Interpretations of the Broadway Musical

Interpretations of the Broadway Musical O. Ian ﾃ」alos Associate Music Instructor, Santa Ana College

1. Oklahoma!

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2. South Pacific

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3. Lady in the Dark

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4. Candide

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5. Show Boat

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6. Porgy and Bess

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7. My Fair Lady

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8. West Side Story

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From Oklahoma! to Candide The four musicals discussed in this essay were groundbreaking and trendsetting in their day. It is with no wonder that the period from 1940 to 1964 is called the Golden Age of the Broadway Musical, much in part because of the new practices in thematic content, character development, and formal structure applied in these works. These four works were products of a time when musicals had to evolve in order to attract audiences, and to compete with the Hollywood movie industry’s practice of setting favorite Broadway musicals to film. What was most important about these musicals over the other elements that they were comprised of was their thematic content, and as is evident, they were composed with a moral purpose.

Oklahoma!

The Rodgers & Hammerstein musical play Oklahoma is called the single most influential work in the American musical theatre repertory because of the new developments in musical theater setting that it contained concerning the blending of song, character, plot, and dance. Oklahoma contributed with a newfound practice of continuity in musicals through character development, and a cohesiveness of the development of the play. Cohesion was attained through a different approach to character development, where the use of a character’s song or dance occurred at points in time necessary to the storytelling. This practice of applying cohesion and logic through a well-constructed book and character development to a musical became a new standard for subsequent musicals.

The plot of Oklahoma is based on a romantic triangle between a cowboy and a farm hand over the character Laurey Williams. This triangle is set at a time when the

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Oklahoma territory is experiencing a land rush and a competition between farmers and cowmen. Just as they compete for land, they compete for women and Laurey is used to personify this conflict. The rivalry between the two men ends when the farm hand ends up dying of a self-inflicted knife wound in an attempt to murder the cowboy, who has been chosen by Laurey, on their wedding day. A subplot also based on a romantic triangle adds to the story.

Another new aspect found in Oklahoma was the celebrating of rural American life versus previous musicals that took place in, or celebrated big city life. Rural America is presented through the characters, the stage setting, and the music. The musical lyrics contain the use of American rural dialect with words such as “feller” and “caint” etc. The slang and dialect has a musical quality that Hammerstein intentionally placed in the lyrics for the purpose of celebrating rural America. Oklahoma became a favorite and landmark musical much because of this celebration or exaltation or the heartland, versus previous musical works in the form of operettas or other musicals that exalted and represented the tastes of the upper crusts of New York, a group of people that did not represent the reality of the rest of the American people.

South Pacific Another landmark musical play is South Pacific by Rodgers & Hammerstein. This work is based on three James Michener stories from Tales of the South Pacific: “Our Heroine,” “Fo’Dolla,” and “A Boar’s Tooth.” What made this work stand out was the use of internal conflict within individual characters. This was another evolution of character development in a musical. Never before had a musical attempted to teach a moral lesson concerning racism. One main character manages to overcome her racist views, while

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another, is not. The subject matter of the musical made it the second musical to win the Pulitzer Prize and the first to win nine Tony awards, securing its place as a major landmark and important work in the history of musical theater.

South Pacific is set on an island, during the conflict with Japan in World War II and on another island called Bali Ha’i. The character of Nurse Nellie Forbush is challenged to overcome a racist trait in her in order to marry a Frenchman, Emile de Becque, who she admires but who has two Eurasian children from a Polynesian woman.

Her main conflict is the disliking of Emile’s children because of their mixed ethnicities.

She manages to overcome her bigotry and wins love in the end whereas another character in the subplot, Lieutenant Cable, is unable to overcome his bigotry and cannot marry Liat, a Polynesian girl that he loves.

Lady in the Dark Kurt Weill’s Lady in the Dark was the first musical play to give the topic of psychoanalysis serious treatment. Weill created a new and effective use of music, one that highlighted the dreams and visions of the play’s patient undergoing analysis, Liza Elliot. Music is only used in the play during her analysis sequences to emphasize and give more importance to these moments in the story. A haunting and recurring psycho musical theme called “My Ship” occurs throughout.

In the plot of Lady in the Dark the heroine, Liza Elliott, is an affluent and unmarried magazine executive that undergoes analysis because she has strange dreams that bother her, to the point that she can no longer make business or personal decisions.

The musical comes to the conclusion and hints that the character of Liza should worry more about pleasing a man and being a wife, the musical implied that women too should

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be like the character of Liza, that even if a woman is wealthy and successful she still may be miserable and in the end the character is molded into a wealthy housewife.

Candide Leonard Bernstein’s Candide is an operetta that nowadays is redone by opera companies. The demands on the vocalists and the orchestration make this work something closer to an opera or operetta than Kurt Weill’s Lady in the Dark for instance.

