Can't today's theater-goers put old works in context?

[Guest]

I recently watched R&H's South Pacific with my beau. When we got to the "You have to be carefully taught" song, he exclaimed "I can't believe they made a song about racism!". Of course, this work was considered progressive in its day...

 

Well, at least the song "Twin Soliloquies" still resonates for us! 😊

 

[NELLIE]
Wonder how I'd feel
Livin' on a hillside
Lookin' on an ocean
Beautiful and still

[EMILE]
This is what I need
This is what I've longed for
Someone young and smilin'
Climbin' up my hill

And, of course now, no one wants to put up a production of The Mikado or Flower Drum Song because those works don't reflect today's values. What's next? Are we going to throw Verdi's Otello in the trash heap because it appears to promote a stereotype of an angry black man? And LA's Ahmanson Theater is now making a production to celebrate our semiquincentennial with 1776, in which none of the founding fathers are white men. It all seems pretty sad. 

https://www.centertheatregroup.org/tickets/ahmanson-theatre/2022/1776/?utm_source=wordfly&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=dhBSCSubscription20230227&utm_content=version_A

 

Edited January 28, 2023 by Unicorn

[+ WilliamM]

Concerned  with touring with Annie Get Your Gun, Mary Martin was concerned about singing with an opera  star like Ezio  Pinza. Thus twin soliloquies written  by Rodgers and Hammerstein

[+ BenjaminNicholas]

No. They cannot. 

Just read any theatre message board and the endless posts of 'problematic' issues within shows seems neverending. 

It's not that problems don't exist within the construction of these shows, but that a young generation of theatre lovers have little grasp of the time period an original show was written, as well as concepts like satire, irony and camp. 

The hand-wringing alone over the new production of Some Like It Hot was just.... Constant. And what the show ultimately ended up as was this blurry with a very (very) carefully plotted ending that isn't so much satisfying as it is supremely safe and utterly void of any real heart. Totally anodyne. 

 

 

 

Edited February 2, 2023 by BenjaminNicholas

[+ nycman]

On 1/27/2023 at 6:25 PM, Unicorn said:

When we got to the "You have to be carefully taught" song, he exclaimed "I can't believe they made a song about racism!".

Does he realize he entirely missed the point of the song?….actually the point of the entire show?

I’m afraid the inability to see the past objectively is the bane of youth since the beginning of time, however. 

2 hours ago, BenjaminNicholas said:

Totally anodyne

Ok, that made me hard.

There’s  hope for the future after all!

 

[+ WilliamM]

South Pacific opened on Broadway in 1949. When the musical tryout  on the way to New York. People told Richard Rodgers, Oscar Hammerstein and Joshua Logan to tone down the subject the message.

They didn't.

[+ WilliamM]

On 1/27/2023 at 8:25 PM, Unicorn said:

I recently watched R&H's South Pacific with my beau. When we got to the "You have to be carefully taught" song, he exclaimed "I can't believe they made a song about racism!". Of course, this work was considered progressive in its day...

 

Well, at least the song "Twin Soliloquies" still resonates for us! 😊

 

[NELLIE]
Wonder how I'd feel
Livin' on a hillside
Lookin' on an ocean
Beautiful and still

[EMILE]
This is what I need
This is what I've longed for
Someone young and smilin'
Climbin' up my hill

And, of course now, no one wants to put up a production of The Mikado or Flower Drum Song because those works don't reflect today's values. What's next? Are we going to throw Verdi's Otello in the trash heap because it appears to promote a stereotype of an angry black man? And LA's Ahmanson Theater is now making a production to celebrate our semiquincentennial with 1776, in which none of the founding fathers are white men. It all seems pretty sad. 

https://www.centertheatregroup.org/tickets/ahmanson-theatre/2022/1776/?utm_source=wordfly&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=dhBSCSubscription20230227&utm_content=version_A

 

 

As important, Nelly inally realized Emile  had several bi racial children

Nelly really washes the man right out of her hair. Initial some audience members thought Nelly wore a wig  The the director had an idea of using Large bar of soap and prell shampoo

[samhexum]

On 1/27/2023 at 8:25 PM, Unicorn said:

I recently watched R&H's South Pacific with my beau. When we got to the "You have to be carefully taught" song, he exclaimed "I can't believe they made a song about racism!". Of course, this work was considered progressive in its day...

 

Baba Wawa always quoted that song when they discussed racism on THE VIEW.

[+ WilliamM]

1 hour ago, samhexum said:

Baba Wawa always quoted that song when they discussed racism on THE VIEW.

Other than being old enough to see the original production of South Pacific how is that relevant?

At least I met Mary Martin, the origin star of South Pacific. She was going to London to sing Honey Bun with her son for the Queen zMum.  We talked for about three minutes

Philadelphia 1980

Edited February 2, 2023 by WilliamM