Rating: 
Summary: All bluster! Occasionally witty but often sloppy
Review: The only way to get away with being a smart aleck is to be really smart, and Mark Steyn comes across all too often as a big dummy. His casual name dropping is pretentious at best, and all too many of the quotes he claims to have heard firsthand were previously published elsewhere. As to his theories, he relies on data that is far too selective to support many of his ideas. In seeking to entertain or even titillate, he winds up sounding boorish. While I don't think much of RENT, I do not agree with much of what he says against it. His word games and puns are amusing, but they wear thin after the first few chapters -- my advice to him is to heeds the Bard: "more matter with less art." My advice to you is to spend your money elsewhere.
Rating: 
Summary: A Sad But True Story
Review: The writer below lists several recent musicals as examples of why Steyn is wrong about the state of the musical today: RAGTIME, FLOYD COLLINS, etc. Of course, he unwittingly proves Steyn's point. These are preachy, self-important musicals, drunk with the delusion that they must be profound because they play around with Important Themes. The musical as the great form of entertainment it was--the form that, at its best, raises entertainment to the level of art--is gone. Who writes musical *comedy* on Broadway today? Dance has become almost irrelevant (except in revues), and no one except Sondheim bothers to write witty lyrics in the tradition of Porter or Hart. Now, you can say that this is all "progress." It isn't, though. It's a step backward. The problem with the musical isn't that it went forward, but that it abandoned its roots. Steyn isn't a perfect writer, but he traces the process of this abandonment, and will leave anyone who loves musicals--as opposed to pretentious pageants--feeling justifiably depressed.
Rating: 
Summary: A history of Broadway as told by one who love's it
Review: This is one of those gem of a books that come along every once in a while. After the first reading I started all over again. The writing is that good. The book is laid out like a Broadway show, dividing itself into a two act play with scenes. In Act I, Mr. Steyn traces the evolution of the musical from its beginnings in Vienna through its importation to the America by European trained musicians to its eventual takeover and refinement by American composers. We see the beautiful progression from the dance hall Ziegfeld folly to organic synthesis of music and dialog in such wonderful works of art as Show Boat and Fiddler on the Roof. Act II is the decline and fall of this wonderful artform as it reverts back to its operatic beginnings with such good shows like A Chorus Line and Chicago to abominations like Cats and Starlight Express.
This is an author who loves his subject. His first hand interviews with some of the great luminaries of the Broadway theater like Jules Styne, George Abbott, and Cy Coleman bring the backstage evolution of the musical to life. His marvelous command of the English language make the subject matter even more interesting.
The other reviewers who suggest "homophobia" on Steyn's part are way off base. It is his forthright acknowledgement of gay accomplishment in the theater along with the terrible scourge of AIDS that has had a significant impact on the musical because its greatest modern practitioners are dying off without passing on their wisdom. Of what relevance is the fact that Steyn is a political conservative or a sometime writer for the Wall Street Journal have anything to do with the subject of Broadway musicals?
Enjoy this book for what it is; a glorious paean to a great art form.
Rating: 
Summary: What good there is undermined by bigotry
Review: Though Mr. Steyn does have strong opinions and some good observations, his judgements are tainted by an anti-gay bias (he titles one chapter "The Fags", and it's not meant affectionately). His readings of stories such as the reaction of Lorenz Hart upon hearing "Oklahoma" in a blackout could have been better informed by further research, and he repeats Lerner's silly comment about Lorenz Hart being to short to be heterosexual so he had to turn to men. The book is also dated in many respects including the waning influence of British Operettas and the public's acceptance of Stephen Sondheim. Rather than this book I would reccommend anything by Ethan Mordden or Martin Gottfried.
Rating:
Summary: What good there is undermined by bigotry
Review: Though Mr. Steyn does have strong opinions and some good observations, his judgements are tainted by an anti-gay bias (he titles one chapter "The Fags", and it's not meant affectionately). His readings of stories such as the reaction of Lorenz Hart upon hearing "Oklahoma" in a blackout could have been better informed by further research, and he repeats Lerner's silly comment about Lorenz Hart being to short to be heterosexual so he had to turn to men. The book is also dated in many respects including the waning influence of British Operettas and the public's acceptance of Stephen Sondheim. Rather than this book I would reccommend anything by Ethan Mordden or Martin Gottfried.
Rating:
Summary: What a crock!
Review: What an incredibly disappointing book this turned out to be. Is Mark Steyn's brain completely ossified? Does he think that the only good musicals are those that are "fun"? Get real, Mark, a lot has happened since Curley rode on into that cornfield. In case you haven't heard, the musical can actually comment melodically on the lives of real people AND be good entertainment. I heard that Steyn knew what he was talking about, but after partaking of this bowl of tripe, I will take the comments of the person who told me that with a very large grain of salt. The final straw, of course, is his viciously homophobic chapter called "The Fags." One would expect this from a company like Regnery, but not from Routledge. What is happening over there? And finally, a question for the father from Manhattan who whistles tunes from Oklahoma (a show I like by the way) on the way to school with his little boy: Are you for real???????