Whereas Weill incorporated jazz and the musical style of the day in Lady in the Dark, Bernstein made use of harmony not common in the musicals of the time all the while creating musical moments more along the lines of art music. Part of what makes this work historically significant is that Bernstein said that Candide was a political statement on the aftermath of the government-sponsored hunt for Communists in the U.S. The work went so far as to assign quotes by Joseph McCarthy in a scene that takes place during the Spanish Inquisition.

Candide was destined to be dismissed as too highbrow since its inception. The book by Lillian Hellman was adapted from a Voltaire satire, and it was set in eighteenthcentury Europe. Critics found the book too demanding on the audience and as a result there were unsuccessful attempts to remake it. This work also exalts the lowly or humble person, as is evident in the treatment of the character Candide, who searches for the meaning of life only to later settle for the life of a farmer.

In conclusion, the most important element, and more so than musical style in these musicals, was their thematic content. It was precisely the themes of these musicals that expressed a moral lesson and that is why they were considered so revolutionary.

Oklahoma went against the normal or acceptable aesthetics of operetta and highbrow

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New York musicals. South Pacific introduced internal conflict within characters and dealt with the very challenging topic of racism, particularly in a time when the country was not as inclusive and open-minded as it is today. Kurt Weill found a way to treat music as a psychological tool for character development and storytelling in Lady in the Dark.

Finally, in Candide it was Leonard Bernstein’s purpose to make a political statement and criticism of McCarthyism by equating that mindset to the intolerant, brutal, and manhunting nature of Torquemada and the Spanish Inquisition.

Show Boat and Porgy and Bess The musicals Show Boat by Rodgers & Hammerstein and Porgy & Bess by the Gershwins are two of the most important American works to date because of their revolutionary subject matter. With Show Boat, Rodgers & Hammerstein challenged audiences by placing the subject of race on the Broadway platform. The Gershwins followed suit in their opera Porgy & Bess by taking the subject of race one step further and attempting to elevate the African-American experience and giving it serious musical treatment. Prior Broadway musicals also had a moral theme to them, but what was revolutionary about the musicals in question was that the creators used the Broadway stage as a platform to communicate racial integration and acceptance to audiences.

The Rodgers & Hammerstein musical Show Boat takes place in the nineteenth century on a showboat called the Cotton Blossom that travels along the Mississippi river entertaining riverside towns. Another part of the play occurs in Chicago. The main characters are performers on the showboat, namely Julie La Verne, Magnolia, and her daughter Kim. Their stories intertwine in Chicago and influence each other’s character.

The bulk of the plot is about Julie and Magnolia whose lives are portrayed as sorrowful

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due to twists of fate and racism. Julie has to leave her career as a performer on the showboat when she is discovered to be a mulata. She goes to Chicago and is apparently overburdened with the difficulties that she faces and becomes an alcoholic.

Magnolia falls in love on the showboat, and marries a gambler named Gaylord Ravenal then moves to Chicago with him and they have a daughter named Kim. Ravenal leaves the mother and daughter thus revealing a serious dramatic aspect of the work. In Chicago Magnolia aspires to perform again and she is satisfied when the star of a show there, Julie La Verne, leaves her job in order for Magnolia to fill that star role. What Magnolia doesn’t know is that Julie intentionally gives up that position for her.

Magnolia’s daughter Kim years later grows up to be a performer like her mother. The plot resolves with Magnolia, Ravenal, and Kim reuniting on the Cotton Blossom.

Show Boat was the first Broadway musical to use an integrated racial cast, and to challenge audiences by presenting them with a mulata character named Julie La Verne.

This character and the other African-American roles were given depth and not just comic treatment, and human qualities as opposed to the traditional treatment of Negro characters found in other performance genres throughout American musical history, particularly in minstrelsy and vaudeville. The use of the character Julie revealed the racial attitudes of the time, particularly when in the plot Julie is discovered to be a mulata. When her racial background is discovered she is banished from the Cotton Blossom only to end up as an alcoholic cabaret singer in Chicago. All the while it is the creators’ intention to garner sympathy for this character.

The overall musical nature of Show Boat in comparison to Porgy & Bess is lighter even though the work is called a light-opera or operetta. It is the serious dramatic element

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in the plot that elevates the work beyond it being just another musical comedy. Certain elements immediately point to comedic traits, namely the way in which the spoken dialogue is delivered, and the actual music itself. There is one piece that is reminiscent of the Can Can, as is found in Finale to Act One, and a number of other pieces sound like fox trots, namely Make Believe, Where’s The Mate for Me?, Can’t Help Lovin’ That Man, and Life on The Wicked Stage. It is clear that light musical elements were used to keep in line with the popular Broadway vein.

