the 1940's and both feature artists from the original production of Oklahoma!

Carmen Jones

A piece of gossip begat Mérimée's novella, which begat Bizet's Opera, which begat Hammerstein's adaptation Carmen Jones. Hammerstein remained faithful to Bizet's plot while moving the setting to WWII and filling the lyrics with 40's colloquialisms. The film is dated and heavily dubbed but it preserves the work of some extremely talented artists including Pearl Bailey and the Oscar nominated Dorothy Dandridge.

Clips:
Pearl Bailey performing Rhythm on a Drum in the 1954 film.
Diahann Carroll discussing her audition for Carmen Jones.
The delightful short All The Great Operas in Ten Minutes

Quick Sketch: Showboat and Carousel

Show Boat. Music by Jerome Kern. Lyrics by Oscar Hammerstein and P.G. Wodehouse. Book by Oscar Hammerstein. 1927 Broadway.

Carousel. Music by Richard Rodgers. Lyrics and Book by Oscar Hammerstein. 1945 Broadway.

I didn't have time to draw a full cartoon today. I tried a couple of quick sketches and looked for a theme. I realized that these two particular shows were groundbreaking classics that I don't particularly enjoy watching today.

The Lincoln Center's 2015 concert of Showboat reminded me that it can still work if it's cast and paced well. Two well received productions of Carousel reminded me that I'll never really appreciate that story.

Flower Drum Song v.2

In 2002 Flower Drum Song was revived on Broadway with a new book. Mei Lei had a tragic backstory, Linda had a sassy gay assistant, and the roles of showman and conservative father were combined into that of the conflicted theater/club owner. The show received mixed reviews but received a stellar cast album and opportunities for regional licensing.

DAVID HENRY HWANG: "The show, which originally arrived on Broadway in 1958, had fallen off the cultural radar, regarded as quaint, patronizing and old-fashioned. But I had always admired Rodgers and Hammerstein's ambition to write a musical about America through the eyes of Asians, who even today tend to be regarded as perpetual foreigners. And notwithstanding shows like ''Miss Saigon'' and ''Pacific Overtures,'' which are set overseas, ''Flower Drum Song'' has long stood alone as the only Broadway musical ever produced about Asian-Americans....

Over time, we evolved the story of a rundown theater in San Francisco's Chinatown, whose patriarch clings to his dreams of performing Chinese opera despite an ever-shrinking audience. The story of this theater's transformation into a Western-style nightclub became a metaphor for assimilation."

Flower Drum Song v.1

A novel about an older generation of Chinese immigrants became a musical about their children. Themes of assimilation remained but darker subplots were removed to focus on comedy and romance. Reviews were mixed but the show drew audiences and cast the leading lady in an uneven film version.

The show would gain a reputation for being condescending to the non-Americanized characters and would disappear for several decades. David Henry Hwang attempted to update the book in 2002. More on his revision in my next post.

DAVID HENRY HWANG: I think the original FDS ("Flower Drum Song") was demonized during a period in American social history when it was necessary to do so. When APA's (Asian Pacific Americans) began writing our own stories, we needed to draw a distinction between our work and popular examples of these stories which were written by non-Asians. Nowadays, when Asian authors and films are more numerous and popular, we're able to view the original FDS ("Flower Drum Song") in a more balanced and nuanced light.

Musical Theater vs. The Outsider

Hilton Als: "Difference is usually synonymous with danger: it’s the outsider or the outcast who introduces sex and violence into the musical’s relatively moral world. (American musicals almost always argue in favor of the status quo.)"

Scott Miller:  This is also a common device in many musicals, in which the protagonist must either assimilate into the community (as in The Music Man, Brigadoon, La Cage aux Folles, Hello, Dolly!) or be removed (as in Cabaret, Sweeney Todd, Man of La Mancha, Bat Boy, Urinetown).

Stephen Sondheim: "I remember how everyone goes off to the clambake at the end of Act One and Jigger just follows, and he was the only one walking on stage as the curtain came down. I was sobbing."

The King and I

And now a look at this season's Tony nominated revivals.

A memoir inspired a novel

Which inspired a film

Which inspired Gertrude Lawrence to commission a musical star vehicle

Where she was upstaged by her co-star Yul Brynner

Who ended up playing the role 4,625 times on stage.

The musical has inspired a television sitcom, parodies and a dreadful animated film.

You can read more about the history of the work in Scott Miller’s insightful essay.

I took the zing,
out of the King of Siam!

Carousel vs. A Tree Grows in Brooklyn

Quick! Which of these two shows features:

• Ne'er do well fathers who dies young
• Leaving their winsome working mothers
• to raise mopey teenage daughters alone.
• The father returns from the dead to offer the daughter advice at her high school graduation,
• while the wife's feisty best friend provides the comic relief with her own dysfunctional marriage.

If you answered both you are correct!

A Tree Grows in Brooklyn's Johnny never beats his long-suffering wife. He just drinks and gambles away her money while promising to "Buy her a star." Meanwhile Carousel's Billy brings an actual star to his daughter but settles for giving her a slap.

The Sound of Music

... What?

Oklahoma!

Though there were stirrings beforehand, Rodgers and Hammerstein’s Oklahoma! is widely acknowledged as the granddaddy of the integrated American Musical Theater Libretto. As a life-long fan of musical theater I find the R&H classics surprisingly difficult to sit through. It’s mostly the gender politics with their abusive, occasionally homicidal, alpha males and their sad, passive-aggressive leading ladies. The New York Times’ Clive Barnes called the leads in Sondheim’s Company “worthless and horrid.” I say take a good look at Billy Bigelow or Emile De Becque.

There is one R&H character I really like. More on that tomorrow.

I drew a series on R&H’s flops in May starting with Allegro.

Pipe Dream

The seventh musical by Rodgers and Hammerstein was adapted from a novel by John Steinbeck. The show ran 245 performances and was not considered a success. When Encores presented a concert version in 2012 the critics agreed that there's still some lovely music and very little plot. Some felt the material intimidated Hammerstein who made the Suzy's prostitution ambiguous.

Steinbeck: "You've turned my prostitute into a visiting nurse!"

The most bizarre legend about Pipe Dream is that a film version was proposed with the Muppets!

Me and Juliet

Me and Juliet was Rodgers and Hammerstein's sixth collaboration and their second commercial failure. Allegro had been Hammerstein's passion project, and Me and Juliet was Rodgers' baby. Juliet ran 10 months beating Allegro's nine.

The libretto uses a show within a show framework similar to 1948's Kiss Me Kate as a Chorus Girl juggles the affections of an Assistant Stage Manager and the Jud Fry-esque spotlight operator. 

Leading Lady Isabel Bigley had originated the role of Sarah Brown in 1950's Guys and Dolls. After the closing of Me and Juliet she left Broadway for television.

Read more about Me and Juliet here. 

Allegro

Rodgers and Hammerstein had great success with their first two musicals, Oklahoma and Carousel. While their scores would continue to innovate their librettos were less successful when dealing with contemporary urban settings.

Their third Broadway musical Allegro spiced up a simple story with an Our Town-esque bare stage and a large greek chorus of townsfolk. Critics and audiences weren't having it and the show closed in nine months. Hammerstein claimed audiences misunderstood his story about the perils of fame. His mentee Stephen Sondheim later wrote that Hammerstein was writing about his own life.

Read more about Allegro here. The production rights are available here.