Lullaby of Broadway

This has been a banner year for Broadway documentaries. First came Rick McKay’s Broadway: The Golden Age, a scintillating history of the Great White Way’s most fertile period, told by the people who helped make it happen. Now, Michael Kantor’s Broadway: The American Musical is on hand to chart the development of one of this country’s few original art forms from roughly 1900 to the present. A mammoth, six-hour undertaking, the film — which is hosted by Julie Andrews — will be broadcast on PBS this week, beginning tomorrow night, and is already available on DVD. But despite its impressive production values, Broadway: The American Musical is best suited for the uninitiated as a painless, information-packed introduction to musical theater. For the experienced and the purists, there’s very little here that hasn’t been seen and/or heard in many other places.

Each one-hour episode of the documentary is devoted to a specific era in the musical’s development. In order, they are subtitled “Give My Regards to Broadway” (1893-1927), “Syncopated City” (1919-1933), “I Got Plenty O’ Nuttin'” (1930-1942), “Oh, What a Beautiful Mornin'” (1943-1960), “Tradition” (1957-1979), and “Putting It Together” (1980-2004). Each episode is further divided into a number of segments dealing with various personalities, shows, or theater-related events in roughly chronological order. The film begins with impresario extraordinaire Florenz Ziegfeld and his landmark Follies shows, moves on to a look at the one-and-only George M. Cohan, explores the contribution of the legendary black performer Bert Williams, and barrels on through the Rodgers and Hammerstein revolution before examining the 1960s responses to it (Fiddler on the Roof, Cabaret, Hair) and concluding with a dissection of the modern production climate, including profiles of producing powerhouses David Merrick and Cameron Mackintosh and an in-depth look at the current Broadway hit Wicked.

Along the way, there are plenty of reminiscences from historians and theater professionals — both the current crop (Harold Prince, Stephen Sondheim, Susan Stroman) and representatives of previous generations (Kitty Carlisle Hart, Al Hirschfeld). There are also voiceovers of current stars such as Nancy Anderson, Audra McDonald, and Mary Testa reading from older writings, plus plenty of audio, film, and video clips. All of this suffices as a survey course on the growth and progress of musical theater, capturing a significant number of the stars and shows that made the Broadway musical central to American culture for decades.

But, overall, Broadway: The American Musical lacks the perspective necessary to take the viewer — whether experienced or newly indoctrinated — smoothly from the musical’s earliest days right up to the present. The film’s highly episodic nature makes long through-lines difficult to establish, and full explorations of the impact of a particular production, person, or concept over the long haul are almost non-existent. Among the most notable omissions: Operetta and many European composers (such as Rudolph Friml and even Kurt Weill) receive but glancing mentions, though they played major roles in the musical’s development; the genre of the concept musical, so vital to the 1970s, is dealt with only obliquely; Stephen Sondheim’s undeniable impact on the composers of today is not touched on at all and, in fact, the work of most of the “post-modernists” (Michael John LaChiusa, Jason Robert Brown, and Jeanine Tesori) is ignored entirely; and certain artists’ contributions are oversimplified (e.g., except for West Side Story, Leonard Bernstein’s musicals are given short shrift; and Chicago is cited as the apotheosis of Bob Fosse’s career, presumably because of the success of the show’s 1996 revival and 2002 film version.)

Of course, no documentary about the Broadway musical could hope to capture every important foundational development of the art form, so the faults of Broadway: The American Musical may be forgivable. There are a few inaccuracies in the information cited; for example, A Little Night Music is not scored entirely in ¾ time and the cast of the original production of Pacific Overtures did not consist only of men. But when the production scores, it scores big. There’s amazing footage of former Ziegfeld girl Doris Eaton Travis, now 100, recreating on the stage of the New Amsterdam a dance that she learned when she was Marilyn Miller’s understudy. Hearing the recently deceased theatrical caricaturist Hirschfeld recount his memories of Al Jolson and other early-century happenings will send shivers down your spine, and sequences depicting the creation of Irving Berlin’s wartime revue This is the Army and the landmark Gershwin folk opera Porgy and Bess are beautifully done. Some of the statements of those interviewed — such as Julie Taymor’s remark, “I think that West Side Story was the forerunner of all MTV,” and Harold Prince’s comment on Pacific Overtures, “It was a flop but it was a success” — may provoke unintentional laughter, but that’s all part of Broadway, isn’t it?

Still, one can’t help but wish the documentary relied less on clips from Hollywood film versions of Broadway musicals, which are usually unreliable as records of the stage shows. (A segment devoted specifically to film adaptations would hardly have been out of place, but none is included.) There are exceptions, such as Bob Fosse’s sizzling choreography for Damn Yankees and The Pajama Game or Jerome Robbins’ for West Side Story. But anyone who’s listened to both the original cast recording and the film soundtrack of Funny Girl knows that each starred a very different Barbra Streisand, so why does the documentary sample Streisand’s inferior performance in the movie? And why does it include clips from early films without bothering to identify them? This is one of the most frustrating aspects of the film, particularly during its first hour or two, when even an expert will be hard-pressed to name some of the people, shows, or places depicted. (Broadway legend John Raitt, for example, is not identified as leading a chorus of the title song from Oklahoma!) Also unfortunate was the decision to conform all of the clips to the 16:9 aspect ratio of high-definition TV, resulting in film and video images that were originally more or less square being chopped off at the top and bottom.

For all of the documentary’s comprehensiveness, it’s difficult not to wish that a more exciting film had resulted from the many years of work and the obvious care put into this project. Those with considerable knowledge of musical theater will hear lots of familiar stories told, while neophytes may find much of Broadway: The American Musical so mild that they may not understand what all the fuss regarding musical theater has ever been about. The documentary largely fails to capture the electric energy that the best musicals generate; there’s little to incite, anger, disappoint, or thrill in this gentle survey of a form of entertainment that has long thrived on bright lights, dazzling colors, jazz, and sex.

Although there is much to be learned from the film in terms of names, places, and other assorted facts, you’re unlikely to learn much about what really makes Broadway musicals special or why, at one time, they were part of the mainstream of entertainment in America (and why some people think they’re still of paramount importance). For the art form to continue to grow and thrive in a hostile economic and cultural climate, these points have to be made crystal clear to the novice and presented in a take-charge, rally-the-troops way for those who need no convincing. Broadway: The American Musical lives up to its title in name but not in spirit.