is a
Musical in two acts with music by
Jerome Kern and book and lyrics by
Oscar Hammerstein II (with the notable exception of "Bill," which was originally written for Kern in 1918 by
P. G. Wodehouse but reworked by Hammerstein for ). It is based on a
1926 book of the same name by
Edna Ferber , and is generally considered to be one of the first popular American "musicals", as a dramatic form with popular music, separate both from
Operetta and from the "
Follies "-type musical comedies that preceded it. In many ways, it took the plot and character-centered "Princess Musicals" that Kern had developed with Bolton and Wodehouse the previous decade and broadened the scope. However,
George S. Kaufman and the
Gershwins' ''Strike Up the Band'', which previewed earlier that year, clearly made similar leaps, although its subject matter was satirical and farcical, while "Show Boat"'s was sentimental and somewhat tragic.
The story spans about 40 years, beginning aboard the
Showboat ''Cotton Blossom'' in the
1880s , on the
Mississippi River near
Natchez, Mississippi . A riverboat gambler, Gaylord Ravenal, comes aboard and is taken with Magnolia, an aspiring performer and daughter of the ship's captain and owner, "Cap'n Andy". Magnolia (aka Nolie) is smitten with Ravenal as well, and seeks advice from Joe, one of the workers aboard the boat.
A local sheriff comes aboard and insists that the show not go on, because the star of the show, Julie, is a
Mulatto woman married to a white man, and local laws prohibit
Miscegenation . With the star gone, Magnolia and Gaylord fill in. He later confesses his love for her and proposes.
Years later, Gaylord and Magnolia are married and living in
Chicago with their daughter, Kim. Gaylord's gambling debts get out of control, and they are living in a very poor apartment. Frank and Ellie, two actors on the boat visit, where Magnolia finds that Gaylord has left her. Frank and Ellie seek a singing job for Magnolia at the same club where they are working for New Year's. Unbeknownst to Magnolia, Julie, now a drunk showgirl left by her husband, hears Magnolia's song, the same song she taught her years ago
Can't Help Lovin' Dat Man , and abandons her position so that Magnolia can fill it.
On New Year's Eve, Andy comes to the club, unaware of Magnolia's troubles, only to discover her nearly being booed off stage. He rallies the crowd to her defense in a grand sing-along of an old song
After The Ball . Magnolia becomes a great musical star.
Years later, when Kim is now a star of the stage, Gaylord returns for a happy reunion with Magnolia.
The 1951 MGM film changed many aspects of the story, including bringing the protagonists back together only a few years after they departed (rather than twenty-three years afterward). Gaylord has a chance meeting with Julie, and learns that he has a daughter he didn't know about. Kim is only seen as a cute child in this version.
A definitive list of songs, per se, is somewhat pointless since the original production ran nearly four hours and thus is almost never performed in its original form. Confounding the situation further are new songs written for revivals. Typically, productions pick and choose from the original material to fashion a distinct version of ''Show Boat''. Nevertheless, the key songs from the show include the following:
- Overture: the original overture, used in all stage productions up to 1946 (and heard on the 3-disc EMI/Angel CD for the first time in nearly fifty years), is dramatic, and largely based on the deleted song "Mis'ry's Comin' Round", which Kern wanted to save in some form, and which was restored in the 1993 revival of the show. It also contains fragments of "Ol' Man River" and Can't Help Lovin' Dat Man", and, towards the end, there is a lively, rather than slow, rendition of "Why Do I Love You?". The overture for the 1946 revival is a standard medley consisting of "Ol' Man River", "Why Do I Love You?", "Make Believe" and Can't Help Lovin' Dat Man". Still another overture was arranged for the 1966 Lincoln Center revival, consisting of a medley of all these songs, but adding the comic number "I Might Fall Back on You", which is sometimes omitted from modern productions. All three overtures were arranged by Robert Russell Bennett .
- "Cotton Blossom" — The notes in the phrase "Cotton Blossom, Cotton Blossom" are the same notes as those in the phrase "Old Man River, Old Man River," but sung in reverse order. According to Hammerstein and Kern, this was intentional symbolism.
- "Where's The Mate For Me?"
- "Make Believe"
- " Ol' Man River "
- "Can't Help Lovin' Dat Man" — Queenie's surprise at the apparently white Julie's knowledge of a "black folks'" song foreshadows the discovery of Julie's mixed origins.
- "Life Upon the Wicked Stage"
- "Till Good Luck Comes My Way"
- "You Are Love" (considered by Jerome Kern to be his worst-ever song.)