Show Boat, although having musical elements with mass-appeal, was not without more serious music. It is known that Jerome Kern wanted to compose and include more serious music in the work, and these musical elements are found in the overture, the song Ol’ Man River, and the love songs Bill and You Are Love. This last song contains harmony not common in the other pieces, or in other musicals. Kern makes use of chromatic melodies and unconventional harmonic resolutions to express the idea of love.

The use of operatic voices in combination with the fore-mentioned elements elevates You Are Love to the realm of the art song.

Porgy and Bess The opera Porgy & Bess takes place at a fictitious Catfish Row and uses an all African-American cast. The main characters are Porgy, who is a beggar and a cripple, and Bess who is a woman of questionable morals. The two meet during a craps game that ends in a tragedy. At the time of their meeting Bess is involved with another man named Crown who is a drunkard and a gambler. Crown murders another man over a craps game and escapes Catfish Row, leaving Bess alone and with nowhere to go and no one to turn to. Porgy sees her situation and takes her into his home, and the two live a short romance.

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Their romance ends when Porgy is taken to jail for questioning after he murders his rival Crown in self-defense. It is during Porgy’s time away that a third rival entices Bess to go with him to New York by offering her a lavish lifestyle and the vices that she was addicted to before meeting Porgy.

Porgy & Bess by the Gershwins was a conscious attempt to elevate the American experience by giving it serious operatic musical treatment. It is immediately more serious than Show Boat, because Gershwin set the dialogue of the libretto in recitative. This was a point of contention with him and DuBose Heyward, who was the author of the book Porgy, upon which the opera is based on. Heyward had reservations about using recitatives but Gershwin ultimately got his way. A number of reviewers were negative about the opera in their critiques, and specifically because of the use of recitatives.

Reviewers and Heyward wanted to see more flow through spoken dialogue, like in other musicals. They argued that the opera should have been a musical and not a “pretentious” opera.

George Gershwin intentionally set the dialogue in recitative, and argued in favor of its use with Heyward, because he knew that in order to truly elevate the American musical experience and take American stories beyond Broadway, he had to speak the musical language of the Western world. He succeeded in doing so. The performance of Porgy & Bess at the prestigious Italian opera house La Scala proves him right. A question for critics could be, would American music be better off if Porgy & Bess had stayed as just another Broadway musical, or is American music better off for having its stories told on world stages? How then, should it be performed in potential revivals? The critics of

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his time could not foresee the success that the opera would have and its place in the world of art music.

Not only did Gershwin intentionally place uniquely American elements on the operatic stage, specifically the impoverished African-American experience and the use of African-American dialect, he fused uniquely American musical elements and sounds influenced by genres ranging from gospel to Broadway to jazz. The result was a hybrid type of work, which is what Gershwin was intending to begin with. It was in a sense multilingual musically speaking, because it contained operatic language and style found in the recitatives, and it also contained uniquely American musical language. It was Gershwin’s intent to elevate the American musical language and sound to the ranks of art music.

In conclusion, the two landmark musicals Show Boat and Porgy & Bess stood the test of time and only became greater in significance because of their revolutionary subject matter. The Broadway stage was used as a platform to communicate racial integration and acceptance through these two works. Show Boat is nowadays called, arguably, the finest American musical to date, much in part due to its complex dramatic elements and the issue of race. Gershwin integrated musical and dramatic elements and expected audiences to accept the work for what it was, all the while trying to elevate the American musical experience. It is as if Gershwin used integrated musical elements as metaphors for racial acceptance, integration, and harmony.

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My Fair Lady and West Side Story Setting George Bernard Shaw’s Pygmalion to a musical play was a daunting task that even the most venerable musical play creators Rodgers and Hammerstein could not do. They went as far as telling the team of Lerner and Loewe that it could not be done.

This was one of the earliest difficulties that the creators of My Fair Lady faced. The other major obstacle was G.B. Shaw’s reluctance to allow his play Pygmalion be adapted for the musical stage. Shaw never intended for his character Eliza to wed or to end up living with her professor of phonetics and etiquette, Henry Higgins. Lerner & Loewe managed to overcome these discouragements and went on to produce one of the most successful Broadway musicals ever made. The success of the stage play influenced the making of a most successful film version in 1964, a winner of eight Oscars.

My Fair Lady is set up like an operetta based on different elements. The staging, based on the film adaptation, has the makings of one. The first images are those of well to do, finely dressed, upper crust London dwellers and their carriages. This is reminiscent of the times when New Yorkers went to see operettas in their carriages. Shaw’s play lends itself to an operetta type of setting because it concerns the phonetics professor Higgins who is an advocate of speaking “proper” or upscale English. His character states that the very manner in which someone speaks is an indicator of status. The musical is based on the idea of raising the flower girl Eliza’s status by teaching her proper speech and etiquette, and so the play’s characteristic of things “upper” translates musically to an operetta, but it also has comedic musical traits. And so with My Fair Lady an operetta is at least implied.

