To Broadway, To Life! The Musical Theater of Bock and Harnick by Philip Lambert (review)

The Broadway songwriting team of composer Jerry Bock and lyricist Sheldon Harnick has rightfully earned its place in the pantheon of the American musical. Collaborating between the transitional years of 1957 and 1970, this team wrote seven Broadway shows, the most successful of which, Fiddler on the Roof, is one of the most beloved and most frequently revived in the musical canon. The seven shows they created (in collaboration with many other Broadway masters too numerous to name) run the gamut from the virtually forgotten The Body Beautiful (1958) to the Pulitzer Prize-winning Fiorello! (1959) and the cult classics Tenderloin (1960), She Loves Me (1963), and The Apple Tree (1966) to the disappointing The Rothschilds (1970) as well as the career-defining Fiddler on the Roof (1964). Their shows garnered seventeen Tony Awards and inductions into the Theater and Songwriters Halls of Fame, as well as honorary degrees, awards, and productions from around the world.

Their collaborative years on the Broadway stage fell directly within the transition from the Rodgers and Hammerstein era to the concept and rock musicals of the late 1960s and 1970s. Philip Lambert's To Broadway, To Life! demonstrates how the evolution of this creative duo parallels the seismic shifts happening on the Broadway stage and in U.S. society at large during this time. As Lambert observes, "Bock and Harnick stand right on the bridge between the old and the new: their second show and first big success, Fiorello!, shared a Best Musical Tony Award with The Sound of Music, and their last major effort, The Rothschilds, opened on Broadway the same year as Stephen Sondheim's innovative Company" (xii). With close readings of each work from the collaborators' oeuvre, this first full-length monograph dedicated to the work of Bock and Harnick is a fascinating study not only of the subjects but also of the reception of their works and their contributions to the evolution of the American musical.

The book is not a biography in the traditional sense, but rather a scholarly approach to the subjects' collaborative life together. The first two chapters provide parallel biographies of each artist's early life with appreciatively more attention paid to their artistic development than to their personal lives and relationships. These chapters give a picture-postcard view of a bygone era when adult summer camps in the Catskills provided theatrical training for up-and-coming artists and when television variety shows were nurturing future musical and theatrical talent. The intersection with other rising stars at this time, such as Chita Rivera, Charlotte Rae, and Beatrice Arthur, make for entertaining and informative reading about Broadway's so-called Golden Era.

Each succeeding chapter focuses on a different Bock and Harnick musical in chronological order with a comprehensive, if sometimes formulaic methodology: genesis, collaborative creation, musicological and dramaturgical analysis, production process, reception, and revivals or further productions. Through these close readings, Lambert illuminates Bock and Harnick's unique style, providing further evidence as to why their creations are significant contributions to the musical canon. To Lambert, Bock's compositions "demonstrate a particular flair for tailoring musical style to dramatic setting," which helps to explain why virtually all of their musicals cross countries, time, and culture from 1890s New York to an Eastern European parfumerie to a Russian shtetl (35). Likewise, Lambert characterizes Harnick's lyrics as "razor sharp, all-too-relevant social commentary" inviting obvious comparisons with Yip Harburg and Harold Rome (27).

In addition to his consideration of their Broadway musicals, Lambert also gives sufficient attention to other, less-defining works, such as songs written for revues, film and commercial work, the made-for-television The Canterville Ghost (1966), and even a one-act puppet show (1963). What emerges from each of these descriptions is Bock and Harnick's indefatigable striving for experimentation and innovation. Although Lambert describes Fiddler on the Roof as a work "mark[ing...