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Editorial Reviews
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This book begins its survey of a seminal decade in American theater in 1950, when the Broadway musical method in which stars like Ethel Merman slogged it out show after show, formula after formula, success after success had run its course, sparking the need for innovation. It ends in 1959, after a decade of innovation had raised the musical to new heights--heights that the genre would not maintain in later decades. In between, Ethan Mordden paints a picture of the musical that is warm and sympathetic, even as it pours cold water on what the author considers the medium's excesses and failures. Mordden isn't shy about sharing his opinions. He links the legendary director George Abbott to the stagnation that set in during the early '50s: "He was a journeyman, not a visionary. He was very, very good at what he knew how to do, and, like all conservatives, never attempted to do anything else." Regarding Can Can he writes, "Clearly, what saved it at first was the score and the production; at length, its dippy book destroyed it." And, at odds with the millions who revere The Sound of Music, Mordden acknowledges its "slight but extremely tuneful score," concluding that the show has a "somewhat disappointing position in the Rodgers and Hammerstein canon."
This book begins its survey of a seminal decade in American theater in 1950, when the Broadway musical method in which stars like Ethel Merman slogged it out show after show, formula after formula, success after success had run its course, sparking the need for innovation. It ends in 1959, after a decade of innovation had raised the musical to new heights--heights that the genre would not maintain in later decades. In between, Ethan Mordden paints a picture of the musical that is warm and sympathetic, even as it pours cold water on what the author considers the medium's excesses and failures. Mordden isn't shy about sharing his opinions. He links the legendary director George Abbott to the stagnation that set in during the early '50s: "He was a journeyman, not a visionary. He was very, very good at what he knew how to do, and, like all conservatives, never attempted to do anything else." Regarding Can Can he writes, "Clearly, what saved it at first was the score and the production; at length, its dippy book destroyed it." And, at odds with the millions who revere The Sound of Music, Mordden acknowledges its "slight but extremely tuneful score," concluding that the show has a "somewhat disappointing position in the Rodgers and Hammerstein canon."
Mordden praises Guys and Dolls--"a classic" and My Fair Lady--"it's culturally imperative ... capitalism at its best." Lenny Bernstein's Candide is the "uniquely influential title" of the 1950s, "perhaps the last crucial revolutionary development in the musical's history." All this praise is lovingly spelled out in chapters that dwell on the productions themselves in a chunky narrative cluttered with an insider's look behind the scenes. Mordden's book forces readers to rethink much of what they know about the Broadway musical and to listen, and listen again, to their favorite soundtracks. --Roy Wadia
From Publishers Weekly
In his celebration of the glorious (and not-so glorious) musicals of the 1950s, Mordden (Broadway Babies and Make Believe: The Broadway Musical in the 1920's) relates one of Broadway's hoary old jokes: "If God had really wanted to punish Hitler, He'd have sent him out of town with a musical." This volume offers a rich compendium of the hits and misses that kept theatergoers lining up at the box office during the decade many remember as bland white bread. But with treasures including Call Me Madam, Guys and Dolls, Kismet, My Fair Lady, Candide (considered a flop at the time), The Sound of Music and (closing out the decade) West Side Story and Gypsy, Mordden shows that it was 10 years of change, growth and glory. He explains why he thought playwright/director George Abbott was "in the long run a destructive figure in the musical's history"; discusses the growing influence of choreographers, several of whom became directors, such as Michael Kidd, Bob Fosse, Gower Champion and Jerome Robbins; and how, with the growth of the cast album "great shows no longer vanished when they closed." The 1950s also saw distinctions made between the musical play (The King and I) and musical comedy (Call Me Madam); at the same time original material declined while epic productions based on books or films became more prevalent. Brimming with opinions, reminiscences and anecdotes, (Brooks Atkinson's response to the flop, Flahooley: "More plot crosses that stage than Macy's Thanksgiving Parade"), the pleasure here comes from Mordden's jaundiced eye, sharp wit and passion for his subject. This is a must for every theater lover.
Copyright 1998 Reed Business Information, Inc.
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- The Cambridge Companion to the Musical (Cambridge Companions to Music) by William A. Everett in