Rating: 
Summary: Flippancy Personified
Review: "Only a clever human can make a real joke about virtue...any of them can be trained to talk as if virtue were funny. Among flippant people the joke is always assumed to have been made. No one actually makes it; but every serious subject is discussed in a manner which implies that they have already found a ridiculous side to it."
--From "The Screwtape Letters," by C.S. Lewis:The entire book is written with an air of detached superiority to the subject matter. Even when he is praising composers, it is always with a knowing wink to the reader. Steyn has accomplished nothing to warrant the smug tone of self-congratulation and condescension he affects when discussing the geniuses of musical theater. If Mark Steyn is capable of a sincere, unironic pleasure in the Broadway classics, one would not know it from his snide, glib prose. I am almost loath to comment on Steyn's view of homosexuality. The last thing I want to do is supply conservatives with a reason to portray themselves as victims, since the Right has embraced the PC argument that criticizing other people's views is unacceptable and a form of censorship. But I will say this: as a Republican, I wish this element of my party would realize how many, sensible, compassionate people they dissuade from conservatism with anti-gay rhetoric.
Rating: 
Summary: Go Steyn!
Review: "if you think PC is awful and white straight men have a right to insult everyone with no regards to manners or kindness, then you might enjoy it" That's great! That was the review that prompted me to buy this book. That rare sort of quality humor doesn't come along all too often these days. National Lampoon used to be the pinnacle of elite humor, back when my comic idol, P.J. O'Rourke was Editor-in-Chief. As always, Steyn entertains like no other. Buy this book; you'll want to re-read it quite often.
Rating: 
Summary: March 1, 1999
Review: "[A] witty, anecdote-stuffed history of the past seventy years in musicals..." --New Yorker
Rating:
Summary: Great book
Review:
Steyn's *National Post* bio (Canada) says this book "was published to critical acclaim in London and somewhat sniffier reviews in New York. " That one, throwaway line convinced me that the man's touted self-righteousness is nothing of the sort... rather it's a refreshingly blunt literary voice that shines through in this volume. Read and have fun. I truly enjoyed it.
Rating: 
Summary: Brilliantly written treatise from a hopeless nostalgist....
Review: Broadway Babys Say Goodnight is among the best and most infuriating books on the musical theatre you'll ever read. Those who follow Steyn's columns in Spectator magazine, where he writes articles on American politics and film reviews, will know this is a man who is virtually incapable of writing a sentence devoid of arrogance, pomposity, self-indulgence and self-righteousness. Yet it kind of works. With so much journalistic writing hopelessly sanitised, Steyn's quirky prose grabs you and seldom let's you go - and in the end forces the reader to re-examine their own opinions. Steyn, a Canadian (not as is often quoted a Brit), is one of the few writers whose sheer strength of personality can make me read on in spite of myself.
The problem with Steyn's arts criticism (as in his political writing in my opinion) is that he is such a hopeless nostalgist. A yearning for the by-gone era of American innocence of Rodger's and Hammerstein permeates this book. Anything beyond is summarily dismissed. Rock musicals were decadent and worthless. Sondheim bastardised the musical, turning it from a popular conservative artform to a self-important mouthpiece for the liberal chique and Lloyd Webber is a junky profiteer of a decadent and tasteless age. You may agree or disagree with the above, but from Steyn's blinkered conservative (topped off with a degree of inverted snobbery)standpoint you really get the impression that he believes Oklahoma and Dorothy Field's lyrics were the pinnacle of artistic achievement in the twentieth century, and he doesn't try to find anything useful or constructive in what has happenned since, both in theatre and wider culture. What's most surprinsing is that pivotal post 1950s musicals such as WestSideStory and A Chorus Line are left largely unexamined, whilst we get pages on the genius of Rodgers and Hammerstein's banal "Oh What A Beautiful Mornin". Such cheerily vacuous sentiments are just what Steyn believes a good, wholesome society should be based on. For me then the joy of reading this book is in a large part the joy of seeing your opinions challenged in the strongest way possible ( I enjoy this though I suspect Steyn doesn't). Its brilliantly written and well-argued, and much of it can't be disputed - yes, musicals have lost their cultural power, yes, popular songwriting has been de-based, yes, Sondheim ain't half as good as he used to be etc. But to read Steyn you'd think that late twentieth-century culture (both theatrical and wider) had produced nothing of value whatever. And that's just plain wrong.
