Broadway Babies Say Goodnight: Musicals Then and Now

Rating:
Summary: A Breath Of Fresh Air!
Review: It's usually quite lonely being a political conservative as I am, and also a devotee of Broadway musicals since for such a long time even in its now seemingly more "conservative" days of the tradtional book musical, Broadway was always the domain of men who possessed very poltically left wing points of view. But during the heyday of Broadway's golden age, liberals like Lerner and Loewe, Rodgers And Hammerstein etc. knew that their audiences were comprised of diverse viewpoints and hence strove first to just entertain with a minimum of social commentary (when Lerner in his advancing years succumbed to the desire to be pretentious, the results, "1600 Pennsylvania Avenue" and "Dance A Little Closer" ended up disappearing in a week and are now deservedly forgotten). Such is not the case with today's Broadway where not only are all new musicals and plays usually loaded with radical left wing social commentary but even the musical revivals are subject to PC rewrites to satisfy today's narrow audience of those on the far left (case in point, the tamperings in "Damn Yankees" which this book comments on, concerning the tacky aside about J. Edgar Hoover which doesn't work in the musical's book and is the biggest exercise of self-indulgence so typical of the arrogant left wing mindset that dominates today's theater).

As such, it is a wonderful breath of fresh air to find this book by Mark Steyn, a theater critic who happens to be a political conservative, offering a good deal of telling insights as to why Broadway has largely lost its way the last couple decades, though it is very unfair and typical of the left-wing arrogance of some of the writers below that all of his criticisms are rooted in his ideology. To blast today's musicals on their inability to provide a good integrated score and book, as well as good songs is the kind of criticism that a liberal like Richard Rodgers, who walked out of "Hair" after Act One, would have no problem with. (Indeed, apart from "Memory" when was the last time a Broadway song made into the standard repertoire of American popular music?) Steyn proves to be provacative at times, and also very funny as well on a number of occasions that you have to applaud his brilliance even if you don't end up agreeing with him all the time. His chapter on Stephen Sondheim is priceless, showing the strange contradiction of how the works of Sondheim that are so timeless in their appeal ("West Side Story" and "Gypsy") are the ones that are put down the most by his most die-hard fans in favor of his forgettable flops.

One other note to [e-mail] who likes to use the term "McCarthyism" with the same reckless abandon so typical of the militant left, yet like so many of its members does so in total ignorance of the actual events that spawned the term. One, Senator McCarthy didn't send anyone to jail, and two he had nothing to do with the investigation of Hollywood Communists (all of whom went to jail for the very real crime of contempt of Congress, not their poltical beliefs and the fact that they were leftists or in some cases committed Stalin bootlickers). "McCarthyism" is a term which in its proper context refers to unproved or reckless accusations against someone with the intent to damage or smear merely beacuse of one's political associations. It has nothing to do with sending people to jail for their beliefs. And in its proper context, [e-mail] by smearing Mark Steyn because he is a conservative who writes for the American Spectator on occasion, is the true practitioner of "McCarthyism" in the end.

Rating:
Summary: It could have been so much better.
Review: Mark Steyn has always written the only London Theatre Record reviews which show any practical knowledge of music and lyrics. He writes like someone who plays a little piano and has perhaps sung along more than once, so he understands why "Blood Brothers" isn't really a musical, and not just because it cannot rhyme; he also pointed out why "Love Changes Everything" was not equivalent to "Ol' Man River".

Parts of this book are astute - Steyn rightly sees opera and operetta as not that far removed from musicals, especially in the wake of '80s London shows. He gives Wodehouse his long overdue credit, he names Hammerstein as the most important single figure in the genre's history, and he spots Dorothy Fields, as most practitioners but few critics do, as the sexiest lyricist around.

And then. And then he's so damn inconsistent. There are chapters where he completely loses his head, and reads like Joe Queenan or P. J. O'Rourke, but because he's attempting something more than throwaway humour, the effect is disastrous.

