tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-72707657520850485232023-11-15T22:10:09.412-08:00Awe ContraireRexhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16050985148711857877noreply@blogger.comBlogger11125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7270765752085048523.post-86674529398385546142017-04-21T11:27:00.002-07:002017-06-03T14:47:36.916-07:00Incoherence<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">A weekly newsletter to which I subscribe regularly includes links to three distinctive essays, termed </span><span style="background-color: white; color: #ed1b33; font-family: Georgia; font-weight: bold;">THE READING LIST</span><span style="font-family: verdana, sans-serif;">,</span><span style="font-family: verdana, sans-serif;"> in online magazines I rarely follow. I don't read all of the linked articles unless the title is tantalizing enough. This past week's missive references this article, </span><span style="background-color: white; color: #1c232b; font-family: verdana, sans-serif;"><a href="https://www.wired.com/2017/03/russian-hacker-spy-botnet/Y=AB&M=45166138&N=86304&L=57118&F=H">The hunt for Russia’s most powerful hacker</a>. (Anything tech-related usually is enough for me to dig in.)</span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; color: #1c232b;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><br /></span></span>
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #1c232b;">The exploits of this adept hacker include breaking into various financial networks all over the globe, </span><span style="background-color: white; color: #1c232b;">yielding billions of dollars for the network he and his team built.</span><span style="background-color: white; color: #1c232b;"> </span><span style="background-color: white; color: #1c232b;">The acts were not just criminal, but there are more than hints of involvement of some eastern European governments with more than financial payoff. </span></span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; color: #1c232b;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><br /></span></span>
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">Author Garrett M. Graff<span style="background-color: white;"><span style="color: #1c232b;"> begins...</span></span></span><br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><span style="background-color: white;"><span style="color: #1c232b;">ON THE MORNING of December 30, the day after Barack Obama imposed sanctions on Russia for interfering in the 2016 US election, Tillmann Werner [</span></span><span style="color: #1c232b;">a researcher with the cybersecurity firm CrowdStrike] </span><span style="background-color: white; color: #1c232b;">was sitting down to breakfast in Bonn, Germany. ... </span></span></blockquote>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<span style="color: #1c232b; font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">Werner saw that the White House had targeted a short parade’s worth of Russian names and institutions ... His eyes locked on one name buried among the targets: ["<i>EMB</i>" herein].</span></blockquote>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">The author then unravels the discovery of sequences of bank robberies accomplished by bots, malware, and viruses, as well as multiple withdrawals of small amounts of cash from illegally-created accounts by "mules" cleverly recruited to receive a cut of each withdrawal. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">Paragraph after paragraph unravels the fabric of the elaborate network of sophisticated software designed for very specific, but repeatable and adaptable exploitation of financial accounts from a wide variety of vulnerable institutions. The investigators make some discoveries of the network structure, but while attempting to take down a key server, discover unanticipated backup servers. Eventually, however, the identity of the author of the schemes is revealed, with some help from social networks and much of the software network is brought down. But, more ominously, there are hints of involvement of governments which not only benefit financially, but utilize parts of the network for more surreptitious goals. The sources which the author utilized are apparently unaware of the current location of <i>EMB</i> or what new effort in which he might be involved.</span></div>
<span style="background-color: white; color: #1c232b;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><br /></span></span>
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><span style="color: #1c232b;"><span style="background-color: white;">The </span></span><i style="color: #1c232b;">EMB </i><span style="color: #1c232b;"><span style="background-color: white;">story is as revealing as it is dramatic. (When will Benedict Cumberbatch star in a movie about it?) However, where is the <i>Trump</i>-Russian connection? </span></span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #1c232b;"><br /></span></span>
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #1c232b;">This elusive </span></span><i style="color: #1c232b; font-family: verdana, sans-serif;">EMB</i><span style="background-color: white; color: #1c232b; font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"> is certainly appalling yet fascinating -- a worthy subject of more investigation. The tantalizing nugget of possible involvement with the Trump campaign -- that would make the time spent in reading the piece worthwhile except that, within the fourth paragraph from the bottom: </span><br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<span style="background-color: white; color: #1c232b;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">According to US intelligence sources, the government does not, in fact, suspect that [</span></span><i style="color: #1c232b; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">EMB</i><span style="color: #1c232b; font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">]</span><i style="color: #1c232b; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"> </i><span style="background-color: white; color: #1c232b;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">took part in the Russian campaign to influence the US election.</span></span></blockquote>
<span style="color: #1c232b; font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><span style="background-color: white;">I feel robbed, not so much for wanting any connection between the campaign to exist (I would hope there was <i>no</i> such bond), but expecting that the full article would be about such a possibility (at least trying to find evidence which bears on the question). Trump-Russia is not the story. </span></span><br />
<span style="color: #1c232b; font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><span style="background-color: white;"><br /></span></span>
<span style="color: #1c232b; font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><span style="background-color: white;">A fascinating story incorporates an early teaser that is ultimately irrelevant to that which the author elaborates. </span></span><span style="background-color: white; color: #1c232b; font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">At least the title, "The hunt for Russia’s most powerful hacker," is a more accurate description.</span><br />
<span style="color: #1c232b; font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><span style="background-color: white;"><br /></span></span>
<span style="color: #1c232b; font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><span style="background-color: white;">There is a more fundamental question: why was </span></span><i style="color: #1c232b; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">EMB's</i><span style="color: #1c232b; font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><span style="background-color: white;"> name on the Obama White House list? </span></span><span style="background-color: white; color: #1c232b; font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"> </span><span style="background-color: white; color: #1c232b; font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">(Anyone for another conspiracy?)</span>Rexhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16050985148711857877noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7270765752085048523.post-24282962095372486762016-10-03T12:59:00.000-07:002017-06-03T13:11:41.683-07:00Music and a ManIn 1957, many theater critics became upset that the massive
and distinctive <i>West Side Story </i>of Laurents,
Bernstein, Sondheim, and Robbins was overlooked for the Antoinette Perry Awards
for best musical play; instead the “Tony” went to Meredith Willson's first
musical, <i>The Music <st1:state w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on">Man<span style="font-style: normal;">.</span></st1:place></st1:state><span style="font-style: normal;"> Subsequently, the motion picture version of </span>West
Side Story</i> was more successful in Academy Award recognition than <i>The Music Man</i>, but the latter film, like
the play, was far more economically successful than the musical-<st1:place w:st="on">Manhattan</st1:place> version of <i>Romeo and Juliet</i>. The principal, superficial difference between the
two plays is the tragic ending of <i>West
Side Story</i> compared to the happy-ever-after of <i>The Music <st1:state w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on">Man<span style="font-style: normal;">.</span></st1:place></st1:state><span style="font-style: normal;"> But the former play has its (dark) comedic side, and
there is no small amount of darkness in the latter, a significant portion of
which is after dark.</span></i><br />
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Willson's play is commonly described as a fond remembrance
of his <st1:place w:st="on">Iowa</st1:place>
boyhood combined with a salute to John Philip Sousa, in whose band Willson
played flute, early in his career. When viewed through the lens of archetype
and fulfillment, <i>The Music Man</i> is
something more: a masculine ego (Professor
Harold Hill) encounters unconscious feminine (not Marian, librarian; rather River City) as a result of the
profound masculine touch of truth (masquerading as con, masquerading as salvation, recognized by the one other musician, and the hidden musicians of the barbershop/school board and boys). (And that is a simple explanation?)</div>
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There are still mysteries in this seemingly slight story: Marian
and <st1:place w:st="on">Winthrop</st1:place>’s
dead father, the town’s outcast benefactor, and the true extent of alias
Professor Harold Hill’s musical talents. As with <i>My Fair Lady</i>, the protagonist is “Professor,”assertive, leading, and "learned," There is also the paradox of music brought to <st1:place w:st="on"><st1:placetype w:st="on">River</st1:placetype> <st1:placetype w:st="on">City</st1:placetype></st1:place>,
when it already has its piano teacher, Marian, and in the convention of the
Broadway musical, the townspeople already know how to sing. Whether it be an
ironic and ambivalent, but prophetic welcome to “Iowa” or a panic-stricken echo in
“Trouble,” <i>The Music Man</i> isn’t really
about Harold Hill bringing music to a small city in Iowa, as it is about change
and awakening of a boy, a woman, a man…an entire town. That change brings the
sexes together: Marian and Harold, the teenagers, the mayor and his wife.</div>
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One of the most profound of masculine abuses is the exploitation
of another’s needs. The salesmen on the train decry credit and the failure to “know
the territory”. Harold Hill supposedly doesn’t know the <st1:place w:st="on">Iowa</st1:place> “territory”. The notion and anvil
salesmen supposedly do. They “know” the rhythm of the train after all, but who
really does know the territory of human relationships?</div>
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What prompts the change in each person? The cynical professor,
from his previous experience and success assumes each territory is the same: “<i>green</i> people” means “<i>green</i> money”. Or is it, <i>green</i> as in naïve or <i>green</i> as in envious? Or <i>green</i> as in alive and growing? To the
cunning salesman, all three greens are required; to the extent that each is not
completely present, it must be cultivated and brought forth. Imagined discontent
is quickly created from the installation of a pocket billiards table in the
billiards room (is the table surface felt green or green felt?). “Massteria” grows into a
ripe crop for the professor to harvest. But, what of the only conscious musician,
indeed the only intellectual in town: the maid, Marian? The way to deal with
her lack of naïveté is to cultivate her shy, introverted little brother. Harold
Hill plays with very dangerous ingredients; there is a strange kind of power
involved in attempting to heal a wounded child (as Spielberg explored, to the tune of John Williams' score, in
<i>ET: The Extraterrestrial</i>). The hurt little
boy inside the adult salesman who the was-to-be “healer” is also vulnerable. There is an alleged tradition of some
non-western cultures: the rescuer of one from death is responsible for the
saved person for life. While such explicit traditions are alien in the West
(rather, some form of gratitude by the saved is expected), there is, nevertheless,
a dynamic connection that is established between healer and healed. Further, the
results of a healing transcend the two persons involved. The heart of Marian is touched deeply by the
transformation of her little brother and, fully realizing the salesman’s deception and
dishonesty, becomes Harold Hill’s advocate. The professor encounters a town
that really needs what he has to offer, and he discovers that he equally needs
that town and its librarian.</div>
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Harold Hill’s fraud proved to be somewhat less than fraudulent;
the town indeed got what it paid for, a way to keep the young ones (and older
ones, too) moral after school. What is more moral than honest, faithful, and open
relationship with another, and of consciousness and visibility of which had
been unconscious and hidden? The male can discover that he has the power to
affect other people for better not worse, by coming into honest relationship with
them. Salesmanship invests a great deal in establishing relationships, but not necessarily
for its own sake. Rather, completing the superficial deal is the focus, the
relationship a means to an end. Failure of the salesman to deliver what is
promised is more costly than the actual transaction would imply, because an
unconscious deal has also been betrayed. The surface transaction symbolizes a
subsurface encounter imbued with a power that can give life or take it away. The
betrayal of the customer by the salesman is also a betrayal of salesman himself.
Harold Hill’s day-dream of himself as another Sousa had been repeatedly denied,
town after betrayed town, even before entering <st1:state w:st="on">Iowa</st1:state>.</div>
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For Harold Hill, the transformation comes when he begins to
recognize that human relationships are far more valuable than the proceeds of a
sales campaign. His <i>leit motif</i>, the unidirectional
march, “Seventy-six trombones”, is also a waltz, in a different rhythm, cyclic
and relational. (There is here a hint of a reference to the apocryphal story of John Phillip Sousa’s <i>Thunderer</i>, which is said to
have originated as a ballad... at least according to the cinematic biography of the March
King, <i>Stars and Stripes Forever</i>.) The
green people in <st1:place w:st="on"><st1:placetype w:st="on">River</st1:placetype>
<st1:placetype w:st="on">City</st1:placetype></st1:place> are alive, even if
somewhat obtuse, and Hill, after so many other towns, finally recognizes their
liveliness. As the boys, believing in Harold Hill and his “think system” begin
playing the most marginal of marginals “Minuet in G” (“G” for green?), their parents
discover their greenness, their own life, right there in <st1:place w:st="on"><st1:placetype w:st="on">River</st1:placetype> <st1:placetype w:st="on">City</st1:placetype></st1:place>.</div>
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What saves Harold Hill? There are two episodes of salvation,
after all. The first comes from within: “For the first time I let my foot be
caught in the door.” This statement, to anyone who has ever read Chick Young’s<i> Blondie</i> comic strip, makes no obvious
sense; the salesman purposely catches his foot in the door so as to continue his
spiel, despite the potential customer’s hostility. In context, his being caught
has another meaning: the sales pitch he had been offering must be allowed to go
to its logical conclusion. Before, he never stayed long enough to really
complete the sale. (And the second scene? Please keep reading...)</div>
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“O you’ve got trouble…” The traveling con artist must
convince his marks of a need they have of which formerly they were unaware. But,
is there really trouble in <st1:place w:st="on"><st1:placetype w:st="on">River</st1:placetype>
<st1:placetype w:st="on">City</st1:placetype></st1:place>?</div>
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As he steps off the train, Professor Hill is greeted with a
most peculiar welcome to the State of <st1:state w:st="on">Iowa</st1:state>, <st1:place w:st="on"><st1:placetype w:st="on">River</st1:placetype> <st1:placetype w:st="on">City</st1:placetype></st1:place>
version. Contrary, stubborn, undemonstrative, and independent: that's <st1:place w:st="on">Iowa</st1:place>: every man for
himself; cold and distant, and uncharitable, “unless your crop should happen to
die.”</div>
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Beneath the cold, self-sufficient work ethic of the town,
there is a sterile division. The slight subplot involving the mayor’s teenage
daughter and the town ne’er-do-well typifies the ultra-clean prudery. “Ya wild kid
ya,” lamely yells the mayor at Tommy.</div>
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In his efforts to sell the town on a band, Hill begins the
process of healing a hidden wound. The town council is composed of those Iowans
who never see eye to eye. Miraculously, the school board (why not the city council?) <i>learns</i> they have the ability to
sing together, distracting them from their unfulfilled insistence for Hill’s
credentials. The reality is that Hill, by bringing the quartet together,
demonstrates a different kind of credential. And the ladies, instead of
spending their time gossiping about the “scandalous”' Marian become engaged in
cultural activities, forming living classical Greek sculptures. A more fundamental
division seem to exist, hinted at by the mayor’s discouragement of his daughter’s
juvenile romance: Marian’s spurning of Harold Hill’s advances, the all-male
barber shop quartet, and the absurd (?) Grecian urn.</div>
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John Keats’ “Ode to a Grecian Urn” describes the inscribed youth forever pursuing a young woman in a hopeless race around the circumferential face of the vase. For eternity they are destined to be separated, the youth never getting
closer to the girl, than he is now, she unable to slow down to his embrace, Who can circumvent this fruitless eternal race?</div>
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But the deep-seated division is not merely within the town,
or Marian, however, but within Professor Hill himself. It is he who has drawn the school board into a barbershop quartet; it is Harold Hill who has formed the ladies' classics
society, even as the boys band is yet to be more than a dream, a fantasy. Only his calculating (but uninformed) encouragement of Tommy and the mayor's daughter's relationship, and his initial cynical cultivation of
relationship with Marian hint at any desire he might really have for healing
the division within himself. Hill acknowledges from the beginning that he is a
con artist, seeking green people and green money. <i>Green</i> as in <i>naive</i>, but
also <i>green</i> as in <i>alive</i>. His cynical gift is to create a need for his product by
preying on the deeper needs of the people (which needs he can really know only
from his own, neglected desires). This gift is most explicitly revealed when
his tells his old friend of his preference for the “sadder but wiser girl.” He
prefers not to deflower the innocent (but calculating) maiden, but harvest from the old established garden plot. Puzzlingly, a young girl is seen to be
eavesdropping on Hill's performance and ends up dancing with the two men. While
the language is over her head, her presence can only betray Hill’s
self-deception. As the unscrupulous salesman, we might presume that Hill has been been
violating town after town for a long, long time.</div>
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Is it possible that the previous towns have been repeatedly violated
before by the slick, fast-talking
Professor? Is <st1:place w:st="on"><st1:placetype w:st="on">River</st1:placetype>
<st1:placetype w:st="on">City</st1:placetype></st1:place> somehow different? Yes,
there are the dark shadows of jealousy and self-sufficiency, but are these
attitudes as such indicative of immaturity and naivete as they are of cynical experience.