Rating:
Summary: Mark Steyn, the provocateur.
Review: When the reader reviews of a book are so at odds with one another, then perhaps one can say that "Broadway Babies Say Goodnight" is one hell of a work of criticism and Steyn has done his job of stirring the pot quite well indeed. "De gustibus" and all that. If you think musicals hit the skids in the '70s and thereafter, have mixed feelings about Sondheim, and bemoan recent elephantine "hits," you've probably found your man. If, on the other hand, you adore "Rent" and "Ragtime" and Lloyd Webber is your cup of tea, prepare to fling the book into the fireplace or, better yet, avoid it altogether. One thing is certain - pace the reader who thinks Steyn is a "cranky, old guy" and not "all that great a writer" - if you enjoy snappy, colorful prose, you'll find Steyn as enjoyable a writer as they come. He cut his teeth in the swaggering, polemical British press style, not as an acolyte of the sedate, smooth-edged style book of the NY Times; so if you can handle someone who likes to wear his wit and impolite opinions on his sleeve (often thrusting them in your face), you're in for a treat. Yes, Steyn often goes that extra, unjustifiable mile to reach for a pun, and he relishes cleverness sometimes just for its own sake. But his judgements often cause you to reassess your own, and his narrative arc and roster of Broadway heroes are convincing on the whole. Even his assessment of Lloyd Webber is more modulated than one would expect by extrapolating solely from the negative reviews. Of course, one can quibble with this pronouncement and that judgement, and Steyn's disdain for current modes of speech and thinking, usually labeled "PC" for lack of a better term, might strike some as indecorous, to say the least. But Steyn is incapable of writing a dull page. And did I mention "de gustibus . . ."?(By the way, to the reader from St. Louis who thinks no one in his or her "right mind" would ask an art form "to go backward": classical music has done just that in recent years, and Part, Glass, and Rochberg, among many others, have taken a different tack from post-Webern serialism that some have labeled a "retreat" and some a necessary correction to non-listenable, overly theoretical compositions. Taking the long view, we won't know how the dust will settle for a while yet (although I'm willing to place my own bet now). But those who sincerely believe in the primacy of tonality are in their right minds, just as those who prefer Pierre Boulez are in their right minds, too. Similarly, I hope you do not think that the legions of Broadway theater-goers who, dissatisfied with current fare, flock to one musical revival after another and therefore long "for the old days" are nuts.)
Rating:
Summary: Mark Steyn, the provocateur.
Review: When the reader reviews of a book are so at odds with one another, then perhaps one can say that "Broadway Babies Say Goodnight" is one hell of a work of criticism and Steyn has done his job of stirring the pot quite well indeed. "De gustibus" and all that. If you think musicals hit the skids in the '70s and thereafter, have mixed feelings about Sondheim, and bemoan recent elephantine "hits," you've probably found your man. If, on the other hand, you adore "Rent" and "Ragtime" and Lloyd Webber is your cup of tea, prepare to fling the book into the fireplace or, better yet, avoid it altogether. One thing is certain - pace the reader who thinks Steyn is a "cranky, old guy" and not "all that great a writer" - if you enjoy snappy, colorful prose, you'll find Steyn as enjoyable a writer as they come. He cut his teeth in the swaggering, polemical British press style, not as an acolyte of the sedate, smooth-edged style book of the NY Times; so if you can handle someone who likes to wear his wit and impolite opinions on his sleeve (often thrusting them in your face), you're in for a treat. Yes, Steyn often goes that extra, unjustifiable mile to reach for a pun, and he relishes cleverness sometimes just for its own sake. But his judgements often cause you to reassess your own, and his narrative arc and roster of Broadway heroes are convincing on the whole. Even his assessment of Lloyd Webber is more modulated than one would expect by extrapolating solely from the negative reviews. Of course, one can quibble with this pronouncement and that judgement, and Steyn's disdain for current modes of speech and thinking, usually labeled "PC" for lack of a better term, might strike some as indecorous, to say the least. But Steyn is incapable of writing a dull page. And did I mention "de gustibus . . ."? (By the way, to the reader from St. Louis who thinks no one in his or her "right mind" would ask an art form "to go backward": classical music has done just that in recent years, and Part, Glass, and Rochberg, among many others, have taken a different tack from post-Webern serialism that some have labeled a "retreat" and some a necessary correction to non-listenable, overly theoretical compositions. Taking the long view, we won't know how the dust will settle for a while yet (although I'm willing to place my own bet now). But those who sincerely believe in the primacy of tonality are in their right minds, just as those who prefer Pierre Boulez are in their right minds, too. Similarly, I hope you do not think that the legions of Broadway theater-goers who, dissatisfied with current fare, flock to one musical revival after another and therefore long "for the old days" are nuts.)
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