Steyn also cannot approach rock and post-'50s pop music without losing perspective - I suspect he doesn't really know that much about it. He refers to Paula Abdul's "hit MTV video" as a steal from Fosse, which it is, but how is a video a hit? He's also convinced that Kurt Cobain never wrote a household tune. Well, maybe not in your household, Mark, but there are bedrooms around the world where "Smells Like Teen Spirit" commands more awe, respect and unalloyed love than all the Gershwin songs put together. This may be lamentable, but it's neverthless true.

An editor, or even a good friend, would have convinced Steyn not to include so many execrable puns. About two of them are actually funny. This tendency is prevalent throughout Steyn's reviews, where it's alleviated by some good sense on the craft of writing musicals, but too much of this in a book smacks of hasty collation; whole slabs from his reviews have been incorporated without changing a word, journalese jokes and all.

There's a sad tendency to name-drop: it's not "as Alan Jay Lerner once said", but always "as Alan Jay Lerner once said to me", which is only useful if he never said it to anyone else - sometimes the anecdote related is something freely available in any number of other books (Alan told some stories a lot). This leaves the writer sounding like one of those tiresome audience members, or slightly drunk newspaper critics, who buttonhole members of the creative team after the performance of a new show, and explain how the thing should have been done.

Rating:
Summary: so much better around
Review: Mark Steyn in Broadway Babies Say Goodnight (Musicals Then and Now) has accomplished an unique objective. He has written a book that is meant to appeal to people whose veiws are strictly politically conservative, love musicals (particulary fond memories of older musicals that they are in fact too young to have even seen) and do not know any actual facts about the history of the genre so the author's glaring mistakes will not prove an annoyance. Even stranger is that he has found these people and, God bless them, they have the book they have always dreamed about. For anyone else, this can be a bit of a slog. It is funny (espcially if you like puns) in places but the arguments are so often backed up with mistakes as to be worthless. This book is not truly bad. It is just simply odd. If you like Mark Steyn (this book is more about him anyway) then enjoy. Othewise, it is worth a pass.

Rating:
Summary: Sometimes Witty, Often Wrong
Review: Mark Steyn in Broadway Babies Say Goodnight (Musicals Then and Now) has accomplished an unique objective. He has written a book that is meant to appeal to people whose veiws are strictly politically conservative, love musicals (particulary fond memories of older musicals that they are in fact too young to have even seen) and do not know any actual facts about the history of the genre so the author's glaring mistakes will not prove an annoyance. Even stranger is that he has found these people and, God bless them, they have the book they have always dreamed about. For anyone else, this can be a bit of a slog. It is funny (espcially if you like puns) in places but the arguments are so often backed up with mistakes as to be worthless. This book is not truly bad. It is just simply odd. If you like Mark Steyn (this book is more about him anyway) then enjoy. Othewise, it is worth a pass.

Rating:
Summary: Flawed and short-sighted
Review: Since I've been accused of McCarthyism, I would like to address that concern. McCarthyism never referred to principled discussion about politics among people of equal power. Book reviews can never be McCarthyism. McCarthy had people put in prison and blacklisted (i.e. not allowed to work) for their political association. Criticizing an element of a book in an on-line forum is not the same. Buy Naming Names to know what you are talking about before using that kind of venom!

I never said that Steyn was bad because he wrote for the Wall Street Journal (and given that Susan Faludi wrote for them and Alfred Hunt currently does that would be silly). However, the quotes were so outrageous I felt information on his background would help put them in context. In general, when normal people say things like "Fags weren't funny anymore. Fags meant disease and death" they qualify it with statements about how outrageous views like that are. Steyn never does that.

Tolerance for people is important, but that doesn't mean we can never criticize anyone for anything. You can tolerate individual people, without tolerating hateful actions.