For once, Hill may be dealing with the town that will not let his foot be
dislodged from the door before they are satisfied with his spiel and he delivers the full-fledged band he promises. <st1:place w:st="on"><st1:placetype w:st="on">River</st1:placetype> <st1:placetype w:st="on">City</st1:placetype></st1:place>,
more alive than Harold Hill, was still not living its life to the full. Its
soul in danger, there was the bitterness towards the miser-benefactor of the
town, beneath whose statue Harold Hill first makes <st1:place w:st="on"><st1:placetype w:st="on">River</st1:placetype> <st1:placetype w:st="on">City</st1:placetype></st1:place>
aware of its “trouble”. Willson gets his digs into Midwestern Puritanism: “Chaucer,
Rabelaise, Balzac” and “Sadder by Wiser Girl,” such that there is a hint of liberation
implied by the mayor’s eventual acquiescence in his daughter’s romance with the
town “wild kid.” The town acknowledges at the beginning that the only factor which
would provoke charity is the dying (from yellow to brown to very not-green) crop. As Harold Hill early on doffs his reversed bandsman’s coat to give it to Tommy, he unknowingly has given
his shirt and back to save a town.</div>
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In return, as the denouement begins, Hill stands humbled and shackled, awaiting the
judgment of the town: it is he suddenly he who is near death. No longer the master of his fate,
he allows his charlatan self to be exposed. As the truth of his sacrifice is made
clear, to the excruciating sound of the minuet, the town is itself converted and comes to rescue Hill from themselves. The long suppressed dreams of a music man are suddenly released and the boys have learned learn to play. The music man and town learn to love.</div>
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The simplicity of <i>The
Music Man</i> resonates in the individual audience member who (a decade or more earlier) fist experienced the exuberance of <i>Oklahoma!</i> There’s a charlatan (or peddler) and a maiden librarian (or farmer's daughter) in each man and woman; a
judgmental and inept mayor, a musician and a piano teacher, too. A
masculine march loops into every library nook and cranny, emerging with feminine love song that becomes a triumphant march or a grand, everybody-sings, finale. A musical argument between
mother and daughter cycles into a song of longing and hope. A march becomes a ballad becomes a grand march. </div>
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PS The connection between the two musicals is drawn tighter as Shirley Jones was female lead in both subsequent movies, separated by seven years. (There is also she in <i>Carousel</i>, filmed but only a year after <i>Oklahoma</i>!)</div>
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<span style="color: #351c75;">[This article was previously posted on <a href="http://maxfrac.blogspot.com/">maxfrac</a>; a few edits and observations have been added.]</span></div>
Rexhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16050985148711857877noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7270765752085048523.post-16798163357866119862016-10-01T22:49:00.002-07:002016-10-03T16:54:33.476-07:00QuixoticMitch Leigh’s <i>Man of
La Mancha</i> takes the themes of mythical hero and transformation into a kind of
pseudo-realism akin to <i>West Side Story</i>.
There is an air of danger and risk as the alter ego of Miguel de Cervantes
confronts muleteers and Leigh’s Cervantes (not the “real” Cervantes) confronts
fellow prisoners and, eventually, an imagined Inquisition. The dark foreboding
dungeon, reachable only via a retractable ramp, almost seems to symbolize the
prison of the mind, that dark part of the unconscious which lacks joy, hope, or
any glimmer of freedom. But, through his half-insane knight-errant, the craziness
of reaching for the unseen transforms the other prisoners, at least for the moment,
from their previous resignation, cynicism, and despair.<br />
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<o:p></o:p></div>
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Where <i>Man of La Mancha</i>
differs from other major musical plays is the victory achieved by a change which
seems to embrace a conscious archetype, rather than transformation from the
control of an unconscious archetype. In such plays as <st1:place w:st="on"><st1:state w:st="on"><i>Oklahoma</i></st1:state></st1:place>,
<i>My Fair Lady</i>, and <i>Carousel</i> the key for the leading male is
to release his grip on the partially unconscious masculine preconceptions and
controls. In <i>West Side Story</i>, the
rigidity of the immature and primitive archetypal roles leads to disaster. Of
course, the masculine archetype of <i>Man of
La Mancha</i> is quite different from the machismo images of the other plays. Curly
sacrifices everything, even his saddle and gun (and his swaggering cowman vocation)
for Laurey. Higgins acknowledges his need for the companionship of a woman.
Billy of <i>Carousel</i> learns selflessness
and forgiveness (primarily for himself). And, the changes in these characters
are not at the expense of their previous selves. Each is still essentially the
same person, with greater depths and more sober perspectives on life.<o:p></o:p></div>
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Don Quixote is insane, totally possessed by the hero archetype.
In <i>Carousel </i>Billy flirts with the
archetype as he becomes aware of his impending fatherhood, but as an inept
Robin Hood, fails, and is unable to withstand the temptation for the shortcut
and dies, requiring redemption in another life. When Don Quixote is confronted with
his profound illusion, his soul seems to die. Encouraged by Sancho, and especially
Al Donza-Dulcinea, his soul comes back to life, transcending even his death, to
a resounding reaffirmation of the hero archetype.<o:p></o:p></div>
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The transformation that is Don Quixote has occurred before we
first encounter him in Cervantes imagination. We only know of his previous self
through the shocked reaction of his niece and housekeeper. By inference, the
encounter of Don Quixote with the world occurs between periodic wars, but shortly
after the Moors have been driven from <st1:place w:st="on">Iberia</st1:place>. The world is desolate and
corrupt, barely livable. Can we also infer that the man who has become Don
Quixote also perceives himself as a failure, desolate, and barely alive? The masculine
archetype of the world is unconscious and tyrannical. The feminine is submerged,
oppressed, and brutally exploited.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
That which Quixote has embraced seeks to rescue both masculine
and feminine, to bring the beauty of the latter to consciousness, to re-invent <st1:place w:st="on">Eden</st1:place> by sacrificing the
former. The member of the audience either responds to the explicit call to
chivalry or is turned off by its blatant unreality.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
The contemporary feminist may look back on the mid-Sixties romance
and decry the reshaping of the feminine by Don Quixote’s projections. But, a
point may be missed. Whether a man can rescue a woman is one question; whether
the same man can rescue the feminine within himself is another. Thus <i>Man of La Mancha </i>symbolizes on an explicitly
archetypical level the search for wholeness and completion within the
individual Don Quixote and, by extension, the fictional Miguel de la Cervantes.
How can the multiple levels and facets of the personality be integrated?<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
The peculiarities of the cinema version of <i>Man of La Mancha</i> emphasize a kind of
stark naturalness of a desert setting including non-musical performers who attempt
to sing the intensely familiar melodic pieces associated with the original
Broadway cast and numerous popular voices. (At least four other Broadway plays
have been filmed in a similar manner, using several non-singing actors: Sondheim’s
<i>A Little Night Music</i>, Lerner and Loewe’s
<i>Paint Your Wagon, </i>Lesser’s <i>Guys and Dolls</i>. Audrey Hepburn’s voice
in <i>Funny Face</i> is quite credible – How
long has this been going on?—and, yes, complementary to Fred Astaire’s, quite
familiar voice from many a previous movie; alas, as marvelous was her acting as
Eliza--some say better than that of Julie Andrews’ on-stage Eliza--Marnie Nixon’s
dubbing was essential, if only to apply Loewe’s marvelous melodies to task in the
battle of more-than-words, words, words, with Rex Harrison. Returning to the “bad”
stage-to-screen examples, there is now the fourth—the inexplicable phantom in
the Phantom--the resulting dissonance is each of the fourt is at first discomfiting,
shadowing the archetypes a bit. On the other hand, the tempering of the fairy
tale in this way challenges the audience to a resolution of their own inner desires
and conflicts – no, that’s not enough Sorry, these author ranks the four as
failures and FF a success (Audrey in the bridal gown dancing on the stones of the
brook, how could Fred not secure her then and there?)<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Because <i>Don</i>’s cinematic
desert is “real”, and not a stage (although the prison, out of which the desert
is “imagined” seems a little less real; but who in the late Twentieth Century
knows the reality of an Inquisition-era dungeon?), the perceived message can be
to challenge the masculine search for opening to the feminine reality in life.
“To dream the impossible dream” is not necessarily a syrup rendition of fairy
tale nostalgia, but instead a fresh challenge to change.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Jung argued that one cannot rationally and fully characterize
an archetype. Rather, the numinous power can only be symbolized or experienced
by analogy. And, the presence of an archetype can only be recognized by its
effects, rather like the wind. Leigh would claim that the encounter with a
charismatic figure such as Don Quixote can potentially transform a person just
as the prisoners are transformed in <i>Man
of La Mancha</i>. As with other creative theater experience, the individual
audience member can leave with no less than a gnawing desire for the kind of
transformation and integration which “Cervantes” seems to have wrought.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
At the creative leve1, Mitch Leigh and his collaborators have
not achieved as great a subsequent commercial success as <i>Man of La Mancha</i> since it was introduced. Their handling of Don Quixote
is remarkable insofar as it involves so many levels of characterization. Taking
but a small part of Cervantes’ classic novel, including the author as a
character, and placing the dominant setting in an underground prison emphasizes
the multiple levels of meaning. “Come into my imagination…” The invitation of
Cervantes can be seen as the invitation of the entire theater itself. In
reality, of course, the individual member of the audience is bringing Cervantes
and Don Quixote into his or her own imagination. The drama and the tragicomedy
are not merely on the stage; they are on the inside as well.<o:p></o:p></div>
<span style="color: #351c75;"><i><br /></i></span>
<span style="color: #351c75;"><i>[This article was previously posted on <a href="http://maxfrac.blogspot.com/">maxfrac</a>; a few edits and observations have been added.]</i></span><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;">
<br /></div>
Rexhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16050985148711857877noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7270765752085048523.post-8129358037463559792016-10-01T22:23:00.001-07:002016-10-03T16:55:08.317-07:00Alan Lerner’s Defense<div class="MsoNormal">
The origin of the idea for Lerner and Loewe to undertake a
musical play based on George Bernard Shaw’s <i>Pygmalion</i>
been retold many times, with some variation. Apparently, promoter Gabriel
Pascal, who owned the rights to musical versions of Shaw’s plays, tried to
interest a number of composer-lyricists in the task of converting <i>Pygmalion</i>. Rodgers and Hammerstein are
said to have turned the opportunity down, feeling that Shaw’s play is not a
romance – romance being the essential foundation in their conception of a Broadway
musical. According to Lerner, when he and Loewe were first offered the play,
they were skeptical of the ability to musicalize <i>Pygmalion</i> because of the lack of a subplot. After further reflection,
however, the pair decided to tackle the task because “times had changed”; a
subplot was not required because of perceived evolution in the stage musical
over the previous few years, or so Lerner says. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
As far as Hammerstein’s apocryphal reservation is concerned,
it is quite clear that Lerner and Loewe interpreted the play as intrinsically
romantic, no matter how vehemently Shaw had claimed it was not. Their
interpretation of <i>Pygmalion</i> is not without
in independent support, I recall reading a high school anthology (my first
encounter with<i> Pygmalion</i>) edited by J.
B. Priestly, in which he describes Shaw as “anti-romantic” since the character
of Eliza certainly falls in love with Higgins, whether Shaw, her ultimate “creator”
acknowledged the fact or not. Maybe GBS was pulling every one’s leg, including
that extremely small (future) Shavian minority who disdain <i>My Fair Lady</i> because of its failure to adhere to its hero-author’s extra-textual
assertions. Or, perhaps that which occurs in a play such as <i>Pygmalion</i> extends beyond the intent of
its author, taking on a life of its own.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
And, is there actually no subplot in either <i>Pygmalion</i> or <i>My Fair Lady</i>? Further, is <i>Pygmalion</i>
like its offspring, itself a romance? I believe the answers to both questions
are related, particularly insofar as the individual audience member is
concerned; never mind George Bernard Shaw.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Applying the concept of the inner experience of the onstage
story, the play becomes a whole with discrete but related parts. Henry Higgins
and Eliza Doolittle and Alfred Doolittle and Mrs. Higgins and Freddie and
Pickering all are part of the seated individual in the audience. What is <i>My Fair Lady</i> about: Eliza or Higgins? Certainly
it is Eliza who seems to experience the most profound external change. Her
speech, manner, appearance: all are transformed. But, looking more closely,
consider what has happened to her character: there does not seem to be that
much of a difference between the dirty flower girl who saucily asks Higgins to
teach her to speak correctly and the defiant woman who tells him to “go to
Hertford, <st1:place w:st="on">Hereford</st1:place>,
and Hampshire”. Higgins’ claim that he has made a woman of Eliza is baldly wrong.
She is still very much her own person, much more refined, self-assured, and attractive,
but still herself. Perhaps the one profound change that has occurred in her is her
willingness to forgive, Lerner’s most explicit addition to Shaw’s tale, else how
could she possibly return to Henry?<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
And, what do we make of Henry Higgins? Virtually nothing
external of the “professor” has changed from the beginning of the play to the
end, except that he has not only allowed a woman into his home (besides the
servants and the American heiresses), he has unwittingly allowed a woman into
his life. Early on, it is clear that Eliza would welcome a man into her life,
his head resting on her knee. But never would Henry permit a woman into his. It
is the male lead who experiences the most unsettling transformation in both
plays, in that he is forced to confront his profound self-deception. Shortly
thereafter, Lerner salves Higgins’ self-inflicted wound with Eliza’s return.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Is Eliza Galatea to Higgins’ Pygmalion or is Higgins really
both mythical characters? The task of transforming Eliza is perhaps better viewed
as an unconscious effort at Higgins’ own re-creation. The struggle to realize
one’s, internal maturation and integration can often express itself in our relationships
with others, as we project our unconscious on them. Higgins is a master
projector, particularly when we look closely at his own self-image. Of the
principal characters, the professor is most repulsed by Eliza: “Look at her,” he
says, “a prisoner...” Eliza is not the only prisoner here; in his disdain for
the flower girl, Higgins is expressing a kind of self-description for that
which is within and of which he is virtually and completely unaware. The lack
of self-knowledge displayed by Professor Henry Higgins is nowhere more clearly
shown than in his two “hymns”: “An ordinary man” and “Why can’t a woman”. There
is, of course, Higgins’ own self-directed and aware irony in calling himself “ordinary”,
he clearly realizes his own brilliance and uniqueness: “Let the others of my sex”
get married; he will “never let a woman in”.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
What of the “missing subplot”? There is the pitiful Freddie
(completing, with Higgins, a most peculiar triangle). And, there is the
appalling Alfred Doolittle. Higgins aptly and accurately describes the idea of
Eliza’s possible marriage to Freddie as “infantile”. As enamored as Freddie is
of Eliza, it is clear that his “Miss Doolittle” is an illusion. He would rather
“drink in” the street where she lives, encouraging the maid to tell Eliza not
to rush. And, Eliza eventually sees through Freddie, too (according to Lerner,
if not Shaw); all he wants to do is sing (“talk”) and fantasize, not relate to
her as a person. Eliza realizes that Freddie is no better than Higgins. In a
sense, Freddie’s Galatea is stranded on the pedestal.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Isn’t Freddie really a kind of shallow, mushy complement to
Higgins? Freddie no more wants a real woman in his life than does the good
professor. Both have a fantasy view of the feminine. In his relative maturity,
Henry sees women as manipulative and irrational. The idea of relationship is alien.
