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On July 14, 1993, The U.S. Postal Service released 29-cent stamps that
did not honor Bastille Day but rather four Broadway musicals and they were issued in one strip.
Show Boat, written by Jerome Kern with lyrics by Oscar Hammerstein II, is based on the 1926 Edna Ferber novel. The musical follows the lives of the performers, stagehands and dock workers on the Cotton Blossom, a Mississippi River show boat, spanning 40 years from 1887 to 1927. Its themes include racial prejudice
and tragic, enduring love. The musical featured the classic songs Make Believe, Can't Help Lovin' Dat Man and my favorite, Ol' Man River sung by the character Joe, the stevedore sung by Jules Bledsoe.
Although Paul Robeson is the actor most identified with the role and the song, he
was unavailable for the original production but appeared in the 1936 revival and the film (link below).
Porgy and Bess ~ US postage stamp
Porgy and Bess, written by George Gershwin with lyrics by Ira Gershwin was adapted from the Dorothy Heyward and DuBose Heyward play Porgy, which was itself an adaptation of the DuBose Heyward 1925 novel.
Gershwin worked on the opera in Charleston, South Carolina. He drew inspiration from the James Island Gullah
community, which he felt had preserved some African musical traditions.
This research added to the authenticity of the work. The music reflects
his New York jazz roots, but also draws on
southern black traditions. Gershwin modeled the pieces after each type
of folk song which the composer knew about; jubilees, blues, praying songs, street cries, work songs, and spirituals.
The musical tells the story of Porgy, a disabled black street beggar living in the
slums of Charleston and deals with his attempts to rescue Bess from the
clutches of her violent and possessive lover, Crown, and Sportin' Life,
her drug dealer.
Porgy and Bess has many wonderful songs but my favorite is Summertime. It is sung by the characters Clara and Bess as a lullaby;
my mother would sing it to me when I was a little kid to soothe me to
sleep. It mixes elements of jazz and the song styles of blacks in the
southeast United States from the early twentieth century. The 1959 movie
version of the musical featured Loulie Jean Norman singing the song (link below) and Ella Fitzgerald did a beautiful jazz rendering of it.
Oklahoma! ~ US postage stamp
Oklahoma!, by Rodgers and Hammerstein, Richard Rodgers, music and Oscar Hammerstein II, lyrics, was the first musical written by the duo. It is based on the Lynn Riggs 1931 play, Green Grow the Lilacs, set in farm country outside the town of Claremore, Indian Territory,
in 1906, and tells the story of farm girl Laurey Williams and her
courtship by two rival suitors, cowboy Curly McLain and the sinister and
frightening farmhand Jud Fry. A secondary romance concerns cowboy Will
Parker and his flirtatious fiancée, Ado Annie.
The original Broadway production opened on March 31, 1943, and had 2,212 performances with an Oscar-winning film adaptation in 1955. It built on the innovations of the earlier Show Boat, epitomized the development of the "book musical",
a musical play where the songs and dances are fully integrated into a
well-made story, with serious dramatic goals, that is able to evoke
genuine emotions other than amusement.
As with most musicals, there are songs that became hits; People Will Say We're in Love
is one of them and it is my favorite. The song denies the fact that the
lovers are in love with each other, a theme expressed much more
eloquently and beautifully two years later with the song If I Loved You in Carousel in 1945. Both musicals became Hollywood films; Oklahoma! in 1955, with Gordon MacRae and Shirley Jones (in her film debut) and the 1956 film version of Carousel with Gordon MacRae and Shirley Jones (again) as the lovers.
Perry Como, Frank Sinatra and Bing Crosby recorded the song in 1945 (links below).
My Fair Lady ~ US postage stamp
My Fair Lady, written by Frederick Loewe with Lyrics by Alan Jay Lerner, is a musical based on the George Bernard Shaw 1913 play Pygmalion, with book and lyrics by Alan Jay Lerner and music by Frederick Loewe. The story concerns Eliza Doolittle, a Cockney flower girl who takes speech lessons from professor Henry Higgins, a phonetician, so that she may pass as a lady. The original Broadway and London shows starred Rex Harrison and Julie Andrews.
It was filmed with Harrison and Audrey Hepburn as Eliza Doolittle in 1964; she was brilliant!
There
are just too many great songs from this show for me to have a favorite.
None of them are serious, most are just plain fun songs; I guess if I
had to pick one, it would be Ascot Gavotte which is sung by the entire cast (link below).
Both the stage version with Andrews and the film version with Hepburn
has a cast of dozens (I mean dozens and dozens!) with all the men in identical dove grey suits and
all the women in fantastic and various fashion creations in variations
of black and white. However, the entire cast is almost motionless in the
set, until Eliza enters. It has to be one of the funniest and brilliant
scenes ever staged!
I have always thought the only flaw with My Fair Lady
is the ending. Eliza has been raised to
the height of social stature but is reduced to a mere servant again with
the
phrase, "Where the devil are my slippers?". While researching for this article I discovered there are
others who have had similar thoughts. There is an absolutely
hilarious video critique about this and how to fix the end on YouTube (link below).
Ella Fitzgerald ~ Summertime
My Fair Lady ~ Ascot Gavotte
Loulie Jean Norman ~ Summertime
The problem with My Fair Lady (and how to fix it) (27;29) Paul Robeson ~ Ol' Man River (1936 film)
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