Rating: 
Summary: Offensive, derisive, and un-insightful
Review: I bought this book because Routledge has published numerous excellent books on theatre, and it is their first book on musicals. They should be ashamed of themselves. It is difficult to enumerate all the ways this book offends (and in fairness I haven't finished it yet), soI will stick mostly to a chapter called "The Fags." Mark Steyn, who has written for right-wing publications like The Wall Street Journal and The American Spectator, writes "Fags weren't funny anymore; fags meant disease and death" (202). While he is bemoaning the high percentage of gay authors in musical theatre he attacks anyone gay in the vicinity. He denounces Tony Kushner (for his non-musical play Angels in America); Terrance McNally (for his non-musical plays Love, Valour and Compassion and A Perfect Ganesh) and even a patch in the AIDS quilt for the "banality" of "a hand-me-down drag-queen cliché" (206). Clearly the author has an agenda in cutting down gay men and he veers dramatically away from his argument to do so. He even attacks Jonathan Larson because though it seems "unlikely, Larson seems to have been straight - and thus the first hit musical 'about' Aids was the work of a (professionally) closeted heterosexual" (208). While I don't care for Rent, the basis of Steyn's attack undermines legitimate concerns about the show. (And, from a factual point of view, Falsettos, a hit on Broadway long before Rent appeared, is just as much about AIDS; and New York Theatre Workshop was Off-Broadway, not off-off-Broadway.) The author knows some about musical theatre (although there are numerous factual inaccuracies), but he uses that as a platform to attack numerous unrelated subjects. He seems to think everyone is beneath him. Sondheim is insulted for being "very New York" but "Deer shooting: That's what folks do in the country. And it's hard to argue that they'd be better off putting down their rifles and listening to Bernadette Peters singing 'Art Isn't Easy'" (129) (never mind that she doesn't appear in that number). Who is this more offensive to? Sondheim who can only appeal to a 20 block radius, the New Yorkers who do nothing but dissect internal rhymes or the rest of the country who shoot deer all day? The author begrudges Sondheim for not writing love songs, without acknowledging that his work struggles with those issues in a way that is complex and harrowing. How is "Finishing the Hat" any less valid as a love song than "Just Let Me Look At You" of "Sue Me" (both of which Steyn compares Sondheim to, unfavorably)? Company, Passion and Follies all explore realities of loving someone who isn't perfect, when the curtain doesn't set on a wedding. Sondheim's characters may find it difficult to let down their guard, may be torn between work and romance, may be terrified about keeping up appearances, but despite, or maybe because of it all, Sondheim's characters explore the depths of passion, vulnerability, commitment and betrayal. I love the old work. The Gerhswins make my knees weak; Rodgers and Hart take my breath away; and Kern touches me and seems to make the world perfect for a moment. But that doesn't detract from Sondheim's work. You can love them all. The author finds the current state of musical depressing, but he seems to be picking shows based on the titles. While he lists numerous bad, obscure off-off-Broadway revues (many of which seem to have been cabaret acts denigrated only for their titles), he doesn't mention two recent gems: Wings and Floyd Collins. Perhaps they would complicate his argument that everything has gone down hill since Stonewall. I felt betrayed by buying this book, and supporting this author with my money. If you want to read it, get it from the library. Jesse Helms and George Will might appreciate this book, and if you think PC is awful and white straight men have a right to insult everyone with no regards to manners or kindness, then you might enjoy it. Otherwise, there are some wonderful books out there, like Ethan Mordden's Better Foot Forward and Broadway Babies, Philip Furia's The Poets of Tin Pan Alley, Alec Wilder's American Popular Song; Deena Rosenburg's gem, Fascinating Rhythm, and Craig Zadan's Sondheim and Company, to name but a few.
Rating:
Summary: Entertaining and Insightful
Review: I took a chance in purchasing this book when looking for material about changes in conventions of musical theatre. By the time I read the first chapter I knew I had come across one of the most insightful view of musical theatre. It discusses numerous productions (in brief) but in particular landmark productions such as Show Boat, Oklahoma!, West Side Story (and others) and a good discussion on that 'tricky' subject called Sondheim. What I appreiciated was that Steyn doesn't follow a chronological format, but Steyn rather discusses shows when relevant to the topic. The book is highly entertaining and humourous, filled with little bits of interesting trivia as well as plenty of useless trivia (which we all love) for those who already know everthing. I would certainly recommend this as a light read for anyone with a love for muscials who want more than a ABC of what we already know. Steyn certainly has a lifetime of knowledge to share.
Rating:
Summary: Inaccurate, nasty and mistakes snide comments for wit
Review: In addition, it is extremely homophobic and reflects a very sour spirited authorial voice
Rating:
Summary: so much better around
Review: Inaccurate , homophobic and just plain nasty
Rating: 
Summary: Interesting ideas, too many mistakes
Review: Interesting and irritating. Interesting, because the author offers some thought-provoking insights into the history of the Broadway musical and where it has arguably gone wrong in its modern form. One may or may not agree, but there are enough new ideas to set you thinking. Irritating, because it's riddled with factual inaccuracies, even on simple matters. "Dancing in the Dark" is in a major, not minor, key. "One for the Gipper" is not from "a biopic of the baseball player George Gipp", it's from a biopic of the football coach Knute Rockne. These are not isolated instances, and cause one to distrust the accuracy of facts less easily verified. Further irritating, because it aims at musical pretension with lots of technical terms (including the British use of words like "crotchet" and "quaver"), but quotes melodies not by printing the music, but by representations like "Da-da-dee-dum". The author knows far less about music than he wants the uninitiated reader to think. In short, this is a fun book to read, but prepare to be cross with the author at frequent intervals.
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