{"id":119,"date":"2008-05-10T00:25:00","date_gmt":"2008-05-10T04:25:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/clients.chrisvanpatten.com\/theatreaficionado.com\/2008\/05\/musical-theatre-zen.html"},"modified":"2010-10-29T03:22:20","modified_gmt":"2010-10-29T07:22:20","slug":"musical-theatre-zen","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.theatreaficionado.com\/?p=119","title":{"rendered":"Musical Theatre Zen"},"content":{"rendered":"

Musical Theatre Zen is a term I use for those rare occasions that a musical number is so transportative and transcendent that the moment will forever burnish in my memory and bring myself and my soul to a place of extraordinary warmth, comfort and serenity. All is right with the world. I’ve felt it when I saw Barbara Cook<\/a> sing “Ice Cream,” I felt it the first time I heard “Dividing Day” from The Light in the Piazza<\/em><\/a> and on several other occasions. Here is one of those:<\/p>\n

The Music: Jerome Kern
\nThe Lyrics: Oscar Hammerstein II
\nThe Orchestration: Robert Russell Bennett<\/p>\n

The show was Very Warm For May<\/a>, <\/em>a flop musical comedy from 1939 that failed because Max Gordon<\/a> disliked a farcical subplot involving a gangster chase sufficiently turning the musical into a summer stock affair similar to the smash hit Babes in Arms, <\/em>which opened two years prior. Mixed reviews and audience indifference led to the show’s shuttering after 59 performances. Kern went to Hollywood, where he continued to work until his death. Hammerstein would eventually resurface in 1943 with Oklahoma! <\/em>and Carmen Jones.<\/em> In spite of its obscurity, the Kern-Hammerstein score was something special, as evidenced in the recordings of the original cast that have surfaced in recent years. The recording of the “song,” “All the Things You Are,” was featured on John McGlinn’s Broadway Showstoppers CD. In context, the song is presented as a double duet. One couple offstage is soliloquizing on the verse, alternating back and forth about their repressed feelings for the other (here voiced by Jeanne Lehman and Cris Groenandaal). At a certain point in the song, the couple onstage rehearsing are able to express what the lovers cannot (sung by Rebecca Luker and George Dvorsky) and supported by the ensemble. It’s my favorite song.<\/p>\n

This is sheer poetry (aka, the chorus):<\/p>\n

You are the promised kiss of springtime
\nThat makes the lonely winter seem long.
\nYou are the breathless hush of evening
\nThat trembles on the brink of a lovely song.
\nYou are the angel glow that lights a star,
\nThe dearest things I know are what you are.
\nSome day my happy arms will hold you,
\nAnd some day I’ll know that moment divine,
\nWhen all the things you are, are mine!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Musical Theatre Zen is a term I use for those rare occasions that a musical number is so transportative and transcendent that the moment will forever burnish in my memory and bring myself and my soul to a place of extraordinary warmth, comfort and serenity. All is right with the world. I’ve felt it when … Continue reading Musical Theatre Zen<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[1749,1748,1746,1747,1635],"class_list":["post-119","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-all-the-things-you-are","tag-jerome-kern","tag-musical-theatre-zen","tag-oscar-hammerstein-ii","tag-very-warm-for-may"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.theatreaficionado.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/119","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.theatreaficionado.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.theatreaficionado.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.theatreaficionado.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.theatreaficionado.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=119"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.theatreaficionado.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/119\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2886,"href":"https:\/\/www.theatreaficionado.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/119\/revisions\/2886"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.theatreaficionado.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=119"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.theatreaficionado.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=119"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.theatreaficionado.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=119"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}