The Integrated Musical... What about Showboat?

[Musicaldudepeter]

Posted: 3/1/14 at 7:57pm

Why does Oklahoma! get all the attention and credit for being the first 'integrated' musical when Showboat came before it in the '20s... Did Showboat not break new ground with its weighty subject matter and its songs that moved the show along. The only thing that separates this and Oklahoma! is the incorporation of dance into the latter. Is this what makes Oklahoma! special, or did Oklahoma! also do something different with its score and book?

[EricMontreal22]

Posted: 3/1/14 at 8:07pm

Even besides Show Boat, there are other examples of "integrated" musicals before that (and the term is up to scrutiny.) I think Oklahoma! gets much of the credit because it really did seem to mark a shift in how musicals were done, which Show Boat, despite some of its antecedents, didn't quite. I always wondered why Hammerstein and Kern never again attempted to do something similar--though it's true Sweet Adline and Cat and the Fiddle attempted at least as much with integrating the score to the show, the lack of big success, or literary subject matter seems to have caused them to be neglected.

[GavestonPS]

Posted: 3/1/14 at 9:55pm

Without disagreeing with Eric (there's an entire dissertation at UCLA on how Hammerstein's "integration" evolved from SHOW BOAT to OKLAHOMA!), I think one need only compare the history of the two shows to see the difference.

Yes, SHOW BOAT was revolutionary in many respects, but revivals add and subtract songs (and even plot steps) at will. NOBODY tries to do that with OKLAHOMA! The latter show is simply too tightly constructed.

[perfectlymarvelous]

Posted: 3/1/14 at 10:03pm

Oklahoma!'s use of dance is very significant...the dream ballet in particular marked a huge shift in musical theater storytelling, because you got a dance that actually drove the plot and created dramatic tension for the rest of the story. It's true that before Oklahoma! there were musicals that utilized linear storytelling and songs that fit into the story, but Oklahoma! was the first time that every element (music, lyrics, dance, and book) truly interwove and altering anything would drastically change the course of the show. I'm not sure the same can be said for Show Boat, which as Gaveston said, has been altered many times.

[Kad]

Posted: 3/1/14 at 10:33pm

Although the songs in Showboat have some plot purposes, many are still not terribly well derived from the action of the plot or characters. They're there because... well, it's time for someone to sing. Other pre-Oklahoma shows are the same- like Anything Goes, for instance. The songs are wonderful, but these shows still feel like they're a tree that songs are hung on.

[GavestonPS]

Posted: 3/1/14 at 10:49pm

You're absolutely correct, Kad. That's exactly what musicals were in the 1930s (with the possible exception of OF THEE I SING and a few others, and of course the Brecht/Weill musicals which were "integrated" in an entirely different way). Even the Kern/Wodehouse musicals of the 1920s are "integrated" only by comparison with what else was being written.

Most of us know those 1930s hits with revised librettos written after OKLAHOMA! They are still pretty much "trees on which to hang songs", as you put it, but later librettists have tightened them up a bit.

Go back to the original BABES AND ARMS, for example, and the book scenes are all over the place. It's like an episode of SNL only with amazing Rodgers & Hart songs.

[Michael Bennett]

Posted: 3/1/14 at 11:23pm

SHOWBOAT also still honored the tradition of turn of the century musical theater of interpolating popular songs of the day into the script. Some of the songs most associated with the score: "Bill," "After The Ball" "Goodbye My Lady Life" were pre existing 'standards' and even during the original run of the show were shifted around the script rather liberally, in some instances even being assigned to different variable characters..

OKLAHOMA! though not the first show to feature a score written exclusively by one writing team for the musical is largely credited with being the earliest, best example of such a score being written specifically for individual character voices, plot advancement etc.

[GavestonPS]

Posted: 3/2/14 at 2:47pm

I love "Goodbye, My Lady Love", MB, and never realized it was an interpolated pop hit like "After the Ball."

But per Wiki, at least, "Bill" was written by Wodehouse and Kern for "OH, LADY! LADY!" in 1917, but cut before the show opened.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bill_(Show_Boat)

Are you sure it was already a standard when the lyrics were rewritten and the song was put into SHOW BOAT?

[Jon]

Posted: 3/2/14 at 3:21pm

The dance break in "Goodbye My lady Love" is actually another turn-of-the-century standard, "At a Georgia Camp Meeting".

[EricMontreal22]

Posted: 3/2/14 at 3:53pm

There's been much discussion about the background of "Bill" and whether the lyric changes were Hammerstein's or not. Regardless, it certainly was not the standard that the other interpolated numbers were.

[henrikegerman]

Posted: 3/2/14 at 5:15pm

Gracie: George?

George: Yes, Gracie.

Gracie: I think Show Boat is a much more integrated musical than Oklahoma.

