Movies - Show Boat

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	Movies - Show Boat

Show Boat is a musical in two acts with music by Jerome Kern and book and lyrics by Oscar Hammerstein II (with the notable exception of "Bill," which was originally written for Kern in 1918 by P. G. Wodehouse but reworked by Hammerstein for Show Boat). It is based on a 1926 book of the same name by Edna Ferber, and is generally considered to be one of the first popular American "musical", as a dramatic form with popular music, separate both from operetta and from the "Follies"-type musical comedies that preceded it. In many ways, it took the plot and character-centered "Princess Musicals" that Kern had developed with Bolton and Wodehouse the previous decade and broadened the scope. However, George S. Kaufman and the Gershwins' Strike Up the Band, which previewed earlier that year, clearly made similar leaps.

Plot synopsis

(spoiler details follow)

The story spans about 40 years, beginning aboard the showboat Cotton Blossom in the 1880s, on the Mississippi River near Natchez, Mississippi. A riverboat gambler, Gaylord Ravenal, comes aboard and is taken with Magnolia, an aspiring performer and daughter of the ship's captain and owner, "Cap'n Andy". Magnolia (aka Nolie) is smitten with Ravenal as well, and seeks advice from Joe, one of the workers aboard the boat.

A local sheriff comes aboard and insists that the show not go on, because the star of the show, Julie, is a mulatto woman married to a white man, and local laws prohibit miscegenation. With the star gone, Magnolia and Gaylord fill in. He later confesses his love for her and proposes.

Years later, Gaylord and Magnolia are married and living in Chicago with their daughter, Kim. Gaylord's gambling debts get out of control, and they are living in a very poor apartment. Frank and Ellie, two actors on the boat visit, where Magnolia finds that Gaylord has left her. Frank and Ellie seek a singing job for Magnolia at the same club where they are working for New Year's. Unbeknownst to Magnolia, Julie, now a drunk showgirl left by her husband, hears Magnolia's song, the same song she taught her years ago Can't Help Lovin' Dat Man, and abandons her position so that Magnolia can fill it.

On New Year's Eve, Andy comes to the club, unaware of Magnolia's troubles, only to discover her nearly being booed off stage. He rallies the crowd to her defense in a grand sing-along of an old song After the Ball is Over. Magnolia becomes a great actress.

Years later, when Kim is now a star of the stage, Gaylord returns for a happy reunion with Magnolia.

The 1951 MGM film changed many aspects of the story, including bringing the protagonists back together a only few years after they departed (rather than twenty-three years afterward). Gaylord has a chance meeting with Julie, and learns that he has a daughter he didn't know about.

Songs

A definitive list of songs, per se, is somewhat pointless since the original production ran nearly four hours and thus is almost never performed in its original form. Confounding the situation further are new songs written for revivals. Typically, productions pick and choose from the original material to fashion a distinct version of Show Boat. Nevertheless, the key songs from the show include the following:

Overture: the original overture, used in all stage productions up to 1946 (and heard on the 3-disc EMI/Angel CD for the first time in nearly fifty years), is dramatic, and largely based on the deleted song "Mis'ry's Comin' Round", which Kern wanted to save in some form, and which was restored in the 1994 revival of the show. It also contains fragments of "Ol' Man River" and Can't Help Lovin' Dat Man", and, towards the end, there is a lively, rather than slow, rendition of "Why Do I Love You?". The overture for the 1946 revival is a standard medley consisting of "Ol' Man River", "Why Do I Love You?", "Make Believe" and Can't Help Lovin' Dat Man". Still another overture was arranged for the 1966 Lincoln Center revival, consisting of a medley of all these songs, but adding the comic number "I Might Fall Back on You", which is sometimes omitted from modern productions. All three overtures were arranged by "Show Boat"'s original orchestrator, Robert Russell Bennett.

"Cotton Blossom" — The notes in the phrase "Cotton Blossom, Cotton Blossom" are the same notes as those in the phrase "Old Man River, Old Man River," but sung in reverse order. According to Hammerstein and Kern, this was intentional symbolism.
"Where's The Mate For Me?"
"Make Believe"
"Ol' Man River"
"Can't Help Lovin' Dat Man" — Queenie's surprise at the apparently white Julie's knowledge of a "black folks'" song foreshadows the discovery of Julie's mixed origins.
"Life Upon the Wicked Stage"
"Till Good Luck Comes My Way"
"You Are Love" (considered by Jerome Kern to be his worst-ever song.)
"I Might Fall Back On You"
"Queenie's Ballyhoo"
"Why Do I Love You?"
"Bill"
"After The Ball" a song by Charles K. Harris from 1892

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