The American Musical and the Performance of Personal Identity (review)

Historically, the issue of identity in America has encompassed an ongoing effort to integrate emblems of national commonality within the more globally-based traditions and practices of a nation that emerges as a product of its diverse component cultures. This effort at integrating national and global concerns has been documented in American theatrical performance, perhaps most thoroughly through the structure and content of musical theatre, the genre most often considered in its current form as a distinctly American phenomenon. Raymond Knapp, in his two books exploring the American musical's role in describing, first, national identity and then personal identity, effectively addresses this dual approach to defining Americans as national affiliates as well as individuals. The second of these books, The American Musical and the Performance of Personal Identity, provides a lengthy though engaging discussion of the methods by which specific subgenres of American musical theatre have offered venues of personal expression for performers and audiences alike.

In the introduction to this second book, which he appropriately titles "Entr'acte," Knapp establishes the premise that the two "tributary influences" (2) of Viennese operetta and film musicals form an effective basis for the exploration of American personal identity in musical theatre beginning at the turn of the century. These musical forms, he argues, "effectively shift the focus of the musical toward the personal and away from larger political issues" (3). Building on this premise in chapter 1's analysis of the operetta, he discusses The Merry Widow (1907) and Naughty Marietta (1910) as early examples; he then moves to Little Mary Sunshine (1959) and finally A Little Night Music (1973), illustrating the ways in which the later works retain the stylistic and thematic precedents established by the early works, and effectively presenting the Viennese operetta form as a staple of personal expression in American musical theatre. Knapp tackles the same goal from a cinematic perspective in chapter 2, discussing the films Singin' in the Rain (1952), Stormy Weather (1943), Bamboozled (2000), Meet Me in St. Louis (1944), Moulin Rouge (2001), and Chicago (2002), showing how these films relate to one another and to American audiences of their respective time periods regarding such personal issues as love, racial discrimination, and ethical choices. Here, Knapp argues that the ease with which Hollywood presents montage, special effects, and elaborate scenery speaks to Americans through a technique he terms "Musically Enhanced Reality Mode" (MERM), "which permitted both audio and visual violations of what might actually be possible" (67). These techniques, Knapp argues, suggested new levels of fantasy and idealism to imaginative audiences throughout the twentieth century and into the twenty-first.

Knapp poses that these trends explored through operetta and film exerted extensive influence on the development of personal perspectives in American musical theatre in general. His subsequent chapters accordingly analyze four to five specific musicals each, based upon the personal themes those musicals explore, from "Fairy Tales and Fantasy" (chapter 3) to "Idealism and Inspiration" (chapter 4) to "Gender and Sexuality" (chapter 5) to "Relationships" (chapter 6). Uniquely, Knapp has chosen to approach stage and film musicals (and even one television musical) side by side, emphasizing the common elements regardless of medium and noting differences in audience reception only as they call into play various approaches to defining personal identity. Thus, for example, in dealing with American performers' and audiences' ongoing tendency to fantasize, chapter 3 addresses the films Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs (1937), The Wizard of Oz (1939), and Mary Poppins (1964) before providing a parallel analysis of the 1987 staged fairy-tale amalgam, Into the Woods.

Knapp concludes with a chapter ("Epilogue") devoted to an analysis of three operatic musicals—Candide (1956), Sweeney Todd (1979), and Evita (1979)—as examples of a later "tributary" of the American musical drawing upon the influences of operetta, film, European opera, and the more mainstream book musicals discussed in earlier chapters. He states, however, that current trends appear to indicate a lesser affiliation of the...