Oscar Hammerstein II and the Invention of the Musical (Guest: Laurie Winer)
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Tim Benson:Hello, everybody, and welcome back to the Illiteracy Podcast. I'm your host, Tim Benson, a senior policy analyst at the Heartland Institute, a national free market think tank. And this is episode 130 something of the podcast. Sorry for never remembering what episode number it is, bad habit. But, point being, not a new podcast anymore.
Tim Benson:But for those of you just tuning in for the first time, basically, what we do here in the podcast is, I invite an author on to discuss a book of theirs that's been newly published or recently published on something or someone or some idea or some event that, we think you guys would like to hear a conversation about. And then hopefully, you know, at the end of the podcast or even in the middle of the podcast, we get your druthers about you. Go ahead and, purchase the book yourself and give it a read. So if you like this podcast, please consider giving Illiteracy a 5 star review at Apple Podcasts or wherever you listen to the show and also by sharing with your friends as that's the best way to support programming like this. And my guest today is miss Lori Weiner.
Tim Benson:And miss Weiner is a longtime critic and journalist who has been on staff at The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, and was chief theater critic at The Los Angeles Times. She is also a founding editor of the Los Angeles Review of Books. And she is here to discuss her new book or not quite new anymore.
outtro:New.
Tim Benson:Newish book. Newish book. Her newish book, Oscar Hammerstein the second and the invention of the musical, which was published last January by Yale University Press. So, miss Warner, thank you so much for coming on the podcast. I appreciate it.
outtro:My my pleasure.
Tim Benson:Okay. So what, what made you wanna well, actually, first, before we get to the book itself, you write in it that you're I mean, it's it's sort of obvious when you read it that you're a, fanatic, for musicals for Broadway. How did how did you become you know, obviously, I'm assuming you had to start in childhood, man, because most things were sort of fanatical about sort of start there. So how did you become such a, a lover of of, musicals, of the American theater, Broadway, you know, all that stuff.
outtro:Well, you know, I remember, one of the first movies that my parents took me to was, Mary Poppins, which came out when I was about 4 or 5. And we were sitting in the theater and it was just like, oh, this exists. I want this this world. This is amazing. And I told my parents that I was gonna sit through the movie again, and if they needed to leave, that was okay, and come back and get me.
outtro:That would be okay, but I could not leave. And, and then, you know, it was just like this this world is more intense, more vibrant, funnier, more electric, more alive than anything I've ever experienced, and I love it. And then after that, I I started they started to take me to the theater. Now I lived in Baltimore, so it wasn't like primo theater, but I didn't know that. But we started to go into musicals and, you know, it was just I have to have this in my life.
outtro:This is unbelievable. I've never seen anything like this, and I still kind of feel that way.
Tim Benson:Yeah. It's funny. You mentioned Mary Poppins. My son, who he'll he'll he's turning 4 in a few weeks, but, maybe about a year or so ago, first put on Mary Poppins for him. And he, you know, just absolutely adored it.
Tim Benson:I mean, the the scene where they're in the painting and Bert was dancing with the penguins. I mean, I have videos of him I have videos of him just standing in front of the TV and just copying, you know, Dick Van Dyke and, you know, trying to do the the little moves and just hopping about. And, it's sort of wild. And he's, you know, he's now he's seen The Sound of Music. He's seen, oh, I'm trying to think what other musicals.
Tim Benson:Not so much musical, but he's seen like The Nightmare Before Christmas and all that, and he sort of loves. And he likes all those Disney even the new ones like Moana and so things like that. So it's interesting how they, connect with children, but, you know, the point you made if, you know, you just basically wanted to be in that world, I've seen t shirts and or just like slogans. I don't know if you've ever seen this online. Like, I don't know if life is a tragedy or a comedy, but thank God it's not a musical.
Tim Benson:And it's like, wait, like, why the hell would you not want life to be a musical?
outtro:That would be that
Tim Benson:would be fucking amazing. Excuse me. It would be incredible. Like, you if I could just, like, go outside and just start breaking the song and, like, leading people down the street and, you know, like, who wouldn't, like, wanna live in that world? Or, you know, you just like could
outtro:see a better world.
Tim Benson:Right. Or you just, like, you leave the, you know, the coffee shop or something, and you just, like, run into somebody else's, you know, musical or you know? I mean, that would be great. But
outtro:Sign me up.
Tim Benson:Yeah. Exactly. Unlike most
outtro:things unlike most things that we love in childhood, the musical actually the great musicals actually stand up to adult scrutiny.
Tim Benson:Oh, sure. Absolutely.
outtro:And that's that's another thing. You know, I didn't expect that. I mean, I didn't expect anything. But but, you know, to learn, you know, as one ages that this stuff is not only still relevant, but more relevant, more meaningful, You know, it was a fantastic thing. It's like I've been a friend through my life that's offered me the best advice about living, that I could imagine.
Tim Benson:Mhmm. Yeah. See, I, I was fortunate. I grew up in a household with a mother, who was I don't know if she's quite on your level of musical fanaticism, but pretty close. Like, just a big fan of Broadway and the theater and all the old MGM musicals and, you know, that she would watch repeatedly when I was a kid, And, you know, that I'd seen, and we would go I grew up in, Bradley Beach, New Jersey, which is Monmouth County.
