Musical

C

Extravaganzas

Another predecessor of musical comedy, the extravaganza, evolved soon after the American Civil War (1861-1865) from traditional English pantomime. Extravaganzas were typically based on fairy tales and Mother Goose. They introduced some of the elements—songs, dances, and comedy combined with spectacular stage sets and effects—that American musical comedy later became known for.

The first and most famous extravaganza show was The Black Crook (1866), often described as America’s first musical comedy. It consisted of a five-hour series of spectacles, ballets, and elaborate stage effects with a flimsy plot to tie the whole thing together. Beautiful women were continually on display in suggestive dance numbers. The Black Crook became the most successful play in the United States up to that time, running for nearly 500 performances and earning a profit of about $1 million.

The earliest American show directly referred to as a musical comedy was the popular extravaganza The Brook. The show was presented by producer Nate Salisbury in 1879. It was also one of the earliest works on the American stage to use an integrated plot, in this instance a picnic, and to coordinate text, comedy, song, and dance. Other popular extravaganzas included Wang (1891), The Isle of Champagne (1892), The Wizard of Oz (1903), and Babes in Toyland (1903).

D

Operettas

In the late 19th century operettas from Vienna, Austria, composed by Johann Strauss the Younger and Franz Lehár; London, by Sir Arthur Sullivan with librettos by Sir William S. Gilbert; and Paris, by Jacques Offenbach were popular with American audiences. In the years before World War I (1914-1918), several young operetta composers emigrated from Europe to the United States. They included Victor Herbert, Rudolf Friml, and Sigmund Romberg. Herbert's Naughty Marietta (1910), Friml's The Firefly (1912), and Romberg's Maytime (1917) were representative of a new genre: American operetta, with simple music and librettos and memorable songs.

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E

Honky-Tonk and Vaudeville

An essential ingredient of today’s musical theater came from two 19th-century working-class entertainments, honky-tonk and vaudeville. These racy “girlie” shows emerged as popular attractions in beer halls after William Valentine opened the first New York variety theater in 1840.

A typical honky-tonk (or “free and easy”) performance began with a chorus line of four attractive young women in corsets and bloomers. A song-and-dance act might follow, then a singing quartet or a comedian. A dramatic sketch might come next, then perhaps a singer. As many as 15 acts followed, sometimes stretching the show until dawn. More saloon than theater, honky-tonks were an instant success and soon appeared in storefronts across the country.

Vaudevilles were variety shows that developed as a counterpart of minstrel shows. The vaudeville show emerged in the early 1870s when H. J. Sargent organized Sargent’s Great Vaudeville Company in Louisville, Kentucky. The word vaudeville dates to the 15^th century and may relate to the French phrase voix de ville (voice of the city) or vaudevire (referring to the Valley of Vire, a French region noted for satirical folk songs). Vaudeville shows eventually eclipsed honky-tonks by offering less bawdy acts and more family-style entertainment. A key figure in this transition was entrepreneur Tony Pastor, who took a cue from the tremendous success of P. T. Barnum and his popular shows featuring giants, midgets, bearded ladies, armless wonders, and other bizarre characters.

Vaudeville shows became the dominant form of entertainment in the United States by the early 20th century. Popular vaudeville acts included an array of great comedians, such as Will Rogers, W.C. Fields, Milton Berle, Fred Allen, Jack Benny, and George Burns and Gracie Allen; female singers such as Nora Bayes, Anna Held, Sophie Tucker, and Eva Tanguay; madcap acts such as the Marx Brothers; magicians like Harry Houdini; dancers such as Fred Astaire and Vernon Castle; and an endless variety of novelty acts such as Swain’s Cats and Rats, where rats raced around a track astride cats. The frenetic spirit and music of vaudeville shows strongly influenced modern musical theater.

III

The Modern Musical

As if by grand design—out of an improbable mix of the comic operas of Gilbert and Sullivan, low-down honky-tonks, minstrel shows, extravaganzas, operettas, the rambunctious clowning of burlesques, and the song and dance of vaudeville shows—there emerged in the early 20th century a new kind of theater: the musical comedy.

IV

1900 to World War II

A

Cohan, Kern, and Wodehouse

The first four decades of the 20th-century musical featured brilliant composers and lyricists who were instrumental in the rise of the modern musical. One of the progenitors of this new musical theater was George M. Cohan, whose early works include Little Johnny Jones (1904), Forty-Five Minutes from Broadway (1906), and George Washington, Jr. (1906). The popular music of the time included the tuneful but uninspired “She’s Only a Bird in a Gilded Cage” and “Take Me Out to the Ball Game.” Theater music of this period was typically modeled after operetta, in the manner of the tremendously popular 19th-century works of Gilbert and Sullivan. Even Cohan’s songs (“Give My Regards to Broadway,” “You’re a Grand Old Flag”) were musically forthright in the manner of operetta.

Another important early figure in musical theater was American composer Jerome Kern. Along with his two prime collaborators, Guy Bolton and P. G. Wodehouse, Kern turned out a series of shows that integrated song, dance, humor, and lyrics in a way that was far different from extravaganza, vaudeville, and other previous styles. Kern’s shows were called the Princess musicals because they were produced in the intimate Princess Theater on Broadway, the New York City street that had become one of the world’s major entertainment thoroughfares in the mid-19th century. The most successful of the Princess shows, such as Very Good Eddie (1915), Oh, Boy! (1917), and Oh Lady, Oh Lady (1918), introduced a type of musical comedy stripped of the heavy scenery and the large casts of operetta.

In 1927 Kern wrote the music and Oscar Hammerstein II wrote the libretto (words and lyrics) for Show Boat. The show became a seminal work, helping establish the musical as a form of entertainment capable of conveying dramatic truth, authentic characterization, and effective atmosphere. Based on the Edna Ferber novel, Show Boat was Broadway’s first musical drama. It dealt seriously, rather than satirically, with thorny social issues such as racism and intermarriage. Hammerstein’s lyrics were set in the style of dialogue, allowing him to use songs such as “Ol’ Man River,” “Can’t Help Lovin’ Dat Man,” and “Why Do I Love You?” to define the characters and further the plot.

Although elements of operetta structure have always been important to musicals, the musical formula changed considerably after Show Boat. Instead of complicated but light plots, composers used sophisticated lyrics and streamlined librettos; underscoring (music played as background to dialogue or movement); and new types of American music such as jazz and blues. In addition, the acting demands on singers increased considerably. Adapting popular works for musicals also became standard after Show Boat; today, many hit musicals are based on successful books, plays, or motion pictures.

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