His intellectual and masculine “superiority” fail to recognize anything of
value in any woman, except, perhaps, to maintain his household. Freddie’s worship
of femininity, whether lower class or elevated Eliza, places women at a
distance. Eliza and Freddie never really communicate. And for virtually all of <i>My Fair Lady</i>, Eliza and Higgins fail to
establish conscious communication, although both seem to try in their own ways.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Is there anything more absent from Higgins that the romanticism
of a Freddie? For, even if he expressed even a glimmer of infatuation for Eliza
or any woman, would not he still keep himself distant? In his initial “hymn”,
his self-described “ordinariness” is accompanied by the infernce that he lacks
the ability to relate to a woman. He has had to deal with “social-climbing heiresses”
from the Colonies and finds it necessary to deal with them crudely and
insensitively. It is clear that Eliza is not the first woman of any status to
be treated so badly; the romanticism of a Freddie would only encourage them; better
to wear the hostile facade of the misogynist than to risk entanglement with “irrational,
mutton-headed hags”.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Could a romantic Freddie lay dormant deep within Higgins,
suppressed and imprisoned for fear of the master losing control? Freddie
doesn’t care what other people think. Presumably, Higgins doesn’t either, but
woe to the man who is perceived by others as weak. Better to be in control of
every situation and to be the omnipotent one.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
The typical masculine inclination is to be “in-charge”. Where
that is not possible, the male wants to know precisely who is in charge and what
the limits of authority are, so that he can be master of at least a small part
of his fate. In Freddie’s fantasy world (which is the only realm he controls),
there are no constraints, but in the real world he is incompetent; he is unable
to find a taxicab after the theater, and is dominated by his mother and sister
(although the latter appears only in <i>Pygmalion</i>).
Higgins’ relationship with his mother is equally unsatisfactory, as, rightly, her
view of him is not as an adult male. Both Mrs. Eynesford-Hill and Mrs. Higgins presumably
want their sons to grow up, but neither has had much success.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Combine Higgins and Freddie, and the result would probably
still be grotesquely unsatisfactory. Not only are there direct incompatibilities
and contradictions in their characters, something is still missing. Enter
Alfred Doolittle. Higgins claims to like Eliza’s father. Is that because he
sees a kind of soul-mate? Is not Doolittle as much an “ordinary” man as Higgins?
“With a little bit” is as unrealistic and deceptive as the self-image of an “ordinary
man.” Doolittle, who sees himself as a “do-little”, indeed, pretends to be
utterly depraved and dissolute; but he still maintains a puzzling paternal
relationship with his daughter, who is presumably illegitimate. Who heard of a
stereotypical ne’er-do-well who acknowledges his paternity? And where is Eliza’s
mother? This is a curious plot element.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Explicitly, Doolittle has relationships with women well beyond
the apparent experience of Higgins or Freddie. But unlike Henry, Doolittle
seems to be unaffected by them, except that he is apparently faithful, after a
fashion, to his daughter and his paramour.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Higgins rationalizes his life in a way analogous to Doolittle’s;
no wonder he likes the old man. But, the professor cannot leave well enough
alone, and, as with the daughter, Higgins intervenes in Doolittle’s life, putting
him in touch with an American heiress who munificently endows the dustman with
a financial foundation and the obligation to become a professional moralist.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Higgins, by his conscious meddling in the lives of Eliza and
Alfred, unconsciously begins to effect change in himself as well. As Eliza
begins to grow in the mold Higgins has crafted (a mold which is really not that
different from Eliza herself), Higgins is reshaped as well (and far more drastically).
New attitudes, unwelcome emotions, and recognition of a degree of less
independence than previously thought all begin to emerge from within Henry, in
spite of himself.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
There is a secondary meaning to “ordinary”, in addition to a
“self-description” as typical, average man-on-t he-street, “ordinary” can also
imply “responsible,” “in-charge,” or “controlled”. Like <i>Pygmalion</i>, Higgins believes he is entirely responsible for the
education of Eliza. Thus he takes (unconvincing) credit for even her mature,
self-assured rejection of her former professor. But, unlike sculpture crafted
by the Greek hero, Eliza was also being affected by <st1:city w:st="on">Pickering</st1:city>, Mrs. Pierce, and even Freddie. It is
the housekeeper and the Colonel who acquaint Eliza with Edwardian culture from
the inside, not Higgins. When Henry claims to have made a woman of Eliza, his
self-deception reaches its apogee. Eliza has learned how to be in relationship
with equals of all strata without relying on guile or deception. What has
Higgins learned? Quite a lot! For the repressed and denied Freddie inside of
Higgins finally emerges, as Henry faces the bald cold reality of his affection
for Eliza. She has stirred something within him. Disoriented and irrational, he
rants and raves in a complex of sentimentality, anger, wistfulness, bitter rage,
bargaining, and despair. Higgins is no longer ordinary, average, typical, or in
control of the sea and sky, the tides and seasons.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
The cryptic adventures of Alfred Doolittle are highlighted
to the extent that they provide comic relief, yes, but also insofar as they
illuminate the change going on inside Higgins. Doolittle recognizes that his
world is changed by his “unwelcome” affluence. And, he must respond by marrying
his hidden woman. He must acknowledge her and make of them both “honest people”.
And, there is bitterness in Doolittle’s “involuntary” change, expressed in Shaw’s
Fabian socialist vocabulary, deriding middle-class mores and facades which must
now be assumed by the ex-dustman.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
DoolittIe’s marriage foreshadows Higgins’ necessary acknowledgment
of his inner feminine, romantic self. In Alan Lerner’s defense, the marriage in
the morning prophesies the transformed relationship of Eliza and Henry; their
marriage presumable comes shortly after the curtain falls (the time of <i>My Fair Lady</i> is Edwardian England, and
the time of Lerner and Loewe is the late Forties to mid-Fifties; in neither
time were publicly acknowledged live-in relationships without marriage socially
acceptable).<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
For the male in the audience, Higgins is a caricature, but a
man in whom one can recognize himself: Self-controlled and ordinary master of
his fate (however illusory), in fear of or in denial of relationship with the
feminine. The truthfulness of Eliza, who is never dishonest, contrasts with the
deceptive male ego, which cannot trust another, nor make the humble but risky investment
in real relationship.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Higgins, who consciously separates himself from women (except
to survive on the means which they provide), Freddie who idealizes the feminine,
and Doolittle who explicitly uses them for whatever is convenient, are – none
of them – the best representatives of the male sex. Only by integration of
responsibility, imagination, eros, and trust, and by relaxation of control does
the male begin to approach balance with that which is hidden beneath the
surface, so as to produce a marriage of the opposites.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<i>My Fair Lady-Pygmalion
</i>is not real, so the debate about which ending is correct is a bit sterile. However,
as a symbol of the maturation-individuation of the individual, <i>Pygmalion</i> is more realistic in the sense
that failed opportunities (denied relationships) seem to be far more common in
affluent Western life that the ideal fulfillment postulated by Lerner. <i>My Fair Lady </i>represents the romantic and
spiritual ideal, however rocky the road to married life of a Henry Higgins and
Eliza Doolittle would be.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
For the femaIe in the audience, recognition of the true nature
of the play probably comes easier than for the male. Women recognize Higgins,
Freddie, and Doolittle, although the recognition may be born more from experience
than nature. The extent to which a primitive attraction for any of the three is
experienced may well be symbolic of that unconscious masculine within the woman
which as not yet been realized. Each of the three types can deceive, just as
Eliza was initially misled into believing that the conscious Higgins really
cared. As she saw her desires for culture, and gentility (really relationship with
her “betters”) being realized, she attributes to Higgins total responsibility
for her growth and success. Her awakening is to awareness of his profound
conscious shortcomings and her own inner strength and potential independence.
As she tells him of her discovery ("Without you"), the cynical young
flower-girl is revealed as a realistic and balanced woman, not that far removed
from her roots. She has become fully capable of balancing her desires for relationship
with a realistic understanding and ability to tap traditionally masculine qualities
within herself, not the least of which is her self-sufficiency.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Higgins’ gruesome fantasy of Eliza and Freddie starving in a
flat overlooks the fact that even in her flower-girl days, Eliza was surviving.
No, Eliza would not fail, although a marriage with Freddie would be beneath
her, unless Freddie were to grow up.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Fortunately for Eliza (and more so for Higgins), Henry begins
to grow up first, before Freddie. However slow and painful the process maybe –
Eliza may still be fetching his slippers – but their relationship will be an
adult one. With a significant amount of work ahead, Higgins must begin to let go
of his ordinariness, and Eliza must teach him about life.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
As with <st1:place w:st="on"><st1:state w:st="on"><i>Oklahoma</i></st1:state></st1:place><i>!</i>, music and plot elements reinforce <i>My Fair Lady’s</i> essential theme. The
self-similarities of the various character relationships, combined with their
elaboration in song, forge a profound coherence that, like the R&H’s “ground-breaker”,
remains a classic. The interacting strange loops of each character with the
strange loop that is the audience member reinforce a sense of growth, maturation,
and fulfillment.<o:p></o:p></div>
<br />
<br />
<span style="color: #351c75; font-style: italic;">[This article was previously posted on </span><a href="http://maxfrac.blogspot.com/" style="font-style: italic;">maxfrac</a><span style="color: #351c75; font-style: italic;">; a few edits and observations have been added.]</span><br />
<h2>
<o:p> </o:p></h2>
Rexhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16050985148711857877noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7270765752085048523.post-20579803100474026232016-10-01T22:21:00.002-07:002016-10-01T22:21:49.860-07:00 ‘A winkin’ her eye<div class="MsoNormal">
It is Wednesday, <span style="color: #333333;">March 31, 1943</span>.
Outside Broadway’s <st1:place w:st="on"><st2:sn w:st="on">St.</st2:sn> <st2:middlename w:st="on">James</st2:middlename> <st2:sn w:st="on">Theatre</st2:sn></st1:place>
clouds of anxiety and uncertainty, penetrated by occasional glimmers of good
news, have been hovering since December 7, 1941. Nearly 9000 miles to the west,
the U.S. Navy has dealt a blow to the Japanese in the Bismarck Sea, 4000 miles
to the east, the Allies are squeezing Germany out of North Africa, but
hoped-for D-Day, the beginning of the liberation of France is still fourteen
months in the future. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Inside the doors of the St. James, a seeming lifetime away,
the overture comes to an end and the rising curtain reveals a sparse, simple
pastoral scene: an old woman churning butter on the veranda of a small
farmhouse. The stalks of a cornfield, anchored to the ground/stage point upwards
to a golden blue sky with wispy clouds that fade into distant memory. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
The anxiety outside – the reality of a second great war in a
quarter century – is temporarily replaced by the beginnings of a melodic story set
before the first Great War. Distant from cities, in the Indian Territory (but with
no “Indian” roles), the rural cast of <i>Oklahoma!</i>
can’t even be called “Okies” yet, and if they were land-rush “Sooners” the tale
doesn’t tell. Except for the itinerant “Persian” peddler, the characters are
the temporal and geographic continuation of the “Scotch-Irish” invasion that
surged in the Jacksonian age, climbed into the Appalachians, and penetrated
west and south through the <st1:state w:st="on">Border States</st1:state> into
the southern <st1:place w:st="on">Great Plains</st1:place>. Could this rural
American culture and its musicalized story be any more alien to a <st1:city w:st="on">Manhattan</st1:city> audience? Nevertheless,
at the conclusion of the first performance all kinds of people agreed they were
in love with the play, and critics began proclaiming <st1:state w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on"><i>Oklahoma</i></st1:place></st1:state><i>!</i> the most fully-realized, integrated
musical play in American stage history. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
The story had its creative roots in the play, <i>Green Grow the Lilacs</i>, planted close
geographically and temporally near the birthpla<b>c</b>e of author Lynn Riggs – Claremore, Indian Territory (he was born
eight years before Statehood). From the dominance of literal horsepower to
stories of gas-buggies in the nearest big city, as well as anticipated
statehood in <st1:state w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on"><i>Oklahoma</i></st1:place></st1:state><i>!</i>, we infer it is right around the turn of the Twentieth Century. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
A cowboy approaches the farmhouse and begins to sing: “Oh,
what a beautiful morning…” <i>a capella</i>.
Thus does the conceit of the musical play allow for an alien rural culture to
enter Knickerbocker consciousness. To whom is the cowboy singin’? Is it he himself,
the old woman, a young woman hidden in the house, and/or the hushed audience? <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
A fully “integrated” musical play begins – the product of
decades, even centuries of evolution – and the creative fruit of the
collaboration of author, composer, lyricist, choreographer, and director, as
well as actors. The play takes traditional structures, reorganizes them, and
adds new elements. More importantly, more pervasive self-structuring is crafted,
forming the pervasive “integration” that is the distinct component introduced
by <st1:state w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on"><i>Oklahoma</i></st1:place></st1:state><i>!</i> into musical theater.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
As a native Cornhusker (<i>Go
Big Red!</i>), it has always bothered me that the consensus ground-breaking
piece of musical theater dances its way across the imperfect prairie of the
more southerly Sooner State, and not the expansive, rolling Sandhills north of
the Platte River (some of the most sublime country imaginable). Why couldn’t
there be a musical called “Nebraska”? Part of the answer, of course, is Lynn
Rigg’s <i>Green Grow the Lilacs</i>: Riggs,
the native of the future Oklahoma. Maybe someday someone will make an
extraordinary musical out of <i>O Pioneers!</i>,
<i>Old Jules</i>, <i>My Antonia</i>, or the Huskers second national championship season (the
Sooners’ greatest regret)<i>.</i> Until
then, Rodgers and Hammerstein’s first masterpiece will remain the classic,
ground-breaking “integrated” stage musical play.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
So why did <st1:state w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on"><i>Oklahoma</i></st1:place></st1:state><i>!</i> cause such a stir and why, after
nearly seventy years, is it still recognized as a landmark … a milestone in
performance art? Consider these characterizations (<b>highlighting</b> added):<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: .5in;">
Lewis Nichols of the New York Times
(1943, quoted in Wilk, 1993): A truly delightful musical play … Wonderful is
the nearest adjective, for this excursion of the [Theatre] Guild <b>combines</b> a fresh and infectious <b>gaiety</b>, a <b>charm</b> of manner, beautiful <b>acting</b>,
<b>singing</b>, and <b>dancing</b>, and a <b>score</b> by
Richard Rodgers that doesn’t do any harm, either, since it is one of his best.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: .5in;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: .5in;">
Burton Rascoe (1943, in Wilk,
1993): The Theater (sic) Guild … has a hit on its hands. With its Oklahoma
[sic], … the Guild has <b>combined</b> some
of the best features of <b>ballet</b> at
the Met with some of the best features of the great tradition of Broadway’s own
indigenous contribution to the theater – a <b>girl
show</b> with <b>lovely</b> <b>tunes</b>, a couple of <b>comics</b>, a <b>heavy</b>, pretty <b>costuming</b> and an infectious spirit of <b>gayety</b> and <b>good humor</b>.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: .5in;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: .5in;">
John Anderson (1943, in Wilk,
1993): When the Theatre Guild goes <b>gay</b>
anything can happen – sometimes the best and sometimes the worst, but from the
uproar of welcome at the St. James last night there was no mistaking the fact
that in “Oklahoma” (sic) the Guild has a beautiful and delightful show, fresh
and imaginative, as enchanting to the eye as Richard Rodgers’ music is to the
ear. It has, at a rough estimate, <b>practically
everything</b>. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: .5in;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: .5in;">
Howard Barnes of the <i>Herald Tribune</i> (1943; quoted in Lerner,
1987; also in Wilk, 1993) “<b>Songs</b>, <b>dances</b> and <b>story</b> have been <b>triumphantly
blended</b>. The Rodgers score is one of his best, which is saying plenty.