Tim Benson:So, you know, about a 40 minute train ride out of Manhattan, and my dad worked in the city. And so we would go when I was a kid, and, you know, mom and I would take the train in the city, and we'd go meet my dad and have dinner at Sardi's and, you know, all that stuff. And then What? And then go to the theater afterwards. So I mean, probably since I've been about, I don't know, 3 or 4 years old, something like that.
Tim Benson:She was dragging me to the theater. I think, like, the first the first thing she took me to was, Oh,
outtro:that's that's pretty fun.
Tim Benson:Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And then Sparkles
outtro:for a kid for a little bit.
Tim Benson:Yeah. Yeah. So I remember, we went out to visit my great grandmother out in Illinois. And, apparently, I vaguely remember this, but I guess we had a tape of the original cast recording. And we had to, like, listen to it the entire, like, you know, 10 to 12 hours all the way out to Illinois.
outtro:Sounds like excruciating for you.
Tim Benson:Yeah. No. No. But, no, it was great. So I've always enjoyed it.
Tim Benson:I'm not like a, nowhere near, like, my mom's level. I mean, I really enjoy the theater. I, all that the the great American songbook, all those things. I mean, I'm a I'm a rock and roll kid Yeah. You know, for the most part.
Tim Benson:But, and a lot of that stuff, I really didn't appreciate as much until I got a little older and smarter. But, put it this way, for for, basically, for a 40 year old, straight dude, I probably have I've probably seen more theater than 99% of, you know, my the rest of my cohort, for sure. So it's like I said, it's just
outtro:The gene is now on your your son, which is
Tim Benson:Yeah. Yeah. It's just like it's I know it's just as always with something that was sorta ever present in my household just, so I've always enjoyed it. And that's what, led me to your book
outtro:Uh-huh. Because I
Tim Benson:realized I hadn't really I didn't really know much, you know, other than just sort of the basics of Oscar Hammerstein's story.
outtro:Right. That's perfect. You're the perfect reader then for Yeah.
Tim Benson:Yeah. Exactly. Exactly. So, so to the book itself and to that idea, so what made you want to write this book? What was, what was the genesis of it?
Tim Benson:And you and I you wrote in here, you actually had a sort of a completely different idea for the book at first. Correct?
outtro:Yeah. Well, you know, I've been a journalist all my life, and, I'd never written a book. I mean, I I, you know, my husband is has written like you know, I don't even know. I have lost count of how many. And, you know, all of our friends are writers.
outtro:We started the the LA Review of Books together. You know, we Los Angeles really does have an amazing kind of, community of of literary people, and they and everybody kind of con congregated around the LA Review Books. Anyway, I was one of the few people I knew who hadn't written a book. And, and I thought, you know, what is the most important you know, what do I wanna delve into? What is the most important thing to me?
outtro:And it was the answer was clear, this thing that has kind of guided me my whole life and that I feel is, you know, so rich in wisdom. And and so I was gonna do the 10 great American musicals and kind of what was great about them and what they said about America in the 20th century, which was the American century. And, but as I looked at the list of musicals, I was considering I realized that Oscar Hammerstein was the backbone of what I was so attracted to and wanted to delve into. And so, I went to the Library of Congress and I I met this amazing librarian, Mark Horowitz, and music specialist, and, and just started going through Hammerstein's papers because I wanted to understand what what made him the way he was. I started to realize that his personality, more than any other single person, was imprinted on the form of the musical, his sense of humor, his sense of ethics, how he looked at the world as generosity, his hatred of bitterness, all of these things that I felt were so wise and in fact can really be found in all the great philosophers.
outtro:But, in the musical, the thought is so, is so, beautifully kind of compressed that you get, you know, you know, a century's worth of philosophy in a in a musical, and it's much more pleasurable to take it.
Tim Benson:Mhmm. Yeah. I'm sort of with you. I put it this way. Like, if aliens came down and abducted you and were, like, asking you questions about just different things on earth.
Tim Benson:And they were like, well, tell us about what is Broadway? What is, you know, what is the American musical? I mean, you would basically just go right to I mean, I think this is true for most people. You would just go right to, you know, Rodgers and Hammerstein and Oklahoma or, you know, something like that. I think like that would just be if, you know, if you had to if you had to explain it to an extraterrestrial, you know, just bring it to its essence.
Tim Benson:That that is the essence is Rogers and Emerson.
outtro:Yeah. I I agree. I think that's great.
Tim Benson:Yeah.
outtro:Especially if you're talking about, you know, America, I think, and American values, which, you know, those musicals the most the 5 really successful ones were, you know, performed and still are performed all over the world. So it you know, there is a there is a global universal appeal as well, but I think that what they were thinking about and writing about was their country and what their country, you know, afforded them, gave them, and stood for.
Tim Benson:Sure. Yeah. Absolutely. Now Hammerstein at his death, his critical reputation had sort of taken I mean, he died in 1960, 1961 1960. Yeah.
Tim Benson:19 60. August. He'd his, critical reputation had taken sort of a hit. There was a turn away from what those musicals represented and what he represented. And, I you you I think you brought this up.
Tim Benson:It is is career coincided with the the birth of the cool or something like that with the the mile I like that Miles Davis reference. Thank you.
outtro:Right. Yes. So that's more made a lot of Richard Rogers' melodies, by the way. Sorry, Don.
Tim Benson:Yes. Right. That's true. No. And, so could you just talk a little about that?
