Changed for Good: A Feminist History of the Broadway Musical (review)

In her 2007 Theatre Topics article “In Defense of Pleasure: Musical Theatre History in the Liberal Arts [A Manifesto],” Stacy Wolf issues a challenge to our field: “I urge my colleagues to teach more musical theatre history courses, or to add a musical to a theatre history or dramatic literature reading list, or to study a musical in a theoretically or thematic based course.” Within the manifesto, Wolf offers ways and means to discuss musicals as part of a theatre course. In her new book, Changed for Good, Wolf continues to lead by example and advocate for the careful study of Broadway musical theatre. More importantly, while offering a refreshing and thorough way of looking at feminist history, she has successfully orchestrated a study that conducts the rigorous critical analysis of Broadway musicals without sacrificing the innate pleasure that is to be found in popular art forms.

In the introduction, Wolf acknowledges where this work intersects with that of other musical theatre scholars like Raymond Knapp, Scott McMillin, and the late Bruce Kirle. One of the most delightful aspects of this book is that it insists that it is part of a larger dialogue: “this book opens a politicized, historicized conversation with Knapp’s and McMillin’s books to interrogate musical theatre’s conventions and how they work from a feminist perspective” (247). Changed for Good is an essential contribution to a current conversation within the field: namely, now that we have taken up the study of Broadway musical theatre a serious art form, how might we rethink musical theatre historiography? In a very thorough introduction, Wolf clearly explains her methodology, articulates her decision to use gender as a critical lens, and describes the landscape of Broadway musical histories and the challenges (and benefits) of musical theatre’s archive. She explains the importance of the “context and commercialism” that positions musicals “in a deceptively sensitive and intimate conversation with their cultural, historical moment” (12).

Changed for Good offers a thorough analysis of a particular contextual conversation by exploring “U.S. women’s history, women’s roles, and representations of women in other media [that] have conversed and resonated with the Broadway musical in its form and content since the 1950s” (12). Wolf’s decision to use this time frame is based on her assertion that “by the 1950s, book musicals employed a story to propel the show; the musical numbers grew out of the situation, portrayed the musical’s world, and reinforced the show’s tone; the songs were necessary to the plot and the characters, not simply added in for amusement or a star turn” (10). She explains that this mid-century turning point has had lasting effects on contemporary musicals, because “the compositional, theatrical, and performance conventions that Rodgers and Hammerstein and their colleagues developed in the 1940s, ’50s, and early ’60s remain the touchstones against which book musicals are measured” (10).

A striking element of this book is its inherent bent toward a pedagogical and practical framework. Wolf states that “one purpose of this book is to demonstrate a methodology for taking apart the total experience to understand how the pieces of a richly multivalent performance make meaning” (5). In this manner, the book fulfills two promises: it exemplifies a rich investigation of Broadway musicals, and also serves as a practical demonstration of how to analyze the entire piece of theatre by way of understanding its separate parts. Rather than limiting her reading of musicals to one element, Wolf considers “musicals as performance” (16) and incorporates the book, musical numbers, performance, staging, design elements, and all of its co-creators (writers, composers, lyricists, directors, choreographers, and actors alike) into her analysis.

The historical scope of Changed for Good, while broad, does not seem unwieldy. This is largely due to the structure of the first five chapters, each of which focuses on a decade between the 1950s and the 2000s. Wolf selects a group of musicals from each decade and conducts the analysis...