Giving My Regards to Broadway
Offering 110 years of musical theatre history as told against the story of American culture in the 20th century, this ambitious documentary is hosted by Julie Andrews, who appears on camera at the beginning of each of the six segments but is otherwise heard narrating the series. Produced and directed by Michael Kantor, Broadway: The American Musical employs a collage style, combining film clips, television appearances, newsreel footage, B-rolls the footage of Broadway shows shot to accompany television reviews and features, photos, and sound recordings. There are some newly-shot re-enactments, as well as new audio recordings that quote from the writings of the various subjects. Audra McDonald, Jane Krakowski, and Michael C. Hall are among the speakers.
And there are, of course, a slew of talking heads, ranging from top creative figures in the field Stephen Sondheim, Jerry Herman, Fred Ebb, Carol Channing, Hal Prince, Tommy Tune, Betty Comden and Adolph Green to important theatrical folk Al Hirschfeld, Kitty Carlisle Hart and an assortment of authorities on the subject Frank Rich, Brendan Gill, Robert Kimball, Miles Kreuger. Naturally, the earlier segments must rely heavily on the scholars. When we arrive at the second half of the century, we get to hear more from those who actually made the history being traced.
All of this has been smoothly blended into a well-organized, chronological study of the development of an art form. The first hour is entitled "Give My Regards to Broadway," and covers Irving Berlin, Flo Ziegfeld and his Follies, George M. Cohan, Fanny Brice, the poignant career of Bert Williams, and the first milestone of Broadway book musicals, Show Boat. The history of the Broadway musical can't be thoroughly covered in just six hours, so each segment is bound to omit certain significant figures. In the first episode, Victor Herbert and early operetta are among the omissions.
In "Syncopated City," the installment covering the '20s, the operettas of Friml and Romberg are likewise overlooked. But most of the key figures in the age of prohibition and jazz --Marilyn Miller, Al Jolson, Eubie Blake, the Gershwins-- are present.
The 1930s are the subject of the third installment, "I Got Plenty O' Nuttin'," which gives pride of place to the only Broadway musicals of the period that are regularly revived, Anything Goes and Porgy and Bess. The former is presented as the quintessential '30s show; the latter is the favorite of interviewee Sondheim, who declares the lyrics the best ever written for the musical stage. We're introduced to political satire Of Thee I Sing, The Cradle Will Rock, Ethels Merman and Waters, This Is the Army, and Rodgers and Hart. There are tantalizing glimpses of some Pal Joey home movies as original cast member June Havoc is interviewed. Although Danny Kaye is seen singing his Lady in the Dark showstopper "Tschaikowsky" over the credits, there's no room in this segment for Lady in the Dark or for such talents as Bea Lillie and Ray Bolger.
With the fourth segment, "Oh, What a Beautiful Mornin'," we get to the golden-age years 1943-1960 and to interviews with the subjects actually responsible for the history being covered, including Comden and Green, Michael Kidd, Jerome Robbins, Cy Feuer, and John Raitt. A particular favorite: the still exquisite Patricia Morison, leading lady of Kiss Me, Kate.
There's hardly any time for Gwen Verdon, Phil Silvers, Barbara Cook, The Pajama Game, or Damn Yankees. But then this is a particularly fertile period, beginning with Rodgers and Hammerstein and Oklahoma! and ending with The Sound of Music and the end of Rodgers and Hammerstein. In between, there's Carousel Sondheim recalls the tryout opening night that had him sobbing into Dorothy Hammerstein's fur at intermission; On the Town with excerpts from the film short that preserved Nancy Walker and Cris Alexander in "Come Up to My Place"; Berlin and Porter adapting to the new-style musical play with Annie Get Your Gun and Kiss Me, Kate; and the instant classics Guys and Dolls a too-brief clip of Sam Levene and Vivian Blaine in "Sue Me," from the BBC and My Fair Lady with host Andrews naturally becoming an interview subject.
Sondheim and Prince frame the fifth segment, "Tradition," which begins in 1957 with West Side Story Sondheim believes the show's seamless integration of elements is what makes it distinguished and ends in 1979 with Sweeney Todd interviewee John Lahr offers a somewhat mixed assessment of Sondheim elsewhere, but he calls Sweeney "a masterpiece". There's little time in this segment for Gypsy, 1776, Mame, or The Wiz. But proper credit and coverage are given to Fiddler on the Roof, Cabaret, Company, A Chorus Line with Tony clips that still haven't found their way onto the Broadway's Lost Treasures DVDs, and Chicago a clip of Verdon and Chita Rivera in the finale, taken from Howard Cosell's 1975 late-night TV show. The oddest clip here shows an open-air appearance by the original London cast of Hair, with Paul Nicholas and a youthful Elaine Paige visible among the crowd.
The final segment, "Putting It Together," covers the last twenty-five years, ending with a glimpse of Wicked after focusing on 42nd Street, Cats and the British invasion, Sunday in the Park with George, La Cage aux Folles, Disney, Rent, and The Producers.
