musical comedy

n.
A comedic play or movie in which dialogue is interspersed with songs, especially one with a focus on musical numbers and a simple plot.

The musical comedy - sometimes called simply ‘musical’ - is the chief form of popular musical theatre in the 20th-century English-speaking world. It developed from comic opera and burlesque in London at the end of the 19th century and reached its most durable form in the work of such American composers as Jerome Kern, George Gershwin, Cole Porter and Irving Berlin in the 1920s and 1930s. Most musical comedies have a loosely constructed plot combining comic and romantic interest; the musical score usually consists of catchy or sentimental songs, ensembles and dances. The tradition continues in the work of such composers as Stephen Sondheim and Andrew Lloyd Webber. Closely related to the musical comedy is the musical play, a work with a more substantial plot and score (e.g.Bernstein's West Side Story), and the musical film, of which Harry Warren's 42nd Street (1933) is a notable example (though most musical films of this type were simply film versions of stage musicals, e.g.Rodgers's The Sound of Music).

The distinction between musical comedy and operetta is not precise; generally ‘operetta’ is taken to denote an older-style work, with a romantic story and a score using 19th-century European styles.

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Although English ballad operas and musical afterpieces were performed in many of the colonies, no native works appeared until the 1780s. They were called everything from "comic operas" to "oratorical entertainments." The first major star of the American musical stage was probably John Durang who performed hornpipes, jigs, and topical songs as interludes in plays and operas and later ran his own theater company. But it was not until The Black Crook, which opened in 1866 at Niblo's Gardens in New York, that song, dance, and spectacle were grafted onto an existing melodrama and the American musical was born. The story was rather wooden, but this was compensated for by lines of ballet girls dancing in precision formations while the chorus sang songs like "The Amazon March."

By the end of the nineteenth century the American musical stage encompassed a number of genres. Operettas included Victor Herbert's Babes in Toyland (1903), with its famous "March of the Toys," and the Vienna import The Merry Widow by Franz Lehar, first seen in New York in 1907. There were also topical musicals such as A Trip to Chinatown (1891), which featured local color and geographical songs like "The Bowery," and revues with roots in minstrel shows, which were a sophisticated development of the burlesque and vaudeville format.

George M. Cohan, a key figure in the musical theater in the early twentieth century, wrote, produced, directed, and starred in shows that dealt with jingoistic and patriotic themes and made popular such songs as "Give My Regards to Broadway" and "Over There." After World War I Broadway entered one of its golden periods when "Cinderella" musicals (so called because usually the heroine starts poor and ends up rich and famous) like Irene (1919), Sally (1920), and Sunny (1925) dominated the stage, the last two tailor-made vehicles for the era's biggest star, Marilyn Miller. Tap dancing choruses regaled audiences in No! No! Nanette! (1925) or did the "Varsity Drag" in Good News (1927), and George and Ira Gershwin introduced a more sophisticated jazz style in such musicals as Oh, Kay! (1926) and Funny Face (1927).

Florenz Ziegfeld glorified the American girl in his famous annual Follies, which introduced Fanny Brice, Eddie Cantor, Will Rogers, and Bert Williams, the first black entertainer to become a major Broadway attraction. Ziegfeld's production of Show Boat (1927), written by Jerome Kern and Oscar Hammerstein II, pointed the way to a new form of musical play distinct from the fast-moving musical comedy and the flamboyant operetta.

During the Great Depression the revue format became less lavish; examples include The Bandwagon (1931), which showcased the talents of Fred and Adele Astaire, and Irving Berlin's As Thousands Cheer (1933), which introduced the hit songs "Heat Wave" and "Easter Parade." The composer who probably best personified the era was Cole Porter, whose wit and sophistication beguiled audiences in such musicals as Anything Goes (1934), Red, Hot and Blue! (1936), and DuBarry Was a Lady (1939), all three written for Ethel Merman, famous for her clarion tone and spirited delivery.