- "I Might Fall Back On You"
- "Queenie's Ballyhoo"
- "Why Do I Love You?"
- "Bill"
- " After The Ball " a song by Charles K. Harris from 1892
The instrumentation for the show according to the original
Orchestration s by
Robert Russell Bennett is one
Flute (doubling as
Piccolo ), one
Oboe (doubling as
English Horn ) , 2
Clarinets , one
Bassoon , 2
Horns , 2
Trumpets , one
Trombone ,
Percussion , one
Banjo , and
Strings .
Before the Broadway premiere of ''Show Boat'', from November 15 1927 until December 19, Ziegfeld produced
Tryouts at the
National Theatre in
Washington, D.C. , the Nixon Theatre in
Pittsburgh , the Ohio Theatre in
Cleveland , and thrice at the Erlanger Theatre in
Philadelphia . The show opened on Broadway at the
Ziegfeld Theatre in
New York on
December 27 ,
1927 , where it ran for a year and a half. ''Show Boat'', with its serious and dramatic nature, was considered a turning point for producer
Florenz Ziegfeld , who had previously been best known for
Revues such as the
Follies . The
Scenic Design for the original production was by
Joseph Urban , who had worked with Ziegfeld for many years in his ''
Follies '', and had designed the elaborate new Ziegfeld Theatre itself.
After its closing in 1929, the show was
Revived on Broadway in 1932 (Casino Theatre), 1946 (return to the Ziegfeld Theatre), 1983 (
Uris Theatre ) and
1994 (at the same theatre). Other American productions include one at the
New York State Theater in
Lincoln Center in July of 1966. It has been produced on multiple occasions in
West End , including a May 1928 production at the
Drury Lane Theatre and at the
Adelphi Theatre in July of 1971 . In England it has also been by various
Repertory theatres in England, including once by
Opera North and the
Royal Shakespeare Company . It was also adapted as a
Movie on four occasions, in
1929 ,
1936 ,
1946 (as a mini-show inside the movie
Till The Clouds Roll By ), and
1951 , and videotaped in live performance for television in
1989 at the
Paper Mill Playhouse . (See
Show Boat (film) ).
''Show Boat'' boldly portrayed racial difficulties, and for a 1927 show it was quite progressive in doing so. It was the first
Racially Integrated musical, in that both black and white performers appeared on-stage together .
Ziegfeld’s ''
Follies '' allowed single
African American performers like
Bert Williams , but would never have had an African American woman in the chorus. However, ''Showboat'' had two choruses--a black chorus and a white chorus, and it has been perceived that "Hammerstein uses the African-American chorus as essentially a Greek chorus, providing clear commentary on the proceedings, whereas the white choruses sing of the not-quite-real" . However, some assert that the simple fact that ''Show Boat'' contains numbers with blacks and whites on stage singing together does not mean it deserves to be credited as the "first racially integrated musical". According to a
Theatre studies graduate student at
Cornell University ,
Historians of American musical theater usually describe Show Boat as the first "integrated" musical without considering its complicated politics of race. Such assessments privilege Show Boat’s book and score while failing to situate these scenes and songs in theatrical performance or within the wider culture of the United States in 1927. When read in the context of its original Broadway production and reception, Show Boat begs the question of whether its integration – of book and numbers, of black and white characters and actors – can function apart from its politics and theatrics of segregation... the musical numbers in which black and white characters dance and sing in unison or in harmony, or those in which the performance of individual black characters (Julie, Joe, and Queenie) complicates cross-racial relationships and forms raced audiences. At the same time, the numbers limit the possibilities for black characters by denying them interiority and deploying them as spectacle for the sensory experience of the audience. Ultimately, Ziegfeld’s Show Boat thrives in memory on a myth of integration, gesturing toward exploding the integration/segregation dichotomy while cooperating in the racist politics that informs it .
It was not until 1947's ''
Finian's Rainbow '' that a Broadway musical was truly racially integrated .
The show has also come under much attack, primarily because of the use of '
Nigger " in the lyrics in the first scene, in addition to the historical portrayal of blacks serving as passive laborers and servants. The show opened with the black chorus trudging:
::Niggers all work on the Mississippi.
::Niggers all work while the white folks play-
::Loadin' up boats wid de bales of cotton,
::Gittin' no rest till de Judgement Day .
In subsequent productions, "nigger" has been changed to "colored folk," to "darkies" and in one choice, "Here we all," as in "Here we all work on the Mississippi. Here we all work while the white folk play." The 1988 CD for EMI restored the original lyric, while the 1994 production chose "Colored Folk."
