Historians on Hamilton by Renee C. Romano

Author:Renee C. Romano [Romano, Renee C.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Rutgers University Press
Published: 2018-08-14T16:00:00+00:00

“I’m Just Wild About Harry” was one of the most memorable numbers from the smash hit Shuffle Along (1921). The musical, which set off a decade-long craze on Broadway for musicals and revues with all-black casts, was celebrated for its humor, talented cast, and innovative dance numbers, but especially for its infectiously catchy, jazzy score. (Music Division, The New York Public Library, Astor, Lenox and Tilden Foundations)

While Shuffle Along paved the way for more diverse Broadway shows and desegregated theaters, Show Boat, with music by Jerome Kern (1885–1945) and lyrics by Oscar Hammerstein II (1895–1960), pioneered the idea that a musical’s content could relate directly to topical, sociocultural concerns. This musical was so unique to Broadway at the time of its premiere on December 27, 1927, that, the story goes, when the curtain fell on opening night, audiences sat in stunned silence, unsure about how exactly to respond. With Show Boat, Hammerstein and Kern pushed the musical forward as a genre by infusing it with believable characters, settings, and references to social issues. They also married its score and plot more closely. “To recount in any detail the plot of a musical comedy usually is a silly and banal business,” Brooks Atkinson noted in his New York Times rave review of the production. But “the manner in which these characters . . . have been brought to life is something else again.” He noted as well that if “these three contributions—book, lyrics and score—call for a string of laudatory adjectives, the production compels that they be repeated again.”23

Show Boat reflected the influence of a number of previous productions, as well as cultural shifts that had taken place well before its 572-performance run at the Ziegfeld Theater, the glorious new venue producer Flo Ziegfeld had recently built for his shows. But absent the increased popularity of all-black musicals through the 1920s, the sociocultural impact of the Harlem Renaissance and Jazz Age, and the philosophies that Kern and Hammerstein brought to the table when they began their collaboration, there could never have been a Show Boat.

Like Hamilton, Show Boat was the musicalized adaptation of a best-selling book. Based on Edna Ferber’s sweeping novel about three generations of performers traveling up and down the Mississippi River on a steamboat between the 1880s and 1920s, Show Boat includes themes of alcoholism, gambling addiction, spousal abandonment, and racism. Originally billed as “An All-American Musical Comedy,”24 Show Boat was more a drama set to music, with a relatively serious—and, thanks to Ferber’s best-selling novel, familiar—story about everyday people experiencing recognizable personal and social problems. Because Kern and Hammerstein shared an interest in creating musicals in which song and dialogue contributed to plot and character development, Show Boat featured music and lyrics that were appropriate for the characters and settings. The score, too, borrowed widely from styles including opera, operetta, spirituals, blues, ballads, parlor songs, and jazz.

But the societal issue Show Boat brings most consistently to the forefront is institutionalized racism. Even the very name of the

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