Welcome to the Musicals Thread, the Avocado’s space for anything and everything related to musical theatre! Every month I’ll post a discussion prompt, but please feel free to comment on other topics, from new discoveries to old favorites. If you have ideas for future prompts or would like to write a feature for the thread, let me know!
Last month, we discussed which, if any, were the definitive musicals, the essential representatives from across the medium’s history. For the rest of this year, I’d like to take an overview of the whole shebang, (mostly) decade by decade. I’ve brushed up a little in preparation, but of course I’m not an expert, so as always, feel free to chime in with anything I miss!
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1927 saw the premiere of Show Boat, a major turning point in the development of the musical, with a complex dramatic plot connecting the musical numbers, as opposed to sung-through operas and light-hearted operettas. The most popular form of (American) entertainment directly beforehand, though, was vaudeville, and its direct descendant, the revue. These collections of individual, disconnected acts – songs, dance routines, comedy sketches, animal tricks, novelty acts, tableau vivant – offered something for everybody. The most celebrated producer of such shows was Florenz Ziegfeld, who got his start on Broadway looking for an act to bring to the 1893 World’s Fair. He ended up hiring bodybuilder Eugen Sandow, but he later made his name with his Ziegfeld Follies displaying women’s bodies instead. The Follies ran from 1907 to 1931 with a few revivals in later years.
Other shows did incorporate narrative to some degree. Cinderella stories like Irene (1919) and Sally (1920) were popular. Racist stereotypes were unfortunately common on vaudeville stages, but black artists like Bert Williams, Eubie Blake, and Noble Sissle made strides in representation and created opportunities for black performers and audiences with shows like In Dahomey (1903) and Shuffle Along (1921) – dancers from the latter were even brought in as teachers for Ziegfeld’s chorus girls. George M. Cohan’s stage persona – brash, fun-loving, ambitious – practically became a template for theatre protagonists for years to come. Songs could and did transcend the shows they came from and the characters who originally sang them, though – popular standards like “Mountain Greenery” and “Let’s Do It” were first written for the stage.
What are your favorite/the most memorable examples of musical theatre from the 1920’s or earlier? If you’re not very familiar with this period, are you interested in changing that? Why or why not?
For all the time that encompasses, I’ve only seen a few of its shows. The Pirates of Penzance was the most fun, as well as a testament to the universality of certain human experiences (over 140 years later, we can still laugh at siblings feigning disinterest while spying on their sister and her new boyfriend). I’d definitely like to check out Show Boat – it would be interesting to compare the two movie adaptations.