Our Musicals, Ourselves: A Social History of the American Musical Theatre

428 Pages·2004·1.78 MB·English

by  John Bush Jones

John Bush Our Musicals, Ourselves is the first full-scale
Jones Our Musicals, social history of the American musical the-
atre from the imported Gilbert and Sullivan
comic operas of the late nineteenth century
Ourselves to such recent musicals as The Producers
and Urinetown. While many aficionados of
“Our Musicals, Ourselves excavates cultural in- O the Broadway musical associate the genre
ment formation from dozens of shows, first-run and revivals, A SociAl HiStory of tHe AmericAn muSicAl tHeAtre only with diversionary shows like The Music
Depart serious and frivolous, over the course of the twentieth A u John Bush Jones Mgleasn o ourt Mmyu Fsiaciarl sL faodry t,h Jeoihr ns oBcuiaslh r Jeolenveasn scine-.
hotography ctoernictuarly .l eJnons,e es,n ianbtelerps ruetsi ntog tsheees eth sehmow ws iththr onuegwh ae yheiss-. Soc r Hore mis eitnatperheostreicda ilnly h, ocwo nthteemy epnograagrye , pdoirleitcitclys
niversity P Mplyo raes vimehpiocrletas notfl ytr hanes tieeanct hpeles aussu rteo bseuet aths esomc inalo td osicmu-- iAl M With a foreword by Sheldon Harnick a ndJo cnueltsu roer.g anizes the book chronologi-
Courtesy Brandeis U macirteeiz—netnsa sst hoifan tad hinveaitdlipou natol.”s ,t ealsl muse wmhboe rws eo fw ae rceo manmd uwnhitoy ,w aes HiStor us ctatohmagellei ynbt,h eetesga rikd nsioninmzgien islngoas rm oloyfe f tt lhhBibeerme otrawetdideew nsm atiiynue stsoihhcr doaclewesr,ns —tatoun fdkrrye oe emtxpo-
JoHn BuSH JoneS is a retired Professor —From the Foreword by Sheldon Harnick y i the present—that demonstrate numerous
of Theater Arts at Brandeis university. He has o links between what played on Broadway
f c
written theater criticism for numerous jour- and what played on newspapers’ front pages
t
nals and newspapers, including the Boston H a across our nation. He reviews the produc-
“An excellent overview of the American musical, its his-
Phoenix, the Kansas City Star, the Boston e tions, lyrics, staging, and casts from the
Herald, and the New England Theater Jour- tory, its significance and its influence, told in a most A l lesser-known early musicals (the “gunboat”
m s
nal. He has directed dozens of musicals in entertaining way. A truly admirable work.” musicals of the Teddy Roosevelt era and the
e
professional, community, and university r , “Cinderella shows” and “leisure time musi-
theaters. —Joseph Stein, playwright, Fiddler on the Roof ic O cals” of the 1920s) and continues his analysis
A with better-known shows including Show-
n boat, Porgy and Bess, Oklahoma, South Pa-
u
m cific, West Side Story, Cabaret, Hair, Com-
u pany, and A Chorus Line.
S r
i While most examinations of the Ameri-
c
s can musical focus on specific shows or em-
A
l phasize the development of the musical as
e
t an art form, Jones’s book studies musicals as
H
l a way of illuminating broader, ever-chang-
e
A v ing social and cultural themes of the times.
t With six appendixes detailing the long-run-
r
e e ning diversionary musicals and a foreword
by Sheldon Harnick, the lyricist of Fiddler on
s
the Roof, Jones’s comprehensive social his-
tory will appeal to both students and fans of
Broadway.
ISBN 1–58465–311–6
Brandeis university Press
Published by University Press of New England
front cover: Members of the original cast of
Hanover and London
Oklahoma! used by Permission of The Rodgers and Brandeis /
Hammerstein organization. www.upne.com uPne
432 pp @440 ppi= 1 in.
Our Musicals, Ourselves

