Lights on Broadway

The Michener Museum salutes American musicals.

By: Matt Smith
 

The company of A Chorus Line, 1975.

   Most of man’s creations are borne out over years of evolution rather than in one earth- shattering "Eureka!" moment.
   This is somewhat true of the American musical. The art form as we now know it came to be on Dec. 27, 1927, with the Broadway opening of Show Boat by Jerome Kern and Bucks County, Pa., favorite son Oscar Hammerstein II.
   Based on Edna Ferber’s novel about life on the Mississippi, the work was the first to integrate story, music and character — with songs that served to advance the plot instead of being used as trifling asides.
   "It’s one of those milestone events that basically sums up everything that came before, and leads us in new directions," says Dwight Blocker Bowers, a cultural historian at the Smithsonian’s National Museum of American History in Washington, D.C.

Built in 1903, the New Amsterdam Theatre hosted the Ziegfeld Follies, the series of shows from impressario Florenz Ziegfeld, Jr., which defined the look and sound of American musical revues in the early 20th century.

   "It’s a synthesis of vaudeville, musical comedy, the tradition of Tin Pan Alley," Mr. Bowers continues. "Kern longed to do something different in musical theater, along with his protégé Oscar Hammerstein, who certainly met him every step of the way. The real triumph of ‘Show Boat’ is not the masterful musical score or vision from Kern; the muscle of what makes ‘Show Boat’ great is the way (Hammerstein) takes the material in Ferber’s novel and turns it into something stronger and dramatically purposeful, without taking away from what Ferber wrote."
   Show Boat is prominently featured in Red, Hot & Blue: A Salute to American Musicals, a traveling exhibit coming to the James A. Michener Art Museum in Doylestown, Pa., July 24 to Oct. 17. The show is co-curated by Mr. Bowers and Amy Henderson, a cultural historian at the Smithsonian’s National Portrait Gallery, where the exhibit premiered in 1996.
   For more details on Bucks County connections to Broadway, including Hammerstein and playwrights George Kaufman and Moss Hart, theater fans also can visit the Michener’s New Hope, Pa., location to see the permanent exhibit Creative Bucks County: A Celebration of Art and Artists.

Poster for Show Boat.

   Named for a 1936 Cole Porter hit, Red, Hot & Blue, the show is divided into five interactive, multimedia sections. "Setting the Stage: Street Scene, 1866-1906" focuses on the musical melting pot that was New York City in the late 1800s. "Curtain Up: The Rise of the Impresario, 1907-1927," is an examination of the growing commercial aspects of musical theater, capped by Show Boat and transitioning into the milestone 1927-1928 Broadway season. "Light the Lights: From Broadway to Hollywood, 1927-1942" details the explosion of movie musicals brought about by "talkie" motion pictures. "The Heights: Broadway and Hollywood, 1943-1959" chronicles a golden age in the American musical, ranging from nostalgic, rural shows such as Oklahoma! to darker, urban stories like West Side Story, while "Side by Side by Side: Redefinition and Revival, 1960-Present" defines the form and function of musicals in a diverse entertainment landscape.
   Ms. Henderson, who specializes in film, music and media history projects at the National Portrait Gallery, is most taken with those first two periods covered in the exhibit, when musical theater reflected a country on the rise.

Marilyn Miller in a Ziegfeld production.

   "It was a period when America defines itself, states its identity," she says. "I think at one point what Dwight and I said was, ‘American musicals give the words and music to the American dream.’"
   Ms. Henderson and Mr. Bowers also collaborated on the book accompanying the exhibit (Smithsonian Institution Press), and served as producers and annotators of the four-CD, 81-song Star-Spangled Rhythm: Voices of Broadway and Hollywood (Smithsonian Collection of Recordings). Both say the frequent mentions of Hollywood are no accident, as the Great White Way and Tinseltown forged a symbiotic relationship in the 1930s and ’40s.
   "One can never divorce commerce from progress," says Mr. Bowers. "They call it show business — there’s no business without the show and no show without the business."

Poster for The Jazz Singer .

   "We tried to show that there was a continuum, Broadway wasn’t really separate from Hollywood," says Ms. Henderson. "It was the same thing: ‘Where’s the money?’ ‘Where are the ideas?’ ‘What does the public want to have?’… Musicals were a core to the popular culture in a way that perhaps nothing since has been, because since the ’50s, the culture has been so divided that there is nothing to bring us together the way musicals did."
   In addition to distractions such as TV and the societal conflicts of the Vietnam War era, Mr. Bowers says a trend toward singer-performers usurped writing talents who pursued careers in rock ‘n’ roll rather than attempting to become the next Porter or George Gershwin.
   The exhibit comes to an appropriate conclusion in the mid-’90s, with the 1994 Hal Prince revival of Show Boat. As an avid theater-goer, Mr. Bowers has his own opinions about the current state of Broadway. He says the high financial stakes of mounting a production, where you can lose millions of dollars in a single evening, are discouraging musical-theater talents.
   "In the 20s, ’30s, ’40s, even the ’50s, you could fail and you were not written off as a creative force," says Mr. Bowers. "For every ‘West Side Story,’ (Leonard) Bernstein could always point to the commercial failure of ‘Candide,’ although it’s righted itself over the years. The problem is there’s no place to experiment for a national and international audience. There’s regional theater, but that’s not quite the way to create a work that reaches many people. Broadway still remains a myth and a goal in American show business. Making it on Broadway ensures a life beyond Broadway."
Red, Hot & Blue: A Salute to American Musicals is on view at the James A. Michener Art Museum, 138 S. Pine St., Doylestown, Pa., July 24-Oct. 17. Co-curator Dwight Blocker Bowers will lecture Sept. 19, 3-4 p.m.; $8 members, $15 non-members. Susan Whitenack and Fred Miller will perform Broadway tunes Oct. 3, 3 p.m.; $8 members, $15 non-members. Museum hours: Tues.-Fri. 10 a.m.-4:30 p.m., Sat. 10 a.m.-5 p.m., Sun. noon-5 p.m.; open Wed. until 9 p.m. through October. Museum admission costs $6.50, $6 seniors, $4 students/ages 6-18; members and children under age 6 free. For information, call (215) 340-9800.
Creative Bucks County: A Celebration of Art and Artists is on permanent view at the Michener Museum satellite, Bridge Street, Union Square, New Hope, Pa. Museum hours: Tues.-Thurs. 11 a.m.-5 p.m., Fri.-Sat. 11 a.m.-8 p.m., Sun. 11 a.m.-6 p.m. Museum admission costs $5, $4 seniors, $2 ages 6-18, members and children under age 6 free. A joint ticket to both museums costs $12 and includes all special exhibitions; available through Oct. 17. For information, call (215) 862-7633. On the Web: www.michenerartmuseum.org