Irving Berlin’s American Musical Theater by Jeffrey Magee (review)

Abstract

Irving American Musical Theater. By Jeffrey Magee. (Broadway Legacies.) Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2012. [xiii, 394 p. ISBN 9780195398267. $35.] Music examples, illustrations, bibliography, discography, index.Although many Americans know Irving talent for songwriting, most are not as well versed in his seventy-year musical theater career, which profoundly influenced American stage. Jeffrey Magee's thoroughly researched narrative delves into this previously untapped area of career in a well-crafted style, and results are extremely informative and engaging.Because this book focuses on the Broadway (p. xi), a medium that cultivates close collaboration, its organization is guided by theatrical relationships. I was immediately attracted by this idea because it reinforces Magee's focus on a life that, until now, had been most thoroughly explored through songbooks. It is also important to note, although it is certainly not surprising, that Berlin worked with many of Broadway's top writing and producing talents, including Florenz Ziegfeld, George S. Kaufman, Moss Hart, Robert Sherwood, Howard Lindsay, Russel Crouse, Victor Herbert, Dorothy Fields, Richard Rogers, and Oscar Hammer stein II. In this book, their stories, along with those of many significant Broad - way performers, are woven together with to aid in Magee's analysis of many period masterpieces, which become focus of book's chapters. These shows include Watch Your Step and Stop! Look! Listen! (chap. 2); Yip Yip Yaphank and Ziegfeld Follies of 1919 (chap. 3); Music Box Revues, 1921-24 (chap. 4); The Cocoanuts, Face Music, As Thousands Cheer, Louisiana Purchase, and Happy Holiday (chap. 5); This is Army (chap. 6); Annie Get Your Gun (chap. 7); and Call Me Madam and Mr. President (chap. 8).Because Berlin, youngest child in an immigrant family, had to work at an early age in order to support his family and himself, it is surprising that regarded his childhood as ideal, insisting that 'everyone should have a East Side in their lives' (p. 9). Magee begins his first chapter with a discussion of this quote, which defines driving force behind success. Magee's notion of Lower East Side Aesthetic bears exploration due to its central role in work and Magee's book. It is an aesthetic that holds a practical, and even survivalist view of creativity as a job joining ambition, entrepreneurship, mercantilism, and not least craft. The ethic required [Berlin] to work hard, meet deadlines, create opportunities, heed his audience's reaction, study competition, and deliver goods without cutting corners (p. 10). Throughout rest of monograph, Magee reminds reader of beginnings in New York City and how they continually informed main themes of his creative output for stage and screen. This modern, urban aesthetic, fueled by his need to assimilate, turns up not just in way Berlin worked, but also in themes of his work-even in unexpected places, like western-themed Annie Get Your Gun (p. 240).The Lower East Side Aesthetic bears significant weight on compositional values, which Magee emphasizes in his examination of songs, as opposed to their style (p. 14). These include his overwhelming desire to write quality songs that would reach largest possible audience (p. 11). His strong work ethic was an important part of his value system, described throughout book in words of his many collaborators. Perhaps his most important value from perspective of his listeners, however, was diversity of musical styles he assimilated throughout his career.With his finger on pulse of public aesthetics, Berlin wrote songs for popular theatrical media of day, starting with vaudeville and revue, and moving into book musicals. Many of these songs, for example, carry Berlin's brand of ragtime (p. …