Tim Benson:How is, critical reputation took sort of a hit, from
outtro:that? As you said, it was kind of the cool kids, in the critical community, which, which were in, you know, in this in the sixties when the sound of music movie came out, Oscar was already dead. But Mhmm. But even when the stage musical debuted in 59, you know, the the cool people were, you know, the beats, and it was a, you know, it was a new, a new aesthetic. And and what Rodgers and Hammerstein had done was was fate was well, certainly, no one could see the you could no longer see how innovative a show like Carousel or Oklahoma was because that Carousel in Oklahoma had become the norm, had become the musical.
outtro:So it didn't seem groundbreaking. You had to understand historically what came before them to understand why they were ground break breaking. It wasn't just readily apparent. But, also, they were at the end of well, Oscar was at the end of his life. They were at the end of their collaboration, and and they were not innovating as much as they had been.
outtro:And, even though The Sound of Music does have wonderful, wonderful things in it and especially the stage version, in my opinion, because I think that the the movie musical took out some of the most interesting things in the musical because the director Robert Wise wanted to focus on Julie Andrews and the children. Understandable. But Julie Andrews and the children and the nuns were exactly the things that the the cool kids were finding just too abundantly sentimental. Mhmm. So they they were already starting to turn their nose up at the aesthetic.
outtro:Of course, it it was tremendously successful. I mean, I think the movie was one of the most successful movie musicals of all time until And I
Tim Benson:think the the soundtrack recording for the movie was, like, the highest, like, selling album up until Tapestry by Carole King or something like that.
outtro:Yeah. Amazing. Yeah. And then so when you run up to into Carole King Mhmm. In the early seventies, you know, it's just the folk aesthetic.
outtro:It's just, it's a different sound. And also, I think different values started to be favored by the majority of the population. And I think that, Oscar and Hammerstein's belief in community and how we're all kind of the same underneath, and we all have the same needs for human dignity and freedom, etcetera, was given giving way to a new kind of, search for meaning, exemplified by the new generation of songwriters, also by Hammerstein's protege, Stephen Sondheim. It was more about a search for individual meaning. Who am I?
outtro:What is within me, and not so much a community centric view of values. Mhmm. Or if there's a shift away.
Tim Benson:I I was thinking about that, you know, after I read the book. And part of it I think part of the reason too, and it's something I've actually thought a lot about. I don't know why. But something you you talked about cool and sort of the birth of cool as a as a thing, which it I mean, wasn't, you know, up wasn't a you know, there was no such thing as, like, cool before, you know, World War 2. And it seems to me that cool has really seemed to kill off earnestness.
Tim Benson:You know what I mean? Like, you don't wanna you don't wanna look too earnest or just, you know, just excited about thing or into the things that you're into because that's not
outtro:Very uncool.
Tim Benson:Yes. Totally uncool, you know, to care. Right? So and, so I think that and so, clearly, Rodgers and Hammerstein, you know, the sentimentality, which I am totally fine with, and, it just didn't jive with cool, you know, to I mean, something well, I know it's not a Hammerstein song, but I mean, Richard Rodgers, from The Sound of Music just like I've Got Confidence in Me.
outtro:Oh, that's right.
Tim Benson:That's, like, the most uncool song in, like, the history of the world. But, but it's still good. You know? I don't and so I just I have this theory about how you really see I mean, like, if you just, like, watch the movies in, like, the forties and, like, the, you know, in the fifties still and even still into the sixties somewhat. You know, it's the the g Willickers and all that sort of, which we would now think kinda corny.
Tim Benson:Yeah. All that like like cornball and, and earnestness and sentimentality, a lot of that is just sort of completely disappeared from, from visual arts in, you know, in a way. And, so
outtro:And and, you know, maybe maybe maybe that's produced some some part of our of our current unhappiness.
Tim Benson:I think so. I think so. I really do.
outtro:Oscar wrote to his daughter, Alice, in the fifties, about some bad habits she was acquiring from her mother who was his first wife, and and, you know, his advice to her was don't go on and on about, like, what you don't like. You know, it's boring. No one cares. If you really do love something, share that enthusiasm. People love to hear that.
outtro:You know? And I if you think that's true, like, when I see people tweeting about how they hated, you know, this movie or that movie, it it it doesn't produce a cohesive communal response, you know, but people people tweeting about something that they adored, is just a better way to build a community.
Tim Benson:Yeah. I mean, it's just and you think about it when we actually see someone being earnest and it's so rare these days that it's, how refreshing it is. Like, I think of, like, Steve Irwin, the crocodile hunter.
outtro:You know
Tim Benson:what I mean? Like, everyone loves that guy.
outtro:Right.
Tim Benson:And, or, what the Roberto Benigni, the remember when he won the Oscars and he was, like, standing up on the chair and everything? You know, whatever you thought of that movie, it was sort of, refreshing just to see somebody just so caught up, in emotion like that with with, like, happiness and joy. And it's not something we, like I said, we just see a lot of anymore because it's just, you know, everyone feels
outtro:so Now now at the Oscars, you see people, you know, hitting each other. So sorry.
Tim Benson:That's true. Right?
outtro:Yeah. Yeah.
Tim Benson:Now they just commit assault on people. Yeah. Anyway, that's a good point. So let's actually before we get, let's talk about him a little bit as a person first before we get into the more of the musicals. So let's start with his childhood and his family.
