Sing for Your Supper: The Broadway Musical in the 1930s (Golden Age of the Broadway Musical) [Hardcover]

Ethan Mordden (Author)

Book Description

ISBN-10: 0312239513 | ISBN-13: 978-0312239510 | Publication Date: February 24, 2005

In the 1930s, Broadway's lights still burned brightly. Ethan Mordden completes his history of the Broadway musical by taking a look at this forgotten era. Shows like Anything Goes brought the glitter of Cole Porter and Merman's brass to the public. Innovations in dance were pioneered by Balanchine and others. Scenic advancements made Astaire's The Band Wagon move across the stage in novel ways. Gershwin's revolutionary Porgy and Bess entered the canon of American Classics. And The Cradle Will Rock and Johnny Johnson took the American political temperature. With his trademark wit and style, Ethan Mordden shines the spotlight on Broadway's forgotten decade.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

The Great Depression not only stifled the U.S. economy, it slowed down the innovation of the Broadway musical. Despite that, and despite the fact that this era left behind few remnants for future generations, master theater historian Mordden cobbles together a breezy but comprehensive sixth edition to his series (from the 1920s to the 1970s) on the Golden Age of the Broadway musical. While economic woes forced many producers to turn to seemingly safe star vehicles and extravagant revues, Mordden points out that some notable artists commanded attention. Cole Porter's bewitching music and witty lyrics shone in 1934's Anything Goes. The following year George and Ira Gershwin elevated the black musical to new heights with Porgy and Bess. Rodgers and Hart showed their versatility with such shows as On Your Toes and The Boys from Syracuse. Agnes de Mille and George Balanchine led the integration of dance into story. And The Band Wagon, starring Fred and Adele Astaire, was responsible for an innovative scenic design element, the double revolve, which sped up scenery changes and revolutionized the way musicals could be staged. Sure, the era may best be remembered for political musicals, ranging from Marc Blitzstein's The Cradle Will Rock to the jaunty satire Of Thee I Sing, but Mordden points out that these were just one dish in a gigantic buffet of musical styles. Mordden is an encyclopedia of knowledge about the Broadway musical. Fortunately, his information is so well organized and his conversational writing style so smooth that this tome never feels like a mere onslaught of facts. Those who are devoted to musical theater will love this comprehensive historical look, but those with only a passing interest may be overwhelmed. 8 pages of b&w photos.
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From Booklist

For the last decade or so, Mordden has toiled away on an epic series chronicling the rise and subsequent slow, painful decline of the Broadway musical, from the feverish, artistically fertile 1920s to the golden age of the 1940s and 1950s to the present era of commercial enervation and aesthetic exhaustion. This volume completes his labors. Ironically, the 1930s were awful for Broadway, economically and artistically. Ticket sales slumped as the Depression deepened, and musical genres that were vital in the '20s--the musical revue and the American operetta--foundered in the '30s. Ever the enthusiastic aficionado, Mordden ferrets out the fascinating moments and important details of this period of retrenchment and decline. He shows how a decade artistically fallow in so many ways helped set the stage for the innovation and dizzying growth of the succeeding 20 years. As in previous volumes, Mordden presents a forest of facts, observations, and firmly held convictions, making the book invaluable to any student of American music theater. Jack Helbig
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 288 pages
• Publisher: Palgrave Macmillan (February 24, 2005)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0312239513
• ISBN-13: 978-0312239510
• Product Dimensions: 9.5 x 6.4 x 1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.2 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.3 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (7 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #927,838 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

11 of 11 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Pleasurable tome on 1930s musicals, November 1, 2005

By 

Mark Falconer (New York, NY) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Sing for Your Supper: The Broadway Musical in the 1930s (Golden Age of the Broadway Musical) (Hardcover)

Let's face it. You're either going to want to buy this book, or you're not. Very few people out there will be swayed one way or another by these reviews. However, in the hope that there's still one or two people sitting on the fence, I offer my wholehearted recommendation. This book contains more information than you ever wanted to know about 1930s musicals, always opinionated, and often very funny, too.