Some may not find it convenient to sit through two-hour telecasts on three consecutive nights, so it's possible that Broadway: The American Musical is best experienced on DVD. And a word must be said about the bonus material included on the three discs. There are several hours of additional interviews, arranged by program segment, and these allow for coverage of a number of shows The Wiz, Ain't Misbehavin', Gypsy, 1776 which had to be omitted from the actual episodes. One of the most touching moments in this entire collection is to be found in one of these bonus interviews, when Fred Ebb tears up as he discusses a celebrated moment in "Shall We Dance."
The first disc also features as bonuses some Library of Congress vaudeville films along with footage of Bill Robinson and Eddie Cantor. But one bonus on the second disc is, all by itself, worth the price of the entire set: The complete, twelve-minute "bench scene" "If I Loved You" from Carousel, recreated by John Raitt and Jan Clayton on the General Foods TV salute to Rodgers and Hammerstein in 1954. Too bad the bonus excerpt from the General Foods South Pacific sequence, featuring Mary Martin and Ezio Pinza, has been abridged to "Some Enchanted Evening," dropping the "Gonna Wash That Man..." and "Wonderful Guy" portions.
Bonuses on the third disc include a sixteen-minute feature on Wicked, entitled "The Road to Broadway" and featuring glimpses of the cut number "Which Way's the Party?" in rehearsal as well as a San Francisco curtain call with Robert Morse as the Wizard. Another Wicked featurette shows us the closing number, "For Good," in rehearsal. There's a good chunk of the 1976 "Camera Three" program called "Anatomy of a Song," hosted by Frank Rich and focusing on the Pacific Overtures song "Someone in a Tree." And we get a film of Jonathan Larson singing and playing his satirical "Sunday," a song featured in Larson's 30/90 and later in tick, tick....BOOM!.
Much of the archival footage used in Broadway: The American Musical was familiar to me, as were many of the anecdotes. Some of the talking heads don't say much that's particularly new or gripping. And host Andrews is sometimes forced to speak in platitudes or generalizations. Still, this is an admirable effort, required viewing for fans and likely to be of considerable use in classroom situations.
Naturally, the companion book to Broadway: The American Musical, written by the series' co-author, Laurence Maslon, and based on Kantor's film, has the luxury of being able to probe deeper into many areas only glanced at in the documentary. The weighty, crammed 450-page book more or less follows the six-part format of the series. It features 200 color and 310 black-and-white photos, and I would estimate that about a third of the illustrations are unfamiliar.
The book supplies a solid history of the Broadway musical as a reflection of American society in the past century. In the "Who's Who" sections, Maslon offers in-depth analysis of the major stars of each period. In "Words and Music," he focuses on key songs. Seven productions get special "Spotlight" segments. In the "Archives" sections, we get excerpts from pre-existing books and articles, along with words from the sixty or so interviews done for the series. The latter are also interspersed throughout the text.
Offering a wealth of information, Maslon is remarkably thorough, able to handle a wide range of material in authoritative fashion. There's no attempt at a revisionist perspective here, so most of the opinions are unsurprising. Two exceptions: Maslon champions On the Twentieth Century, and calls Paul Simon's score for The Capeman "one of the most thrilling written for a Broadway show in the last twenty years." Even here, some people and shows had to be left out, but the omissions aren't egregious, and the organization is excellent. Even with its size and $60 price tag, this volume should also be of considerable use to students.
I did note a few minor errors which can, perhaps, be corrected in future printings. 42nd Street was not the last American musical to play the Winter Garden for the next quarter century, although it was the last new one; a revival of Camelot was seen at the Winter Garden after 42nd Street but before Cats. It's stated that Sunday in the Park with George "opened at Playwrights for the press on July 6, 1983," but the Playwrights Horizons version was never covered by the press, who didn't review Sunday until it opened on Broadway. David Rounds was not "cut out of Chicago before it hit New York"; I saw Rounds in two Broadway preview performances. It's Cora Hoover Hooper in Anyone Can Whistle, not "Hoople"; Hildy in On the Town is short for Brunhilde, not Hildegarde; and the film of Gypsy did use at least a few performers Paul Wallace, Faith Dane, Betty Bruce from the Broadway production.
I'm not sure I understand the statement, "When La Cage aux Folles and Sunday in the Park with George squared off at the Tony Awards ceremony in June 1984, they were the only two major new musicals still running to go head to head with each other"; that season's Baby, The Rink, and The Tap Dance Kid were all still playing, even if they had little chance against Cage and Sunday. And the La Cage photo on page 388 is of the title number, not the opening.
And let's not forget to mention Columbia/Legacy's CD companion to Broadway: The American Musical, which begins with performances from Al Jolson, Bert Williams, Fanny Brice, the Astaires, and Eddie Cantor, and ends, five CDs later, with Idina Menzel in Wicked's "Defying Gravity." The collection includes over 100 songs from Broadway musicals of the last century.
Then there's Decca Broadway's one-CD set of highlights, entitled The Best of "Broadway: The American Musical", which opens with "There's No Business Like Show Business" and Jolson, and also concludes with "Defying Gravity." If one disc of twenty-one tracks can ever represent a century of musical theatre, the numbers have been plausibly selected, ranging from "Ol' Man River," "You're the Top," and "Oklahoma!" to "People," "If I Were a Rich Man," and "Send in the Clowns," and on through "Tomorrow," "Memory," and "Good Morning Baltimore."