NYT: ‘Flower Drum Song,’ Once Overhauled, Returns Changed Again — Page 2

"what sense does it make for characters living in the late 1960's to all be singing songs in the syle of 1950's musical comedy?"

Actually the songs which were written in 1958 work quite well for these characters, most of whom are either of the older generation, or are very new to this country. None of them are hip enough to embrace the sounds of the 60's. (Well maybe Harvard would be into the swinging 60's vibe or more likely the Motown sounds of Diana Ross et al, but he gets virtually no song of his own other than a tacky vaudeville number onstage at the club.) Linda Low gets to sell "I Enjoy Being a Girl" as a completely tongue-in-cheek comment on THOSE girls who believe the lyrics, so the 50's show tune style is wholly appropriate to her. And later she has a fan number which seems to have been re-orchestrated into true mid-60's Rich Man's Frug styling and full Fosse choreo!

And I'm only guessing the show means to take place in the late 60's based on the Cultural Revolution scene that opens the play. (The Cultural Revolution began in 1966.) I would love to read Hwang's context to see if I'm correct.

I get what you're saying.

I don't know though-- I grew up in the 60's and my folks had classical music playing on the radio (WQXR) 16 hours a day in our house.  We of course had all sorts of Original Cast LPs to play on our hi-fi, so I grew up with the OC albums of "South Pacific", "King and I", "My Fair Lady", "Sound of Music" (the Mary Martin one), "Oliver" and  "Fiddler", but we also had LPs of Sinatra and Jazz and Pete Seeger. If I wanted to hear the Beatles or Simon and Garfunkel or Tom Lehrer, I'd have to buy my own LP to play in my bedroom.

All I'm saying is homes in the 60's had lots of ways to hear music that had nothing to do with the Top 40 Pop tastes.