Hammerstein has written a dramatically originally libretto and a string of
catchy lyrics; Agnes de Mille has worked small miracles … a striking piece of
theatrical American.”<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: .5in;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: .5in;">
Brooks Atkinson (1974): When he
[Hammerstein] and Rodgers got to work on the script of <i>Green Grow the Lilacs</i>, they <b>departed
from the old forms</b> completely. Through <b>taste</b>,
<b>freshness</b>, and <b>enthusiasm</b>, they raised the artistic level of the Broadway musical
stage to a point where it had to be taken seriously as <b>literature</b>.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: .5in;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: .5in;">
Hugh Fordin (1977): Not only did
[Oscar Hammerstein II] contribute to the musical heritage of several
generations with such songs as “Ol Man River,” “Indian Love Call,” “Who?”
“You’ll Never Walk Alone,” “Some Enchanted Evening” and “The Sound of Music,”
but he <b>radically altered</b> the
American Musical with his <i>Show Boat</i>, <st1:place w:st="on"><st1:state w:st="on"><i>Oklahoma</i></st1:state></st1:place><i>!</i>, and <i>South Pacific</i>. ,,, <i>Show Boat</i>,
to which reviewers likened <st1:place w:st="on"><st1:state w:st="on"><i>Oklahoma</i></st1:state></st1:place><i>!</i>, had been the first milestone for the <b>integrated musical play</b>, breaking with
many of the traditions of operetta and vaudeville revue. …. <st1:state w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on"><i>Oklahoma</i></st1:place></st1:state><i>!</i> brought together all the trends that
had been growing disparately: each of its component parts was good, but it was <b>the sum of them</b> that made the show so
extraordinary. … The great musicals that came after the landmark show succeeded
because they used the lesson of <st1:state w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on"><i>Oklahoma</i></st1:place></st1:state><i>!</i> well: the emphasis was <b>not so much on the freedom from convention</b>
as on <b>artistic integrity</b>.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: .5in;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: .5in;">
Abe Lauff (1977): The miraculous
transformation of <i>Green Grow the Lilacs</i>
into a record-breaking success was <b>not
the work of any one person</b>. Rodgers and Hammerstein deserved much of the
credit, for although they followed the original plot, they speeded up the
action, added the humor which the play had lacked, and provided excellent music
and lyrics. Agnes de Mille also deserved accolades for her choreography. She
skillfully used dance routines, particularly ballet sequences, to help develop
the plot; and Rouben Mamoulian earned equal credit for skillfully <b>integrating the plot, the music, and the
dancing</b>. <b>The integration, in fact,
is so complete that an explanation or listing of the musical numbers definitely
belongs in a synopsis of the plot.</b><o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: .5in;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: .5in;">
Alan Jay Lerner (1980): Oscar
Hammerstein, on the other hand, was very much a dramatic lyric writer and with <i>Oklahoma</i> he and Dick Rodgers <b>radically</b> <b>changed</b> the course of the musical theatre. The <b>musical comedy became a musical play</b>. … The mood of the country
switched like a traffic light to escapism, nostalgia, and fantasy. <i>Oklahoma</i> was all those things, told in a
new, literate, musical way with <b>affection</b>,
<b>charm</b> and infinite <b>skill</b>, and with <b>song</b>, <b>word</b>, and <b>movement</b> <b>blending together</b> to reveal <b>character</b>,
<b>establish</b> <b>atmosphere</b>, and <b>advance the
story</b>. Agnes De Mille’s ballet at the end of the first act, in which the
central characters are deftly replaced by dancers and the story continues
balletically, is lyric theatre at its most original and most brilliant.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: .5in;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: .5in;">
Al Kasha and Joel Hirschhorn
(1987): <b>Incorporating songs seamlessly</b>
into the plot was unheard of until Rodgers and Hammerstein accomplished it with
<st1:state w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on"><i>Oklahoma</i></st1:place></st1:state><i>!<o:p></o:p></i></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: .5in;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: .5in;">
Alan Jay Lerner (1987): <st1:state w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on"><i>Oklahoma</i></st1:place></st1:state><i>!</i> was the most totally realized <b>amalgamation</b> of all the theatrical
arts. The book was <b>legitimate play
writing</b>, <b>every song flowed from the
dramatic action</b>, and Agnes de Mille’s ballet at the end of Act One, in
which Curly and Laurey were skillfully replaced by two dancers as the plot
continued, was one of the <b>most
imaginative uses of choreography</b> yet set in the theatre. Whereas Hammerstein
was never the wit that Larry Hart was, he was far superior as a dramatic
lyricist, and certainly never wrote a lyric that sang better. Lyrically, <st1:state w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on"><i>Oklahoma</i></st1:place></st1:state><i>!</i> was a masterful work, lighter than
Hammerstein had been before with none of the “poetic” excesses that to me
frequently marred some of his future writing. Dick’s music adjusted itself to
the <b>new collaboration</b>, and together
they produced a new voice and a style that was distinctly their own.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: .5in;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: .5in;">
Gerald Mast (1987): The Rodgers and
Hammerstein shows from <st1:state w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on"><i>Oklahoma</i></st1:place></st1:state><i>!</i> to <i>The
King and I</i> confirmed both the conventions and the confidence of the
American stage musical. By 1948 producers and audiences knew exactly what a
book musical was supposed to be: a <b>romantic
drama of conflicting characters</b>, alternately <b>comic and dramatic</b>, based on a literary source, ancient or modern,
with at least eighteen musical slots, some sung, some danced, at least twelve
in the first act. … With the question of form so clearly settled, the only
remaining issue was style. How do you get that kind of character to sing? As in
Rodgers and Hammerstein shows, <b>making a
musical meant creating characters</b> rather than constructing an action. <b>If the characters make sense, the action
makes sense</b>. And characters only make sense<b> if their singing makes sense</b>. … The score that found its stylistic
answer created characters who simply couldn’t be imagined not singing or
singing in any other way.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: .5in;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: .5in;">
Lee Alan Morrow (1987): More than a
quarter-century after the premiere of their last show together, the work of
Richard Rodgers and Oscar Hammerstein II remains <b>the benchmark</b> against which audiences and professionals alike judge
the worth of new musicals. … Rodgers and Hammerstein served as midwives to the
musical theater we know today. The contemporary <b>integration</b> of <b>words</b>, <b>music</b>, <b>story</b>, and <b>dance</b>, each
sustaining and intensifying the others, first came to fruition in <st1:place w:st="on"><st1:state w:st="on"><i>Oklahoma</i></st1:state></st1:place><i>!</i> <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: .5in;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: .5in;">
Ken Mandelbaum (1989): No one ever <b>revolutionized Broadway dance</b> to the
extent that Agnes de Mille did. <st1:state w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on"><i>Oklahoma</i></st1:place></st1:state><i>!</i> is generally considered to be the
first show that <b>fully integrated book,
score, and dance</b>, but such musicals as <i>Show
Boat</i>, <i>Pal Joey</i>, and <i>Lady in the Dark</i> had already taken major
steps in that direction. What was genuinely revolutionary and innovative about <st1:state w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on"><i>Oklahoma</i></st1:place></st1:state><i>!</i> ultimately comes down to de Mille and
her contribution. … If earlier musicals such as <st1:state w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on"><i>Oklahoma</i></st1:place></st1:state><i>!</i> and <i>On the Town</i> <b>integrated all
the elements of musical theatre</b>, <i>West
Side Story</i> made it impossible to separate them.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: .5in;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: .5in;">
Gene Lees (1990): Through the 1920s
and ‘30s and ‘40s, <b>the integration of
songs and book</b> grew more and more sophisticated, until in Rodgers and
Hammerstein’s <st1:state w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on"><i>Oklahoma</i></st1:place></st1:state><i>!</i> it reached a pinnacle.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: .5in;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: .5in;">
Joseph Swain (1990): There are a
number of reasons why a particular work of art might be considered a <b>milestone in the history of its genre</b>.
It might introduce innovations of technique and style so convincing that they
become highly influential. It might attract such wide acclaim that it cannot be
ignored by the artists who come after, even if the acclaim eventually fades. It
could stand as the first work of an important series, like the First Symphony
of Beethoven. Or perhaps, in addition to all of these, it sets a new standard
of artistry. All of these reasons can be found in the first musical play of
Rodgers and <st1:place w:st="on"><st1:city w:st="on">Hammerstein</st1:city>, <st1:state w:st="on"><i>Oklahoma</i></st1:state></st1:place><i>! … </i>The songs in <st1:state w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on"><i>Oklahoma</i></st1:place></st1:state><i>!</i> tell much more about the characters
who sing them, but the dramatic situation is little different after the song
than before, unless one considers the definition of character itself to be a dramatic
act.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: .5in;">
To compensate for this Rodgers and
Hammerstein developed <b>a method of
integration</b> that, while not really new, revolutionized thinking about the
placement of songs in a musical play. It meant actually decreasing the number
of songs, but arranging them within the play more skillfully. … This …. <b>integration</b>, where it seems as if the <b>dialogue interrupts the song</b> as much as
the song interrupts the dialogue, <b>creates
the dramatic action</b> that the character songs alone would lack. The <b>dramatic continuity takes place across the
numbers</b>, rather than within them.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: .5in;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: .5in;">
Thomas Hischak (1991): ” It was
[Otto] Harbach who first suggested to Hammerstein <b>the importance of strong story structure and a score that could be
integrated with it.</b> Hammerstein would carry this idea to fruition with <i>Show Boat</i>, <st1:state w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on"><i>Oklahoma</i></st1:place></st1:state><i>!</i> and other musical plays; but it was
Harbach who first preached the basic principles. … The two men [Rodgers and
Hammerstein] were not attempting to revolutionize the musical theatre when they
worked on <i>Away We Go!</i>, as it was then
called. They were just trying to tell a simple, direct story in musical terms.
Rodgers enjoyed Hammerstein’s homespun, honest lyrics (in contrast to the
showy, dazzling ones by Hart), and Hammerstein enjoyed working with Rodgers,
whose musical ideas quickly blossomed from a simple phrase or character trait.
They knew what they were doing was different but they never suspected just how
different. <st1:place w:st="on"><st1:state w:st="on"><i>Oklahoma</i></st1:state></st1:place><i>!</i>’s quiet, gentle opening scene, the down-to-earth characters, the
absence of a chorus line, and the celebration of simple pleasures such as a
picnic or a ride in a surrey – all of these <b>rule-breaking devices</b> were not intended to change musical theatre
history. But when <st1:state w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on"><i>Oklahoma</i></st1:place></st1:state><i>!</i> opened these modest innovations did
just that. For twenty years American musicals would shun sophisticated wit for
a more honest approach. Earthy American values would rank above educated,
worldly ones. Character songs would become the expected instead of the
exceptional. <i>Show Boat</i> may have
influenced Broadway through a gradual rippling effect; <st1:state w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on"><i>Oklahoma</i></st1:place></st1:state><i>!</i> came on like a tidal wave. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: .5in;">
… The <b>true musical play</b> that Hammerstein first introduced with <i>Show Boat</i> and <b>perfected</b> with <st1:state w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on"><i>Oklahoma</i></st1:place></st1:state><i>!</i> is a major turning point in the
history of the musical theatre. It raised the level of characterization, it
presented thematic values, and it allowed story and song to coexist. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: .5in;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: .5in;">
Ethan Mordden (1995): A great score
is what makes a show a classic for the ages, but a solid book is what makes a
show a hit <i>in its season</i>. … By the
rules of its day <st1:state w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on"><i>Oklahoma</i></st1:place></st1:state><i>!</i> was bizarre; but <st1:place w:st="on"><st1:state w:st="on"><i>Oklahoma</i></st1:state></st1:place><i>!</i> <b>changed
the rules</b>. These now read: one, don’t start with a star; start with a
story; two, don’t paste fun onto the show; find the fun within the action; and
three, <b>The songs and dances define the
characters or further the narrative</b>. … <st1:state w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on"><i>Oklahoma</i></st1:place></st1:state><i>!</i> opened in <st1:place w:st="on">New York</st1:place>, swept the world, and announced the
revolution in writing and staging of musicals. … What made <st1:state w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on"><i>Oklahoma</i></st1:place></st1:state><i>!</i> so great? Years later, Rodgers
observed of it that “<b>all the individual
parts complement each other</b> … The <b>orchestrations
sound the way the costumes look</b>.” Hammerstein said it’s not the “tangibles”
but the “spirit.” … the parts fitted together because the intentions behind the
work were inspired and fearless.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: .5in;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: .5in;">
Deena Rosenberg (1997): … the
political trilogy [<i>Strike up the Band</i>,
<i>Of Thee I Sing</i>, and <i>Let ‘Em Eat Cake</i>] was a departure both
in the Gershwins’ work and more generally in American musical theater. <i>Of Thee I Sing</i> is often cited, along
with Kern and Hammerstein’s <i>Show Boat</i>,
as a precursor to <st1:state w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on"><i>Oklahoma</i></st1:place></st1:state><i>! </i>– one of the rare pre-1943 shows that <b>closely integrated its score into its
action</b>. It comments upon it, mocks it, deflates it; often, it <i>is</i> the action.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: .5in;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: .5in;">
Mark Steyn (2000): This is
Hammerstein’s revolution: he changed the question. ‘What comes first – the
music or the lyrics?’ says Betty Comden. ‘What comes first is the <i>book</i> – the character, the situation. You
have a situation where a character is in a town and he’s lonely, so you write “<st1:place w:st="on"><st1:placename w:st="on">Lonely</st1:placename> <st1:placetype w:st="on">Town</st1:placetype></st1:place>”.’
… She’s citing her own fine ballad from <i>On
the Town</i> (1944), a work heavily influenced by the previous season’s <st1:state w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on"><i>Oklahoma</i></st1:place></st1:state><i>!</i> ‘There was a phrase that was around at
that time,’ her director George Abbot told me, ‘“<b>the integrated musical</b>”. And they lived by it.’ … It was
Hammerstein who <b>integrated the musical</b>.
Before him it was a careless rapture. … early musicals were, like operetta, a
location; it was Hammerstein who, in expanding their horizons, made them <b>a form</b>. … ‘<st1:state w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on"><i>Oklahoma</i></st1:place></st1:state><i>!</i> changed everything,’ says Mark
Bramble, librettist of <st1:street w:st="on"><st1:address w:st="on"><i>42<sup>nd</sup> Street</i></st1:address></st1:street>
and <i>Barnum</i>. ‘Oscar Hammerstein
created <b>a new kind of structure</b> for
a musical libretto which <b>integrated all
the elements</b> – <b>dialogue</b>, <b>lyrics</b>, <b>music</b>, <b>dance</b>.’ … From <st1:place w:st="on"><st1:state w:st="on"><i>Oklahoma</i></st1:state></st1:place><i>!</i> to <i>Fiddler</i>,
the Broadway musical was one of the few art forms where box-office receipts and
critical admiration went hand in hand.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: .5in;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: .5in;">
Geoffrey Block (2003): Rodgers’s
second partnership, with the venerable, reliable, and equally if less
pyrotechnically talented Oscar Hammerstein 2<sup>nd</sup> (1895-1960), a
librettist as well as lyricist, resulted in <b>an impressive series of integrated and timeless musicals</b>, beginning
with <i>Oklahoma!</i>(1943).<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: .5in;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: .5in;">
Ken Bloom (2005): Richard Rodgers
and Oscar Hammerstein II are considered by many to be the greatest of all
Broadway musical theater teams. Their formula consisted of crafting <b>well-integrated</b> songs <b>woven</b> into a full-blooded book, the
songs propelling the story and carefully reflecting the characters’
personalities in both the words and music. This method of constructing a
musical has been emulated for all of the years since the team’s first hit show,
<st1:state w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on"><i>Oklahoma</i></st1:place></st1:state><i>!</i> <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Combines, combined, everything, triumphantly blended,
integrated, the sum of them, artistic integrity, integrating, blending
together, incorporating seamlessly, amalgamation, integration, perfected,
woven, full-blooded … These descriptive terms are collectively and properly
applied to only <i>Oklahoma!</i> and a
distinct set of musical plays that succeeded (but anticipated, in part by <i>Show Boat</i>¸ <i>Of thee I Sing,</i> and <i>Pal Joey</i>.