Tim Benson:So we could talk a little bit about, you know, what his childhood was like, you know, sort of how he grew up. He had his grandfathers, his sort of his famous larger than life, namesake that he has that, is extremely important, figure in in the world of American musical theater, but no one seems to I mean, he's been completely overshadowed by his grandson and just sort of forgotten by time.
outtro:He he has been. He he tended to produce opera. That was his love. In the history of opera, you know, he's he's important and also in the history of theaters, theater building, he's extremely important. He built the he was building the 1st theater in Times Square when Oscar the second was born in July, 18, 89 8 18, 89.
outtro:No. That's not right. 18/95. Sorry. Anyway, so his his his grandfather was this major figure, also a huge narcissist, and his sons, that would be Oscar's father and uncle Arthur, worked for the grandfather Oscar the first.
outtro:And he was he didn't really care about anyone or anything but himself, but he was also extremely charismatic. He got things done. So, you know, he was he was a huge figure in the family and in American culture, yes, at the beginning of 20th century. Oscar didn't really know him, didn't really know his grandfather that much. His grandfather was too busy to, you know, be concerned with the grandchildren.
outtro:But he did go, to see his grandfather as he was dying as he was dying in the hospital. And he felt something spiritual in the room as one does at those moments. But in this case, it maybe had even a patina of something more, because maybe greatness was, you know, being passed from 1 generation to the next next generation. Anyway, so Oscar the second grew up in a family that was steeped in theater. His grandfather produced opera, but his father produced vaudeville and was producing the most at the most popular vaudeville theater of the time, the Victoria.
outtro:And so Oscar was came of age in in vaudeville in the 19 twenties where and the teens and twenties where there was a cultural mash up of, all of the immigrants from Europe. Like, 15,000,000 immigrants came from Europe, you know, in the in in between 1959 1915 and 1920, and they all kind of met and talked about their differences and their cultures in vaudeville. It was just filled with ethnic acts, and every, act had a title that you could not use today. Right. You know, like, you know, I don't know.
outtro:You know, 2 real coons was, was, Bert Williams' act. Bert Williams was considered to be the funniest man alive.
Tim Benson:Or like Fenton O'Toole, the, you know, hard fighting Feeny and, you know, something like you know what I mean? Like
outtro:Yeah. It's yeah. It was just like every you know, chinks, chews, you know.
Tim Benson:Sure. Yes.
outtro:All these words were in the titles of the app. Mhmm. And and for the most part, you know, let's excluding African Americans, for the most part, people were celebrating the differences laughing about them and it was just a raucous kind of free for all of nationalities. And that's what Oscar came of age in and then he came to represent a kind of what we used to call liberal viewpoint in the 20th century about inclusiveness.
Tim Benson:Mhmm. Yeah. Vaudeville, the prominence, I mean, it was basically the, dominant sort of
outtro:Popular culture.
Tim Benson:Pop yeah. The dominant the dominant medium for entertainment and popular culture in America in that period.
outtro:Definitely.
Tim Benson:Yeah. So
outtro:Oh, and the other thing about his childhood is that, you know, reading, trying to understand who he who he was, how he came to be the person he was. You know, the childhood he was he was loved, protected, you know, to the point where it that could have produced, you know, a lazy indolent child. It you know, he had a fantastic work work ethic since, you know, since he was very young. But but that kind of, just safety and being loved and appreciated, and his mother thought he was the greatest thing. His grandmother thought he was the greatest thing.
outtro:They thought he was, you know, an old soul reborn in a, you know, baby's body. He seemed so wise as a youngster. And, so he had a lot of nurturing, that helped produce his confidence. And then what prevented him from overconfidence, arrogance, was, his own innate humility and also what he saw about how his grandfather's narcissism affected the whole family, and he did not want to be narcissistic. And he he he, you know, really wasn't.
Tim Benson:Yeah. And they had to because of his grandfather or because of his father, well, who gets sort of involved in the family business, they had to move, like, incredibly have
outtro:to move. They did move. They moved all the time. But, a lot of families did in in the in the 19 twenties in New York. It was just not unusual to pick up and move to another apartment building.
outtro:So many apartment buildings were going up. The city was changing so quickly, and people were moving all the time.
Tim Benson:Yeah. It's not like now where you just
outtro:You just never move. Yeah.
Tim Benson:You never move ever. And then till they, you know, pull your body out of the Right. Out of the door, you're you're you're there. Yes. So so he grows up in this theater milieu that's, sort of he's not a big fan of opera.
Tim Benson:He likes the music, but he's not really fond. I I guess he's probably like most of us. You know? You do with that, like, all the the the story and, the sort of comical acting behind it. But but and so he's really going to be the one that's going to lead to this revolution in musical theater, where, the book, the lyrics, the song, I mean, everything is sort of going to everything advances the plot.
Tim Benson:It's all sort of, I guess, integrated is the word that's used, and he's gonna do this with, with a collaborator. I don't know if many people even realize that he wrote with, and that's, Jerome Kern, who was already a fairly established, songwriter in his own work, right, by the time they start collaborating. And then they get to Showboat, which just completely, you know, changes the the face of the American musicals, a completely revolutionary, piece of American art.
outtro:It is. It definitely is, although it's difficult to produce today. As I say in the book, you know, a lot of the artists who dare to write about other cultures, other races because they actually cared about the the world and and other people, are now on the firing line today, because they don't have the exact, level of enlightenment that we have today.