George: You do, Gracie?

Gracie: Well, of course I do.

George: Why Gracie?

Gracie: George, have you ever seen Show Boat with just white people in it?

Updated On: 3/2/14 at 05:15 PM

[CATSNYrevival]

Posted: 3/2/14 at 5:18pm

Oh come on. I'm sure there is a video on youtube of an all white Show Boat somewhere.

[henrikegerman]

Posted: 3/2/14 at 5:34pm

Yes, but Gracie wouldn't have lived to see it.

At least she was spared that.

[justoldbill]

Posted: 3/2/14 at 5:45pm

It's of interest to note that all of the interpolated music in SHOW BOAT takes place within the confines of the Trocadero, with no original Kern music involved, and intentionally so. This was Kern's way of setting a moment at a specific point musically, as was his wont with such interpolations. In this case, it also helped take us as far away from the river as possible.
The only Kern music heard within the Trocadero is Magnolia's audition of "Can't Help Lovin' Dat Man", which is belittled by the Trocadero owner as old-fashioned with his attempt to update it by "ragging" it. Oh, wicked Jerome Kern! He must have relished doing this to a cheap theatre owner.

Updated On: 3/2/14 at 05:45 PM

[frontrowcentre2]

Posted: 3/3/14 at 1:46am

Are you sure it [Bill] was already a standard when the lyrics were rewritten and the song was put into SHOW BOAT?

No, because "Bill" had been cut from OH, LADY! LADY!! Hammerstein got permission from Wodehouse to revise the lyric. (Miles Kreuger includes both versions in his book on SHOW BOAT.) The lyric alterations may have also altered the melody...example:

"Along came Bill
Who's quite the opposite
of all the men
In Story books,
In grace and looks
I know that Apollo
Would beat him all hollow..."

[GavestonPS]

Posted: 3/3/14 at 6:48pm

justoldbill, some versions of SHOW BOAT have Frank and Ellie perform "Goodbye, My Lady Love" in Act I, on the Cotton Blossom. But IBDB puts it as you describe: right before "After the Ball" in the original production.

Eric, this is the first I've heard as to a question whether Hammerstein wrote the 1927 revisions to "Bill". I trust your knowledge of such things, but what is your source that says he did not? (If you recall. If not, I'll just assume you are correct.)

As long as we're making jokes about all-white casts, we should at least mention in passing that the original production mixed actual African-Americans with Caucasians in blackface. The role of Queenie was played by "Aunt Jemima", a white woman who had taken the name of the blackface character she played when representing pancake batter. Fortunately, she was replaced by Hattie McDaniel in the first sound film version.

[felipenor]

Posted: 3/3/14 at 9:03pm

I've read many claims that Meet me in St Louis was the first integrated musical. is there any truth in that?

[GavestonPS]

Posted: 3/4/14 at 11:23pm

I don't know what they mean by "integrated" in re ST. LOUIS. Film is by nature a more episodic form, so the standards for "integration" are somewhat different.

It is certainly a beautiful film, but a highly episodic one: one of the most memorable sequences is "Tootie goes trick-or-treating", but how does it advance the action, really? ST. LOUIS is really more of a "charm piece" than a film with a unified story.

I guess what I'm saying is MEET ME IN ST. LOUIS isn't so very integrated by stage standards, but perhaps they meant something else for film.

[EricMontreal22]

Posted: 3/4/14 at 11:41pm

And certainly if we're going to call it integrated, wouldn't the earlier Wizard of Oz count? Or Disney's Snow White? Or future Oklahoma director Mamoulian's Love Me Tonight? (Not to, again by those standards, Whale's film of Show Boat.)

[NoName3]

Posted: 3/5/14 at 1:18am

I read years and years ago, pre-internet, in either a book or a magazine article, that the program for the original production of Rose-Marie in 1924 did not include a song list but instead included a note that the musical numbers were so integral to the show's plot that it would be inappropriate to list them separately. I have searched for years on Google for a confirmation for this but have never found a reference.

The music for Rose-Marie is co-credited to Rudolf Friml and Herbert Stothart and the book and lyrics co-credited to Oscar Hammerstein II and Otto Harbach. Rose-Marie's run was longer than that of Show Boat, though both were surpassed by Romberg's The Student Prince, which opened in 1926. It was produced by Oscar II's uncle, Oscar Hammerstein.

It's interesting to note Hammerstein II's involvement since the original stage version of Rose-Marie, like Show Boat, includes a subplot involving miscegenation -- the treacherous Native-American maiden Wanda is having a clandestine affair with white villain Hawley while secretly in love with white leading man Jim Kenyon. This was quite adult fare in 1924.

