Authors: Stewart F. Lane
Tags: #Jews in Popular Culture - United States, #Theater - New York (State) - New York - History - 20th Century, #Performing Arts, #Jewish Entertainers, #Jews in Popular Culture, #Jewish, #20th Century, #General, #Jewish Entertainers - New York (State) - New York - History - 20th Century, #Drama, #Musicals - New York (State) - New York - History - 20th Century, #New York, #Musicals, #Theater, #Broadway (New York; N.Y.), #New York (State), #United States, #Jews in the Performing Arts, #Jews in the Performing Arts - New York (State) - New York - History - 20th Century, #History
Rodgers and Hart would hit their stride with the 1926 sketch comedy
The Garrick Gaieties,
featuring several stars and an actor named Lee Strasberg, who would later change the craft of acting. The show was unique in that it was a satirical revue based on the popular “Follies,”
poking fun at the very business in which they would thrive for some 26
Broadway shows.
Along with the New York Yankees, Rodgers and Hart were probably the most successful team from 1925 through 1943, sometimes writing three or four Broadway shows in a single year. Among their many musicals was a second version of
The Garrick Gaieties
in 1926, as well as
A
60
3. The Music of Broadway
Connecticut Yankee
in 1927,
Present Arms
in 1928 and several hits in London including
Evergreen
, which ran for over 250 performances in 1930.
After a five-year stint writing for films, Rodgers and Hart returned to the theater with
Jumbo
in 1935 starring Jimmy Durante and
On Your
Toes
in 1936, starring Ray Bolger, which ran for over 300 performances on Broadway.
Babes in Arms
, in 1937, would become one of the team’s biggest hits, featuring “My Funny Valentine” and “The Lady Is a Tramp.”
Like Irving Berlin and Jerome Kern, Rodgers and Hart, while writing songs integral to the script, also had a knack for penning popular hits that had a life of their own outside the theater walls, songs that would ultimately became classics.
Five Broadway shows later, they would usher in the 1940s with their most significant musical,
Pal Joey
, starring Gene Kelly and featuring
“Bewitched, Bothered and Bewildered.” Despite some mixed reviews by critics, the show was a success and an even bigger hit when brought back again in 1952 and in subsequent revivals. Together Rodgers and Hart would write
By Jupiter
as their last play together in 1943. By this time, Hart’s drinking, his emotional turmoil and frustrations were taking a toll on the collaboration. Hart was no longer as reliable or responsible as he had been, and the team suffered. Supposedly Rodgers would also have his own bout with alcohol, but he kept it under wraps, and it did not take a toll on his career.
Rodgers and Hart were offered the opportunity to write the score for
Oklahoma
, but at this point Hart was neither emotionally or physically up to the task. Thus began the teaming of Rodgers and Hammerstein, as discussed under the career of Oscar Hammerstein II (above). Hart did return to write another song with Rodgers for the revival of the show
A
Connecticut Yankee
, but shortly thereafter he disappeared from Rodgers’
life and then from the public eye. Hart passed away of pneumonia shortly after the opening of
Oklahoma
in 1943.
Amazingly, Rodgers and Hammerstein were able to follow up one triumphant show with another, from
Oklahoma
to
Carousel
to
South
Paci fic
to
The Sound of Music.
Collectively, the Rodgers and Hammerstein musicals earned 34 Tony Awards, 15 Academy Awards, two Pulitzer Prizes, two Grammy Awards and two Emmy Awards.
Time
magazine and CBS
News cited Rodgers and Hammerstein in 1998 as being among the 20
most influential artists of the 20th century. Yet, their pairing was one of 61
Jews on Broadway
two amazing collaborative unions in the career of Richard Rodgers, which spanned some 50 years.
Following his lengthy partnerships with Hart and Hammerstein, Richard Rodgers wrote another show called
No Strings
in 1962 in which he attempted to be his own lyricist. While the show was not very successful, it did include the hit song “Love Makes the World Go Round.”
He would then try to team with a few other lyricists but could not find anyone the likes of the two composers with whom he had worked for so long. Rodgers died in late December of 1979.