Tim Benson:We think we have today.
outtro:Well, we think we have today. Yeah. Absolutely. So a lot of times, the baby is thrown out with the bathwater in this kind of, mania for political correctness. I think, it's a mistake to throw out our culture and our history like that.
Tim Benson:I agree.
outtro:Yep.
Tim Benson:Yeah. So Oh, sorry. Did you wanna keep going?
outtro:Or No. No. No.
Tim Benson:No. Okay. No. Yeah. I've never I've never seen Showboat perform.
Tim Benson:It's one of the I've seen pretty much all of the, yeah, at least all the Rodgers and Hammerstein, you know, in revival or, at some point. I've never seen showboat. The only thing I think I've ever I remember I was driving. I was on, like, a road trip, and it I was just, like, flipping through, you know, like, AM channels, and it just happened to be coming on, like, whatever the local, like, NPR station was. And, some I don't know if it was a revival from a, I'm assuming it was from a revival on Broadway, and so I just listened to it in the car, and that's the only time I've ever actually, heard it perform beginning to end.
Tim Benson:I mean, you know, I've heard Old Man River 8,000,000,000 times and, you know, can't help loving that man and all that stuff. But, So
outtro:what what did you what did you think about it when you heard it on the radio? What was your reaction?
Tim Benson:Well, at first, I was just I wasn't sure if, because you never know. I mean, you brought this up. What changes have been made to, language and the content. And, obviously, you can't see it, so you don't know what's going on on the stage that everyone's performing. So my first thought is, like, well, I wonder how much of this is different from, you know, the actual version.
Tim Benson:And, they did, censor or change out the, you know, the one word the play begins with.
outtro:That's right.
Tim Benson:Which you can imagine. But no. It was great. And, you know, like I said, I'd I'd already been familiar with, you know, half of the half of the songs in that show anyway. So but but to hear it, like, actually in the context of the show itself, was new.
Tim Benson:It was interesting. And, you know, and you just, when you think of a song like Old Man River I'm so sorry. I'm sort of rambling here. No.
outtro:No. No.
Tim Benson:It's hard for me to think of I mean, obviously, there was a time when that song didn't exist, but it's hard to that song just seems sort of timeless, you know, and just, like, it it's hard to imagine it not existing. Mhmm. You know, I think, Bob Dylan, I think he said it about, Van Morrison. I I forget. Tupelo Honey, maybe.
Tim Benson:He said something that, like, Tupelo Honey had always existed. Just Van Morrison was the the vessel and the earthly vehicle to, like, bring it into, you know
outtro:I I love that I love that theory of of, and Oscar had it too, of, the the artist being a vehicle for something.
Tim Benson:A conduit right here.
outtro:Yeah. Like, with a singer, that's easy to to understand. But with a with a writer, you know, it's it's, you know, that they've that when things are really working, writers feel like they're in touch with some larger entity. And, and I I find that very, very moving and compelling. And, Oscar, in a letter to, it wasn't to to Otto Harbach, who was a a fellow lyricist that he wrote with when he was much younger, He recalled, they were having a big struggle, in one of their shows.
outtro:I think it was the song Indian love song. Anyway, in the twenties, they're having struggle finding the right song. And Oscar Harbach said to Oscar Hammerstein, you know, this song exists. It's there. We just have to find it.
outtro:And, Hammerstein was recalling that moment in in a letter to Otto on his 80th birthday. And, and I I I find that just peculiarly moving and stimulating that But Yeah. Yeah.
Tim Benson:I was just gonna say, but you hear it like something like that. You hear it enough from so many different people, like songwriters, where they're like, you know, the pen was just pulling itself, and it just poured out. You know? Like yeah. I mean, but, like exactly.
Tim Benson:Like, it it's comes from so many different people from so many different walks of life and just through different generations and everything that, like, you know, it's probably the romantic in me, but there has to be something, you know, something behind it, you know.
outtro:You think although, you have to you have to also consider the opposite, which is, you know, a terrible writer, who's writing unique bullshit might
Tim Benson:Yeah. Right. Right. Right. Yeah.
outtro:Feel that too, you know.
Tim Benson:They could be. Like, yeah, the pen just pulled itself, and I just wrote all this turgid shit,
outtro:you know,
Tim Benson:for yeah. Oh, that's a good point. I never thought of it that way.
outtro:I don't know.
Tim Benson:Yeah. But so at the time was, when Showboat came out, I know it was a big success. I think you, I think you mentioned in the book that the the first showing on Broadway, that the audience was, for a good 5, 10 seconds, didn't even react at all. And, I forget who it was. It was like, oh, crap.
Tim Benson:They they hated it and then just sort of instantaneously bursted out into this rapturous, ovation. But
outtro:Oh, can I just correct that story a little bit?
Tim Benson:Oh, sure. Yeah. Go ahead. Yeah. I'm paraphrasing.
outtro:It wasn't the Broadway opening. It was Oh, it was the Yeah. It was the Washington DC pre Broadway opening. So it was actually in 26, not 27 when when Showboat opened on Broadway. And and, Ziegfeld, the producer, who had never produced a serious show before with a story and was fighting Hammerstein all throughout.