Although dancing had always been a part of the musical, it became more closely linked to the story when Richard Rodgers and Lorenz Hart asked George Balanchine to choreograph the dances for On Your Toes in 1936. The importance of dance in the musical story was carried further by Agnes de Mille, choreographer in 1943 of Rodgers and Hammerstein's Oklahoma!, which banished dancing choruses and extraneous numbers and integrated song and dance with both plot and character development, especially in the "Dream Ballet" at the end of the first act, a dance making visual the heroine's personal dilemmas.

The Rodgers and Hammerstein format was employed successfully in productions from South Pacific (1949) to The Sound of Music (1959), both starring the popular Mary Martin, and was continued by Alan Jay Lerner and Frederick Loewe in My Fair Lady (1956) and Camelot (1960), among many others.

The next step in the Broadway musical was taken by Jerome Robbins who conceived, directed, and choreographed West Side Story (1957), written by Leonard Bernstein and Stephen Sondheim. This production made dance integral to the story (not just in a dream sequence) and demanded that performers sing, dance, and act--the triple-threat talent required for most subsequent shows.

During the 1960s the ascent of rock 'n' roll pushed Broadway out of its place as the trendsetter of American popular music. The Great White Way reacted in two ways: retreats into nostalgia in shows like Jerry Herman's Hello, Dolly! (1964) and Mame (1966) and spoofs of the rock craze, as in Bye, Bye, Birdie (1960). Hair (1967), billed as "the tribal love-rock musical," was the closest Broadway came to capturing the era, but there were no successful follow-ups. Black musicals such as The Wiz (1975) or Ain't Misbehavin' (1978) brought a more diverse audience to some theaters, but increasingly Broadway appealed to a more limited audience, as the high costs of producing a musical forced the price of tickets up--fifteen dollars for an orchestra seat in 1970, thirty-five dollars by 1980, sixty dollars by 1990. Stephen Sondheim was the most prominent American composer-lyricist of the era with his sophisticated approach that conceptualized the musical as a theme rather than a sequential story. This was first seen with Company in 1970 and continued twenty years later with Into the Woods (1989).

In contrast to the Sondheim musicals were director-choreographer shows, usually dealing with some form of show business. Examples include Gower Champion's 42nd Street (1980), with its elaborate tap numbers, Bob Fosse's Pippin (1972) and Chicago (1974), which told their stories through a series of vaudeville numbers, and Michael Bennett's A Chorus Line (1974), which showed the grim prospects of a Broadway audition and became the longest-running musical in Broadway history, not closing until 1990. The director-choreographer tradition was continued by Tommy Tune whose unique style was first seen in Best Little Whorehouse in Texas (1978).

During the 1980s Broadway saw its leadership challenged by British musicals. Andrew Lloyd Webber was especially successful with such shows as Evita (1978), Cats (1982), and Phantom of the Opera (1987), all of which combined spectacle, special effects, and large casts accompanied by almost continuous music and little or no spoken dialogue. The American musical was not dead, however, and the acclaimed City of Angels (1990), in which Cy Coleman's jazz-inspired score accompanied a murder mystery set in Los Angeles during the 1940s, gave hope for a continuing vitality on the Broadway stage.

Bibliography:

Gerald Bordman, American Musical Theatre: A Chronicle, enl. ed. (1986); Stanley Green, Encyclopedia of the Musical Theatre, rev. ed. (1980); Ethan Mordden, Better Foot Forward: The History of American Musical Theatre (1986).

Author:

Frank W. D. Ries

See also Astaire, Fred; Balanchine, George; Berlin, Irving; Bernstein, Leonard; Dance; Gershwin, George; Music; Porter, Cole; Robbins, Jerome; Theater; Ziegfeld, Florenz.

A play or film that highlights song and dance. Oklahoma!, My Fair Lady, A Chorus Line, and The Producers are well-known musical comedies.