But what does it mean for a piece of musical theater art to be integrated?<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Richard Rodger’s and Alan Lerner’s descriptions of the process
of bringing a musical play to Broadway makes it very clear that the audience is
an essential collaborator. Musical pieces added, scenes dropped, actors changed,
even titles modified all happen in <st1:city w:st="on">Boston</st1:city>, <st1:city w:st="on">New Haven</st1:city>, <st1:city w:st="on">Philadelphia</st1:city>, on
the way to <st1:place w:st="on">New York</st1:place>.
Even before the first trial audience sees the first dress rehearsal, an
anonymous public is constantly in the minds of those preparing the play: how the
audience responds to the big song, laughs at the wrong time, produces no laughs
at the right time. Their first-hand description leaves no room for doubt.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
But an audience is not a single organism; it consists of several
hundred individuals – and over the run of a very successful play, the numbers
run to tens or hundreds of thousands. If the play is made into a motion picture,
the audience grows into the tens of millions and more. They may well laugh
aloud together, cry silently in unison across time and space. They are still
individuals, with different histories, unique genes, and contrasting life situations.
But a hidden commonality comes into view, as the story on stage or screen emerges.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Let’s try a kind of thought experiment, imagining oneself as
a member of an audience of a noted musical play. As the characters are
initially sketched and then enfleshed, as the plot advances, the drama on stage
is taken into the mind, taps the memory and establishes links with the individual’s
life. Imagination and myth merge and reality is transformed into fantasy without
conscious realization of what has happened.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
The stage is certainly there, concrete and distinctly not
part of us, but what is happening on stage enters our conscious experience, and
a distinct drama/comedy occurs within ourselves. As audience, we are
participating in our collective response: laughing, crying, applauding, now restless,
then uncomfortable, at times even transfixed. Our inner response is either
reinforced or challenged by the outwardly expressed experience of our
neighbors. Even their breathing, nearly inaudible sighs, coughs, and body
movements have some effect. Nevertheless, the drama is very much interiorized
and personalized.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
The set that is the stage becomes a little world unto itself,
an isolated room in which a little of each character becomes a projection of
inner, hidden facets of the individual observer. The man in the audience finds
an identity not only with the hero, but the other males: villain, foil, buffoon,
and, curiously enough, with the females too: the heroine, vixen, ingénue, klutz,
wise old woman... Inanimate objects become symbols of discontent, progress,
regression, cleansing, restoration... The pressure of conflict and tension of misunderstanding
become symbolic of internal stretching, fragmentation, hurt, and brokenness, while
the resolution of plot – hero and heroine joined, villains vanquished, a new day
dawning – become symbols of hope, integration, fulfillment.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
The overture has already anticipated the story to come. In retrospect,
the degree of integration of plot and music within the play permits the music
to convey a sense of the impending drama, comedy, fear, pathos, and joy. The
overture ends, the curtain goes up on a surrealistic corn field, lonely
homestead (called Laurey’s farmhouse in the script), and a solitary old woman
churning butter. The woman, Aunt Eller, continues her task as a tall young cowboy
saunters onto the stage, declaring in song (with a near-operatic voice) that what
we are seeing is a kind of Eden, with healthy tall cornstalks, quiet contented
cattle, and sounds which are all music. The song sets the stage even more than
does the set. The pastoral content of “O what a beautiful morning” belies the
conflict which is to come. Just as a maturing young man is convinced he is in
control of his world, then, too, the world must be in harmony with him. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
The confidence, even cockiness with which Curly deals with the
world is soon to be shaken as he encounters that which he cannot directly
control: the contrary, “irrational” feminine and dark, obsessed, even evil
shadows. All is not in harmony. But then, even in the words of the first song, there
is the subtle hint: A young maverick, an unbranded calf belonging to no one, winks
<i>her</i> eye. Like the wink of a strange,
attractive woman, the meaning is ambiguous. Is there a shared secret here or
the first stirrings of surprise or even conflict? Adventure or crisis? Who is
in control of this developing story? That operatic quality voices are typical
of the male and female leads cast in the Broadway and cinema productions of
Rodgers and Hammerstein in the Forties and early Fifties is probably also
significant. Are there more unnatural and artificial performing art forms than
opera and ballet? None of the other singing members of the cast are close to
operatic in their style. And, in conventional presentations of <st1:place w:st="on"><st1:state w:st="on"><i>Oklahoma</i></st1:state></st1:place><i>!</i>, the acting leads are replaced by
dancing equivalents in the dream ballet that closes the first act.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
There is also the curious ambiguity of the explicit and
implicit role of the sung music. The very first song is to be accepted as a
song within the frame of the story. Curly describes himself as singing. Laurey’s
description of his song is, of course, purposefully absurd. Only some of the
remaining musical pieces are explicitly part of the story, however. It is rare,
after all that we sing to one another in everyday life. The initial artificiality
of Laurey and Curly’s relationship is thereby underlined.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
For the individual audience member, the objective view of
the play consists of a number of actor-singers and dancers on a decorated stage
telling a story. The subjective view takes in each of the characters and their
progressive interaction. With one another and connects them with elements of
the individual member’s own experience, so as to make sense of the musical play
as it evolves on the stage.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
There are five principal male characters and three primary female
roles (four, counting the peddler’s eventual bride) in <st1:state w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on"><i>Oklahoma</i></st1:place></st1:state><i>!</i> Part of Curly’s and Laurey’s “problems”
(their immaturity, artificiality, foolish dishonesty, and selfishness) is
manifest in the supporting characters: villain, comic lovers, dream-dancers, wise
old woman. Curly dominates the play with his strong, swaggering baritone, but
Laurey is the pivotal character. We are allowed to “read” her mind (and hers
only) – in the dream ballet. The surface question of who will be her escort to
the social is fraught with greater consequences than the conscious Laurey has
guessed. In a sense, the “dream” awakes her to “reality.”<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
It is clear from the beginning that Laurey and Curly belong
together; and Will and Ado Annie also are “meant for one another”: Farm girl Laurey
and cowboy Curly; farm girl Annie and cowboy Will. By quirks of illogic,
stubbornness, immaturity, and circumstance, Laurey is almost disastrously linked
with Jud, and Annie, most comically with the peddler, Ali Hakim. Come the
social, a fight inevitably breaks out between farmer and cowman. Disorder exists
at every level of the play. It is not until the evil Jud is dead and the peddler
out of the picture, that Curly and Laurey can sing honestly and openly to one
another and to the rest of their world, while Annie and Will anticipate what
can only be a raucous wedded life.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: .5in;">
Interpolation: The reader who read
through to the end of the paragraph before the last in Chapter 1 may have (more
than once) flipped back to the cover and asked: Does this chapter belong to
this book? Did the publisher make a mistake? What possibly can a popular
musical play from the last century have to do, in any way, shape, or integrated
form with entropy? Musical theater is one of the popular performing arts; it
has nothing to do with a nineteenth century scientific revolution, correct?<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: .5in;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: .5in;">
Then, with the next paragraph, the
reader might grasp a glimmer and make a guess based on the simple assertion:
“Disorder exists at every level of the play.” Somewhere, someplace one might have
heard that entropy has something to do with disorder: greater entropy means
less order, doesn’t it? But, at the end of the play, order is achieved, so
entropy must have decreased. But, doesn’t entropy always increase? What does <st1:state w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on"><i>Oklahoma</i></st1:place></st1:state><i>!</i> have to do with the Second Law of
Thermodynamics? <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
The drama of human life can be considered in part to represent
the struggle of apparent opposites: male/female, honesty/dishonesty,
eros/sublimation, charm/crudity. In <st1:place w:st="on"><st1:state w:st="on"><i>Oklahoma</i></st1:state></st1:place><i>!</i> it is resolution of the conflicts of
opposites that is sought (in some cases, resolution involves recognition of
complementarity; in others, defeat of an enemy).<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Early on, the strutting, too clever, independent cowboy Curly
in confronting his male opposite (the seething, too quiet, slow-witted intense farmhand
Jud) absurdly and shockingly (not to mention, comically) tries to persuade Jud
to kill himself. But the time is not yet right. Jud has a function to perform. Laurey
is still ignorant of masculine power; her naïveté must be overcome. Similarly,
Curly’s overconfidence in his own masculinity must be humbled; he cannot take
the feminine for granted. In parallel, comic cowboy Will’s vincible ignorance
must be dealt with, particularly the double standard he imposes on Annie. There
are the male characters: Curly and Jud; Will and Hakim. Then there are Laurey
and Ado Annie and Aunt Eller. Curly and Will are the straight and comic heroes;
Jud and Hakim the straight and comedy villains. Laurey must choose between Curly
and Jud – Annie between Will and Ali Hakim. There is the added background of
open range (cowboys Curly and Will) versus farming-domesticity (Laurey; Ado
Annie, Aunt Eller, Jud); untamed territory and future State. There is no oil
yet and no mention of Indians (the latter omission heightening the
artificiality of the story).<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
The key dramatic question is: how are Curly and Laurey to be
united given their immature pride and foolishness and, especially, the impending
threat posed by the mystery man, Jud? The question is complemented by Ado Annie’s
quandary: whom shall she choose: Dull, unimaginative Will Parker or “exotic,
romantic” Ali Hakim? Jud is the dark, brooding shadow man with the mysterious,
even ominous past. Ali Hakim, the unclothed girls on Hakim’s and Jud’s cards,
and the <st1:place w:st="on">Kansas City</st1:place>
burlesque stage suggest the power of hidden eros beneath the surface of each
triangle.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Despite the dominance of archetypal elements in each character,
every one of the major roles has attributes of a real person. Even the evil Jud
has some (though very few) sympathetic qualities, and Curly’s crude attempt to
encourage Jud’s suicide adds some tarnish to the hero’s image. Insofar as the
interaction of the characters with one another is concerned, however, much of
their communication appears to be indirect and artificial. For example, it
seems that neither of the two principals really appreciates the full humanity
of their opposite. As attractive as Curly appears in the beginning, his unwillingness
to directly ask Laurey to the social is particularly frustrating, since Laurey
refuses to show any interest in return; after all, she has not been explicitly
invited. The facades they each exhibit (transparent to Aunt Eller and audience,
but not to each other) lay the foundation for the drama to come. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Curly emphasizes the masculine archetype (“the best
bronc-buster, best bull-dogger, Curly-headed, and bow-legged”)? What else should
Laurey want? And he foolishly assumes that Laurey would want to socialize with him
despite (or even because-of) his high self-regard. Curly’s stubborn self-centeredness
almost forces Laurey to turn his indirect invitation down, and accept the blandishments
of Jud. Despite her profound fears of the hired man, Jud, at least, is never
indirect. In his dark morose world, there is some sense of reality: he sees a unique,
even if distorted, worth and value in Laurey. He believes that he does not “deserve”
her, but wants her anyway. In this respect, Jud is the shadow of Curly. Curly
refuses to acknowledge his desire for Laurey; Laurey is supposed to desire him.
The shock of Laurey’s acceptance of Jud awakens Curly to action and too-long delayed
humbling.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
The presence of the comic could-be lovers, Will and Ado Annie,
highlights another facet to the Curly-Laurey problem. The two leads seem to lack
a sense of humor; they take themselves all too seriously. Curly’s
non-invitation could have been seen by Laurey as the teasing irony Curly intends;
similarly, her denigration of Curly’s singing (which in fact she has herself
echoed) could be interpreted by Curly as similarly ironic and teasing, but
neither is willing to recognize that they can be the object of gentle ridicule
without undermining their own value. Curly could have called himself the “best
baritone” in all of the territory, along with enumerating his bronc-busting talents;
but clearly, the subject is not open for debate. Thus Jud’s hostility to folks who
think themselves better than others (especially himself) is not difficult to understand;
alas, Jud also lacks totally any sense of humor, even pathos.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
In order to vanquish the external rival for Laurey’s affections,
it is necessary for Curly to give up everything he owns (most especially the
saddle and gun essential for him to continue as a cowboy); he must so humble
himself as to become a farmer. One of the more comic earlier events in the play,
the dance of the farmers and the cowmen which degenerates into a brawl, symbolizes
how profound the self-humiliation of Curly must be; to give up the status and
freedom of the cowboy to become a domesticated farmer is not an easy step to
take. In parallel Laurey is impelled to take a most frightening chance as she
dumps Jud in the middle of nowhere, guaranteeing his future enmity, but, at the
same time, protecting herself from his clear and present dangerous advances. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Curly must defer and be humbled; Laurey must risk and assert.
