Beyond the broadway musical: Crossovers, confusions and crisis

Abstract

Americans like to think of themselves as innovative, be it in industry or the arts. In the theatre, the American Minstrel Show was long designated as the nation’s distinctive contribution to dramatic art, until the offensive, racist nature of such entertainments became a major embarrassment. The laurels for innovation then passed to the American musical, specifically as produced on Broadway, the most demanding critical and popular commercial arena. Analysis of the evolution of the Broadway musical will show, however, that it has borrowed heavily from popular entertainments of the past, such as burlesque, extravaganza, comic opera, operetta, music-hall, vaudeville, and even the now despised Minstrel Show. One blood-line of the American musical flows from the world of Parisian and Viennese operetta, with My Fair Lady (1966) and A Little Night Music (1973) as attractive descendants. Another stems from the world of variety and vaudeville, often verging on revue and incorporating a range of performing specialities, with few serious musical demands being made on its popular stars. Even with the supposedly innovative Rodgers and Hammerstein musical Oklahoma! (1943), hailed as a break with musical formulas of the past, however, many of the elements were merely reshuffled or refocused.