Anything Goes: A History of American Musical Theatre - Hardcover

Mordden, Ethan

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0199892830 ISBN 13: 9780199892839

Publisher: OUP USA, 2013

Synopsis

After six volumes on the musical's history, decade by decade from the 1920s through the 1970s, Ethan Mordden takes an entirely fresh look at the musical, from The Beggar's Opera to Wicked. Looking at the Star Comic, the Sweetheart Heroine, the war between musical comedy and operetta, the rise of the sexy story in the 1920s, the wedding of ballet and hoofing in the 1930s, the Oklahoma! and Carousel "musical play" in the 1940s, the Novelty Star in the 1950s, and other developments, Mordden takes us from George Gershwin to Ethel Merman to Jerome Robbins to the director-choreographer and the offbeat contemporary show: Porgy and Bess, Gypsy, Fiddler on the Roof, Chicago, A Chorus Line, Grand Hotel, Grey Gardens, Rent.

In his trademark style that is at once scholarly, witty, and conversational, Mordden emphasizes not only the writing of musicals but the performing of them, taking the reader virtually into the theatre to experience what a great show is like, whether Victor Herbert's The Red Mill or Stephen Sondheim's Follies. Considering the development of dance, the author follows it from zany hoofing in the nineteenth century through the tap "combinations" of the 1920s and the injection of ballet and modern dance in the 1930s and 1940s. Fred Astaire, George Balanchine, Agnes de Mille, Michael Kidd, Bob Fosse, Gwen Verdon: theirs was a time when dance seemed as crucial as music by Richard Rodgers or lyrics by Betty Comden and Adolph Green. Mordden examines also the changing role of the star, noting how such early-twentieth-century headliners as Fred Stone seldom varied their portrayals, whether as the Scarecrow in The Wizard of Oz or Little Red Ridinghood's fatherly guardian in The Stepping Stones. But Ethel Merman turned stardom inside out in Gypsy, acting her way through a character who was selfish, fierce, and destructive, and today's stars are versatile as a rule. From "ballad opera" and burlesque to the sometimes indescribable titles of today, Anything Goes tells where the musical came from and where it has been heading ever since.

A special feature of the book is the extremely detailed discographical essay, a guide for aficionado and student alike in exploring the recorded archives.

About this title

Review:

More journalistic than academic, Anything Goes has a relaxed spryness ... It's the work of an expert who is also an unabashed fan, an inveterate theatergoer who can deconstruct a score and reel off sparking backstage anecdotes all in the same paragraph. (Charles McNulty, Los Angeles Times)

[O]bviously the best-ever history of the musical and likely to remain so for a very long time. Individual shows and even numbers leap to life in Mordden's colorful prose, both in the main text and the hefty bibliographical and discographical essays that propel the volume to a hilarious final bon mot. (Ray Olson, Booklist)

high-energy style carries us along amiably, and it soon becomes obvious that he hasn't set out to write a reference work but ... a survey of an art form seen through the eyes of a breathless and opinionated host. (Peter Tonguette, Wall Street Journal)

[Morden is] a formidably well-informed and bracingly opinionated guide to a quintessentially American art form (Kirkus)

About the Author:

Ethan Mordden is a recognized authority on the American musical, and the author of such books as Make Believe: The Broadway Musical in the 1920s, Beautiful Mornin: The Broadway Musical in the 1940s, and Coming Up Roses: The Broadway Musical in the 1950s. He lives in Manhattan.

About this edition

• Publisher: OUP USA
• Publication date: 2013
• ISBN 10: 0199892830
• ISBN 13: 9780199892839
• Binding: Hardcover
• Number of pages: 360