Rodgers and Hammerstein on Revivals (Question)

No idea ,but it's an absolutely fascinating comment to have encountered. I'm guessing it was Rodgers, as Hammerstein died shortly after their final show (The Sound of Music, of course) opened. I'm sure that people would argue even the opinion of Richard Rodgers isn't relevant to any revival of a Rodgers work, so far from the time in which the shows were created. This is a valid point, but I think the idea that Rodgers clearly saw the shows a product of a time and place and conception, and that to take the shows out of the consciousness of the moment that produced them, shows an interesting take on an artist's point for how he perceived his work. It's particulalry intersting as he didn't seem to hold the same opinion of either his or Hammerstein's shows prior to their collaboration. It's as if he saw these particular works too inextricably wedded to their original productions (because they were better, more complete works of art?) apart from his opinion of revivals in general. So much room for thought here. Hope you find the exact quote, or someone directs you to it. Very much worth a grad thesis. Would love to read it when it's published.

I agree with Hogan and add that playwrights are often not the best authorities on their own work. My entire graduate class (MFA in Playwriting), except for me, thought they should direct their own plays. Fortunately for them, they were not allowed to do so. (I was the lone dissenter because I had worked as a director and understood that it is a very different job.)

Speaking of graduate school, there's a very good dissertation in the UCLA library on the evolution of OHII's thinking and writing and how his previous work led him to OK! I don't recall the author or the title, but with computers these days, you should be able to find it and borrow it through interlibrary loan.

GavestonPS said: "I agree with Hogan and add that playwrights are often not the best authorities on their own work. My entire graduate class (MFA in Playwriting), except for me, thought they should direct their own plays. Fortunately for them, they were not allowed to do so. (I was the lone dissenter because I had worked as a director and understood that it is a very different job.)

Speaking of graduate school, there's a very good dissertation in the UCLA library on the evolution of OHII's thinking and writing and how his previous work led him to OK! I don't recall the author or the title, but with computers these days, you should be able to find it and borrow it through interlibrary loan."

I agree with both of you. I find the topic interesting simply in terms of the insight it gives us into Rodgers' mindset, especially as he seems to have held this opinion only in reference to his work in collaboration with Hammerstein, not his previous work with Hart nor Hammerstein's previous work with a variety of others.

Curiously, when Rodgers wrote "Something Good" for the film version of The Sound of Music, he insisted that the song replace "An Ordinary Couple" in future stage versions (he only sometimes got his way). Thus even Rodgers, to some extent, felt that changes could be made to improve a work--that not everything was set in stone as of the original opening night.

Also interesting: Hammerstein kept changing aspects of the book and I believe even added lyrics to South Pacific throughout its run, not to mention "Dites Moi" going from a solo to a duet in the process. But I don't think these changes were incorporated into future scripts in later runs. Getting the info on SP from the book South Pacific: Paradise Rewritten, on SoM from the reminiscences of Wakefield Poole directing a production in the mid-sixties staring Dorothy Collins.

Updated On: 8/18/19 at 01:45 AM

Just to be clear, I was talking about a doctoral dissertation. It isn't an "article", it's a "book".

It's also pretty straight-forward, not some post-modern, "Lit Crit" intellectual excursion. But it does discuss with specificity OHII's politics in the 1940s and how they are reflected in the musical play. Nothing about how the Persian is a stand-in for a Jew, which, frankly, doesn't make much sense given that both Rodgers and Hammerstein were highly assimilated.

OlBlueEyes, I trust none of us--let alone I--have made you feel that your posts are less valid because you don't have a degree in theater. I promise you I am not a snob in that regard.

Oskar Eustis, now artistic director of The Public Theatre, only has a high school diploma and a few credits of college work. Nonetheless, he is not just one of the smartest, but one of the best professors I ever had. He literally changed me by altering the way I think about theater.

As you may have noticed, I regularly read and respond to your posts. Not once have I found your opinions lacking in erudition, even when we disagree.

***

I agree wholeheartedly about the casting of a black man as Billy Bigelow, however well he sounds on the album. I think it radically changes the subtext of the entire piece.

