Show Boat revival?

Do you think Show Boat will be revived anytime soon?

Jarethan said: "I would imagine that we will see a production in7 years, when it turns 100. Ideally, at Lincoln Center (VB), directed by Bartlett Sher.


This. Lately, if feels like with classic musicals they only have two chances of working out. Either they need to do something to totally reinvent and update the production OR it needs to be a very lush big budget and loving handling of it. And no one does that better than the Lincoln Center and Sher combination. I would honestly love to see what they did with the boat as a set piece at the VB.

Call_me_jorge said: "I’d hope the 1994 revival was the last time the show will be on broadway. Despite loving the music, it’s a very dated show and of it’s time. I think the show would get grilled by critics and the media alike, if a revival would happen today."

Disagree emphatically. Sure, it is a little dated, but it is also history. The score is both old-fashioned and top-tier. Would I ever start out to listen to a recording of You Are Love? No. Does it work in the context of the show? Yes.

IMO the last production was truly great; with the right director, the next one can be truly great also. Unfortunately, you can’t cheap out on SB or it looks like Summer Stock. Could someone like John Doyle or Daniel Fish come up with a small scale version that speaks to today’s audiences? Who knows. I would like to see them try. I always hated Oklahoma, acknowledging that much of the score is for the ages. What Fish did was incredible to me...maybe the next revival of SB will be incredible for you.

Jarethan said: "Could someone like John Doyle or Daniel Fish come up with a small scale version that speaks to today’s audiences? Who knows. I would like to see them try. I always hated Oklahoma, acknowledging that much of the score is for the ages. What Fish did was incredible to me...maybe the next revival of SB will be incredible for you."

Totally feel you on the Oklahoma comments. I have always loathed Oklahoma but won the lotto for the revival so figured why not and was blown away by how you could take the same book and yet make a totally different show.

However, I don't know how well that treatment would work for this one. Show Boat is like THE classic of classics. I feel like a reinventing just would be VERY hard for it. But while yeah there is some stuff in Show Boat that has not aged... well, I don't think it's as controversial as some other more problematic classics revived as of late. The most touching thing would be what, Julie's background? I think it's sort of saving grace is that the controversy over it is addressed and denounced WITHIN the plot itself. Captain Andy alludes to having known Julie's background before hiring her and not caring about that and not being happy about having to let them go. At least that's how it was played in the 1994 revival from my memory (one of the first shows I ever saw as a child and saw it 3 times) It would be different if like... the reveal happened and he threw them out in a rage. He's very supportive and happy to employee them and it's that appreciation to him that they go so willingly.

If not a Broadway revival, then maybe a new film adaptation.

Who could possibly direct a new film adaptation of Show Boat?

Updated On: 4/10/20 at 09:09 PM

That's a great interpretation, Scarlett. I think as a producer or director it would be great fun (on someone else's money) to put a new Show Boat together from all the available pieces in the tool kit. Wikipedia has a great and long summary of all the changes and revisions and additions and subtractions from all the major stage productions and films.

The first act is much stronger than the second. Almost all the standards are introduced in the first act. "Bill" and "Why Do I Love You" are second act. (I hated giving that song away to Elaine Stritch, but I figured it was her price for accepting the role.) Kern's original finale, "It's Getting Hotter in the North" has never been used in the major Broadway productions or in any of the films, although it's a fine song. CATSNY says it was in the recent concert production.

The second act is up for grabs. You have to have Gaylord leave Magnolia, Magnolia sing "After the Ball" on New Year's Eve with her father in the audience, and Julie years later running into Gaylord and showing him the newspaper clip. After that it's pretty much carte blanche.

I think some have missed the different versions of the Gaylord Magnolia reunion. In the original stage production (and in the Prince) when Gaylord encounters Magnolia Kim is a Broadway star. Twenty years have passed and pretty clearly Gaylord and Magnolia are not going to pick up where they left off.

In the MGM film, by which most know the show, only five years have passed, Kim is a child and Ravenol and Magnolia are free to reunite.

The first act is much more structured, but there is leeway there as well. The dirge "Mis'ry's Comin' Round" was cut from the original production I thing because producer Flo Ziegfeld thought that it was just too downbeat. Still, Kern's original overture remained centered around that song. Hal Prince not only included the song but made the miscegenation the strongest element of the plot. (Prince also restored the original Overture, bless him.)

There are many more songs written for new productions and films than can fit in the show. So choices must be made. All the songs written for any stage or film production are collected in John McGlinn's three CD set which features Frederica von Stade and Teresa Strata.

I don't think sensitivities have changed much in the 25 years since the Prince revival played for almost 1000 performances. Show Boat was anything but a racist show. We know Hammerstein. He brought out the hardships of the life of the blacks and the racist laws that worked against their race. Show Boat was also the first show to have white and black performers on the stage at the same time.

"Ol' Man River," if the song and its message are taken together, for several decades was recognized as the best song to emerge from Broadway. When I first saw Ol' Blue Eyes, then a skinny young white boy, sing it in the Kern biopic, I thought that it absolute heresy,. But in his maturity he sang the song quite movingly. His two daughters say that when Sinatra sang it in a benefit concert in Carnegie Hall, Martin Luther King wiped tears from his eyes.

frontrowcentre2 said: "The operetta elements of SHOW BOAT put off younger audiences who do not understand the genre, although they seem to respond to ALW's PHANTOM OF THE OPERA.

When the revival of SHOW BOAT opened in Toronto, one of the school board trustees in North York was extremely vocal about her opposition to it. She refused to attend the show and instead galvanized her supporters to try to barricade the theater opening night. They failed. Their numbers were too small to make any kind of impact. (I was there that night.) Prince did an admirable job combining all previous SHOW BOAT scripts and interpolating songs from the 1936 film. The miscegenation scene was still powerful, the score was still thrilling.



One aspect he could not solve was the ultimate fate of Ravenal: His character should disappear and not return (as happens with Julie) and in the end Magnolia should be strong enough to carry on without him. Hammerstein couldn't solve this even in the Universal film version - nor could John Lee Mahin for the M-g-M Technicolor remake.



Getting contemporary audiences to understand the period would be a challenge for any modern film or stage director, even without the operetta elements."

The operetta elements would need to be overhauled

They could do a major overhaul of the whole thing

It isn't Edna Ferber's Show Boat or your Show Boat. It's Jerome Kern and Oscar Hammerstein II's Show Boat. It should reflect their sensibility, not that of modern directors or audiences.

Don't disagree with you. Others do and must be respected.

When I read the libretto for SHOW BOAT, I found the second act to be a let down. Oscar H said he shouldn't have brought Gaylord back.

A Director said: "When I read the libretto for SHOW BOAT, I found the second act to be a let down. Oscar H said he shouldn't have brought Gaylord back."


And yet, for over the next thirty years and several major revivals, he never altered the ending.

Updated On: 4/12/20 at 10:55 AM