Basically, if you've read any of Ethan Mordden's other books, you know what to expect. Analysis, information, and humor, all delivered from a gay right-wing perspective. Some other reviewers have bashed Mordden for this, but hey - it's his book. A lot of the fun in these books is the fact that they're written like Mordden is just eating lunch with you and talking about musicals. If Mordden wanted to adopt a more formal tone, I'm sure he'd keep his political views out of the book, but I don't think I'd get nearly as much pleasure from them.

Another thing I love about Mordden is his way of turning obscure theatre references into jokes. For example, how many people will laugh while reading the sentence, "There was some dancing, but nothing for Albertina Rausch to really sink her teeth into." See, it's funny because...but it's really not funny if you have to explain it. Also, there's a running joke about the number of different "Tamara"s who play leading roles in many 1930s shows. I read this stuff and I crack up, but when I read the passages out loud to my friends, they don't get it.

For those of you who are wondering if Mordden offers detailed analyses of the more important shows of the decade, the answer is yes, he does. He speaks in depth on the strengths and weaknesses of the Gershwin political shows, Porter's Jubilee, Kern's...well, all of Kern's 1930s shows, and Rodgers and Hart's On Your Toes, I'd Rather Be Right, and Boys From Syracuse, as well as Kurt Weill's 1930s shows and Blitzstein's Cradle Will Rock. I do wish he had gone into a little more detail about I Married An Angel, and surprisingly enough, his chapter on Porgy and Bess doesn't contain much new insight, but these are minor caveats.

My only other complaint is that this is the final book in his series, cause I don't want him to stop writing about musicals. Basically, if you love musicals, you should love this book. Because Mordden loves musicals, and you can see it in every page he writes.

4 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Good Finale to the Series, April 28, 2005

By 

Ricky Hunter (New York City, NY United States) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Sing for Your Supper: The Broadway Musical in the 1930s (Golden Age of the Broadway Musical) (Hardcover)

Ethan Mordden can now rest. The author has taken the musical, in a decade by decade series, from the twenties and into the current crop of shows. The last volume to be published in this series is Sing for Your Supper, the Broadway musical in the 1930s. It is an improvement over the last two volumes and a return to the good work of the previous editions. The two problems with the book, though, are the author's need to spend as much time on an Encores version of a thirties show as the original show itself and, at times, the author's boredom with the thirties as a time of no particular historical interest for the historian of Broadway musicals. When an author seems to lose interest on occasion, it makes it harder for the reader to maintain his. Still, it is a satisfying concluding volume with all of the author's wit, insight, opinions, and general knowledge well-displayed, mixed in with little gems of trivia for the musical fan.

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars I give it five stars, but..., February 27, 2009

By 

John Spritz (Portland, Maine) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Sing for Your Supper: The Broadway Musical in the 1930s (Golden Age of the Broadway Musical) (Hardcover)

...but it's depressing. Depressing? A book about the Broadway musical in the 1930s? Yep.

I don't know if Mordden wrote this while he had an ulcer, or if the subject matter is really so downbeat, but he just isn't happy with where musicals were -- or, rather, where they weren't -- in the 1930s. His thesis is that we tend to mythologize this decade as a high point (all that Porter, Rodgers & Hart, Gerhswin, etc.) but that the true high points were few and far between, and that much of the decade was wrapped up in copycat me-tooism. That honest-to-God breakthroughs were just around the corner (R&H in 1943, even "Pal Joey" in 1940, I guess), but that meanwhile we had to wallow through the '30s. And throughout his series, the breakthrough, the new-trendsetter, the revolutionary moment, is what he centers on. And that just wasn't the '30s, at least in terms of the Broadway musical (except Porgy & Bess, and the development of the revue).

Or am I just being petty because I'm a Rodgers and Hart fan, and Mordden clearly prefers Porter? Even Berlin? Don't know. Anyhow, all of the above is caviling: Mordden's histories are absoltely essential reading if you want to understand what the musical is all about. Anyone who's a fan owes thanks to the author for so diligently trying to understand the warp and woof of this art form.