Tim Benson:This is this is Ziegfeld of Ziegfeld's follies.
outtro:Right. Florence Ziegfeld who who was kept telling Haverside it's too serious. You know, it's too long. It was too long. It was way too long.
outtro:But, it's too serious. I I you gotta take out the seriousness. And Oscar was still quite young. You know, in 26, he would have been 31. Anyway, it wasn't the end of the show.
outtro:It was the intermission. Because by the end of the show, the audience was so exhausted that it could barely clap at all because it was it was 4 and a half hours long at that point. But, it was at the intermission when when they were shot they were seeing something really brand new that they had not seen before, and they were just kinda shocked. So they didn't respond for, you know, I it wasn't 5 minutes, but, you know, how 15, 20 seconds can feel like 5 minutes in the theater. And Zickfield was sure that he had been right and this was a flop, and everyone hated it in that silence.
outtro:And then and then everybody cheered, but they were stunned. It's it's really the point.
Tim Benson:But was it considered at the time as revolutionary? I mean, was it sort of paint, like, obvious on its face that this is a completely different way from what we've been doing things. Like like, there's that scene in, Singin' in the Rain where they interrupt you know, the the head of the studio comes in, interrupts the the making of the the dueling cavalier or whatever it is, and says, you know, we're shutting this down, you know, because of the jazz singer. And, you know what I mean? The jazz singer came out, and so now talkies are a thing.
Tim Benson:So now we have to completely redo everything that we're, that we're doing. Was that did showboat sort of had that effect? Or
outtro:No. Because showboat's innovations were much more, like, on a cellular subtle level. Like, the jazz singer, okay. This is a new thing. People are singing, you know, in film, and we can hear them.
outtro:This is you know, you can't go backwards from this.
Tim Benson:Mhmm.
outtro:But with showboat, I think its its, effect was was so subtle and so deep. It took a much longer time, to kind of sink in. And and one of the one of the proofs I give of this is, when Time Magazine did a cover story on Hammerstein in 46, they the first thing they say, the lead is, you know, in the 1920s, you know, he wrote Showboat and Sweet Adelaide and Sunny and they were all hits Like, with no kind of, realization of how different showboat was. It was just one of his hits in the twenties. So this is Time Magazine, which is, like, middle America in 46.
outtro:It still was not necessarily recognized as the revolution that was because I think revolutions take a long time to sink in.
Tim Benson:Mhmm. Yeah. So these like I said, he has these hits in the twenties, especially showboat, but then the thirties come along, and there's sort of, I guess, you call it, like, a lost decade for him artistically. I mean, we're there's a financial struggle. Nothing he seems to work on has any sort of, success.
Tim Benson:How did, you know, he tries to go into Hollywood and, working on pictures and, you know, as a sort of songwriter for hire and all this other stuff, and nothing seems to suit him. And it's just, he has a reputation, or he gets a reputation for failure. And, you know, people by the end by the end of 19 thirties, the start of 19 forties, sort of Oscar Hammerstein is sort of synonymous with, you know, flop. Has been. Yeah.
Tim Benson:Yeah. Yeah.
outtro:Definitely. Well, you know, right after the depression, Hollywood kind of they just hired every songwriter in New York. They all came to Hollywood. Miss Hollywood thought they were gonna do musicals and that was how they would lift people out of the depression, you know, spiritually. And and they did, you know, to some extent do that.
outtro:I mean, with, like, the Rogers, you know, the, Astaire, the
Tim Benson:Astaire, Ginger Rogers and
outtro:Thank you so much. Mhmm. As Sarah Ginger Rogers musicals with a lot of them with music by Jerome Kern did do that. They were so, ebullient and joyful that they really did help people forget their problems. But what was happening with Oscar, what he didn't realize it at the time, but his struggle what he was trying to solve in his head, the problems had to do with with storytelling, and, impeccable storytelling was not what Hollywood was concerned with in the 1930s.
outtro:So every time you fly
Tim Benson:really now either. But Right.
outtro:He it's still pretty rare, but but but that's that was that was his puzzle that he was trying to solve. And to try to solve it in Hollywood in the 19 thirties was just an impossible situation. He was, you know, in a sense, you know, fated to fail in that in that situation. Of course, he couldn't have realized it at the time. He didn't realize that he and and he has such a strong work ethic.
outtro:He kept working. He never stopped working, but he couldn't get his hands on anything that had traction. And that drove him crazy because in the twenties, he did have traction. You know, he was with the culture and Mhmm. Talking to the culture and part of the culture.
outtro:And in the thirties, he just couldn't get that, with with a few a few exceptions. He just couldn't get that traction. And, and then it wasn't until he returned to the theater with a new writing partner, Richard Rogers, with they started working together in 42. You know, the war is, you know, overwhelmingly on everyone's mind. Sure.
outtro:So so, anyway, he he gets a grip on what he's been the the problem that he's been trying to solve after he leaves Hollywood.