Each must exercise opposite gender and unconscious same-gender archetypal qualities
in order to achieve their unspoken goals. The need for conscious acknowledgment
of their mutual love is clearly expressed early on through the song “People will
say we’re in love”. The closest either comes to explicit admission of love in
the song is Curly’s response that Laurey’s hand <i>is</i> so grand in his. The acknowledgement necessarily mean the loss
of conscious capabilities, however, as Curly must still confront the hiding,
scheming Jud. In the emergence of honesty and humility in Curly, the same qualities
which Jud, in his perversity, already possessed, their very perversion must be
dealt with in order for survival of Curly and Laurey to be assured: Jud must
die. The best of the shadow is appropriated; the worst is eradicated. There is
gain and loss inherent in change.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
The parallel uniting of Will and Annie, the comic leads, cements
the sense of fulfillment in Laurey and Curly’s marriage. Will, the not-so-smart
cowboy must rely on help from the trapped peddler, in order to snare his
elusive bride. Ado Annie turns out to be smarter than previously thought. Her
closing warning to Will is to never take her for granted. And wasn’t that Curly’s
problem from the very beginning? The anima is rarely really hidden. Every man “knows”
how to be “feminine”, if only in parody. His first teacher is his mother, after
all. The problem with the anima is not so much that it is unconscious, but is ignored.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
The unconscious level at which <st1:place w:st="on"><st1:state w:st="on"><i>Oklahoma</i></st1:state></st1:place><i>!</i> operates is never more clearly
emphasized as in the famous ballet. The musical is, again, known for full “integration”
of music, dialogue, and dance. If its fame is justly deserved, it must serve a
dramatic function. Joseph Swain (1990) has challenged this assumption, suggesting
that the details of the ballet, particularly since they involve apparently indiscriminate
reprises of previous songs, make no dramatic sense. He especially objects to
the dance-hall women, come to dream life from Jud’s pin-ups, who dance to “I Cain’t
Say No”. Since the original context of the song humorously portrays the
confusion of late adolescent girl, Ado Annie, one might question the bawdy
context of this part of the ballet. The answer is that the dream ballet is not
at all concerned with Annie; it is concerned with Laurey: her relationship with
Curly and the implications of the ominous presence of Jud with the dancehall
women. Her own latent eros is stirred by the raw assertiveness of Jud, who wants
the real thing, not picture postcards. The song sung by Annie is certainly humorous,
in part because of its double entendre. But, there is a truth in the dual
meaning which the dream points out.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
The dream ballet occurs in a surrealistic frontier town, somewhat
like, yet unlike the <st1:place w:st="on">Oklahoma</st1:place>
frontier. Civilization is impinging on the territory, with horseless carriages
and tales of seven-story skyscrapers and telephones in the big city. But the
ballet lacks anything up-to-date, and there is little that is familiar; the
stage props are even more artificial than those in the rest of the play. Laurey’s
dream is within a non-rational, unconscious world; powerful archetypal images
point to truths which she has consciously avoided. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Some of the music reprised for the ballet was not
“witnessed” by Laurey in their initial offering, especially “Kansas City”,
“Pore Jud”, and “Lonely Room,” despite wanting to “get into that girl’s head”
(Agnes de Mille, quoted in Moddren, 1995). In part this may reflect the limited
number of relevant musical pieces from the first act in which Laurey was
visibly present. So, the musical theater convention of music portraying mood
and character rather than consciousness reasserts itself. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Curly’s encounter with his unconscious is largely symbolized,
not by a dream, but by his visit to the smokehouse: dust and cobwebs, grimy bed,
tobacco ads, the postcards, and covers off the Police Gazette. Curiously, Curly
shows only passing interest in the Gazette covers and picture cards; they might
give him “idys”. Rather, he begins an incredible game with Jud, indirectly
demonstrating his contempt for the man, while trying to determine just what
attraction Jud might have for Laurey. Curly’s behavior is almost shocking and
certainly dangerous; it is difficult to rationalize the Curly who cleverly attempts
to encourage Jud to do himself in with the Curly who sings of “corn as high as
a elephant’s eye”, and of “isinglass curtains ya can pull right down.” It is as
if in his encounter with Jud, the “Jud” within Curly starts to come out. Curly’s
control on his sexual drive, averting his eyes from Jud’s pornographic cards,
is apparently greater than his control on his innate aggression. The encounter
of Curly with his shadow is bound to be eventful, but it is not destined to be
fulfilled in the dark recesses of the smokehouse, but out in the open air, with
Jud’s failed murder attempt. Ironically, Jud does end up killing himself,
accidentally, in the encounter with Curly, but not before Curly has explicitly
affirmed his love for Laurey and publicly confronted Jud.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Only the lead players have a distinct identity or color, achieved
by their interaction with others, or, largely in Laurey’s case, illuminated by
the dream ballet. The ballet additionally implies that the desired masculine
must be humbled, in the apparent death of “Curly” in the dream. There is little
Laurey can do prevent the “death” of Curly; in fact, she helps bring it about. Thus,
there is a kind of inevitability inherent in the plot of <st1:place w:st="on"><st1:state w:st="on"><i>Oklahoma</i></st1:state></st1:place><i>!</i>, just as there is a kind of
inevitability in the lives individual people lead (only in retrospect, however).<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
The internal interaction of the individual member of the audience
with the play is hierarchical. The two leading characters are initially
one-dimensional. Curly and Laurey are almost too sweet, almost like royalty in
many an operetta. In their initial game of pretended insult and offense, a little
of the sugar goes sour, and then as they interact with the threatening
character of Jud, even some bitterness is tasted. The sympathy or antipathy the
audience members feel for the characters depends in part on their own experience,
but, quite clearly, few would have any hopes for either Jud or Ali Hakim. There
is little to Jud that is sympathetic, other than his reputation for reliable, hard
work, and, perhaps, his shunning by the rest of the rural community. Hakim as
alien and seducer is played for its comic value. Like Jud, however, Hakim exudes
an appreciation for women (however superficial; they provide his livelihood, after
all, and he is not shy about desiring their favors) that Curly and Will seem to
lack. (An undercurrent of the play is the apparent undervaluing of sexuality by
the dominant men. Curly and Laurey’s wedding night is interrupted by the “traditional”
shivaree.)<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
The tensions of masculine-feminine, farmer-cowman, sexuality-repression,
popular-outcast, frontier-modern are gradually worked through in the play and
in the mind-experience of the audience, achieving fulfillment in the climax of
marriage, statehood (celebrated in the singing of the title song), and in the
anticlimax of the death of Jud. The closing celebrates the joys of domesticity
and removal of facade: “Let people say we’re in love”.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
The drama-comedy of <st1:place w:st="on"><st1:state w:st="on"><i>Oklahoma</i></st1:state></st1:place><i>!</i> becomes a microcosm of the lives most
people would like to live. And the outward lives mirror the inner struggles of
growth. The typical man lives out of his masculinity (but without a rich
baritone), but at various crisis points, whether due to interior or exterior
forces, is confronted with the need to change: to deal with the undervalued,
unconscious masculine traits and to allow the feminine characteristics to
emerge, as well. The facilitation of inner growth often requires humbling of
the dominant characteristics and acknowledgement of the shadow tendencies (symbolized
by death), and the emergence of the gender-opposite characteristics (symbolized
by and even accomplished through courtship).<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
The process is not smooth, nor without pain and suffering.
The success of a play such as <st1:place w:st="on"><st1:state w:st="on"><i>Oklahoma</i></st1:state></st1:place><i>!</i> is rooted in its ability to capture the
process of human maturation in such a way that it corresponds with the inner
and outer desires, if not experience of the audience. The exhilaration of a
theater encounter manifests the resonance of the onstage performance with the inner
drama of one’s life. So it is in the climactic piece: the first verse of “<st1:state w:st="on">Oklahoma</st1:state>,” sung by Curly,
becomes an ensemble effort, with full chorus. Everything is together, in
harmony, except the individual voice of Laurey is not obvious (because Jud
still has to be deal with?). Then, in the anticlimax, Curly and Laurey sing a
duet-reprise of “O, what a beautiful morning!” and “People will say we’re in
love”, the latter changed to “Let people say…” The hero and heroine are free of
their self-consciousness, willingly and publicly expressing their love for one
another, while the villain has been vanquished.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
The grand metaphor of integration, fulfillment, and completion
is achieved in the typical musical play, with or without some bitterness, pain,
suffering, and death. Resolution of the plot gives the audience a temporary vicarious
experience of integration and fulfillment. To the extent the individual
audience member recognizes himself or herself in several of the characters, the
experience of completion is not without its rewards. At least the experience of
the individual has been recognized outside of himself or herself. Some degree
of commonality of the human journey has been recognized and identified.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Still another kind of commonality present in this play (and
in many others) needs to be more concretely emphasized. The two love-triangles
complement one another, with the comedy triangle bringing additional meaning to
the primary triangle. Similarly, the dream ballet provides added meaning to
Laurey’s dilemma. There’s a “wedding” in the ballet that anticipates the
wedding that culminates Curly and Laurey’s bumpy courtship. Imagined death in
the smokehouse and death in the ballet are prophetic of Curly’s ego-death, and
the eventual violent death of Jud. Eros in Will’s account of his <st1:city w:st="on">Kansas City</st1:city> experience,
in the smokehouse, in the dream, and in the lens of the “little wonder,” and
the shivaree must be dealt with. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
The repeated themes of the play, in both musical <i>leit motives</i> and parallels in plot,
imply a kind of self-similarity in word, lyric, music, action, and dance. Each
element of the play produces coherence with succeeding elements, bringing out
hidden meaning. It is rather like applying a decryption code to an encoded
message. What is obscure in a single component of the play becomes clearer when
illuminated by a succeeding component. All is not perfect in the initial
“beautiful morning”. The winking eye of a maverick heifer anticipates what is
to come. Quickly Curly learns that all is not as he expects. Laurey’s
reluctance is further complicated by the challenge Jud presents. In parallel,
Will’s triumphant arrival to claim Ado Annie is quickly deflated when the $50
prerequisite is revealed as already, and stupidly, spent. Add one more
complication, the peddler, and Will is not in control, either. A message
develops and is progressively reinforced. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Through Laurey’s eyes, things are not the way she wants
them, from the very beginning of the play. Curly takes her for granted. Jud
appreciates her value, but Jud is dangerous. Like the dream, Laurey has little
control over what happens, except to run away and call for help. At first she
runs the wrong way and asks for help from the wrong person. Ado Annie is not in
control, either, subject to the “charms” of whichever male she is with. Like
Laurey, Annie runs for “help,” but from a slick, alien charmer.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
There is still another level of integration present in the
play when it was originally presented: <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: .5in;">
When the Fed’ral Marshal pronounces
Curly’s killing a justifiable act of self defense, Hammerstein invokes the very
rationale for sending American men from states like <st1:place w:st="on">Oklahoma</st1:place> overseas to kill the Jud Frys of
the world, in 1943 called Nazis. (Mast, 1987). <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: .5in;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: .5in;">
Remove him [Jeeter or Jud], and not
only can Curly marry Laurey, but the territory can enter the <st1:place w:st="on">Union</st1:place>
and its folk marry their history and future to the American epic. … <st1:state w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on"><i>Oklahoma</i></st1:place></st1:state><i>!</i> includes this idea but builds upon it
as well. Not only can <st1:state w:st="on">Oklahoma</st1:state> become a state:
<st1:place w:st="on">Oklahoma</st1:place> <i>must</i>. Statehood is an affirmation of
individuality within citizenship, of liberty within the corporation. But only
when antagonistic fractions make peace can the <st1:place w:st="on">Union</st1:place>
emerge. From a single line in Riggs, Aunt Eller’s “Why, we’re territory folks –
we orter hang together,” came “The Farmer and the Cowman” … Yes, but only when
individuals pursue a fair and responsible and personal agenda can the <st1:place w:st="on">Union</st1:place> prosper. (Moddren, 1995)<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
A musical play such as <st1:place w:st="on"><st1:state w:st="on"><i>Oklahoma</i></st1:state></st1:place><i>!</i> succeeds by an integration of word, music,
and dance which reinforce a message whose coherence becomes apparent only in
retrospect, in its historical context, and in the contemporaneity of an uneasy
nation. Consciously or unconsciously, Riggs, Rodgers, Hammerstein, Mamoulian,
and Agnes de Mille forged a classic of internal self-similarity and consistency
which continues to delight audiences more than sixty years later. And, it
served as a model for the musical stage of the next thirty years.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
But, was <st1:state w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on"><i>Oklahoma</i></st1:place></st1:state><i>!</i> really the first “integrated” musical
play? What about <i>Show Boat</i>, in
particular? The answer to that question may lie in the wholeness and
completeness of the later play: evil is vanquished, two couples (three counting
the peddler and shrill-voiced Gertie) are united, and the territory is prepared
to become a state. The earlier musical play is far less tidy, with a broken
marriage, continuing intolerance and oppression of blacks, and a big river that
continues to roll along – in these respects an internal self-similarity is
achieved. However, some of <i>Show Boat</i>’s
musical and, especially, dance pieces are less relevant to either plot or
character. Can entropy illuminate these questions?<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<b><i><span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 14.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-US;"><br clear="all" style="page-break-before: always;" />
</span></i></b>
<br />
<h2>
Constructing a Masterpiece<o:p></o:p></h2>
<div class="MsoNormal">
The story of the building of <st1:state w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on"><i>Oklahoma</i></st1:place></st1:state><i>!</i> contains elements its very development
which are reflected in the final product. Begin with Lynn Riggs’ <i>Green Grow the Lilacs</i>: most of the
principals as well as the plotline already existed, and, at the urging of
Theresa Helburn of the Theatre Guild, traditional folk songs (such as “Green
Grow the Lilacs”) were incorporated into the 1932 play. While the initial run
of the play was disappointing, contributing to the financial woes of the Guild
that came to threaten its very existence by the early 1940s, Helburn saw in a
summer revival of the play the seeds of a true musical play. While the Guild
certainly needed a major popular success in order to stay in existence, it is
apparent that Helburn was driven by an artistic muse more than a financial
goad. Helburn sought a team of composer and lyricist who might appropriate her
vision and make it real. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: .5in;">
Three weeks after the premiere [of
Rodgers and Hart’s <i>By Jupiter</i> in
early June, 1942] the New York <i>Times</i>
carried this item: “The Theatre Guild announces that Richard Rodgers will write
the music, Lorenz Hart the lyrics and Oscar Hammerstein II the book for its
adaptation of the play, <i>Green Grow the
Lilacs</i>, by Lynn Riggs. The authors will commence work shortly.” (Marx and
Clayton, 1976)<b><o:p></o:p></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
The news item is puzzling because multiple accounts indicate
that indeed Rodgers had been approached by Helburn and was said to be intrigued
by the idea of musicalizing <i>Green Grow
the Lilacs</i>, Hart had no interest in the project. Accounts further state
that Rodgers did not approach Hammerstein until after Hart’s rejection. And,
prior to being approached by Rodgers, Hammerstein was said to have discussed
the prospect with his on-and-off partner, Jerome Kern. All the principals are
gone now, so the puzzle seems likely to remain.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
By Rodgers and Hammerstein taking on the project, a
librettist (book-writer) would not be needed: Hammerstein did double duty:
lyrics and book. The next step would be a dance director (now known as
choreographer) and director. Agnes de Mille, who had persuaded Aaron Copland to
provide music for a western ballet (originally conceived at a summer dance
school outside of cow-town Steamboat Springs, Colorado), produced and danced in
the now classic <i>Rodeo</i>. De Mille
sought the dance director position, and with support from Larry Langner and
Helburn of the Guild and Hammerstein, Rodgers finally agreed. Rouben Mamoulian,
who had directed the movie <i>Love Me
Tonight</i>, a Jeannette Macdonald-Maurice Chevalier vehicle, was familiar to
Rodgers; he and Hart wrote the songs for the movie, including the especially
delightful “Isn’t It Romantic,” which travels from Chevalier to Macdonald via
numerous intermediaries long before they meet. The executive team was almost
complete: Producers Langner and Helburn; Composer Rodgers, Lyricist and
Librettist Hammerstein, choreographer de Mille, and director Mamoulian. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Add art and costume directors, stage managers, and, yes, the
actors and dancers. Conventional musical theater relied on a few key stars,
such as an Ethel Merman, the Marx brothers, Mary Martin, or Ray Bolger. Helburn
wanted Groucho Marx for the peddler while Rodgers sought Mary Martin for
Laurey. Mary Martin bowed out from consideration, while the others were not
convinced that Groucho was a good fit. And, there was the budget to consider.
Instead, relatively unknown, but talented actors and dancers were found,
largely from among those that Rodgers, Hammerstein, and de Mille already knew
from personal experience in prior shows and ballets. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
The method of selection of the performing talent proved to
be serendipitous and foreshadowed much of what the creative process became,
culminating in the March 31, 1943, opening. That is, for the most part, the
actors and dancers became the characters; the characters did not become the
persona of the performer. The characters were part of the fabric of the story,
and the needs of the story produced the form of the lyrics, music, and dance. <o:p></o:p></div>
Rexhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16050985148711857877noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7270765752085048523.post-34573660292770861052016-10-01T22:19:00.002-07:002016-10-03T16:55:53.946-07:00Plot<div class="MsoNormal">
The literature concerned the performing arts, particularly traditional
(mid-Twentieth Century) musical theater, is a mixed bag of impressionistic
opinion, gossip, star-struck hagiography, quasi-history, and, maybe, a little
bit of real experience and understanding. The personal memoirs of Richard
Rodgers and Alan J. Lerner and numerous biographies of them, their collaborators,
and contemporaries provide a “historical” framework for understanding their
art. But there seems to be little in the way of exploration of the “why?” of
their art in the memoirs and biographies. Rodgers did describe some of his
methods, which apparently (apparently?) changed significantly as he moved from
collaboration with Laurence Hart to working with Oscar Hammerstein. Lerner, in
both his memoirs and in his posthumously published tribute to musical theater, explicitly
dodged the issue completely, claiming he did not want to know the “why?” of
musical comedy.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Journalist-critics of musical theater are oriented by necessity
towards immediate reaction to new theatrical works. Commonly, the first review
has been based on a single viewing of a work, rushed by press deadlines. There
is little opportunity for reflection. Particularly since musical theater is a
hybrid of dialogue, music, verse, dance, set, and lighting, it seems close to
impossible for one individual to adequately evaluate the integration of each
component. Musical theorist Joseph Swain has made remarkable contributions to
characterizing the dramatic role of music in a number of significant musical
comedies. In the process, Swain increases the respect due composers (and, possibly,
arrangers) for their dramatic sense. For example, his explanation of the
significance of Leonard Bernstein’s music for the pervasive dramatic impact of <i>West Side Story</i> makes plain that which
the non-musicians among us have only intuitively experienced. Much of Swain’s
studies achieve remarkable insights into the three components: together they
modify the setting, advance the plot, and flesh-out otherwise sparsely defined
character.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Nevertheless, Swain, perhaps because he focuses on only the
surface dramatic effect, expresses doubts about the function of other elements
which uses the music, such as dance, particularly the ground-breaking ballet
sequence in <st1:place w:st="on"><st1:state w:st="on"><i>Oklahoma</i></st1:state></st1:place><i>!</i> He questions the appropriateness of the music which accompanies
the Laurey-makes-up-her-mind ballet at the end of the first act of <st1:place w:st="on"><st1:state w:st="on"><i>Oklahoma</i></st1:state></st1:place><i>!</i> Is there some dissonance in the great
initial triumph of Rodgers and Hammerstein? Has Swain found a pocket of
inconsistency in <st1:place w:st="on"><st1:state w:st="on"><i>Oklahoma</i></st1:state></st1:place><i>!</i>? He suggests that Rodgers was looking the other way while the
ballet was constructed. But, assume that the ballet, whatever its superficial
dissonance, is essential to understanding the whole of the play. Further, by
applying this approach to other creative efforts, perhaps an improved insight
into the human creative process might happen. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-top: 12.0pt;">
From the Hollywood perspective on
musical theater, three thousand miles west of Broadway, the show was the thing,
at least from the Thirties into the Fifties (Judy Garland/Mickey Rooney’s “Let’s
put on a show", through Fred Astaire’s <i>Bandwagon</i>
and Gene Kelly’s <i>Singin’ in the Rain</i>).
