Currently onstage at Slidell Little Theatre through May 12, 2013, is the
seminal musical Show Boat, by Oscar
Hammerstein II and Jerome Kern.
Based on the novel by Pulitzer-winning author Edna Ferber, Show Boat opened December 27, 1927, at
the Ziegfeld Theatre where it was to stay for 77 weeks, hailed as a
masterpiece, a trail-blazer and the finest musical show of the age.
Explains Bert Fink, Senior Vice President/Europe for Rodgers
& Hammerstein:
“No one was prepared for Show Boat. The show was unprecedented not only in its ingredients—its social consciousness, its interracial cast, its rich and varied score, its vivid characterization through the music and lyrics—but also as a whole: quite simply, it invented the musical as we know it. A radical departure from the vaudeville—and burlesque—influenced revues that had crowded Broadway up till then, Show Boat was a legitimate drama, told through song. The story was not just filler between musical numbers, but the driving force of the show; the lyrics were colloquial rather than clever; the choreography was plot-driven and realistic, not a showcase for female legs; and the set design strove for historical accuracy instead of modern stylishness. Its impact on Broadway, both immediate and long-term, was dizzying.”
So dizzying, in fact, that the audience on opening night was stunned
into silence. The lack of applause during the premiere performance of Show Boat
drove producer Florenz Ziegfeld to tears. But according to Fink, on the
following day, Ziegfeld realized he had a monstrous hit on his hands after witnessing
a line of people queuing outside Box Office to purchase tickets. The critics
were equally enthusiastic.
"Shortly after the opening," wrote Brooks Atkinson in the New York Times on January 8, 1928, "the henchmen of the press were privately and publicly acclaiming it as the ‘best musical show ever written.’…This superlative praise of Show Boat does not seem excessive." Atkins went further to predict that Show Boat was destined to be "one of those epochal works about which garrulous old men gabble for twenty-five years after the scenery has rattled off to the storehouse."
According to Fink, since that historic night when the audience was
stunned into silence, Show Boat has been made into four movies, six radio plays
and seven Broadway revivals and has been performed all over the world.
Guest blogger Mitchell Brown has a detailed account of the film life of Show
Boat that we think you will thoroughly enjoy. We have reprinted his article in
its entirety here with his permission. Mitchell Brown blogs at TheDiscreetBourgeois.wordpress.com.
The
Importance of Show Boat
By Mitchell
Brown
When Show Boat was presented in 1927 by Florenz
Ziegfeld, it was unlike anything the great showman had yet produced . His
legendary Follies were really just vaudeville shows on a grand scale,
featuring popular headliners of the day in unrelated scenes. Legendary
performers such as Fanny Brice, Will Rogers, W.C. Fields and Sophie Tucker did
their acts along side huge production numbers featuring scantily clad young
women. Ziegfeld was 'Glorifying the American Girl', he claimed. He also
presented light musical comedies such as Sally and Sunny with
music by Jerome Kern. These were shows with wispy plots that were usually just
vehicles for the star in question.
In the early part of the century, musical theater consisted
of vaudeville shows, operettas imported from Europe
or minstrel shows. In the 1910s a new type of musical that was purely American
began to be seen. Jerome Kern, along with lyricist P.G. Wodehouse, created a
string of this light, American style comedies about young people on Long Island estates and their love troubles. Once again,
wispy plots that featured amusing tunes for the stars to sing.
 |
Michael McAndrew and Mary Katheryn Carroll
as Gaylord Ravenal and Magnolia in SLT's production
of Show Boat.
Photo by Michael Clark
|
Kern approached Ziegfeld with the idea of adapting Edna
Ferber's epic novel Show Boat with a book and lyrics by Oscar Hammerstein
II. Amazingly, Ziegfeld agreed to gamble on a musical concerned with
miscegenation, segregation, wife abuse and alcoholism. It was not only the
subject matter that was revolutionary. The style was revolutionary as well.
Songs grew out of the dramatic situation. True, the operetta roots of Show
Boat are evident in songs such as You Are Love. However, the way
that Can't Help Lovin' Dat Man grows out of the action in the kitchen
scene, and how it comments sadly on Julie's situation and foreshadows what lies
ahead for Magnolia, reveals a new depth for the musical. The light revue had
been given a death-blow. The 'book musical' would assume prominence from that
time forward.
The
Pedigree of the 1936 film of Show Boat
There had been a 1929 film version of Show Boat that
was largely silent, with some songs tacked on. It is a curiosity at best. The
story differs greatly from the story of the musical, and the majority of the
film features actors that had nothing to do with the musical's creation on
Broadway.
MGM mounted a lavishly produced, Technicolor version of the
musical in 1951, starring Kathryn Grayson as Magnolia and Howard Keel as
Ravenal. These two leads sing beautifully, but there is not much chemistry
between them. Ava Gardner is miscast as Julie. The fact that Lena Horne was
available for the role and had sung a spectacular version of Can't Help
Lovin' Dat Man in the Jerome Kern biopic Till The Clouds Roll By,gives
a tantalizing indication of what might have been. The whole production suffers
from what many feel are the great assets of the MGM musicals of the 1950s:
lavish production numbers and big-name stars. The whole thing feels bloated.
