Coming Up Roses: The Broadway Musical in the 1950s, and: Place for Us: Essay on the Broadway Musical

In diametrically opposed forms, styles, and arguments, two recent books offer productive ways of analyzing the final decade of the Broadway musical’s “golden age.” D. A. Miller’s essay is a poetic, personal, idiosyncratic, erotic, and political reverie on gay men’s relationship to the Broadway musical. Ethan Mordden’s account is a breezy, informative overview of its formal developments in the 1950s.

Mordden’s Coming Up Roses is a selective survey of productions of Broadway musicals of the 1950s, with chapters on thirteen shows and references to many more. The book is framed by discussions of Call Me Madam (1950) and Gypsy (1959), each of which, not incidentally, starred Ethel Merman, who symbolized Broadway itself. Call Me Madam is “a conventional piece in every respect” (5). The 1950s, however, witnessed the musical’s constant reinvigoration through “renovation” (118). Gypsy (1959), in contrast, is “realistic,” showing “what the 1950s did to musical comedy” and, with its primary cast of three, pointing towards the “concept musicals” of the 1960s on (246).

Mordden highlights specific shows because they were huge hits (My Fair Lady), popular scores in failed shows (Candide), major “floppos” (Whoop-Up), or once-hits now-forgotten (Jamaica). By his choice of shows, Mordden introduces readers to many unknown musicals, and he provides pithy thumbnail sketches of the careers of numerous composers, lyricists, directors, choreographers, actors, and designers.

Mordden is primarily concerned with questions of form. He peppers each chapter with observations about the changes in the relationship among the musical’s elements and argues that through the 1950s the book and the musical numbers became increasingly integrated. He credits Rodgers and Hammerstein for virtually reinventing the musical and sees their influence everywhere. In particular, they infused musical comedy with realism and the musical play with comedy. He praises Hammerstein’s ability to write lyrics that not only express the meaning and emotion of a song, but that actually develop the character. The 1950s also saw the expansion of dance and the growth of the role of the choreographer in anticipation of the next decade’s director-choreographer, epitomized by Jerome Robbins. Mordden’s view of 1950s musicals is not new; the value of Coming Up Roses is not in its argument but in its information.

Mordden, a journalist and writer of many other books on musical theatre, is an engaging, accessible writer. He moves easily among the musical’s various elements and describes musical lines, dance steps, actors’ gestures, and sets with equal authority. He evocatively details production elements of casting, staging, choreography, lighting, and costumes. Telling wonderful stories about production problems and successes, he also accounts for the sources of shows, revivals, and film versions. Mordden creates a real sense of immediacy; he seems to be there, observing every aspect of the production, performance, and reception.

Still, Coming Up Roses will no doubt frustrate many scholars. First, while Mordden’s book shows his expertise in the techniques and practices of musicals, as well as his knowledge of many musicals’ production histories, the world of the Broadway musical that he delineates has almost no relation to the outside world. Aside from a nod to the influence of the original cast LP and to the connection between Broadway and the growing form of television, Mordden gives no sense that politics or economics might affect the success of failure of a particular show. Second, and more problematically to my mind, there are no bibliographic references. Although dominated by (generally) persuasive opinion, anecdotes, and observations, Coming Up Roses is also rife with facts and figures. For readers curious about methodologies of theatre history, we are left with no documentation.

D. A. Miller, a professor of English and author of The Novel and the Police (1988), has created a dense, poetic evocation of the...