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The songs in My Fair Lady advance the plot by describing the attitudes or wishes of the characters at specific moments in the story. The song “Wouldn’t it Be Loverly” gives insight into what Eliza wants in life, shortly after this song she acts on her aspirations in order to get what she wants. The songs “I’m an Ordinary Man” and “A Hymn to Him” expose Higgins’ arrogance and strong preference for the bachelor’s lifestyle that creates a conflict between him and Eliza. This is the main conflict in the story; Higgins’ arrogant treatment of Eliza that is later resolved when she leaves his house, making him reflect on her and his behavior and express his change in attitude in the song “I’ve Grown Accustomed to Her Face.” Eliza’s song “Without You” sets up an eventual break, albeit brief, in her relationship with Higgins.

The musical style of My Fair Lady ranges from operetta to musical comedy.

Examples of operetta traits are clearly found in the “Ascot Gavotte,” set at a racetrack frequented by the London elite. Another tune that has a close resemblance to operetta style is “On the Street Where You Live,” although it has a fox trot-like rhythm, but the vocal part requires a trained voice. This is a consistent trait of love themes, where these tend to be part of an elevated ideal, thus becoming synonymous with operetta. The bulk of the songs in My Fair Lady are comic. Examples of these are “Why Can’t the English?,” “You Did It,” and “Without You” to name some.

West Side Story The Laurents, Sondheim, Bernstein, and Robbins collaboration, West Side Story was an attempt at updating the Shakespearian classic, Romeo and Juliet. This version takes place in New York City sometime in the 1950s and pits two rival gangs, one “native” and one Puerto Rican, against each other instead of two rival families as occurs

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in Shakespeare. This variation on Romeo and Juliet was daring for its time because it created tension between two races while simultaneously creating a love story between them. This musical was not as well received at first; it was thought to be too controversial, it was not until the success of the 1961 film version that won ten Oscars that the stage version was elevated to the landmark status that it now has.

West Side Story was unique in that it used much dance to depict the action. The fact that this work was originally choreographer Jerome Robbins’ idea leaves open the possibility that it was conceived of as more of a ballet. It has been stated that the only thing that saves this work is the dancing. Nearly every song is set to dance from the dance-off between the two gangs, which is where Maria and Tony meet, to the fight scenes where tragedy unfolds and Bernardo and Riff end up dead. Dance also functions as a transitional device where at times the characters are literally dancing to the next major section of the plot. These transitional dance moments in between major sections have a foreshadowing effect, as does the music at times.

The music of West Side Story is eclectic and demonstrates an evolution and fusion of symphonic music with popular Jazz and Afro-Latin music idioms. It also has traces of operetta, staying in line with the elevated love ideal, as is found in the songs “Maria,” “Tonight,” and “I Have a Love.” The groundwork laid by Gershwin in Rhapsody in Blue and other hybrid Jazz and Classical forms is the basis upon which Bernstein sets the tunes “Cool” and “Prologue and Jet Song.” Bernstein also draws upon different Latin American, and Spanish, musical forms. An example of this is found in the mambo section of “The Dance at the Gym,” where Bernstein takes a page from the original Mambo King, Dámaso Pérez Prado. The song “I Feel Pretty” sounds very much like a Jota, which

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is a folk dance from Spain. Bernstein attempts, imprecisely, to infuse Hispanic musical styles into the score, but the result is a confusing mix sometimes sounding pseudoMexican, at other times Spanish. The mambo is of Afro-Cuban origin. It is understood that in this New York setting the more immediate and numerous Hispanic group is Puerto Rican, and that this group is used as the poster child for all Hispanics. In Los Angeles Maria would be Mexican, in Miami she would be Cuban.

Bernstein uses the Wagnerian device of the leitmotiv to create a foreshadowing and nostalgic effect throughout the musical. The musical motive for the song “Maria” appears at various points in the play. Tony’s song “Something’s Coming” is a musical translation of the literary device of foreshadowing. The character is portrayed as optimistic, this of course is a prelude to his meeting Maria for the first time at the dance held at a gym. The song “Tonight” is a recap of the meeting between Maria and Tony, and it tells their story in the present tense. The lyrics of the quintet version of the song have double meaning either setting up a potential scenario where the two may find happiness, or of finding tragedy, the words “there will be no morning star” is indicative of tragedy. Ultimately and tragically the story ends with the main characters not realizing their desire to be together.

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