Preview
Identifier
Revue Program_Page_16
Creation Date
4-23-2021
Disciplines
Arts and Humanities | Theatre and Performance Studies
Description
DRAMATURGY - “CAN’T HELP LOVIN’ DAT MAN”
Show Boat, written and composed by Jerome Kern and Oscar Hammerstein II, first premiered on Broadway at the Ziegfeld Theatre on December 27, 1927. It was immediately recognized as a groundbreaking work, as the musical focused on serious storytelling elements with musical spectacle. This was a radical departure from the unrealistic musical comedies that were popular at the time.
For a time, the show’s producer, Florenz Ziegfeld, did express concern with the show’s possible success. Ziegfeld thought that the show’s serious tone and extensive changes throughout the production would prevent attracting a large audience and losing money. However, critics and audiences were instantly captivated by the show’s extravagant style and charm. It would last for a total of 572 performances, the second-longest running musical of the 1920’s.
Show Boat also became famous for being the first Broadway musical to have a racially integrated cast, with black and white performers on stage together. It takes place on the Mississippi River from a decade after the end of the Reconstruction Era to the late 1920s. The musical also tackles many social issues, such as racism, anti-miscegenation, and social evolution. For example, the concept of Julie “passing” as a white woman, when in actuality, she is a biracial woman, serves as a foil to the real life struggles African Americans would face regarding miscegenation and race mixing at the time.
For its time, it served as a commentary on many of the same issues African Americans were facing, even after the Civil War. While the musical has many controversies regarding the depictions of the African American characters, white actors playing black characters, and the use of racial epithets, it does provide a lesson about the social and racial climate in American history
Publisher
Arkansas State University
Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.
Theatre Program
Keywords
musical, compliation, retrospective, medley
