Place for Us: Essay on the Broadway Musical

Rating:
Summary: How'd you like them eggrolls, Mr. Goldstone?
Review: This book is short but densely compacted with original and genuinely imaginative arguments as D.A. Miller proceeds to demystify the attraction and allure of Broadway musicals. Previously, books about this subject too often descended into nostalgic reminiscences of their authors' favourite shows and their most beloved divas; it was as though their love of musicals disarmed their ability to develop sustained critical interpretations of them. But Miller ingeniously builds his own nostalgia into a successful attempt to theorize contemporary attitudes to musical theatre. He takes the old cliche that the biggest fans of Broadway shows tend to be gay, and turns it on its head. He argues that gay men, like him, have not only responded enthusasistically to musical theatre but have also shaped and influenced its trends, diversions, and vagaries. He demonstrates this argument by recounting his personal history, from childhood (when he would sneak downstairs to a secluded part of his family home to listen to the latest cast recordings of shows such as 'Damn, Yankees!') to adulthood (when his relocation to New York City enabled him to frequent gay piano bars, where he joined other men in rousing renditions of showtunes). This autobiographical argumentation is strange enough; but rather than alienate his readers, Miller engages them by presenting his personal details as evidence of a wider cultural phenomenon - a phenomenon in which his own love of theatre is intimately bound up with his sexuality, his maturation, and his gradual coming-out of the closet. All this crescendos into a soaring, extended critical analysis of Miller's favourite musical, 'Gypsy', enveloping his interpretation with poetic, self-deprecatory, incisive prose while he simultaneously dissects his own responses - including his inclination towards not merely praising the originary divas such as Ethel Merman, but wishing to be them. Along the way, readers learn why Miller dislikes 'new' musicals such as 'La Cage Aux Folles' and 'Les Miserables'; how musicals are examples of 'pop culture' even though they are no longer 'popular' in mainstream society; and why Miller agrees with Ethel Merman's famous pronouncement that the big finale in 'Gypsy' - 'Rose's Turn' - is no less than a 'goddamn aria!'. Just as that showstopper is an 'aria', this book is an aromatic bouquet thrown in earnest praise of a much maligned art form.