The 1936 production produced by Universal is the great film
version of this musical. At the time, Universal was known as the Horror Film
studio. Show Boat's director James Whale already had tremendous
success with a string of straight-forward horror films such as Frankenstein, The
Bride of Frankenstein and The Invisible Man as well as the great
satire of the genre, The Old Dark House. These films are all notable
for an eerie, Gothic atmosphere which can be traced back to the German
Expressionism which exerted such a huge influence on early 'serious' film. The
atmospherics are there in Show Boat as well. Here, however, they are
employed to highlight emotional scenes. A good example of this is the montage
during Old Man River. First, we hear Joe singing the song in a
naturalistic setting: on a dock surrounded by other workers. As the song
reaches its climax, we get a series of abstract images of toil and punishment
which could have come straight out of an UFA
 |
| Lionel Jackson as "Joe" in SLT's 2013 production of Show Boat singing the classic Old Man River.
Photo by Michael Clark
|
The cast is fascinating in that many are associated with the
original Broadway production. Charles Winninger reprises his Captain Andy from
1927. Irene Dunne (Magnolia) and Paul Robeson (Joe) were not in the original,
but were part of the tour and are forever associated with the roles. Alas, we
don't get to see Edna May Oliver's Parthy, which she created on Broadway, but
it is not hard to imagine how perfect she would have been in the role. The
great treasure of the film is the preservation of Helen Morgan's performance as
Julie. Morgan, a sensation of the 1920's, is a little old for the role now, her
voice a little creaky, but her fragility in the delivery of the torch song Bill is
magnificent. She was only to live five more years, dying in 1941 at the age of
41.
Jerome
Kern and Oscar Hammerstein wrote two new numbers for the movie, I Have The
Room Above Her and I Still Suits Me. They are minor songs, but
it is exciting to know that the creators of the show were still working on it
as the movie was being filmed. Thus, it is both a reflection of the original,
as well as a work in progress.
Blackface
As
Magnolia's performing career on the Cotton Blossom itself blossoms, we get to
see many of her performances. The scene between the school teacher and her
beloved Hamilton is an affectionate depiction of what types of melodramas were
being performed in the days of the Cotton Blossom. The histrionic acting and
overheated dialogue seem right. The audience's reaction confirms this. The
humor of the scene comes not from the film's condescension to the play, but to
the woodsmen's reaction - their belief that reality is happening on stage. The
play itself is performed almost in documentary fashion.
The same sort of care is given to reflect authenticity in
the musical numbers that are performed within the movie. This does not refer to
the songs that grow out of the action, like You Are Love, I Have The Room
Above Her and Old Man River. Instead, it applies to the scenes
that are showing performances, such as Magnolia's New Year's Eve premiere in Chicago
The cakewalk performed by Ellie and Frank is also danced to
an authentic song of the period, Goodbye, Ma Lady Love. The dancing is
staged in such a way as to recall the style of the minstrel shows that would
have been current at the time the movie is depicting.
There is no question that Black musical and theatrical
performance styles were the preeminent entertainment forces in the era being
shown in the early parts of Show Boat. True, there was a strong
tradition of operetta and opera at the time, but the home-grown entertainment
was predominantly derived from Black styles.
Understanding the way the creators of Show Boat were
striving to portray authentic musical numbers of the time, should help us to
see Magnolia's Gallivanting Around with something subtler than a
knee-jerk condemnation of the scene as racist and offensive. Yes, Magnolia is
in black-face, yes, she is plucking on a banjo and yes, she is mugging in a
bug-eyed fashion throughout. However, this was a convention of the time being shown. The
exaggerated cartoonish depiction of the characters in blackface had little to
do with real Black people, just as the characters played by drag performers
have little to do with real women. The caricatures of blackface are as
irrelevant to our contemporary entertainment sensibility as commedia
dell'arte is. The point that needs to be made here is that including a
blackface scene in Show Boat is as appropriate as using the N-word in The
Adventures of Huckleberry Finn. Both are absolutely appropriate because
the intentions behind both are not racist and do not intend to demean. Both
intend to portray.
 |
Teresa Augustine as Queenie in SLT's 2013 production
of Show Boat.
Photo by Michael Clark |
The critic John Lahr has summed this up beautifully, saying,
"..describing racism doesn't make Show Boat racist. The
production is meticulous in honoring the influence of black culture not just in
the making of the nation's wealth but, through music, in the making of its modern
spirit."
As further proof, Queenie and Joe, though secondary
characters, are not stereotypes. Joe, in fact, moves through the proceedings in
the role of Greek chorus, wisely commenting on what is happening. He gets the
most famous song of the show, Old Man River. This song also has Black
roots in that it is as close to a spiritual as a white man has ever written.
The song defines the whole show - time floods on, regardless of people. The
fact that this profound observation is put in the mouth of a Black man goes a
long way to refute any charge of racism to which the mere depiction of a
blackface number might give rise.
# # #
End Notes
A detailed account of the
history of Show Boat can be found on Rodgers & Hammerstein website
at www.rnh.com/show/89/Show-Boat#shows-history.
Show Boat is produced by special arrangement with R&H
Theatricals.
Introduction written by Don Redman.
