Studies in Musical Theatre - Volume 4, Issue 3, 2010

A fuller picture of the achievements of director Rouben Mamoulian, and some previously unknown stories, emerge in the director's papers recently made available to the public at the Library of Congress in Washington, DC. Among their revelations, they show that if Warner Bros. had not turned him down for a film, Mamoulian may have quickly bolted Oklahoma! and its wholesome legacy for another fat Hollywood pay check. If Mamoulian's own anecdotes sometimes get in the way of the truth, there is still much to be learned from his own hand, including the notations on his Oklahoma! rehearsal script.

The mainstream press was lukewarm regarding Rodgers and Hammerstein's Flower Drum Song (1958). In contrast to white media responses to Flower Drum Song, black newspapers wholeheartedly embraced it. Although the praise by black newspapers for the musical can be attributed to African-American actress Juanita Hall's prominent role in the production, more than just racial pride is in evidence in these reviews. By examining the ways in which African-American newspapers constructed Flower Drum Song as holding particular significance to the black community when the Civil Rights movement was gaining momentum, this article analyses the ways in which musicals can take on new and unexpected meanings for unforeseen audiences.

The aim of the article is to investigate the reasons for Lloyd Webber's vast popularity in postmodern culture. The overarching theoretical concept through which the composer's oeuvre will be analysed is the culture of narcissism, introduced by Christopher Lasch. His insights will help us investigate the cultural forces that made possible the emergence of the megamusical, as exemplified in Lloyd Webber's two enormously successful collaborations with lyricist Tim Rice, Jesus Christ Superstar and Evita. The towering focal characters of these shows, Jesus Christ and Eva Peron, will be read as powerful symbols of a declining counterculture and an exploding narcissistic culture. Particular attention will be paid to Lloyd Webber's creation of a pop-operatic sound that communicates in aural terms all the excess, grandeur and larger-than-life emotions that Rice's universe of collapsing countercultural heroes and self-absorbed narcissistic goddesses generates. Finally, the development of the theme of narcissism will be traced in Lloyd Webber's shows that followed the termination of his collaboration with Rice.

In a manifesto of ten theses the author aims to establish the notion of musicality as a paradigmatic principle in creating and perceiving theatre. He outlines how musicality can contribute to, enhance and change working processes in the theatre, be it in naturalistic productions or in a devising context. Key benefits from employing a musical frame of perception for both audiences and practitioners, he argues, are the heightened awareness of form, the productive liberation from the dominance of content and discursive meaning, the self-reflexivity and the potential for a politics of form and perception. The article draws particularly on examples of recent theatre productions from the European (and particularly German-speaking) context, for example by Heiner Goebbels, Michael Thalheimer, Ruedi Husermann or Sebastian Nbling, but the author plans to develop this necessarily restricted manifesto into a wider and historically more far-reaching project in the near future.

In 2007, the distinguished scholar of musical theatre Bruce Kirle passed away unexpectedly. In tribute to his contribution to this field of scholarship, the Music-Theatre-Dance focus group of the Association for Theatre in Higher Education (ATHE) established a competition for new scholars researching in the field. This is now the second season in which three prize-winning entries to this competition have been presented both as conference papers (at the 2010 ATHE conference in Los Angeles),and as written articles in Studies in Musical Theatre. Judith Sebesta, respondent to the papers at the ATHE conference, introduces them in this short address.

Irish dance production Riverdance appeared on the global theatre scene in 1995, and has since become synonymous with Irish culture. Riverdance's influence as a cultural product for Ireland positioned step dance as a major cultural signifier of Ireland. Premiering during the rise of Ireland's Celtic Tiger economy, the show revealed a nation in transition, establishing a new global identity to match their new economic prowess. Riverdance reimagined the economic and cultural possibility inherent in heritage products in the global market. This article examines how this performance of national identity branded Ireland as a distinctive cultural product in the globalized marketplace of the mid-1990s. Riverdance is contextualized by defining Ireland's role within the larger economy of the European Union (EU) and the ways in which national identity within a globalized perspective emerges during this period. The article also considers the ways in which the EU and European regionalism inform the performance of national identity.

Competing philosophies of American womanhood permeate Edna Ferber's Show Boat, which first appeared as a serial in the Woman's Home Companion. Published in 1926, in the midst of a dramatic redefining of American womanhood, Ferber's story engaged with the complexities of conflicting gender ideologies and offered a model for navigating the turbulent discourses in women's culture. While well suited for a women's magazine, Ferber's focus on femininity dissipated as Jerome Kern, Oscar Hammerstein II and Florenz Ziegfeld adapted her Show Boat into the iconic American musical familiar to theatre scholars. This essay examines gender ideologies in Ferber's original work and the restructuring of these ideologies in adapting her work for the stage.

The concept musical, a fourth category of American musical theatre (following comedy, revue and the integrated musical), has been accepted as a legitimate category but never fully defined. This study examines the attributes of structure, theme, character and song that distinguish the concept musical category from the musical comedy, revue and integrated musical, and provides a concise definition. The analysis of representative concept musicals demonstrates the validity of the definition when applied to two shows, Company and A Chorus Line, and other concept musicals (beyond the 1970s) are identified.

Music Theory for Musical Theatre, John Bell and Steven R. Chicurel (2008) Lanham, Maryland: The Scarecrow Press Inc., xiii 117pp., ISBN: 978-0-8108-5901-2, Paperback, 24.95

The Japan of Pure Invention: Gilbert and Sullivan's The Mikado, Josephine Lee (2010) Minneapolis and London: University of Minnesota Press, xxiv 248pp., ISBN: 978-0-8166-6579-2, Hardback, $75.00, ISBN: 978-0-8166-6580-8, Paperback, $25.00

Mainly on Directing: Gypsy, West Side Story, and other Musicals, Arthur Laurents (2009) New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 176pp., ISBN: 978-0307270887, Hardback, $25.00