The Rise and Fall of the
Broadway Musical
Mark N. Grant
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Published 2004
365 Pages
11 pages of illustrations
Index, bibliography and endnotes
Northeastern University Press
Boston
List price $40.00 |
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Opinions! Mark Grant has a string of strong
opinions about the history and the present of the Broadway musical and he's
not shy about setting them out complete with well-documented, well-reasoned
arguments. While not all of the arguments are compelling, every one of them
is thought provoking and informative. Together, they constitute a unique
opportunity to learn not just the chronology of the rise of popular musical
theater from mere entertainment to the status of an art, but the
contributing factors that made that rise possible. In this portion of the
narrative, Grant's book is a major advance in the literature on his subject,
providing a lucid explanation of the role of each contributing feature. He
tries, then, to do the same with what he sees as the appalling decline from
art form to commercial tourist trap. This side of his argument, while still
stimulating and filled with interesting examples and food for thought,
suffers from a failure to admit that change might have positive as well as
negative aspects. |
Contents: The history of the Broadway musical
from its roots preceding 1866's The Black Crook is explained in terms
of innovations in book, lyrics, music, direction, choreography and
technology. In "How Changes in Singing Forged and Felled the Show Tune"
Grant discusses the state of vocal art before the invention of the
microphone and the changes that device wrought. Another chapter covers the
evolution of the role of the book, the lyrics and the music in musicals. A
chapter on the impact of rock music's structure on story-telling musicals
explains his feeling that "The Rock Groove Decomposed the Musical." A
technically fascinating discussion of amplification's impact covers both the
impact on vocal performances and on the orchestral accompaniment. Finally,
Grant assesses the result of the rise of the director/choreographer
vis-à-vis the writer/composer.
The book is a fascinating read and its structure makes it easy to follow
Grant's roadmap. The fact that the chapters are called "Act I" "Act II" etc,
and sections are "Scenes" may be too cute by half, but they and their
subtitles work well to tell you why a specific phenomenon is being discussed
and where he's headed with his major points. Each chapter (or "Act") has an
introduction that clearly summarizes the reasoning and then he proceeds to
fill in the details and the logic. It is both an effective form of argument
and a convenient layout since the reader can check back to find a specific
point with little difficulty. His examples are usually fascinating on their
face and collectively they amount to a quick course in Broadway history.
Discussions of the changes in vocal techniques
from the "legitimate voice" of opera through crooning (think Bing Crosby),
belting (Ethel Merman) and sing-speaking (think of Rex Harrison in My
Fair Lady or Robert Preston in The Music Man) not only describe
the evolution of vocal styles but cover the impact of those changes on the
songs being written for the stage. Grant also walks the reader through the
evolution of song structure from the march tempo driven scores of early
operetta through the two-step to the foxtrot with a superb
explanation of why that evolution allowed lyrics to be
more creative and carry more impact in story-telling, a key factor in making
plot-driven musicals work. Also superb is Grant's treatment of the
development of amplification and its impact on performance and accompaniment
styles.
Having so cogently assayed the "rise," the book
frustrates a bit with its treatment of the "fall" of the Broadway Musical.
Grant explains the impact of factors which have caused the musical to change
since the end of its golden age (roughly 1966) but he seems to see all the
developments since then as declines, ignoring the possibility that good
things may yet come from the unfamiliar. An epilogue-like section titled "The Age of
McMusical: Vaudeville Redux" Grant indulges in his greatest leap of
pessimism. It is a troubling section precisely because it is so in tune with
what has become conventional wisdom that the American musical theater is in
need of some sort of life support system. He stops short of calling for
euthanasia but surely leaves little room for hope of recovery. But hindsight
is always clearer than foresight and he ignores some significant
developments such as the spread of musical theater initiatives off the
island of Manhattan, the experimentation in form that strikes gold on rare
occasions, and the continued emergence of new talent who will take the art to
its next level, whatever that might be. His cover illustration which
juxtaposes Joan Roberts in the 1943 Oklahoma! with Boy George in 2003's
Taboo is a case in point. Oklahoma! was a tremendous hit and one of the
undeniable high water marks in the history of musical theater. Taboo was
neither a hit (closing at a loss after a mere 100 performances) nor a
groundbreaking trend setter (at least there is no indication anyone is
trying to follow its lead). In the book, Grant identifies a lot of dross in the
current offerings in the big commercial Broadway houses, but seems to ignore
the fact that although the great masterpieces of the past were the brightest spots of
their times, those times had their share of dross as well. Whether you
share his pessimism or hold on to some form of optimism, this book will give
you a much better understanding of where the art form came from and what
gave it the chance to become what it did.
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