The “show” not “play” is the world everyone wants to be in. Even for Broadway in
the Seventies (Michael Bennett’s <i>A Chorus
Line</i>) and and <st1:city w:st="on">London</st1:city>’s <st1:place w:st="on">West
End</st1:place> in the Eighties (Andrew Lloyd Webber’s <i>Phantom of the Opera</i>), the stage is still a metaphor for the “real”
world.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Fully one-half of Lerner’s autobiography is devoted to <i>My Fair Lady</i>. As with so many
professionals, the seeming center of the person’s life is his or her great
public success. James Watson’s principal personal and <i>public</i> publication is solely concerned with the construction of the
DNA molecule model, colored by anecdotes and human frailties. Even Francis
Crick’s memoirs can’t help but climax halfway through with their joint DNA
triumph.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
If the play is the thing and all the world is a stage (the
idea is hardly original here), isn’t it also true for any creative person that
his or her passion, however circumscribed and inaccessible it may be to the
non-specialist, is their own world, their own personal stage? And, where is
that stage: <st1:city w:st="on">Cambridge</st1:city>, Broadway, <st1:city w:st="on">Hollywood</st1:city>, <st1:city w:st="on">Bloomington</st1:city>, <st1:state w:st="on">Washington</st1:state>, or <st1:city w:st="on">Arvada</st1:city>?
Is it a place at all? And what roles do other persons play on the personal
stage: what about collaboration?<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Would <i>My Fair Lady</i>
have successfully emerged without any one of the principals: Lerner, Loewe,
Moss Hart, Rex Harrison, or Julie Andrews (never mind Shaw or the Greeks)? <st1:place w:st="on"><st1:state w:st="on"><i>Oklahoma</i></st1:state></st1:place><i>! </i>without Rodgers, Hammerstein, or Agnes
deMille (again, disregarding original playwright Lynn Riggs)? And what about
that most fickle and determinative collaborator: the audience? Commercial
success seems to be a prerequisite to artistic success in musical theater,
perhaps more than any other of the arts, if only because of the high cost of a
musical production. If musical comedies are not successful the first time, they
tend to disappear, seldom to be rediscovered a decade or two later. In contrast,
a Leonard Bernstein can almost single-handedly “make” Gustav Mahler a master, decades
after his death. Has anyone successfully resurrected any musical play which failed
to find an audience collaborator? Even some <st1:place w:st="on">Hollywood</st1:place>
drama classics may have originally failed in the box office: <i>Citizen Kane</i> and <i>It’s a Wonderful Life</i> didn’t light up the sky when first released. Now
the former is almost always included in critics’ Top Tens, and the latter is
viewed as Frank Capra’s masterpiece (personally, I prefer his first big commercial
and critical success <i>It Happened One
Night</i>). On the literary side, Flannery O’Connor was always deeply troubled
by the sparse sales of <i>Wise Blood</i>
despite its critical success; alas, its nearly universal subsequent inclusion
in college freshmen curricula (in the mid-1960s at least) occurred after her
untimely death. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Curiously, then, musical comedy seems to require active “collaboration”
with the audience in such a way that virtually no other art form requires. In a
sense, musical comedy has something in common with science, because science is
intrinsically collaborative. Even the solitary researcher ultimately submits
results for publication requiring peer review, a kind of “anonymous” collaboration.
The research itself builds on the contributions of others, and the resulting
article is to an extent tailored to a particular audience of professionals in
the same or related disciplines. The team research efforts of “big science” are
now all well known. Since the Manhattan Project of the Second World War, large
groups of scientific researchers have become the rule, for both basic and
applied science. The aborted Super-Conducting Super-Collider south of <st1:city w:st="on">Dallas</st1:city> is one of a long
line of such ventures.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Popular scientific literature represents a mix of attempts
to convey non-technical understanding of contemporary scientific theory, models,
practice, and (particularly beginning with Watson’s <i>Double Helix</i>) anecdotal accounts of scientific discoveries and/or
careers. Significant attention has been paid to the importance of collaboration
and interaction among scientists in many such accounts. Nevertheless, there has
been significant effort to attempt to understand the nature of scientific
progress. Thomas Kuhn’s <i>Structure of
Scientific Revolutions</i> has been readily embraced by many active scientists
themselves; an excellent example from my own field of geology and geophysics is
the commentary which accompanies the late (Stanford geophysicist) Allan Cox’s
compilation of milestone contributions to the development of plate tectonics
and recognition of magnetic field reversals. Kuhn’s distinction between normal
and crisis science has found some resonance in the experience of many
scientists who survived the “fixed versus drifting continents” crisis and
subsequent plate tectonic revolution. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Karl Popper’s theory of scientific progress (concisely, if
somewhat inexactly states that science progresses by advancement of hypotheses
as a result of experimental or logical falsification of prior hypotheses; thus
only testable hypotheses can be admitted to scientific respectability) has been
popular among some philosophers of science. But, recently, Popperian approaches
(which also imply the existence of objective falsification methodology – for
example classical statistics) have been undermined by Bayesian philosophers, who
argue for the primacy of the initial subjective inference and its progressive
confirmation or denial. Subjectivity, some Bayesians contend, is inherent even
in the supposedly objective assumptions of classical statistics. The
exploitation of Bayesian inference and its cryptic role in science seems to be
a particularly stimulating area for future investigation, along the lines developed
by Edwin Jaynes, for example; Jaynes seemed to suggest that scientists, indeed all
rational human decision-makers, are actually unconscious Bayesians in the way
in which they solve problems.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
The essence of Bayesian inference is the incorporation of
prior experience into hypothesis formulation and testing. Prior experience involves
experiment, observation and interaction, any of which may be disciplined,
undisciplined, or capricious. The great trepidation of scientists in general
and classical statisticians, as well, has been fear of subjective bias, which
might color not only the hypothesis formulation, but also hypothesis testing. British
Bayesians Howson and Urbach argue that bias is unavoidable, and, as such,
should not only be acknowledged, but exploited. A particular mathematical
theorem advanced by an Eighteenth-Century clergyman, Thomas Bayes (in l763), provides
the means by which this prior experience (after all, one person’s “experience” can
be another person’s “bias”) is explicitly incorporated into and evaluated as
part of the decision-making process.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
This book is an attempt to apply seemingly esoteric inferential
logic to human creativity. The most important point I wish to make is that
subjectivity does indeed play an essential role in science, not merely because
scientists are fallible, but because all the knowledge of the universe or any part
of the universe necessary for complete understanding cannot possibly be obtained.
Therefore, inference based on inadequate information is always required. And,
in its genesis, inference is subjective.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
The intrinsic subjectivity of the arts has never been in dispute,
but it may come as some surprise to the uninitiated that science has an
essential subjective component as well. The subjectivity, to reiterate, is not
merely inherent in the humanity of the scientist, but in the formulation of
possible problem solutions, in their execution, and even recognition and selection
of the problems themselves.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
I recall some time ago, a recruiting video was being prepared
by a university college of science, for encouraging high school students to
consider a scientific career, especially at that university and college. One of
those interviewed for the video was a distinguished professor who occupied an endowed
chair in the chemistry department: “We are the new high priests of society,” he
told the anonymous interviewer and, through him, the potential scientists of
tomorrow. Another professor, from a different department, wrote a note to the
dean objecting to the endowed chair’s comments, and observed that no one was
making sacrifices on altars in his department; his department didn’t have
altars, although he couldn’t vouch for what was going on in chemistry.
Nevertheless, the almost conscious identification of contemporary science with
ancient religion, made by that professor, isn’t necessarily that far off the
mark. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
The most subjective and creative of human endeavors often
has religious overtones. Jung saw significant foreshadowing of his own theories
in the work of the German poets Goethe and Schilling, particular the former’s <i>Faust</i>, a reworking of the Old Testament Job
story with a profoundly different twist. The medieval precursors of science were
the alchemists and astrologers, many of whom were clerics who mixed heretical
theologies into their cauldrons of myth and futility. The performing arts in
the Middle Ages centered on Passion plays in song, out of which opera emerged.
Liturgy has much in common with the formality of experimental science and the
structure of theatrical performance. To the untrained, science can seem
esoteric and mysterious, rather like the Gnostic mystery sects of the first few
centuries. But, is it the formality of science that is so mysterious, or its
requirement of rigorous initiation by intensive training, or is the mystery in
the creative urge that seems to motivate the scientific process?<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
In an effort to explore these questions further, it might be
worthwhile to consider the flip side of creativity. One can speculate about the
how and why of Lerner and Loewe’s <i>My Fair
Lady</i> and Crick and Watson’s DNA model, but what about the meaning of each
to its respective audience? Since the total audience for a successful Broadway
musical is larger than that of a scientific theory (although the eventual
social importance of each might well be reversed), and success of the musical
is dependent on that audience, they are, in effect, essential collaborators in
musical theater. This is extended further by considering the creative
contribution the audience makes. Isn’t there a kind of creativity involved in
the reception of a work of art that complements the initial creativity of its
production? And, if we can acquire some insight into this creative response, maybe
this can be used as a basis of consideration of the creative effort involved in
genesis of the product.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
The biographical accounts of the process of play-making leave
the distinct impression that the critical steps in the creative, productive
process are interactive. What Alan said to Fritz; how Richard dealt with Larry;
Moss made this suggestion… But, to reiterate, even in the most intense collaboration,
the ideas, verse, and notes emerge from individual human imagination, memory, and
reason. So it is that the response of the listener and viewer is largely internal,
affected and effected, certainly by the subtle collective physical response of
the rest of the audience. The individual response is in essence internal. The
senses feel the perception of light, movement, color, sound, ambience, and smell
in the brain, where the real stage or screen is. For each member of the
audience, <i>My Fair Lady</i> happens in his
or her own consciousness and, perhaps, unconsciousness.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
The distinctive characters played by flesh-and-blood actors whose
own personalities may be different from the characters played, are,
nevertheless, real to the audience person, insofar as response is concerned. The
reality is in interpreting the response of the individual to a particular play
or motion picture; it may assumed that the meaning is grasped to the extent
that each character finds identity with a part of oneself; the relationships of
characters also find reflection in internal dialogues, and the whole of the
story (inadequately and grossly, of course) approximates the whole of the
person. To the person, then, Henry Higgins is not Rex Harrison; Professor
Higgins is part of oneself. Eliza Doolittle is not Julie Andrews or Audrey
Hepburn or Marni Nixon; she also is part of the individual, as are Alfred
Doolittle, Colonel Pickering, or even Freddie-Eynesford-Hill.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
The second assumption has to do with the dramatic content of
the play. The fully satisfying play is itself, by definition, fulfilling. As the
postulates of a theorem imply its conclusion, the fullness of the (complete) play
is implicit in its parts. The music of the best of plays not only serves and advances
the plot, it expresses it. The portents of chance impel the change; the consequence
is in a sense its own cause. The medium is the message.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
The third assumption is that the response of the audience
produced by the inner drama of the individual in its own way shapes the play. The
play is its own cause and consequence. The concepts of inner characters and
interior dramas can be an alien idea in approaching the performing arts in particular
and human creativity in general. They may not be self-evident, without a little
imaginative work. Viewing the concepts as hypothetical may sound quasi-scientific.
But, for the individual encountering these ideas for the first time, perhaps he
or she could view himself or herself as a kind of laboratory.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Histories of American musical theater emphasize the growth
of musical comedy out of the European operetta, as well as American folk and
African-American spiritual and jazz forms. Typically, the musical play of the
first few decades of the Twentieth Century was more of a revue, with a very
thin plot line supposedly connecting otherwise unrelated song-and-dance routines.
Typically, such revues incorporated songs by several different composers and
lyricists, who had little to do with the overall form of the play. Kern and Hammerstein’s
<i>Showboat</i> (1927) is usually recognized
as <i>the</i> pioneer of a new form.
Storyline and music were integrated, to a great extent. Thus, some of the music
of the play, instead of providing an entertaining interlude, was actually
designed to advance the plot. The very setting of <i>Showboat</i>, however, provides the backdrop for apparent interludes,
since the principal characters are explicit performers aboard a floating
theater (hmm, interesting stage, that).<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
With <st1:place w:st="on"><st1:state w:st="on"><i>Oklahoma</i></st1:state></st1:place><i>!</i>, however, the vision of a fully-integrated
musical play was most completely achieved; it is difficult to point to any
other play, before or after, which is its match. By the addition of Western
ballet, virtually every part of the play is connected; there are no isolated interludes.
