Anything Goes: A History of American Musical Theatre, by Ethan Mordden
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Anything Goes: A History of American Musical Theatre, by Ethan Mordden
Free Ebook Online Anything Goes: A History of American Musical Theatre, by Ethan Mordden
Ethan Mordden has been hailed as "a sharp-eared listener and a discerning critic," by Opera News, which compares his books to "dinner with a knowledgeable, garrulous companion." The "preeminent historian of the American musical" (New York Times), he "brings boundless energy and enthusiasm buttressed by an arsenal of smart anecdotes" (Wall Street Journal). Now Mordden offers an entirely fresh and infectiously delightful history of American musical theatre.Anything Goes stages a grand revue of the musical from the 1700s through to the present day, narrated in Mordden's famously witty, scholarly, and conversational style. He peers with us over Stephen Sondheim's shoulder as he composes at the piano. He places us in a bare rehearsal room as the cast of Oklahoma! changes history by psychoanalyzing the plot in the greatest of the musical's many Dream Ballets. And he gives us tickets for orchestra seats on opening night-raising the curtain on the pleasures of Victor Herbert's The Red Mill and the thrill of Porgy and Bess. Mordden examines the music, of course, but also more neglected elements. Dance was once considered as crucial as song; he follows it from the nineteenth century's zany hoofing to tap "combinations" of the 1920s, from the injection of ballet and modern dance in the 1930s and '40s to the innovations of Bob Fosse. He also explores the changing structure of musical comedy and operetta, and the evolution of the role of the star. Fred Stone, the avuncular Scarecrow in the Wizard of Oz, seldom varied his acting from part to part; but the versatile Ethel Merman turned the headlining role inside out in Gypsy, playing a character who was selfish, fierce, and destructive.From "ballad opera" to burlesque, from Fiddler on the Roof to Rent, the history and lore of the musical unfolds here in a performance worthy of a standing ovation.
Anything Goes: A History of American Musical Theatre, by Ethan Mordden - Amazon Sales Rank: #862926 in Books
- Published on: 2015-06-01
- Original language: English
- Number of items: 1
- Dimensions: 6.10" h x 1.20" w x 9.20" l, .0 pounds
- Binding: Paperback
- 360 pages
Anything Goes: A History of American Musical Theatre, by Ethan Mordden From Booklist *Starred Review* One of the two most American contributions to world art, the musical springs (as does the other, jazz) from immigrant stock. Its grand progenitor, Mordden says, is John Gay’s The Beggar’s Opera (1728), a socially satirical parody of the Italian operas that then dominated London theater. Gay’s wildly popular “ballad opera,” consisting of popular tunes given new words, inspired imitations that gradually shifted from existing to newly composed music, eventuating in Gilbert and Sullivan’s concoctions in England and Offenbach’s confections in Paris. Late nineteenth-century America enthusiastically imported those shows and started mixing their ingredients with those of native musical entertainment, especially the minstrel show and burlesque (and while the former was performed in blackface, the latter didn’t consist of strippers and blue humor). That’s the musical’s beginnings, and its subsequent life is an evolutionary history of varying forms right down to the present. Mordden brightly differentiates those forms, citing hundreds and analyzing dozens of examples of them in a sweeping narrative that, with plenty of sass and tang, wit and even a little snark, not to mention scholarly precision, is obviously 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
Review "[T]he book takes us to present day, Mr. Mordden has a lot of ground to cover, but his 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." --The Wall Street Journal
"More journalistic than academic, Anything Goes has a relaxed spryness. ("Oklahoma!" in Mordden memorable formulation, "is a musical comedy undergoing psychoanalysis.") 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." --Los Angeles Times
"Mordden remains an undisputed heavyweight in his field; his output is impressively comprehensive and his enthusiasm inexhaustible." --Washington Independent Review of Books
"[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." --Booklist (starred review)
"For four decades he has been entertaining and enlightening readers with mind-boggling regularity and with perspective, perspicacity, and pizzazz. Now with Anything Goes Mordden miraculously manages to stylishly convey in an indispensable single volume, the uncanny and encyclopedic breadth of his knowledge-and the complexity of this enchanted American art form."--Geoffrey Block, author of Enchanted Evenings: The Broadway Musical from "Show Boat" to Sondheim and Lloyd Webber, and Series Editor of Oxford's Broadway Legacies
"Simply the best one-volume cronicle of the art-form." --Stage Direction Magazine
"Anything Goes offers the surest description of the musical, and represents Mordden's own revised conclusions after almost forty years of considering these issues." --The Gay and Lesbian Review
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.