If you are committed to your AA Billy Bigelow--and I have no problem with that per se--then I think you need to cast as many African Americans as possible (or go all out and do a black cast) to ensure that Billy's skin color doesn't become the primary theme of the show. JMHO and I must confess I didn't see the production.

Updated On: 8/22/19 at 01:51 PM

Wait a minute--a black Billy suggests a condemnation of an entire race when a white Billy doesn't? Did Audra MacDonald's Carrie imply some statement about black women?

I didn't see the Carousel revival, so I can't say how the approach in this particular production read, but the idea that a black actor can't play a troubled character (and Billy, deeply flawed as he is, is clearly meant to be a sympathetic hero we care for deeply, and who's journey from thug to salvation brings us joy) without it being a comment on his race sounds, to me, really troubling. What are black actors to do if they can't play flawed, complex characters?

OlBlueEyes, I trust none of us--let alone I--have made you feel that your posts are less valid because you don't have a degree in theater. I promise you I am not a snob in that regard.

Gaveston, you are so solicitous of my feelings that you only increase my admiration of you. I do have three degrees in other areas and at this point of my life would not boast of any of them. But I do believe that my opinion on a matter, after five or ten minutes of reflection, will not in many cases be of the same value as that of someone who has spent a lifetime in the theater and has considered the same question at great length. I would be loathe to appear to be informing people that they should share my opinion.

Hogan through his experience informs me that the R&H Organization could impose limits on its licensees as to what races could be cast in what roles. I thought that this was too sensitive an issue to broach.

Perhaps I am alone in this, but as I progressed through the business world into meetings I found that blacks addressed in business attire with command of the language and command of the subject matter of the meetings ceased to be noticed by me as to their race. They were my equal. The black middle class is a success....at least mostly.

The problem here is that African American boys graduating from high school have been by percentage enrolling less and less in four year colleges after graduation. Ten to eleven percent less than the girls. (The same pattern exists for white male high school graduates. Ten to eleven percent less boys than girls enrolling in college each year.) A large number of uneducated, unemployed or underemployed young men are a very bad demographic for a democracy to possess. Relatively more attention is spent on relatively less important women's educational issues because the lobbyists and their money are already in place. Male high school attendees have no constituencies.

But I digress. Wait a minute--a black Billy suggests a condemnation of an entire race when a white Billy doesn't?

Well, yes. Because the white is the privileged majority and the other is the oppressed minority. Because the minority is subject to stereotype while the majority is not, because it is the majority. You cannot tell me that over the years blacks have not howled over members of their race being cast according to stereotype. If I still had a functioning memory I would name some. To make it easier on myself, consider the outcry if a Jew is cast as a greedy, swindling banker. You don't get the same reaction if a white is cast in that role because there are so many of us that we know that some but not all are capable of that role.

What are black actors to do if they can't play flawed, complex characters?

There are many ways for black actors to play flawed, complex characters without reinforcing stereotypes about lazy, shiftless and abusive. For example a black actor can play Othello or OJ Simpson, a man whose fierce jealousy drives him to murder. Whites and blacks share the emotion of intense jealousy that can fuel rage.

Have their been any postmortems on that calamitous production of Carousel?

GavestonPS said:
I agree wholeheartedly about the casting of a black man as Billy Bigelow, however well he sounds on the album. I think it radically changes the subtext of the entire piece.

If you are committed to your AA Billy Bigelow--and I have no problem with that per se--then I think you need to cast as many African Americans as possible (or go all out and do a black cast) to ensure that Billy's skin color doesn't become the primary theme of the show. JMHO and I must confess I didn't see the production."

Pray tell, how did you feel about Audra playing Carrie in the previous revival of the show?

OlBlueEyes said: "


>I should state up front, I have three degrees in theatre and I am 70. I am troubled and confused by your comments.


Perhaps I am alone in this, but as I progressed through the business world into meetings I found that blacks addressed in business attire with command of the language and command of the subject matter of the meetings ceased to be noticed by me as to their race. They were my equal. The black middle class is a success....at least mostly.

> I think you mean dressed in business attire. In command of what language? What do you mean by command? Do you mean you only respect blacks if they speak just like you?