During his long illustrious career, Rodgers married Dorothy Belle Feiner and had two daughters, Mary and Linda. One of Rodgers’ grandsons, Adam Guettel, apparently following the musical lineage, was a boy soprano at the Metropolitan Opera at the age of 13 before switching his career to that of a composer. His score and orchestrations for the 2005
Broadway hit
The Light in the Piazza
won him two Tony awards. Another grandson, Peter Melnick, served as composer for
Adrift in Macao
, which debuted at the Philadelphia Theatre Company in 2005 and was produced Off Broadway in 2007.
George and Ira Gershwin
The sons of Russian-Jewish immigrants, Israel and then George Gersh owitz were born in the late 1890s and grew up on New York’s crowded Lower East Side. George was the first of the brothers to show interest in music when he began playing the piano that was originally supposed to spark musical interest in his older brother Israel, better known as Ira. It was George who would leave school as a teenager to pur sue his songwriting career in Tin Pan Alley while Ira would remain in school and go on to college. George would also be the first to get his work published, in his late teens with songs such as the “Rialto Rag” and his first big hit, at the age of 21, “Swanee,” with lyrics by Irving Caesar.
At roughly the same time, Ira was asked to write lyrics for a show called
Two Little Girls in Blue
, co-produced by Vincent Youmans, which he wrote under the name Arthur Francis. It was while on their way to Broadway that the Gershowitz brothers would change their name to the less ethnic-sounding Gershwin.
George first saw Broadway success as he began writing the music for George White’s
Scandals
, in 1922, part of the ongoing series of less 62
3. The Music of Broadway
spectacular, but highly entertaining Ziegfeld-esque revues. Gershwin wrote for the first five of the thirteen reviews that would include performers the likes of W.C. Fields, Alice Faye, Bert Lahr, Ray Bolger, Rudee Vallee, Ethel Barrymore and Ethel Merman. Gershwin’s “Rhapsody in Blue” was among the songs written for one of George White’s
Scandals
.
It was in 1924, when the brothers teamed up on the first of 14 Broadway musicals, that they would hit their stride. It was a musical comedy called
Lady Be Good
starring Broadway’s newest song and dance team, Fred and Adele Astaire. Cashing in on the popularity of vaudeville, the show was about vaudevillians. The 1925 follow-up,
Tip Toes
, featured the same creative team, except for a change of directors. Having enjoyed two hits in a row, the creative team (including the same director, John Harwood) went for the trifecta, and
Oh Kay!
was born. While this show was not at all about vaudeville, it was nonetheless another hit musical, starring Gertrude Lawrence.
The Gershwins were off and running and would work again with Fred and Adele Astaire in
Funny Face
, which also included a young Betty Comden (see Chapter 4) in the cast. By the start of the 1930s, the Gershwin Brothers were synonymous with Broadway hit musicals.
Girl Crazy
not only launched the decade for the Gershwins, and featured the hit song “I Got Rhythm,” but it also became the first musical comedy to win a Pulitzer Prize. Three film versions were made of the popular show.
Following
Strike Up the Band
and
Of Thee I Sing
, the brothers would team on their final show, adapted from the 1925 novel
Porg y
by DuBose Heyward. In what would be billed as a “folk opera,” George, Ira and DuBose Heyward (as librettist) would ultimately create a Broadway show about African American life in the Deep South called
Porg y and Bess
. Set in Charleston, South Carolina, at the turn of the century, in an area called Catfish Row, the story is about Porgy, a crippled beggar who travels about in a goat-drawn cart, and falls in love with Bess, a woman of ques-tionable reputation. Bess, however, is the mistress of Crown, a gambler, who kills a man in a fight that erupts from a craps game. He flees, but returns to Bess, only to find she is with Porgy. A fight ensues and Porgy kills Crown and lands in jail. By the time he gets out of jail, Bess has left for New York, and Porgy sets out to find her.
The show’s gambling, murder and drug-dealing portrayed African 63
Jews on Broadway
Americans in a manner that offended some, and there has long been controversy around the show, even as it is restaged in parts of the country to celebrate 75 years since the original play opened on Broadway. Conversely, the show was also heralded for drawing attention to the struggles and difficulties of life in the Deep South.
Porg y and Bess
was a show about a world the white theater-going audiences of the 1930s knew nothing about. It was a ground-breaking story that also brought a fusion of musical styles together in one show including blues, gospel, jazz and that of Tin Pan Alley.