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14 of 14 people found the following review helpful. Ethan in a musical time capsule By Damien Slattery First off, I have to admit to being a fan of Ethan Mordden, and I have read every book on the musical theatre that he has written. This new publication is as its subtitle suggests a history of this most famous of art forms, so we start at the early birthing of the Beggar's Opera in 1728, and travel headlong through Gilbert & Sullivan, Burlesque, Variety Shows, 1920's Operetta and the development of the Musical Play, to land finally at the contemporary blockbuster of Stephen Schwartz's musical: Wicked.The author has already produced a series of books on the 20/21st century decades of Musical Theatre, so this one is more than just a distillation of them. This new work has an entirely new text and covers areas of the origins previously unexplored. Mordden sees musical history as divided into four ages (the Golden Age being the third) and notices a form of devolution occurring after the achievements of Stephen Sondheim. This opinion is subjective of course, but I do tend to agree with him. He traces the evolution of the influence of director/choreographer to the art form, and acknowledges that integration of the varied constituents of song/story were already utilised long before the Show Boat of 1927. Mordden also corrects the myth that The Black Crook of 1866 was the first musical. On examination, he discovers that this unknown work does not truly share any of the elements that make a musical a musical.He always brings an astute intelligence to his opinions and I can think of no one writing about Broadway as expert. I only wish he hadn't titled the book: Anything Goes, as that has too many associations with the Cole Porter classic musical, and I half expected this 346 paged hardback to be exclusively about the creation of that monument before I bought this publication.Unlike a recent book: Showtime: A History of the Broadway Musical Theater (Larry Stempel's humourless tome that mines similar theatrical territory) Mordden is actually a brilliant writer and can produce a phrase that jumps from the page in funny/sarcastic fashion, so this is that rare thing, a humorous history book. On Richard Rodgers' new musical partnership after ending with Larry Hart, I quote Mordden: "Later, with Oscar Hammerstein, Rodgers would turn love songs into hymns: Boy meets Nun."The extensive Discography of cast albums through the years on the final pages are extremely interesting and I would have paid for them alone. I particularly love his gentle critique of Sondheim's own erred verbal delivery as the father of Rose on the original GYPSY cast recording. "Yu aint getting 88 cents from ME, Rose!" which unintentionally infers she had made other inquiries. This subtle discovery prompted me to think that Ethan could produce an entire book based on his own extensive knowledge of cast recordings, as musicals often have numerous cast albums of particular shows, and such analysis is helpful and worthy of his deconstruction. I loved this wonderful book of his, and after it I found myself as an even greater fan.
8 of 8 people found the following review helpful. If you think you know everything about musicals, Ethan Mordden knows more By Bruce from Forest Hills Reading Ethan Mordden's books on Broadway musicals is like spending an evening sharing a conversation and a bottle of good wine with a brilliant, witty mind. The digressions are often more enlightening than the main story. Mordden will tell you things you never heard before and show you ways of thinking you never thought of before.The focus on Victor Herbert makes me look forward to exploring more of his music. The focus on the great early comedians makes you wish you had been there to see them. Mordden shows how their disappearance may have been necessary for the development of the musical as an art form. Yet, you can feel a palpable loss.Most interesting for me was Mordden`s focus on Allegro as a major piece in the development of the modern-day musical. I think I have read all of the "decade" books that Mordden has written. However, those books do not have the luxury of making the vast leaps between eras that this book makes.My only criticism is not about the book itself as much as it is about the marketing. It is one of the most comprehensive histories of the musical I ever read. It goes far from Broadway to discuss the importance of The Beggars Opera and The Tales of Hoffman. However for a book to be both this comprehensive and this short, I think the reader has to know quite a bit about Broadway musicals.But if you think you know your musicals, and you don't mind being enlightened by someone who knows more than you do, you should be reading this book.Unless, of course, you have tickets to a good musical.
7 of 7 people found the following review helpful. Smart, Witty, Lively By New Yorker Ethan Mordden is the most engaging of the writers in this field, makingall that oldtime history come alive. He is also very funny, with a wickedsense of humor. When they were bringing Debbie Reynolds to Broadway for herfirst musical, a revival of Irene, who did they hire to direct? JeromeRobbins? Bob Fosse? Agnes de Mille? No, the Shakespearean tragedianJohn Gielgud. So Mordden says, "Perhaps Mao Tse-Tung and Lawrenceof Arabia weren't available." His best quality is a tight writing style thatlets him fill an average-sized book with information. Mordden sails throughthe eras and the changing styles of the musical at a high energy, and he givesyou plenty to think about even when discussing Oklahoma!, Gypsy, or other showsyou may already know. And if you're new to this history, he helps you along, sothat even the first chapters, filled with apparently famous shows I never heardof from way in the past, are fun and explanatory. Not at all confusing. I likethe use of boldface type each time a new genre appears, because "burlesque" inthe 1800s isn't Gypsy Rose Lee's kind, and then there's "comic opera" and the"minstrel show" (well, that I did already know about), and so on. Mordden alsomentions odd bits that escape everyone else, like giving credit to MarcBlitzstein as "the most acute character composer of the time, able to limnan individual in a single number." Blitzstein isn't famous, but he's one ofmy favorite composers. It's great to see him get credit for something besideshis progressive politics.
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