Despite these objections, however, others believe that the song was written by Kern and Hammerstein to give a sympathetic voice to an oppressed people through the ironic use of a word often used derogatorily against them, and that the word was used to dramatically alert the audience to the realities of racism:
Show Boat begins with the singing of that most reprehensible word – nigger – yet this is no coon song... {Link without Title} immediately establishes race as one of the central themes of the play. This is a protest song, more ironic than angry perhaps, but a protest nonetheless. In the singers hands, the word nigger has a sardonic tone... in the very opening, Hammerstein has established the gulf between the races, the privilege accorded the white folks and denied the black, and a flavor of the contempt built into the very language that whites used about African-Americans. This is a very effective scene... These are not caricature roles; they are wise, if uneducated, people capable of seeing and feeling more than some of the white folk around them .
The racial situations in the play provoke thoughts of how hard it must have been to be black in the South. In the dialogue, some of the black slaves are called "niggers" by the white characters in the story. At first, it is shocking to believe they are allowed to use a word that negative at all in a play... But in the context in which it is used, it is appropriate due to the impact it makes. It reinforces how much of a derogatory term "nigger" was then and still is today .
Those that consider ''Show Boat'' racially insensitive also often note that the dialogue and lyrics of the black characters (especially the
Stevedore Joe and his girlfriend "Queenie") and choruses use various forms of
African American Vernacular English . An effective example of this is shown in the following text:
::Hey!
::Where yo' think you're goin'?
::Don't yo' know dis show is startin' soon?
::Hey!
::Jes' a few seats left yere!
::It's light inside an' outside dere's no moon
::What fo' you gals dressed up dicty?
::Where's yo' all gwine?
::Tell dose stingy men o' yourn
::To step up here in line!
Many critics would either respond that such language is not an accurate reflection of the vernacular of blacks in Mississippi at the time, or that it is in fact linguistically correct but that the overall effect of its usage, especially in light of prejudiced historically-white audiences in past productions, results in a potentially harmful racial stereotype. Indeed, the role of Queenie (to whom the above verses are attributed) was in the original production played not by an African-American but rather by the
Italian-American actress
Tess Gardella in
Blackface (Gardella was perhaps most well-known for portraying
Aunt Jemima in blackface) . In addition, some believe that the attempts of non-black writers to imitate black language stereotypically in songs like "
Ol' Man River " and allege authenticity is offensive, a claim that was repeated eight years later by evaluators of ''
Porgy And Bess ''.
"Ol' Man River" is not a Negro spiritual. It's a show tune cooked up in 1927 by a couple of middle-class honkies who needed something for a spot in the first act. Yes, Oscar Hammerstein's lyric is full of "dat" and "dese" (obviously, he was self-taught at Ebonics)... Hammerstein's is an unobtrusive craft, an artless art" .
However, even many of those who denounce the stereotyping of blacks and black language admit that the intentions of Hammerstein were noble, since "'Ol' Man River' was the song in which he first found his lyrical voice, compressing the suffering, resignation, and anger of an entire race into 24 taut lines and doing it so naturally that it's no wonder folks assume the song's a Negro spiritual" .
Many writers have also conceded that the novel contains
Caricatures of blacks, but believe that they were used by the author to scrutinize and criticize racism in the United States, since "cringe-worthy caricatures like Show Boat's 'black men...with rolling eyes and great lips' exist alongside some very thoughtful explorations of American racism, including Show Boat's sympathetic treatment of a mixed-race couple" . For example, the theatre critics and veterans
Richard Eyre and Nicholas Wright believe that ''Show Boat'' was revolutionary, not only because it was a radical departure from the previous style of plotless
Revues but because it was a show written by non-blacks that portrayed blacks sympathetically rather than condescendingly:
Instead of a line of chorus girls showing their legs in the opening number singing that they were happy, happy, happy, the curtain rose on black dock-hands lifting bales of cotton, and singing about the hardness of their lives. Here was a musical that showed poverty, suffering, bitterness, racial prejudice, a sexual relationship between black and white, a love story which ended unhappily--and of course show business. In "Ol' Man River" the black race was given an anthem to honor its misery that had the authority of an authentic spiritual .
Since the musical's 1927 premiere, ''Show Boat'' has both been condemned as a prejudiced show based on racial caricatures and championed as a breakthrough work that opened the door for public discourse in the arts about racism in America. In some occasions, productions (including one planned for June 2002 in
Connecticut ) have been cancelled because of objections. However, such cancellations occasionally were met with negative reaction by supporters of
The Arts . After planned performances by an
Opera company in
Middlesbrough ,
England were "stopped because
{Link without Title} would be 'distasteful' to ethnic minorities", a local newspaper declared that the actions were "surely taking political correctness too far" . A British theatre writer was concerned that
...the kind of censorship we've been talking about - for censorship it is - actually militates against a truly integrated society, for it emphasises differences. It puts a wall around groups within society, dividing people by creating metaphorical ghettos, and prevents mutual understanding.