Ironically, the Gershwin brothers almost never got to write their most culturally significant work. The Metropolitan Opera had com -
missioned George Gershwin to write a grand opera back in 1930. Gershwin wanted to write the show based on the book
Porg y
and have an all–African American cast. However, the Met was open only to white performers. Meanwhile, Oscar Hammerstein and Jerome Kern, also inter ested in bringing
Porg y
to the stage, suggested using Al Jolson in blackface to make a musical comedy. Ultimately, Gershwin decided to decline the Met’s offer and instead teamed with Heyward to write the show for Broadway where he was able to assemble an all–African American cast.
Porg y and Bess
opened in the fall of 1935. Many critics heralded it, but audiences in a segregated world did not flock to see the performances.
The show closed after just 125 performances, and a frustrated George Gershwin headed to Hollywood. Sadly, he would die just two years later.
Over time, the show, featuring the songs “Summertime” and “It Ain’t Necessarily So” had many renditions worldwide featuring star performers from Cab Calloway to Sidney Poitier to Sammy Davis, Jr., to Maya Angelou all taking roles. While the musical gained greater acceptance, segregation would still persist, making it difficult to stage
Porg y
and Bess
in many communities for years to come. It was, however, revived for over 300 performances on Broadway in 1953. Interestingly, it opened at the Ziegfeld Theater. This was fitting, considering that Ziegfeld was one of the Broadway producers of his time who did not succumb to racism or segregation in his shows.
Three years after his brother’s death, Ira Gershwin would once again begin writing lyrics. He would collaborate with Kurt Weill and Jerome Kern and then in 1954 with Harold Arlen on
A Star Is Born.
64
3. The Music of Broadway
SIGNIFICANT WRITERS
Musicals need storylines and plays need to be about something.
With that in mind, various writers would contribute to the Broadway stage in the 1920s and ’30s. Along with the many Jewish composers and lyricists, there were also a number of important Jewish playwrights during the 1920s. Two of the most significant of the era were George S. Kaufman and Moss Hart.
Kaufman, born in Pittsburgh to a Jewish family in 1889, was an avid reader, with a great wit. He enjoyed reading plays and in an era long before blogs, began putting his own witty remarks on paper. After moving to New York at the age of 20, Kaufman would utilize his writing skills to land jobs as a drama desk reporter for the
New York Tribune
and eventually as the drama reporter for the
New York Times.
In this capacity, Kaufman would not only build a significant following, based on his humorous observations, but would become part of what was known as the Algonquin Round Table. Meeting at the restaurant in the Algonquin Hotel in midtown Manhattan, the group, which included writers Doro -
thy Parker and Robert Benchley, playwrights Robert E. Sherwood and Edna Ferber, plus Harpo Marx, Irving Berlin and Tallulah Bankhead, among others, became known for their endless stream of ongoing droll banter, while playing various games and unleashing inventive practical jokes upon one another. They became an unofficial club of sorts, including only the sharpest and wittiest participants. The Algonquin Round Table also established a bond that drew them into working together on occasion. In fact, in one instance, in 1922, they teamed up to stage a one-night parody of the popular European revue
Le Chauve-Souris
, calling their show
No Siree!
The satire received raves from those lucky enough to see it. Having enjoyed the process of “putting on a show,” they would attempt another satirical revue called
The Forty-Niners
for the public later that year, but it lasted for only two weeks on Broadway. The Algonquin Round Table, however, lasted nearly a decade, through the 1920s up until the stock market crash of ’29. After the crash, although many lifelong friendships had formed, they no longer met at their own table.
One member reportedly knew it was over when she went to the customary table in the Rose Room of the hotel in 1932 and found a family from Kansas sitting there.
65
Jews on Broadway
From their many hours spent at the infamous round table, Kaufman and writer Marc Connelly would collaborate on several shows in the early 1920s, including
Dulcy, To the Ladies
starring Helen Hayes, and
Merton
at the Movies
, Kaufman’s first parody of Hollywood. Producing more than two shows a year, the duo enjoyed great success. However, in 1925, two other round-tablers, Irving Berlin and Harpo Marx (along with his famous brothers), would team up with Kaufman and Morrie Ryskind on a hit musical,
The Cocoanuts,
which would later become one of the Marx Brothers’ classic films. Kaufman would work once more with the Marx Brothers, writing the book for
Animal Crackers
, while Ryskind would go on to write with the Marx Brothers on other movies, including
A Night
at the Opera
, one of the Brothers’ biggest hits.