Tim Benson:Mhmm. So how did he and Dick Rogers hook up? What was the, how did that come about?
outtro:Well, the partnership. It was very, you know, small world, the New York theater world in the 19 twenties, which is when they met. I mean, it may they may even have met I think it was 1919 when Oscar was doing, a musical Columbia University, and Richard Rogers' older brother, Mort, was in Oscar's class, and Richard Roger's older brother brought the 15 year old, 14 year old Richard Rogers to see the musical at Columbia that Oscar Hammerstein was starring in and this little and so this boy, Richard Rogers, comes backstage and and they have a moment and and then they know each other and then they continue to see each other all throughout this whole time in the thirties in Hollywood. So they they're they're very much aware of each other and and each other's work. But it's not until 42 when Richard Rogers finally says goodbye to Lorenz Hart, his writing partner for all those years, who was, you know, a terrible alcoholic and and very unreliable.
outtro:And, Richard Rogers kept trying to leave him but couldn't quit him, because he was so talented. But finally in 42, he's just searching for a new writing partner, and that's when he he suggests that the 2 of them get together. And and Haversstein knows right away it's a great idea. Richard Rogers had written, you know, aside from Jerome Kern, the most beautiful melodies that America produced. So so Hammerstein was ready and they knew each other and they knew each other's work.
outtro:So in a way, their coming together was was easy for them to come together because they had so much knowledge of each other in 42.
Tim Benson:So what is their what is their writing process like or their collaboration? How do they collaborate with each other? And and, how do Oscar's lyrics inform, Dick's melodies and and vice versa? How do they, you know, how do they play off each other? Do they do, you know, do they start with the music first and then with the lyrics, or, you know, is it hit or I mean, does it depend you know, sometimes it's lyrics, sometimes it's music, or how
outtro:does it Well, I mean I mean, every song team does it differently. Roger Hammerstein almost always started with the lyrics. So that meant that Oscar Hammerstein had a lot of control over the ideas they were putting forth. And and Oscar Hammerstein was a much deeper thinker than Richard Rogers. Richard Rogers was unbelievably gifted, but as a thinker, he was not particularly gifted.
outtro:If you read his well, he didn't write that much, but his letters, you know, even his interviews, you can see that he was he was really, you know, just a kind of mediocre thinker, and Oscar Hammerstein was the one taking on the big ideas and bringing them to the collaboration. Now, a lot of people prefer Richard Rogers' music with Lorenz Hart, the first partner. It's tough. It's It's very tough because because they are amazing great songs.
Tim Benson:Oh, yes.
outtro:It's incredible. But they're not, I mean so if he's responding to Hart's psyche, for the first half of his career and he's responding to Hammerstein's psyche in the second half of his career. Oscar psyche was bigger. His ideas were larger. And consequently, the the scores were larger, bigger, lusher, more romantic.
outtro:You know, he did respond to Oscar's ideas and to his sensibility with very lush scores and songs.
Tim Benson:Mhmm. Or
Tim Benson:I wanted to ask you, so Oscar, once he comes back to the East Coast and comes back to theater, I'm not sure how, what exactly. I can't remember what year he moves there, but, he buys a farm, basically, Doylestown, Pennsylvania.
outtro:Right. I think it's 40. I think they buy it in 40. Yeah.
Tim Benson:1940. Okay. So, do you think these great collaborations he had with Rogers, these, you know, wonderful, shows they put together, Do you think, that would have been possible if he hadn't moved to Doylestown? Because he sorta there was something. It seemed that there was something in that place that, had a moving there had an effect on having some sort of power over him in some way.
Tim Benson:I mean, do you think that, you know, they he would have contributed what he did if, you know, instead of living in Doylestown, they would have just had an apartment on Park Avenue and maybe a, you know, a place in Long Island or something like that. Or
outtro:Well, you know, I mean, it's hard to say because, you know, when writers are are really, really involved in in their projects, it kind of doesn't matter where they are. Right? You your your physical environment kind of disappears. But I I I take your point. I think Oscar, who grew up in the city, New York City, always had the kind of a longing for the country, which he could feel from time to time when he was in it.
outtro:And and he did feel something spiritual at that farm being in nature, walking around with the animals. And then you know the first song that he writes with Richard Rogers is so what a beautiful morning and it's it's, you know, it's it's very much someone walking in nature, seeing the animals, acknowledging the aliveness of everything around him. And I think that that Oscar did feel that at the farm, and that was why that was the first song that burst out of him when he wrote with Richard Rogers. He's kind of a miraculous song also because it's so much about being grateful. To the bounty of the universe and life itself and he just come off of this, you know, 13 year dry period, where he had been fighting, the bitterness of his ex wife and trying to get her to understand that bitterness will not help you, will not get you out of where you are.
outtro:And then the first song he writes is this this song about gratitude, which I I think is very telling.
Tim Benson:Yeah. Let's, actually, that's a thanks for bringing up his one of his wives. Let's just talk a little bit about his, about his 2 wives because, I've again, I I haven't read that much about musical theater and that much, but, I have to imagine that maybe that they haven't received sort of the prominence, that they do in, in this book. I mean, at least her, at least with, Dorothy, his second wife. And
outtro:Well, I mean, no one no one has written about Myra Finn ever. I mean
Tim Benson:Oh, okay.
outtro:It was different the first one. It was really difficult to find, you know, her by even her her biographical stuff, her death date. I mean, you know, no. She is not written about at all, but because of his letters to her, the thirties, she she is a major part of my thesis about how he became the man that he became because he was trying to, articulate a way of being in the world for Myra who tended to be jealous and petty. And, you know, if you wanna see, you know, Myra's personality, you can look at the character of Jenny in Allegro, which is a very ungenerous portrait of her.
outtro:But for a generous portrait of her, you can look at Ado Annie in Oklahoma, the girl who couldn't say no, because Myra indeed had affairs and had many affairs. Anyway, there's nothing on Myra in musical theater history at all. And then Dorothy is kind of this wonderful figure because she was also, almost like a mother to Stephen Sondheim. So she does have a place in musical theater history and has been written about, but had a very delightful personality as far as I can tell.