Our Musicals, Ourselves
A SOCIAL HISTORY OF THE
AMERICAN MUSICAL
THEATRE
U U U
John Bush Jones
Brandeis University Press
Waltham, Massachusetts
Published by University Press of New England
Hanover and London
brandeis university press
Published by University Press of New England,
One Court Street, Lebanon NH 03766
Branwdewiws.Uupnnivee.rcsoitmyPress
Published by
© 2003 by Brandeis University Press
All rights reserved
UniversityPressof New England, One Court St., Lebanon,NH 03766
First Brandeis/University Prewssw owf .Nupenwe .Ecnomgland paperback edition 2004
isbn for the paperback edition: 978–0–87451–904–4
� 2003 by BrandeisUniversityPress
Printed in the United States of America
All rights reserved
10 9 8 7 6 5 4
First Brandeis/UniversityPressof New England paperbackedition 2004
University Press of New England is a member of the Green Press Initiative.
The paper usePdr iinn ttehdisi nbotohke mUeneittse tdheSitra mtesinoimf Aumme rreicqauire5me4nt f3or r2ecycled paper.
libraryofcongresscataloging-in-publicationdata
Jones,JohnBush.
Ourmusicals,ourselves:asocialhistoryoftheAmericanmusical
theater/JohnBushJones.
p. cm.
Includesbibliographicalreferences(p. )andindex.
isbn1–58465–311–6(cl.:alk.paper) isbn0–87451–904–7(pa.:alk.paper)
1.Musicals—UnitedStates—Historyandcriticism.2.Musical
theater—UnitedStates—Socialaspects.I.Title.
ml1711.j652003
782.1'4'0973—dc21 2003000240
Everyeffortwasmadetocontactthecurrentcopyrightholdersoftheworkscitedinthisvolume.
Anymistakesoroversightswillbecorrectedinfutureeditions.
“AllKindsofPeople”byRichardRodgersandOscarHammersteinII
Copyright�1955byRichardRodgersandOscarHammersteinII
CopyrightRenewed
WILLIAMSONMUSICownerofpublicationandalliedrightsthroughouttheWorld.
InternationalCopyrightSecuredAllRightsReservedUsedbyPermission
“America”fromWestSideStorybyLeonardBernstein&StephenSondheim
�AmbersonHoldingsLLC&StephenSondheim.Renewed.ByPermissionoftheLeonard
BernsteinMusicPublishingCompanyLLC.
(listcontinuesonp.384)
To my son, Carson Jones, who, like me, saw his first musicals at age five
with his father, and who (like his dad) has never lost his love of them.
U U U

Contents
Foreword by Sheldon Harnick ix
Acknowledgments xi
Introduction 1
1.Patriotism, Xenophobia, and World War I 12
2.The Musicals of the Roaring Twenties 52
3.Coping with Depression 79
4.World War II and the Rodgers and Hammerstein Years 123
5.From Isolationism to Idealism in the Cold War Years 161
6.Black and Jewish Musicals since the 1960s 202
7.Issue-Driven Musicals of the Turbulent Years 235
8.Fragmented Society, Fragmented Musicals 269
9.“A Recycled Culture,” Nostalgia, and Spectacle 305
10.New Voices, New Perspectives 331
appendixes
Appendix A. Broadway Musical Production, 1919–1929 360
Appendix B. Long-RunningDiversionaryMusicals, 1929–1938 362
Appendix C. Long-RunningDiversionaryMusicals, 1939–1945 364
Appendix D. Long-RunningDiversionaryMusicals, 1946–1960 366
Appendix E. Long-RunningDiversionaryMusicals, 1960–1969 369
Appendix F. Long-RunningDiversionaryMusicals, 1969–1979 371
Appendix G. Long-RunningDiversionaryMusicals, 1979–2000 372
Sources Cited 375
Index 391

Foreword
Sheldon Harnick
I am part of a generation of theatre writers whose sensibilities were shaped
by the Great Depression and World War II. With those experiences in our
backgrounds, it was natural for us to want to address serious issues in our
work. We enthusiastically followed the footsteps of writers who hadcreated
such issue-driven musicals as Show Boat, Pins and Needles, OfTheeISing,
Lost in the Stars, and South Pacific. Although much of my own work dealt
with romantic or comedic subjects, musicals like Fiorello, Tenderloin, The
Rothschilds, A Wonderful Life, and Dragons did not shy away from voicing
serious social and political concerns.
Yet we realized that whatever serious statements we wanted to makehad
to be presented in the most entertaining way possible. Had we written a
commandment for the creators of Broadway musicals, it would have been
“Enlighten if thou canst, but entertain thou must.” For me, E.Y. Harburg
and Burton Lane’s Finian’s Rainbow, with its witty, elegant lyrics andwon-
derful music, represented the best that “serious” musical theatre had to
offer. It proved that a trenchant story line need not hamper entertainment
value. Indeed, Fiddler on the Roof, the most serious of my musicals, has
also been the most successful.
WhenIbeganwritingforthemusicaltheatre,Ifirmlybelievedthatwhat
I chose to put onstage had the potential of changing people’s lives. I wrote
from the belief that plays and musicals can foster in their audiences a
feelingofsharedcommunity,therebycombatingpersonalisolationandfear.
Intheatricalsettings,peoplebecomereceptive,andimportantlessonsabout
life can be genially imparted from the stage.
Given the ever-increasing complexity of today’s world, we wonderabout
our nation’s place in the global community. We need to know ourselves
better in order to better understand where we “fit” in the geography of the
twenty-first century. More than ever, we need to examine our attitudesand
beliefsandlookhonestlyatourselvesasindividualsandascitizensofagreat
nation. To do this, we must understand how we’ve developed as a people
and as a country in the past one hundred years. One of the most diverting