Broadway: The American Musical

This in-depth mini-series (6 episodes) took the story of Broadway musicals from the vaudeville age and Mr Ziegfeld's spectaculars right up to the present day with Wicked! On the way, in the capable hands of presenter Julie Andrews, we remember Irving Berlin, the Gershwins, Rodgers and Hammerstein, Jerome Kern, Kander and Ebb, Jerry Herman, 42nd Street, Leonard Bernstein, Stephen Sondheim, Hair!, Andrew Lloyd-Webber, Rent, and La Cage Aux Folles.

There are tantalising clips from rare TV broadcasts and films (perhaps a weakness of the series is that people TALK over the clips - who wants to hear someone remember a show when you can see John Raitt sing Soliloquy from Carousel?) which are well-worth seeing the series in themselves. Contemporary and archive interviews bring the likes of Jerome Robbins, Kitty Carlisle, Jerry Orbach, and Tommy Tune into the story.

For my money, the best episodes were the first two, for the rare footage shown. But you'd have to have a heart of stone not to be moved by the toll of musical theatre back-room boys (and front-line artists) lost to AIDS.

A fantastic trip along the Great White Way - thanks to PBS for putting it together, and to BBC4 for airing it in the UK.

"Broadway: The American Musical" depicts the intense and competitive world of the entertainment industry in the first two parts and the last two parts. The first two chapters dealt honestly with racial discrimination and stereotypes while the last parts focused on the changing face of The Great White Way. However, the middle chapters, featuring Rogers and Hammerstein, portray an idyllic world. By the 1930's, producers appear to love everyone, talent was instantly recognized, song writers wrote instant hits, and audiences were enthralled with nearly everything they saw on stage. According to this documentary, Rogers and Hammerstein appear to have an open door policy in which anyone could walk in and pitch a musical idea, and if it was good, they would green-light the project. Talent was passed around and recommended to rival producers and shows. And song writers disappear for a weekend and return with hit songs without breaking a sweat. In short, it's the kind of world you often find depicted in a typical Broadway musical from between 1930 and about 1960. A kind of self-contained utopia.

The last chapter elucidated some of the behind-the-scenes madness that is integral to any Broadway production. But for some reason, the middle chapters focusing on the 1940's and 1950's avoided most the development and production mayhem. Instead, the narrative stayed with the successes which are the musicals that are still performed today from that era. The difficulty is talking about the struggles, the failures, the set-backs, the back-biting, and the behind-the-scenes ruthlessness that characterizes much of the entertainment industry, be it Hollywood or Broadway. That is where the real story is, and this documentary tells a very rosy tale where everybody has a happy ending. It's more about how the general public views Broadway, but not how it really is.

Not until the final chapter does the documentary explain that every Broadway production is a huge financial risk for the producers and investors. Because the rewards for a hit are so tremendous and the money lost devastating for a failure, the entertainment industry has a heartless cruelty that is always kept at arm's length from the public like skeletons in a production storage closet. The documentary lacks in-depth discussions of the origins of many of the most famous musicals from the 50's and 60's, with the notable exception of "Porgy and Bess". Aside from "Porgy" I wanted to know more about the writers' inspiration for many of the stories, how did they convince fellow song writers and producers to take a chance, how did they secure financing, who was in charge of the investments, what hurdles did they have to overcome, how did they find the talent, and how did they convince certain talent to commit to the material. Every piece of the puzzle must synthesize to manifest a hit, from the writing to the talent to the staging, and these elements need equal treatment. Some of the best stories are probably found during the developmental stage of any production. Most people also don't realize that the vast majority of projects never get past the developmental stage.

Much of what happened behind-the-scenes to realize a project from merely an idea to a full stage production is glossed over in favor of expounding upon how successful certain musicals were and how many weeks or years they ran on Broadway. In all fairness, a few bits and pieces are exposed, such as a video clip of Rex Harrison preparing for "My Fair Lady" in which he begins ranting that he won't be able to succeed at the part because of the difficulty of the music. Another tells the story of George Gershwin visiting the African-American communities of the deep south to get inspiration for "Porgy and Bess". Unfortunately, these insightful discourses are few and far between which made me clamor for more.

Because of the lack of in-depth story-telling, the middle sections of "Broadway: The American Musical" were somewhat disappointing. They come off more like a survey, akin to a musical revue, than a history of the phenomenon that is The Great White Way. However, the first and last sections are worth the price of admission. Sometimes the darkest stories are where the human drama unfolds, which has often been an area that Broadway Musicals avoid. Instead of a revue, I would have liked more of the story.

For many of us, with only a passing knowledge of American musical theatre, this is a godsend. I always suspected that these composers borrowed freely from each other and was not surprised to find out that they were often each others mentors.

The section on the THE CRADLE WILL ROCK was an alarming history lesson in recent censorship and should be as much a part of school curriculum as prohibition or blacklisting. Perhaps New York would not be so quick to condemn other states if it faced its own history of oppression since the behaviour of the city has often been the forerunner of standards, including censorship, elsewhere.

The series captures the social and artistic effects of SHOW BOAT, OKLAHOMA!, WEST SIDE STORY, HAIR and A CHORUS LINE among many others and beautifully highlights the effect they had not only on audiences but also on the talent behind the scenes.

One surprising (and annoying) feature of this set is the misguided effort to highlight the contribution of African Americans by segregating black performances into sections. The final effect is an "us and them" result that will appear racist as the years go by. Surely the contribution of black talent is not any more or less important than that of any other minority in the melting pot and the series easily integrates Jewish, Irish and Hispanic contributions effortlessly. Surely there is no need to suggest that Ethel Waters brought more to the stage by way of personal baggage than Fanny Brice or Harvey Fierstein. One obvious and major contributing element that becomes an elephant in the room to anyone who has ever seen a Broadway musical is delicately footnoted. This element is the fact that these shows are usually, dare I say it, quite gay in every sense of the word. Perhaps this is a current mutation of the badly kept Hollywood secret that the studios were mostly run by Jews. Do the producers really think it unimportant or simply too obvious to address?

Greetings from California:

In your excellent review questioned why John Lahr did not mention is father Bert Lahr (Cowardly Lion in Wizard of Oz) In the 1950's I was friendly with John's brother and was told that only he was not overly close to his father, John was raised by his mother (not my friends Mother) & was a good deal younger than John, He hardly ever saw John & John hardly ever saw his father.

A closely knit family this was not.

John Lahr has written a book as well on his fathers life & times. I have forgotten the title, however.

I have just watched the first segment of Broadway: The American Musical on DVD. I just received the DVD today and right now it is one a.m., so I won't be watching any more tonight. Here I am, a Broadway musical fan watching it on my DVD player some 8,000 miles away from the Great White Way on November 29, 2004. According to the notes and the PBS website, this series ran on American TV just a few weeks ago. Whether the series meets every one of my expectations or not (though watching an, as always, perfectly-coifed over-90 Kitty Carlisle Hart remind herself of how irked she was about following a wet and messy seal act in vaudeville 70 or 75 years ago was worth the price of the DVD set in itself), the fact that PBS has chosen not to make us wait five or ten years, but barely a couple of weeks to be able to own this series and watch all or part of it any time we want deserves all my plaudits. Bravo. I look forward to the rest of the marvelous history, the marvelous singing, dancing, sets, and costumes in the segments that remain for me to view.