The World of Jerome Kern by David Ewen

Author:David Ewen
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Barakaldo Books
Published: 2020-06-24T16:00:00+00:00

Show Boat was conceived ambitiously along spacious designs. For it was a “big” show in every sense of the adjective, including the actual length of the play itself. When Show Boat went to the National Theater in Washington, D.C., to begin a two-week tryout on November 15, 1927, it was so long that though the curtain went up promptly at 8:15 it did not go down again until 12:30. All the rest of that night Kern and Hammerstein worked in their suites at the Willard Hotel trying to cut the production down to practical size. Despite the fact that a matinee had been scheduled for the following day the cast was assembled for a morning rehearsal to incorporate the cuts in time for the afternoon performance. But that performance did not end before six. Another hour had to be sliced out of the play, which the collaborators felt consisted now entirely of essentials.

More deletions were made during the next few weeks as the production proceeded on to the Erlanger Theater in Philadelphia on December 5. Nevertheless, when Show Boat finally opened at the Ziegfeld in New York on December 27, it was still too long by half an hour. But if there was any sign of fatigue on the part of that first-night audience it was not reflected in their enthusiastic reaction. Nor was any fatigue found in the critics’ appraisal the following morning. “A wonder and a wow...an American masterpiece which is never too precious for dancing, never too elegant for fun,” was the way Robert Garland described it. “From any angle,” said Stephen Rathbun, “Show Boat deserves the highest praise.” “A complete demonstration of the composer’s and lyric writer’s dependence on their basic idea,” noted Alison Smith; while Richard Watts, Jr. called it a “triumph, a beautiful example of musical comedy.”

For all its departure from the norm Show Boat proved as successful at the box office as it was in the reviews. During its almost two years’ run in New York it averaged a weekly gross of $50,000. After that it embarked on an equally successful national tour, beginning with a stay in Boston from May 6 to June 15, 1929, and continuing across the country from September, 1929, to March, 1930. The original company—with Paul Robeson replacing Jules Bledsoe as Joe, and Dennis King taking over from Howard Marsh the part of Ravenal—returned for a new New York run of 180 performances at the Casino Theater on May 19, 1932. Show Boat was also produced in London at the Drury Lane on May 3, 1928, and soon after that in a French translation in Paris. In 1929 the first motion-picture adaptation was released: a Universal Picture starring Laura La Plante, Joseph Schildkraut, and Alma Rubens in what was only partly a talking picture, but with the songs and a synchronized musical score.

The instantaneous success of Show Boat wherever it was seen was proof that—shrewd showmen that they were—Kern and Hammerstein had not sacrificed entertainment value for bold, new concepts of musical theater.

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