Weird Broadway: Oscar Hammerstein

Here it is! The opening night playbill for the Broadway revival of "Carousel":

http://www.playbill.com/article/flip-through-the-carousel-opening-night-playbill

And so it seems right to notice some things about Oscar Hammerstein today. Has any other popular writer been so interested in the natural world? "June is bustin' out all over. All the rams and the ewe-sheep are hopin' there'll be new sheep..." "I feel so gay--in a melancholy way--it might as well be spring." "I haven't seen a crocus or a rosebud--or a robin on the wing..." "I'm bromidic and bright as a moon-happy night, pouring light on the dew!"

Hammerstein was keenly aware of pragmatic difficulties, and he altered his writing to meet practical demands. For example, Mary Martin refused to sing a duet with Ezio Pinza; she thought his big baritone would upstage her. So Hammerstein invented the "Twin Soliloquies"; Nellie would murmur something, then Emile, then Nelly, and so on. Mary Martin wanted to see, or be, an actress actually washing her actual hair onstage--and that's the only reason we have one particular Hammerstein song. And "The Carousel Waltz" exists just because audiences had an annoying habit of talking through overtures.

Hammerstein had a hard time with sex. Adapting a John Steinbeck novel, he had to contend with the fact that part of the action took place in a whorehouse. He wrote a weird lyric about the brothel being "frivolous and gay." Steinbeck asked him, basically, "What the fuck are you talking about?" When the theater folks needed to signal that Joe Cable, in "South Pacific," had actually deflowered his Islander sweetheart, someone said, "We'll do a blackout, and then the lights will come back up, and Joe Cable will be shirtless." This caused a fair amount of hyperventilating among "the creatives."

OH had a wonderful way with "thinking out loud." Take, for example, "Shall I Tell You What I Think of You?" from "The King and I." Here, Anna begins by attacking the King. He's a chauvinist! If he lived in England, he would be locked up in a jail! But then she begins to mellow. Through song, she qualifies her own opinions. She allows for shades of gray. "You're spoiled! You're a conscientious worker but you're spoiled. Giving credit where it's due: There is much I like in you, but it's also very true that you're spoiled! Everybody's always bowing to the King. Everybody has to grovel to the King. By your Buddha you are blessed, by your ladies you're caressed, but the one who loves you best is the King." (These are extraordinary lines. They're powerful because they give us a sui generis relationship; once again, we're not dealing with flashy archetypes; we're dealing with two flawed human beings trying--awkwardly--to make sense of each other. We're also getting a portrait not just of the King, but also of Anna. Hammerstein is showing, not telling. Through the wit and the reversals in the lines, OH is showing us that Anna is a lively observer, capable of subtle thought. OH also likes to finesse his wit so that a great deal of surprise is packed into the last word of the line. "The one who likes you best is the King." From a cut song: "Western people funny! Of that there is no doubt. They feel so sentimental about the Oriental, they always try to turn us inside down and upside out!" Showing, not telling: Mutual bafflement conveyed through the fumbling of "upside down and inside out.")

With Anna's speech, OH may have been revisiting the great triumph that was "Soliloquy," from "Carousel." Billy imagines the child who is on *his* way. For surely the child will be a son? "I can give him lots of pointers, very sound, on the way to get round any girl. I can tell him--Wait a minute! Could it be? What the hell! What if he is a girl? What would I do with her? What could I do with her? What could I do for her? A bum with no money! You can have fun with a son but you gotta be a father to a girl..." We witness the story unfolding through music. Billy is growing up before our eyes. Imagining himself with a son, he sees various lessons about strutting, "cheating" the world of many favors. But: epiphany. A girl? Perhaps Billy will have to reassess his own conduct on this planet. This is heartbreaking stuff. You can also imagine Sondheim drinking this in: Billy's sputtering is conveyed through short, bullet-like sentences. Form underlines content. A flawed man wrestles with his own inarticulateness. This is all--maybe--the beginning of Count Carl-Magnus, whom we'll meet in "A Little Night Music." (Also: notice how Billy's thoughts advance ever so slowly. "Would I do with," "could I do with," "could I do FOR." Inching forward, one-word-change at a time, till we land on the word FOR. FOR is the most important word in the sequence. It's the dawn of a new Billy, a "giving," possibly mature Billy.)

Per Todd Purdum: R and H were not the first to integrate dance into the drama. They were not the first to get rid of typical musical comedy conventions. They were not the first to take on serious themes and problems through a musical. They were the first to do all three at once, within the space of one show. Hammerstein was such a sound businessman, it's easy to overlook the fact that he was a bona fide artist. Don't overlook that. Reversals, syntactical tricks, seemingly simple figurative language, humor, despair--They're all there, in the words. OH made millions and still did sound, smart work. How many other American artists can say this about their own lives?

(P.S. After OH died, Rodgers tried to write an OH-ish soliloquy of his own, which I find touching. The soliloquy is "I Have Confidence," from the movie version of "Sound of Music." It has very little of the braininess and sparkle you would find in a set of OH lyrics. But still, Rodgers was trying! Rodgers had trouble articulating his feelings in his daily life. I think "I Have Confidence" was a love letter, from Rodgers, to the deceased Oscar Hammerstein.)