Rating:
Summary: Dead on
Review: Steyn is one of the wittiest writers around these days. The comments from MssOtis and the reader from St. Louis (e.g., "Mark Steyn, who has written for right-wing publications like The Wall Street Journal...") show the usual intolerance toward anyone with conservative views, especially ironic coming from people who seem to champion "tolerance" as the world's greatest virtue. My gosh, he's written for the Wall Street Journal!? Horrors! Surely that means he can't have anything worthwhile to say! Give me a break. This sort of guilt by association, when there is in fact nothing to be guilty of, used to be called "McCarthyism" (before liberals redefined that term to mean "criticizing liberals for their views.")

Yes, Steyn is opinionated, but that's what makes him worth reading. (Another irony. Champions of modern -- read: left-wing -- art forms always talk about how the purpose of art is to challenge people or to somehow shock them. Yet when someone writes a book like this that challenges their own orthodoxy, they're not too happy.) His essential point, though, is correct. Most of today's practitioners of the musical have forgotten that musicals should be entertainment first, art second. There's nothing wrong with entertaining people, for goodness' sake! I am reminded of a scene in the film version of "The Band Wagon." Nanette Fabray and Oscar Levant are describing the plot of their new light-hearted musical to Jack Buchanan, who plays a very "serious" director that they want to get to direct the show. Listening to the plot, he decides that it reminds him of the Faust legend. He immediately starts revising the plot, and excitedly envisions a final scene in which we will see the lead character "engulfed in the flames of eternal damnation," or words to that effect. There is a pause, and Oscar Levant says, mordantly, "That'll leave 'em laughing."

That, in a nutshell, is what has happened to the Broadway musical. The idea that musicals like "Ragtime" are on a par with the great musicals of the past is laughable. As I was walking my 7-year-old son to school this morning, he asked me, out of the blue, whether I knew a song called "Oh What a Beautiful Mornin'." I told him that I did, and we sang it together. It seems he had learned this song in his school's music class yesterday. I told him that it was from a show called "Oklahoma," and proceeded to sing several other songs from that show to him, songs which are embedded in my memory, even though I have not listened to the soundtrack in many years.

By contrast, I saw "Ragtime" just a few months ago. Leaving aside the fact that it was appallingly tendentious, my main complaint is that I can't remember a single piece of music from it (and this was true the morning after I saw it). I GUARANTEE you that in 55 years, 7-year-olds will not be learning the songs from "Ragtime" in school.

Rating:
Summary: Dead on
Review: Steyn is one of the wittiest writers around these days. The comments from MssOtis and the reader from St. Louis (e.g., "Mark Steyn, who has written for right-wing publications like The Wall Street Journal...") show the usual intolerance toward anyone with conservative views, especially ironic coming from people who seem to champion "tolerance" as the world's greatest virtue. My gosh, he's written for the Wall Street Journal!? Horrors! Surely that means he can't have anything worthwhile to say! Give me a break. This sort of guilt by association, when there is in fact nothing to be guilty of, used to be called "McCarthyism" (before liberals redefined that term to mean "criticizing liberals for their views.")

Yes, Steyn is opinionated, but that's what makes him worth reading. (Another irony. Champions of modern -- read: left-wing -- art forms always talk about how the purpose of art is to challenge people or to somehow shock them. Yet when someone writes a book like this that challenges their own orthodoxy, they're not too happy.) His essential point, though, is correct. Most of today's practitioners of the musical have forgotten that musicals should be entertainment first, art second. There's nothing wrong with entertaining people, for goodness' sake! I am reminded of a scene in the film version of "The Band Wagon." Nanette Fabray and Oscar Levant are describing the plot of their new light-hearted musical to Jack Buchanan, who plays a very "serious" director that they want to get to direct the show. Listening to the plot, he decides that it reminds him of the Faust legend. He immediately starts revising the plot, and excitedly envisions a final scene in which we will see the lead character "engulfed in the flames of eternal damnation," or words to that effect. There is a pause, and Oscar Levant says, mordantly, "That'll leave 'em laughing."