The problem here is that African American boys graduating from high school have been by percentage enrolling less and less in four year colleges after graduation. Ten to eleven percent less than the girls. (The same pattern exists for white male high school graduates. Ten to eleven percent less boys than girls enrolling in college each year.) A large number of uneducated, unemployed or underemployed young men are a very bad demographic for a democracy to possess. Relatively more attention is spent on relatively less important women's educational issues because the lobbyists and their money are already in place. Male high school attendees have noconstituencies.

> What is the source of your statistics? As for your comment, "less important women's educational issues," how very sexist of you! Do you believe women should just home and tend to their children.?

But I digress.Wait a minute--a black Billy suggests a condemnation of an entire race when a white Billy doesn't?

Well, yes. Because the white is the privileged majority and the other is the oppressed minority. Because the minority is subject to stereotype while the majority is not, because it is the majority. You cannot tell me that over the years blacks have not howled over members of their race being cast according to stereotype. If I still had a functioning memory I would name some. To make it easier on myself, consider the outcry if a Jew is cast as a greedy, swindling banker. You don't get the same reaction if a white is cast in that role because there are so many of us that we know that some but not all are capable of that role.

> To use a contemporary phrase, YOU"VE JUMPED THE SHARK! Yes, blacks, Asian-Americans, Latinx, and Native Americans, Muslim-Americans have rightly complained about being cast in stereo-type roles. Your comment about Jews and whites is confusing. I'm Jewish and white! Are you one of those white folk who don't believe Jews are white?

What are black actors to do if they can't play flawed, complex characters?

In my years of theatre-going, I have seen many black actors who play flawed, complex characters. What your problem?

There are many ways for black actors to play flawed, complex characters without reinforcing stereotypes about lazy, shiftless and abusive. For example a black actor can play Othello or OJ Simpson, a man whose fierce jealousy drives him to murder. Whites and blacks share the emotion of intense jealousy that can fuel rage.

> You don't get out much do you? For years, black actors have played flawed, complex characters written by August Wilson and Lynn Nottage. There are many African-American playwrights who hav also created complex characters flawed or not. There are many POC playwrights who have done and do the same.

As for your comment, "less important women's educational issues," how very sexist of you! Do you believe women should just home and tend to their children.?

Congratulations for being the first to inject name-calling into this discussion, as would a proper 12 year old.

Pick a little, talk a little, pick a little, talk a little,
Cheep cheep cheep, talk a lot, pick a little more

Since I do feel that the downward trend in boys of black and white races to attend college is an important issue getting little publicity, I will put up some documentation.



The gender education gap, Atlantic, 11/17

https://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2017/11/gender-education-gap/546677/

Why men are the new college minority, Atlantic, 8/17

https://www.theatlantic.com/education/archive/2017/08/why-men-are-the-new-college-minority/536103/

Overall, women in the Class of 2018 will earn 141 college degrees at all levels for every 100 men and there will be a 663,000 college degree gap (up from 659,000 last year) in favor of women for this year's college graduates (1.62 million total degrees for men vs. 2.28 million total degrees for women).

http://www.aei.org/publication/prediction-no-graduation-speaker-will-mention-the-29-gender-college-degree-gap-for-the-class-of-2018/

And here is an article from Bloomberg that you probably can't read unless you subscribe.

U.S. Women Outpacing Men in Higher Education: Demographic Trends, Bloomberg, 8/18

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2018-08-06/u-s-women-outpacing-men-in-higher-education-demographic-trends

ChairinMain said: "It should be noted that in my recent experience, color blind casting has, in fact, been challenged as dated - a recent production at a high level regional theater, for example, was criticized for casting actors of color only as the show's villains; that sort of thing.The stated goal of many companies performing standard work is now "color- conscious" casting along with color-blind or non-traditional. "color-conscious" being a casewhere an actor's race is taken into account in order to avoid roles becoming tinged with stereotype or to provide a nontraditional point of view."

I am confused by your example, because it seems to be what you are calling color-conscious casting. And I am not sure how color-blind casting is "dated" when we see it almost constantly.