In addition, as attitudes toward race relations changed in later years, producers and directors often altered some content in order to make the musical more
Politically Correct :
...''Show Boat'', more than many musicals, was subject to cuts and revisions within a handful of years after its first performance, all of which altered the dramatic balance of the play...
actually moved them), with their presence constantly commenting on the racial disparities . After a New Year's Eve ball, all the streamers fell on the floor and we saw African Americans busy sweeping them away. A brilliant montage in the second act showed time passing with the revolving door of the
Palmer House in Chicago, and headlines going by in quick motion and then little snippets of slow motion to highlight a specific moment. African American dancers portrayed street dancers doing a dance and then time would pass and the fashionable white dancers had taken the dance.
During the production's stay in Toronto, many black community leaders and their supporters launched a massive opposition to the show, often mobilizing "black hecklers shouting insults and waving placards reading SHOW BOAT SPREADS LIES AND
HATE and SHOW BOAT = CULTURAL GENOCIDE" in front of the theatre . Some sympathetic to the cause of those against the production also thought that it was ironic that a supposedly anti-black show was receiving attention and support while the actual black community in Toronto was facing economic and social problems, and that
conclusion that the protest was "misguided" reveals [the total lack of understanding of the social and political cleavages in North York. It suggests that those blacks protesting Show Boat are wasting their time, when they should be engaged in more pressing struggles for equality in education, employment and housing. The fact is these people are working toward those goals every day. The protesters are trustees, teachers, lawyers, social service workers, and, dare I say it, leaders in their community .
However, while Hal Prince's production of ''Show Boat'' was met by a storm of criticism in Toronto, various theatre critics in
New York understood that Prince highlighted racial inequality in his production not to support it but rather to show its injustice, as well as the historical suffering of blacks. One way that this was done was
the inclusion of an absolutely beautiful piece of music cut from the original production and from the movie Comin' Round" ... a haunting gospel melody sung by the black chorus. The addition of this number is so successful because it salutes the dignity and the pure talent of the black workers and allows them to shine for a brief moment on the center stage of the showboat .
Furthermore, during the 1993 Toronto protests, other observers decried the show's opponents for their ''own'' prejudices and racist attitudes, for many had supposedly stated that they viewed the show as a
Jewish attempt to bring down blacks (both Kern and Hammerstein, in addition to director Hal Prince, were Jewish New Yorkers), and to many it seemed apparent that by labelling ethnic groups as racist, the protesters were guilty of the very thing that they were complaining about .
Many commentators, both black and non-black, view the show as an outdated and stereotypical commentary on race relations that portrays blacks in a negative or inferior position. Douglass K. Daniel of
Kansas State University has commented that it is a "racially flawed story" , and the
African-Canadian writer writer M. Nourbese Philip claims that
The affront at the heart of Show Boat is still very alive today. It begins with the book and its negative and one-dimensional images of Black people, and continues on through the colossal and deliberate omission of the Black experience, including the pain of a people traumatized by four centuries of attempted genocide and exploitation. Not to mention the appropriation of Black music for the profit of the very people who oppressed Blacks and Africans. All this continues to offend deeply. The 'ol' man river of racism continues to run through the history of these productions and is very much part of this (Toronto) production. It is part of the overwhelming need of white Americans and white Canadians to convince themselves of our inferiority -- that our demands don't represent a challenge to them, their privilege and their superiority.
In general, many of the artistic and social supporters of the musical believe that the depictions of racism should be regarded not as stereotyping blacks but rather
Satirizing the common national attitudes that both held those stereotypes and reinforced them through discrimination. In other words, just as quoting an out-of-context line from a play and claiming that it is the view of the playwright is absurd and deceptive, in the view of many of ''Show Boat'''s defenders, the fact that a dramatic or literary work portrays racist attitudes and institutions does not mean that it endorses them - in the words of ''
The New Yorker '' theatre
Critic John Lahr , "describing racism doesn't make ''Show Boat'' racist. The production is meticulous in honoring the influence of black culture not just in the making of the nation's wealth but, through music, in the making of its modern spirit." In addition, theatre history shows that leading Broadway writers had long used the musical as a medium to call for tolerance and racial harmony, such as in
Finian's Rainbow and by Hammerstein himself in
South Pacific . Those who attempt to understand works like ''Show Boat'' and ''
Porgy And Bess '' through the eyes of their creators usually comprehend that the show
was a statement AGAINST racism. That was the point of Edna Ferber's novel. That was the point of the show. That's how Oscar wrote it... I think this is about as far from racism as you can get .