Some standard “dramatic” elements still remain: there are the primary love
triangle of Curly-Laurey-Jud and the secondary triangle of Ado
Annie-Will-Hakeem. Parallel love stories are common in other musicals after <st1:place w:st="on"><st1:state w:st="on"><i>Oklahoma</i></st1:state></st1:place><i>!</i>: <i>Carousel</i>,<i> South Pacific</i>, <i>West Side Story</i>, and <i>Music
Man</i>. Lerner felt he and Loewe were breaking new ground in <i>My Fair Lady’s</i> absence of obvious
subplot, represented by a secondary love story. However, the common assumption
made by so many stage historians is that the subplot represents a kind of
convention, for example, “comic relief.” Stephen Sondheim said that the purpose
of “Send in the clowns” in <i>A Little Night
Music</i> is to express the recognition by the female protagonist (herself a
stage performer) that the plot is getting too heavy; it is time for comic
relief. The character and the creators of the play see the apparent need for a
change of tone and pace, and for the principal characters to change costumes.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Certainly, traditional forms of the performing arts, by the
very fact of their tradition are to be dealt with by adapting, adopting, or
even rejecting them (although rejection might mean a mirror image of the
spurned ingredient is the replacement). But it might be worthwhile to consider
the possibility that subplot has a deeper function than that of providing
relief, a break, or new garb.<o:p></o:p></div>
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<span style="color: #351c75; font-style: italic;">[Some of the articles which follow were originally posted on </span><a href="http://maxfrac.blogspot.com/" style="font-style: italic;">maxfrac</a><span style="color: #351c75; font-style: italic;">; a few edits and observations have been added.]</span><br />
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Rexhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16050985148711857877noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7270765752085048523.post-30929602220865469332015-08-23T15:09:00.002-07:002015-08-23T16:26:52.178-07:00Weekend FOX I have frequently observed that weekend news shows, especially on local channels, are likelier to produce unforced errors than those during the week. Cameras can switch from one reporter to another who is not expecting to be "on," and misspellings are all too common.<br />
I'm seeing a similar phenomenon on <a href="http://foxnews.com/">foxnews.com</a> over the weekend.<br />
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhXtEHcyVeqURe-J-dxbcN8ttIHZNfAjf17dwREyalETAvvDrIhm_jzTnUm1GE8HFw7-zFz__JwPzMxAG5TtHojGSUxxe5SNFFSOW-vSnO6lk-fmm88WzNA6pXG-HGYyar0usk2p_4tHxs/s1600/image004.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img alt="typo" border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhXtEHcyVeqURe-J-dxbcN8ttIHZNfAjf17dwREyalETAvvDrIhm_jzTnUm1GE8HFw7-zFz__JwPzMxAG5TtHojGSUxxe5SNFFSOW-vSnO6lk-fmm88WzNA6pXG-HGYyar0usk2p_4tHxs/s320/image004.jpg" title=""decline"" width="260" /></a>Today, in an article about <a href="http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2015/08/23/report-biden-makes-unscheduled-trip-to-huddle-with-warren-adding-to-2016/?intcmp=hplnws">potential Democratic presidential candidates</a>, the second and third paragraph read (my <b>emphasis</b> added):<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
Democrats in past months have called for the Massachusetts senator [Elizabeth Warren] to seek the party nomination, convinced that her progressive, Wall Street-reformer message was good enough to defeat front-running Democrat Hillary Clinton.</blockquote>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
Warren has so far <b>decline</b>. However, Clinton’s slipping polls numbers amid an email controversy has raised speculation that the 72-year-old Biden after the recent death of his son Beau Biden began considering a likely third-and-final White House bid.</blockquote>
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In an <a href="http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2015/08/23/more-evidence-questions-arise-about-existence-second-private-clinton-email/?intcmp=hpbt2">article posted yesterday</a> (and still highlighted on the home page today; <b>emphasis</b> and <b>CAPS </b>added),</div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgKVl-6xVGOnV-2d8t7g-YNVZ2NWXat7kSTQa5thnj_HYZRHbBvFURSWuaUEQAcKuqtns31CJTYQTGUiI6FMAe8cmCv5LLI4KxIiqZ9KsEcXBoxZhqOp2U1MkDZGCRUfdhttamYMTfRmhE/s1600/image006.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgKVl-6xVGOnV-2d8t7g-YNVZ2NWXat7kSTQa5thnj_HYZRHbBvFURSWuaUEQAcKuqtns31CJTYQTGUiI6FMAe8cmCv5LLI4KxIiqZ9KsEcXBoxZhqOp2U1MkDZGCRUfdhttamYMTfRmhE/s320/image006.jpg" width="252" /></a></div>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
The FBI now has the only confirmed private server, as part of a Justice Department probe to determine whether it sent <b>OF </b>received classified information for Clinton when she was the country’s top diplomat from 2009 to 2013.</blockquote>
</blockquote>
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Both examples are typical of spell-checked text which misses such errors since both are legitimate words. What about grammar-checked? Word 2010 doesn't catch either error, but Google Docs implicitly catches "decline" asking, "<i>Did you mean:</i> declined?" and explicitly, providing via Tools>Spelling..., "Change decline to: declined." Google Docs does not catch "of."<br />
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There are so many comments on each of the articles that I don't know if other readers caught the typos. Anyway, it is the weekend, after all. (Blogger provides only spell-checking, not grammar.)<br />
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<br />Rexhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16050985148711857877noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7270765752085048523.post-26324278727019027052014-07-15T12:13:00.001-07:002014-07-15T12:13:14.870-07:00Azolla? Key to climate moderation?<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">A fern appears to have affected climate 55 million years ago. It was really hot and carbon dioxide in the atmosphere was much more abundant than before and since. Then, it suddenly went cool... Why? Fern bloom!</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Click <a href="http://www.eenews.net/stories/1060002785" style="line-height: 25.5px;">part 1</a> then <a href="http://www.eenews.net/stories/1060002833" style="line-height: 25.5px;">part 2</a>. [Thanks to <a href="http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2014/07/15/dems-veer-into-danger-zone-with-abortion-bill/">foxnews.com</a> (Scroll down to: <i>With your second cup of coffee</i>),<b> </b><a href="http://www.scientificamerican.com/article/how-scientists-uncovered-arctic-clues-to-a-past-where-a-tiny-fern-changed-the-planet/">Scientific American.com</a> and <a href="http://eenews.net/">eenews.net</a>]<span style="color: #222222;"><span style="background-color: #f4f4f4; line-height: 25.5px;"></span></span></span><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><span style="color: #222222;"><span style="background-color: #f4f4f4; line-height: 25.5px;"><br /></span></span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">There are several other links to the researchers' project pages:</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<a href="http://pryerlab.biology.duke.edu/"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">http://pryerlab.biology.duke.edu/</span></a><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><a href="http://pryerlab.biology.duke.edu/field-work">http://pryerlab.biology.duke.edu/field-work</a> </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<a href="https://experiment.com/projects/azolla-a-little-fern-with-massive-green-potential"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">https://experiment.com/projects/azolla-a-little-fern-with-massive-green-potential</span></a><br />
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Rexhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16050985148711857877noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7270765752085048523.post-50380925664190973112014-05-22T12:10:00.000-07:002014-05-22T12:10:10.740-07:00Incomplete puzzleMissing pieces:<br />
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<a href="http://cdn-us-ec.yottaa.net/520a416a3c881617d0000082/www.scheels.com/v~4.125/wcsstore/ScheelsStorefrontAssetStore//images/scheels/stores/LocationsMap2013.jpg?yocs=m_&yoloc=us" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://cdn-us-ec.yottaa.net/520a416a3c881617d0000082/www.scheels.com/v~4.125/wcsstore/ScheelsStorefrontAssetStore//images/scheels/stores/LocationsMap2013.jpg?yocs=m_&yoloc=us" height="261" width="320" /></a></div>
Rexhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16050985148711857877noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7270765752085048523.post-2161043678117491862014-05-02T23:49:00.000-07:002014-05-03T22:13:18.441-07:00Someone, somewhere, came up with this attributed triple injunction:<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
Out of clutter find simplicity. From discord find harmony. In the middle of difficulty lies opportunity. -- Albert Einstein</blockquote>
Someone else has made it virtual "wall-art" (as in Facebook "wall") as it reads above.<br />
<div>
<br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">When a Facebook friend posted the text, I wondered, did Einstein really say or write it? An Internet search produces the probable intermediate source for the "wall-art" in the quotation:</span><br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Einstein's "Rules of Work"</span><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">1. Out of clutter find simplicity.</span><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">2. From discord find harmony.</span><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">3. In the middle of difficulty lies opportunity. - Albert Einstein</span></blockquote>
<span class="wsite-text wsite-headline"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">...from a collection of Einsteinians and Einsteinishes, <a href="http://www.amazon.com/The-Quotable-Einstein-Alice-Calaprice/dp/0691120757">The New Quotable Einstein</a>, compiled by </span></span><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><span class="author notFaded" data-width="164" style="box-sizing: border-box; line-height: 19px;"><span class="a-declarative" data-a-popover="{"position":"triggerBottom","name":"contributor-info-B001IODLOE","allowLinkDefault":"true"}" data-action="a-popover" style="box-sizing: border-box;">Alice Calaprice and </span></span><span class="author notFaded" data-width="157" style="box-sizing: border-box; line-height: 19px;">Freeman Dyson (Princeton Press, 2005, p. 296; also in <a href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0691160147/ref=pd_lpo_sbs_dp_ss_1?pf_rd_p=1535523722&pf_rd_s=lpo-top-stripe-1&pf_rd_t=201&pf_rd_i=0691026963&pf_rd_m=ATVPDKIKX0DER&pf_rd_r=0RGCXSJ2RX7RTDTGKPRX">The Ultimate Quotable Einstein</a>, 2013, p 480). The "Rules" is included in a chapter of quotes <i>attributed</i> to the great physicist; so it is that they are only </span></span><span style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">Einsteinish</span><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><span class="author notFaded" data-width="157" style="box-sizing: border-box; line-height: 19px;">.</span> </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">The compilers' comments on the "Rules" read:</span><br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">The first "rule" is probably a paraphrase of Einstein's many quotations about the value of simplicity. I traced the second rule to Horace, the Roman poet and satirist, who had it as "<i>Concordia discors</i>" (harmony in discord) in his <i>Epistles</i> I, xii. 19. And the third rule has probably been in general use for ages.</span></blockquote>
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Using the "Search inside" feature in Google Books, the only other "cluttered" quotation included in either version of Quotable is documentably Einsteinian:</span><br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">My intuition was not strong enough in the field of mathematics to differentiate clearly the fundamentally important...from the rest of the more or less dispensable erudition. Also, my interest in the study of nature was no doubt stronger... In this field I soon learned to sniff out that which might lead to fundamentals and to turn aside...from the multitude of things that clutter up the mind and divert from the essentials. (p. 17 [18 in The Ultimate Quotable Einstein], from "Autobiographical Notes," in Schilpp, Albert Einstein Philosopher-Scientist, 15)</span></blockquote>
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The third "rule" is similar to a near-cliché, quoted in <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chinese_word_for_%22crisis%22">Wikipedia</a>:<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
When written in Chinese the word crisis is composed of two characters. One represents danger, and the other represents opportunity.</blockquote>
This quotation, taken from a speech by then Senator John F. Kennedy in 1959 has a history of usage both before and since his.<br />
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I think we can infer that the contrasting senses of "clutter" between the documented Einsteinian and attributed Einsteinish mean that he did not say or write any of the three Rules.<br />
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My reason for this post is to deconstruct the Rules in this way:<br />
<br />
Clutter, discord, difficulty...<br />
Simplicity, harmony, opportunity...<br />
<br />
Clutter and simplicity are near opposites, as are discord and harmony. But, difficulty and opportunity do not exhibit an apposite relationship. On the other hand, the rules could describe <a href="http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/thomas-kuhn/">Thomas Kuhn's</a> normal science and science in crisis. When all is well with a paradigm, normal science applies and extends the paradigm in a self-similar simple and harmonic manner. When clutter and discord enter and, ultimately endanger the working theory, the onset of a revolution is at hand -- a new paradigm is required. However, sometimes recognition of the existence of crisis doesn't come about until a new perspective emerges and supplant the cluttered and discordant predecessor. So it was when plate tectonics arose; so much of the previous simplicity and harmony were operating in the midst of hidden clutter and discord. </div>
Rexhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16050985148711857877noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7270765752085048523.post-10299657448883825252014-02-10T14:55:00.000-08:002014-02-10T14:55:00.285-08:00<a href="http://online.wsj.com/news/articles/SB10001424052702304558804579374844067975558?mg=reno64-wsj&url=http%3A%2F%2Fonline.wsj.com%2Farticle%2FSB10001424052702304558804579374844067975558.html">James Taranto</a> provided this tease for a link to a WAPO post (second bullet, below):<br />
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<div style="border: 0px; color: #333333; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 15px; line-height: 1.4em; margin-bottom: 1em; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">
<span style="border: 0px; font-weight: 700; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">Question and Answer--IV</span></div>
<ul class="articleList" style="border: 0px; color: #333333; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 10px; list-style: none; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px 0px 0px 0.2rem; vertical-align: baseline;">
<li style="background-image: url(data:image/gif; background-position: 0% 0.5em; background-repeat: no-repeat no-repeat; background-size: 0.4rem; border: 0px; font-size: 1.3em; line-height: 1.333em; margin: 1rem 2rem 1rem 1rem; outline: 0px; padding: 0px 0px 0px 1.2rem; vertical-align: baseline;">"Sacha Baron Cohen to Play Villain in Alice in Wonderland Sequel?"--headline, <a class="icon none" href="http://metro.co.uk/2014/01/22/sacha-baron-cohen-to-play-villain-in-alice-in-wonderland-sequel-4272862/" style="color: #115b8f; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;" target="_new">Metro.co.uk</a> , Jan. 22</li>
<li style="background-image: url(data:image/gif; background-position: 0% 0.5em; background-repeat: no-repeat no-repeat; background-size: 0.4rem; border: 0px; font-size: 1.3em; line-height: 1.333em; margin: 1rem 2rem 1rem 1rem; outline: 0px; padding: 0px 0px 0px 1.2rem; vertical-align: baseline;">"Yes, Kazakhstan Should Change Its Name. This Map Shows Why."--headline, <a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/worldviews/wp/2014/02/07/yes-kazakhstan-should-change-its-name-this-map-shows-why/">Washington</a> <a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/worldviews/wp/2014/02/07/yes-kazakhstan-should-change-its-name-this-map-shows-why/">Post website</a>, Feb. 7</li>
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<span style="color: #333333; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;"><span style="line-height: 17.32900047302246px;">The blog post is a hilarious (an hilarious with silent "h"?) collection of flipped cause-and-effect which even one affected by dyslexia could see, not to add the not-plural typo.</span></span></div>
<div>
<span style="color: #333333; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;"><span style="line-height: 17.32900047302246px;"><br /></span></span></div>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<span style="background-color: white; color: #2c2c2c; font-family: Georgia, serif; line-height: 26px;"><span style="font-size: x-small;">In execution, the Myanmar government was just as unsuccessful at accomplishing this as it was at everything else it set out to do. The name Myanmar turns out to derive from a literary word for the Burmese ethnic group. And many activists and Western media outlets still refuse to recognize the new name because they see the country's government as illegitimate. So it was not a successful name change, but the point is that there is precedent for dropping a country name that is based on the country's largest ethnic group.</span></span></blockquote>
Even though the renaming of "Burma" to "Myanmar" was not successful, it provides a precedent for other countries to follow? Mind-numbing!<br />
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<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<span style="background-color: white; color: #2c2c2c; font-family: Georgia, serif; line-height: 26px;"><span style="font-size: x-small;">A better example might be Thailand, which has changed its name to and from "Siam" a couple of time. </span></span></blockquote>
Is it time for English to drop [the] plural[s]? Yes, it's only a blog post which might make sense in Thai (if there are no plurals). And, based on the recounted history, shouldn't this read "...has changed its name from and to 'Siam'..."?<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<span style="font-size: x-small;">...<span style="background-color: white; color: #2c2c2c; font-family: Georgia, serif; line-height: 26px;">In 1939, though, Siam's fascist military leader changed the country's name from Siam to Thailand, after the country's largest ethnic group, the Thai. He was backed by fascist-era Japan, his ally...</span></span></blockquote>
<span style="font-size: x-small;">Why "<span style="background-color: white; color: #2c2c2c; font-family: Georgia, serif; line-height: 26px;">fascist-era Japan"? Couldn't one also say "fascist-era China"? Is all about time, isn't it?</span></span><br />
<br />
I guess it is a set-up for (<b>emphasis</b> added):<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<span style="background-color: white; color: #2c2c2c; font-family: Georgia, serif; line-height: 26px;"><span style="font-size: x-small;">When <b>Thailand and Japan lost World War Two</b> and the Thai military government stepped down, the country's name was changed back to Siam.</span></span></blockquote>
But then,<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<span style="background-color: white; color: #2c2c2c; font-family: Georgia, serif; line-height: 26px;"><span style="font-size: x-small;">But then, in 1948, the same Thai military fascist who had declared war on the United States a few years earlier returned to power, with Western backing as an anti-Communist bulwark. He changed the country's name again, in 1948, to drive home his antagonism toward Communist China. If it were not for the Cold War, this probably would not have been allowed and Thailand would still be called Siam today.</span></span></blockquote>
So the military fascist change's the name to Thailand, again, but after the fascist-era was over, at the beginning of the Cold War era.<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<span style="background-color: white; color: #2c2c2c; font-family: Georgia, serif; line-height: 26px;"><span style="font-size: x-small;">Kazakhstan is in sort of a similar position. </span></span></blockquote>
I'm trying to decide which similar position.<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<span style="background-color: white; color: #2c2c2c; font-family: Georgia, serif; line-height: 26px;"><span style="font-size: x-small;">There's no indication that Kazakhstan is on the verge of a similar national identity crisis over what it means to be a Kazakhstan citizen, and having a confused national identity does not in itself create crises. <b>But the country has partly resisted these problems by being a dictatorship </b>with little political competition and vast natural resources.</span></span><span style="background-color: white; color: #2c2c2c; font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 16px; line-height: 26px;"> </span></blockquote>
There is nothing like a dictatorship to stave off national identity crises.<br />
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Rexhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16050985148711857877noreply@blogger.com0