Rose-Marie is one of my very favorite musicals (operetta, really) but it has not had a professional production in New York that I'm aware of since LOOM revived it in the late 1970's. Despite being an enormous hit in its day and for several decades thereafter (the original London production was the longest running musical there until Oklahoma! surpassed it more than two decades later), I assume its treatment of Native-Americans precludes future revivals in its original form. Neither sound film version (there was also a silent version, now lost, starring Joan Crawford) uses the original plot, although the 1954 MGM version is much closer to the original than the 1936 MacDonald-Eddy version. Neither sound film includes even a suggestion of the then controversial miscegenation element in the original.

I have long thought like original poster Musicaldudepeter that Show Boat deserves many of the accolades since given to Oklahoma! for its integration of musical and dramatic elements to produce a uniquely American art form. Show Boat is decades ahead of its time in both its themes and its artistic achievements. It is my favorite musical. It is impossible to consider the development of the American musical without the influence of Oscar Hammerstein II.

My two favorite musical films are The Wizard of Oz and James Whales' Show Boat. Oz's musical supervision was by Herbert Stothart, who co-wrote Rose-Marie. As head of the music department at MGM, he also supervised the music for the MacDonald-Eddy version of Rose-Marie and won an Oscar for writing the background music for Oz.

Oh, and the interpolated music in Show Boat also includes Sousa's Washington Post march during the Act II scene change to the Trocadero.

Excuse my sleepless late night rambling....

Updated On: 3/5/14 at 01:18 AM

[EricMontreal22]

Posted: 3/5/14 at 3:52am

You know, I never knew that Friml didn't do all of the music of Rose Marie... Wow.

I think Rose Marie, Desert Song, etc, are still usually called operettas which may not be why people count them. Of course Show Boat still has one foot in the operetta world -- especially when you hear some of the cut material on the 3 CD set like Creole Love Song (OK, You Are Love which replaced it, is fairly operetta-ish anyway.)

Great post! Now I want to find a decent recording of Rose Marie. When I was growing up my great grandma had a bunch of old, old 78rpm recordings from the 20s that would have a medley from a musical/operetta. One had No No Nanette, one had Desert Song, one had Rose Marie and for the life of me I never recognized the title of the other one, but I was obsessed with playing them.

[NoName3]

Posted: 3/5/14 at 4:28am

Hi Eric,

There really isn't a satisfactory recording of Rose Marie available. The only thing near to a complete recording is the 1958 LP conducted by Lehman Engel with Julie Andrews and Giogio Tozzi. Neither is bad but they are miscast. Her voice is too light and his is much too deep and dark; they don't blend at all on Indian Love Call. It was never released on CD. My favorite is highlights with Nelson Eddy and Metropolitan Opera star Dorothy Kirstein from the early 1950's. Her Totem Tom-Tom is a hoot. I heard the Reader's Digest highlights years ago when I borrowed the full set from a friend. Other than enjoying it, I don't remember a thing about it. The original London cast highlights from the 1920's has been re-released many times over the years but it's more of a historical curio than a listenable performance. Those recordings do feature the actual theater orchestra playing the original orchestrations.

In the 1980's or '90's the Smithsonian recorded an absolutely complete version but they discontinued their musicals project and the recording still sits in the vaults waiting to be rescued -- at least I hope it survives. I have their complete recording of Naughty Marietta from the same series on cassette tapes and it's wonderful.


ETA I just found a CD version of the 1958 recording with a hideous cover on Amazon and it includes the London original cast highlights. The reviewers there like it much more than I do. That's probably your best bet. Amazon also has highlights from the 1954 film but it's a bastardized version of the original.

http://www.amazon.com/Rose-Marie-Selections-Julie-Andrews/dp/B002S4DN7S/ref=sr_1_1?s=music&ie=UTF8&qid=1394012589&sr=1-1&keywords=Rose-Marie


Updated On: 3/5/14 at 04:28 AM

[newintown]

Posted: 3/5/14 at 1:55pm

I have also never understood the superlative comment about Oklahoma being the first integrated musical; so many shows before it had scores that were as fully and completely linked to character and situation as those in Oklahoma, including By Jupiter, The Desert Song, Lady In The Dark (which for me is a much more interestingly integrated musical), Knickerbocker Holiday, Johnny Johnson, I'd Rather Be Right, On Your Toes (with the possible exception of the song "Quiet Night"), Porgy and Bess, etc.

I suppose it can be attributed to a natural inclination to categorize and order everything.

[PalJoey]

Posted: 3/5/14 at 1:58pm

Rebecca Luker sings both versions of "Bill" in her Jerome Kern show.

[Mr. Nowack]

Posted: 3/5/14 at 4:01pm

I think maybe OKLAHOMA is credited for popularizing that type of musical, rather than creating it.

I swear I read once that ROSE-MARIE had its pre-Broadway tryout in Pittsburgh, but I've never been able to find that information again.