Perhaps the strongest foundational argument in defense of ''Show Boat'' lies in an understanding of the socially concerned intentions, aims, and backgrounds of its authors. According to Rabbi Alan Berg, Kern and Hammerstein's score to ''Show Boat'' is "a tremendous expression of the ethics of tolerance and compassion" . As Jerome Kern himself states in the original production notes,
Throughout pre-production and rehearsal, I was committed to eliminate any inadvertent stereotype in the original material, dialogue which may seem "Uncle Tom" today... However, I was determined not to rewrite history. The fact that during the 45-year period depicted in our musical there were lynchings, imprisonment and forced labor of the blacks in the United States is irrefutable. Indeed, the United States still cannot hold its head high with regard to racism .
Oscar Hammerstein's commitment to idealizing and encouraging tolerance theatrically started with his libretto to ''Show Boat'' and can be seen clearly in his later works, many of which were written by
Richard Rodgers . For example,
Oklahoma! included a subplot regarding the community's debate over whether to accept a
Persian and its treatment of a victimized man seen as representing blacks .
Carmen Jones is an attempt to present a modern version of the classic
French Opera through the experiences of African-Americans during
Wartime , and
South Pacific explores
Interracial Marriage and prejudice. Finally,
The King And I deals with different cultures' preconceived notions regarding each other and the possibility for cultural inclusiveness in societies. Regarding the original author of ''Show Boat'', Ann Shapiro states that
...Edna Ferber was taunted for being Jewish; as a young woman eager to launch her career as a journalist, she was told that the Chicago Tribune did not hire women reporters. Despite her experience of antisemitism and sexism, she idealized America, creating in her novels an American myth where strong women and downtrodden men of any race prevail... Boat create[s] visions of racial harmony... in a fictional world that purported to be America but was more illusion than reality. Characters in Ferber's novels achieve assimilation and acceptance that was periodically denied Ferber herself throughout her
life .
To the objections of Philip in ''Showing Grit'', therefore, a supporter of the production would answer that her statement is an incorrect analysis using inaccurate assumptions. For example, Philip's condemnation of the original book can be contrasted with Shapiro's commentary on Ferber's own experience of discrimination and how the books she authored, including ''Show Boat'', addressed this sensitivity; that in opposition to the claim that the book and show omit the Black experience, they rather explore this experience in a way that audiences in 1927 were not prepared for. One could say that the analysis of Kern's score in the phrase "appropriation of Black music" is poor
Musicology that ignores the fact that all American music, even and especially including
Jazz forms and styles, is a fusion of always more than one musical influence. Specific to the case of ''Show Boat'', songs attempting to imitate spirituals of Jazz both constitute a minority of the score's musical numbers and are completely original, in that they were composed by Kern and were not cited or quoted. To the statement by Philip that the creators of the show are the "very people who oppressed Blacks" can be retorted the concrete fact that these people were in actuality of a distinct and separate ethnic and cultural group that had its own experience with persecution and discrimination. One could say that what "continues to offend deeply" is in reality not ''Show Boat'' but the historical racial situation in North America, and that "shooting the messenger", especially one that attempts to alert mainstream America to the injustices of racial policies and realities at the time, is counterproductive. Finally, it would seem apparent to many that Philip's final psychological analysis of the show's creators and audiences is refuted by the facts concerning the show itself. In conclusion, a summary statement to the objection to Philip's commentary could therefore be "you picked the wrong enemy because you were looking for one".
Whether or not the show is racist itself, many contend that it is important to continue to be produced today because it serves as a history lesson of American race relations. According to African-American opera singer
Phillip Lamar Boykin , who played the role of Joe in a 2000 tour,
Whenever a show deals with race issues, it gives the audience sweaty palms. I agree with putting it on the stage and making the audience think about it. We see where we came from so we don't repeat it, though we still have a long way to go. A lot of history would disappear if the show was put away forever. An artist must be true to an era. I'm happy with it.
The name of Magnolia's daughter, "Kim", derives from the fact that she was born at the exact moment that the ''Cotton Blossom'' was at the convergence of the states of
entucky ,
'''I'''llinois and
'''M'''issouri . Ferber herself, in the book, calls the sound of the name "uneuphonious". The name did not become a popular name for
American children for more than three decades after the publishing of the book.
