American Musical Theater

A Brief Overview of American Musical
Theater

Early Musical Theatre
American musical theater has origins in several nineteenth century and early twentieth century musical entertainments. The wellspring, of course, was Minstrelsy. Later developments, such as Burlesque, Musical Revue (as based upon the Folies Bergiėre), and musical comedy, contributed significantly to the new genre. The music of the Musical Revue, especially that of George S. Cohen, did contribute to the body of music that “everyone knows,” and an example is “Yankee Doodle Boy.” Cohen’s songs, along with those of Stephen Foster, are the oldest songs that still circulate among the American general public. Echoes of Burlesque are found in the modern variety and variety-talk show, melodrama, and even stand-up comedy.

Musical theater differs from Burlesque and musical comedy in several respects. A principle feature that distinguishes musical theater is the use of a dramatic story as a central unifying thread. Burlesque and musical theatre often used loose story lines, but interrupted it with unrelated skits, songs, and stand-up routines. Interpolations were a regular feature. The interpolation was an unrelated popular song presented in the theater production, but which had no relation to it. Interpolations were underwritten by their publishers and were essentially promotions of new songs. In musical theater, all dialog, action, and music in musical theater are dedicated to enhancing the dramatic and emotive thrust of the story.

Jerome Kern was the first to recognize the potential of the marriage of music and story in theater. He drew upon the operettas of Britons Gilbert and Sullivan for his models, but fashioned his work to reflect American culture. Kern composed the music, and he enlisted Oscar Hammerstein II to furnish a libretto based on a contemporary novel. Showboat was mounted successfully in 1926. It represented a critical step forward. Not only did it utilize the music exclusively to enhancing the drama, but the libretto itself explored difficult social issues such as racial inequality and intermarriage. From it came a song still known today, “Ole Man River.”

The next important musical in this genre was not mounted until 1943. The large period of inactivity in the musical theater did not reflect shortcomings of Showboat, but rather the economic hard times of the 1930s. Other attempts to create meaningful musical theater were attempted in the 1930s, but met with only limited economic success. The most notable of these productions were the musical vignettes of George Gershwin.

Oklahoma was the product of the collaboration of Oscar Hammerstein and Richard Rodgers. As in Showboat, Oklahoma’s music was composed specifically to support the drama and the libretto addressed important social issues. The central action chronicles the competition of the two leads. Curly and Judd, for the love of the ranch owner’s daughter, but the lead roles are also the embodiment of the two conflicting frontier needs of land use, the rancher’s need to have cattle roam freely and the farmer’s need to fence in the land. “Oh, What a Beautiful Mornin’” exemplifies the use of music to set scenes, move the action along, or intensify the dramatic moments. The song, which opens the show, describes an idyllic land of “milk and honey,” essentially a world of peace, harmony, and plenitude that must be shattered by conflict and restored at the end if the production is to have social significance or dramatic bite.

The Golden Ages of Musical Theater in the 1940s and 1950s
Oklahoma cemented the viability of the musical, and the late 1940s and 1950s became the first “golden age” of musical theater. Rodgers and Hammerstein led the way with productions such as Carousel, State Fair, South Pacific, The King and I, and The Sound of Music. Most of these productions were also made into films, and the best-selling records of the 1950s were not rock ‘n’ roll, but the soundtracks to these musicals! Other composers and librettists produced fine works during this period, and this creative group included popular-song composer Cole Porter and the dynamic team of Alan Lerner and Frederick Loewe (example on CD).

Later Musical Theater in the late 1950s to Present
Later musical theater saw dramatic changes in the character (but not the spirit or intent) of the productions. Three important figures emerged as central to the integration of new features, Stephen Sondheim, Leonard Bernstein, and Andrew Lloyd Webber.

Of all musical theater productions, the one that comes closest to unifying different art genres is West Side Story (1959). Here modern dance, classic literature, and modern classical music and jazz are fused. The dance was choreographed by Jerome Robbins. Stephen Sondheim, who later emerged after Bernstein as one of the three important figures in theater, updated Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet in his libretto. The most stunning feature of West Side Story, however, is its music. Bernstein, who was known at the time for his modern classical compositions and for his role as the conductor of the New York Philharmonic Orchestra, couched jazz in the harmonic vocabulary of modern classical music (with most evident influences coming from Stravinsky). The finale is included in the CD set.

One of the great curiosities of is Sondheim’s role in it. Sondheim produced the libretto though he himself was an accomplished composer. To his credits are Fiddler on the Roof, A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum, Company, and others. His success did not come, however, until the 1970s. Unlike he composers of early musical theater or Bernstein, Sondheim draws more upon contemporary popular music of his inspiration and stylistic features. His musical plays invariably examine the difficulties and subtleties of human interaction in the modern urban world and its subsequent states of loneliness, confusion, infatuation, and love His productions do not require special scenery or costumes, and they are set in the same environment in which we live.

Briton Andrew Lloyd Webber invented the concept of the “rock opera” (no, it wasn’t the Who). Webber’s productions include Jesus Christ Superstar, Joseph and His Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat, Evita, Phantom of the Opera, and, of course, Cats. Cats established Webber as the preeminent composer of our time. His musicals have done more to breathe new life into the London theater district than any composer since Gilbert and Sullivan, and have also been vital to the economy of Broadway. Webber’s approach to musical theater differs considerably from his contemporaries. His stories are invariably set in fantasy “other worlds” that require special sets and effects and which create stunning images such as trains on roller skates. His characters are portrayed in a way very akin to those of cartoons (we never see the real faces of the performers in Cats). The actual music draws upon a wide variety of resources through which the rock aspect shines through. Most of his songs start like typical commercial popular songs but soon expand into highly intense emotive vehicles. Unlike other earlier and contemporary productions, Webber’s musicals do not contain spoken dialog but are propelled forward solely on his music.