That, in a nutshell, is what has happened to the Broadway musical. The idea that musicals like "Ragtime" are on a par with the great musicals of the past is laughable. As I was walking my 7-year-old son to school this morning, he asked me, out of the blue, whether I knew a song called "Oh What a Beautiful Mornin'." I told him that I did, and we sang it together. It seems he had learned this song in his school's music class yesterday. I told him that it was from a show called "Oklahoma," and proceeded to sing several other songs from that show to him, songs which are embedded in my memory, even though I have not listened to the soundtrack in many years.

By contrast, I saw "Ragtime" just a few months ago. Leaving aside the fact that it was appallingly tendentious, my main complaint is that I can't remember a single piece of music from it (and this was true the morning after I saw it). I GUARANTEE you that in 55 years, 7-year-olds will not be learning the songs from "Ragtime" in school.

Rating:
Summary: More opinionated than informative
Review: Steyn isn't all that great a writer to begin with. But once you get past his clumsy prose, you find that he's more blustery than insightful. His view that the Broadway musical has died is particularly funny in a time when we're seeing brilliant new musicals like "Ragtime," "A New Brain," "Floyd Collins," and "Parade," when incredible new writers are just becoming visible, and when writers like Sondheim, Kander & Ebb, and others are at the top of their game. Steyn is nothing more than a cranky, old guy who hates that musical theatre has gone to new places and created new rules that he doesn't understand. He longs for the old days, but who in his right mind would ever ask an art form to go backward?

Rating:
Summary: Provocative, maddening and flawed
Review: The author despairs of the state of current musical theatre now overtaken by big British musicals. Before the great Broadway musical theatre of Jerome Kern, Rogers and Hammerstein, Jule Styne, Frank Loesser, Cy Coleman and Leonard Bernstein, to name a few, there was opera and operettas. After the era of these great composers and lyricists there is again operetta, in the form of the spectacles (Steyn's analysis, not mine) put on by Lloyd Webber and Boubil and Schonberg. To Steyn the years between the operettas were marked by the fully integrated musical, where book, lyrics and music worked together to tell a story. In Lloyd Webber's operattas, the music ovetakes the lyrics and the book so for Steyn it is regressive rather than progressive, a return an earlier state. But to make his point, he shortchanges Lloyd Webber who he admits came close to the old-fashioned Broadway musical in "Sunset Boulevard" and whose score for "Phantom of the Opera" he calls "perfect." Morever, while he decries the lack of wit and cleverness in current lyricists, he completely shortchanges Stephen Sondheim who he perjoratively nicknames "the genius." Among the many annoying chapters, the chapter on Sondheim is one of the most annoying because Steyn claims that Sondheim deliberately chooses themes unsusitable for musical theatre ("Passion," "Sunday in the Park with George," "Sweeney Todd" and "Assassins"} and is not passionate enough. He completely distorts Sondheim's accomplishments. "Sweeney Todd" is as much about fatherly love and obsession as it is with serial murders; "Company" is one of the most relevant and moving musicals I have seen on marriage; "Merrily We Roll Along" regardless of the fact that it plays backwards (a gimmick also used by Pinter in "Betrayal") shows how far one strays from one's youthful aspirations and dreams; "Follies" looks back on life and love with songs that have become standards such as "Losing my Mind." Steyn himself is a clever enough fellow so he often seems to sacrifice truth for a well-turned phrase. I had a hard time rating this book and gave it four stars because of its breadth and style; for the most part it is a well-written book by a strongly opinionated but witty author, but personally when it comes to Sondheim and the British I think he is just wrong.

Rating:
Summary: Best review of Broadway in years
Review: The Great White Way is in trouble. It's condition is terminal but not serious, as the Russians say. Whatever you think of the causes for that, you will enjoy this book, if you love theatre. Mr. Steyn provides an excellent, if short history of Broadway, interspersed with lively criticism of the 'state of the stage'. Sondheim, in particular, receives some cutting thrusts. Reading it, I alternatively wanted to shout in Mr. Steyn's face and shake him by the hand. I laughed, I cried, I threw the book across the room at least three times, but I couldn't put it down.