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The Great American Musical
The 1920s and 1930s were the era of the great American song-writing teams - George and Ira Gershwin, Richard Rodgers and Lorenz Hart, Jerome Kern and Oscar Hammerstein II. In their shows, songs began to be integrated rather than just inserted into the plot, and were used to help develop storyline and character.
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‘Old Man River’ sheet music cover |
Musicals were growing up. First of the great book musicals to be seen in London was Show boat, composed by Jerome Kern with lyrics by Oscar Hammerstein II, which opened at Drury Lane in 1928. Show boat was the story of the Cotton Blossom, a floating theatre travelling up and down the Mississippi River. With a sub-plot about racial discrimination the musical heralded a more realistic plot line in musicals and contrasted with the sentimentality of British musicals of the period. The hit song ‘Old Man River’, sung in London by Paul Robeson, became an anthem of black oppression.
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Pal Joey |
Musicals began to explore more serious issues - Joey in Rodgers and Hart’s Pal Joey was no conventional musical hero but a heartless nightclub performer who walks out on his girlfriend for an older woman who has the money to set him up in his own club. The original 1940 Broadway production made a star of an unknown called Gene Kelly. The last London revival in 1980 starred Denis Lawson.