Tim Benson:Yeah. I knew I knew that Hammerstein and Sondheim had a sort of, like, mentor mentee relationship. I did not realize that, how far back they went, together that that Sondheim was basically bumming around his house, you know, when he was 12 years old or something
outtro:like that.
Tim Benson:Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So, tell us a little bit about that relationship between the 2 of them, Sondheim and
outtro:Okay. So so Sondheim's parents get divorced when he's 11, I think. And his he let he, you know, he loves his dad and he really does not get along with his mom. And his mom is a horrible, horrible narcissist, and, is also extremely inappropriate with him when he's young because she's suddenly left alone and she's lonely and she's with her brilliant 12 year old son and she's crying on his shoulder and maybe sometimes sleeping in his bed. And, she's just a very inappropriate narcissistic mother.
outtro:She's a horrible mother. And he gets he gets left with her. The father leaves and remarries and he gets to stay with them sometimes
Tim Benson:but I I'm sorry to bother but wasn't there. You I think you had a line in the book about, like, something she wrote to him that was basically, like, the only thing I regret about my life is giving birth to you or something like that. Or
outtro:She she writes that to me the night before she's going into surgery, and she thinks she might die. So you get to say your last thing in on earth to your son, and you say, my only regret in life is that I gave you.
Tim Benson:Explains so much about
outtro:But you
Tim Benson:have a wonderful sometimes
outtro:but one before her. So but the but the funny thing is that the mom, whose name was name is known as Foxy, her name was Janet, was a was a social climber par excellence, and she moves very near the Hammers to Hines in Doylestown because she really wants to be friends with them because she's, you know, because they're famous. But that gives her son the opportunity to ride his bike over to the Hammerstein's and really become part of their their family. Mhmm. And, and the Hammerstein's did not like, the mother because no one really did, but they did not bad mouth her to to to to Stephen Sondheim when he was a boy, because they were they understood what their role was in that situation.
outtro:So so so so Steven Sondheim implants himself at Doylestown exactly when Richard Rogers and, Oscar Hammerstein the second are start beginning to write together when they're writing Oklahoma. So he implants himself in musical theater history somehow.
Tim Benson:Present for the creation, basically.
outtro:Yeah. I mean, it's just some kind of you couldn't, you know, you couldn't write this. If this was a movie, you wouldn't believe it.
Tim Benson:Sure. Now speaking of Oklahoma, let's I've I've we've already gone 55. Oh my god. Alright. So, we gotta move along here because I don't wanna keep you, you know, too much longer than I said it would.
Tim Benson:But let's talk about Oklahoma just because it's another, I guess, the the 2 revolutionary truly revolutionary shows that that Hammerstein is gonna be a part of, the first being, you know, Showboat, and then this is Oklahoma. But Oklahoma, again, this is after they they start, Rodgers and Hammerstein start working on Oklahoma, and this is after Hammerstein's sort of decade of failure. So this is sort of a do or die moment, for him with this musical. There might you know, if this doesn't if Oklahoma flops, you know, there's no saying that Rogers is gonna choose to work with Hammerstein again or something like that. Mhmm.
Tim Benson:So tell us a little about that, and then, you know, what makes what makes Oklahoma such a revolutionary show?
outtro:Okay. Well, Oscar was, you know, he's often been called an, you know, an optimist. He called himself that night. PBS did a documentary about him, and I and I think they it's called, like, something optimism is in the title. He's he's very much, associated with that quality.
outtro:And and he he was a perennial optimist and that that was both his weakness and his strength. His weakness in that he couldn't read the tea leaves often when things were not going his way because he was too much of an optimist. But when he was writing with Richard Rogers, his optimism was just spilling out of him. He it had not been beaten down. And, and so I don't think he saw it.
outtro:I never got the sense that he saw it as a do or die moment because he was so excited about it from the second they started working on it. So I didn't get a do or die sense from him. Mhmm. But, but his optimism coincided with a turning point in the war, that is, you know, 1943 when Oklahoma opened, I think it was March 31st, the war really had started to turn. Stalingrad had happened in January.
outtro:It looked it started to look like we were gonna win this war. And so, despite all the hardships, the deaths, and the privations that were going on in 43, people were beginning to feel, you know, a sense of where was gonna end, it was gonna end in our favor, and what was the world gonna be like then after we defeated the the bad guys? So the enormous optimism of of Oscar Hammerstein infected the musical and and it coincided with what was going on in the country at that very moment. And, and so the the optimism about who we are and what we could be, just infused everything on a gigantic level, and that was why you couldn't get a ticket. You know, it was it was a hit behind it was very much like Hamilton in the in the first couple of years.
outtro:You just everybody wanted to have this ecstatic experience that they were sure the musical was gonna give them, and you could not get a ticket, you know, unless you knew someone. And and, it was it was just very similar.
Tim Benson:I've actually, I will admit this on air. I have not seen Hamilton yet. I haven't even watched the I I I don't know why, because, well, I think I do know exactly why because I remember when Hamilton was, like, first coming out before it just, like, exploded. And I was reading someone had written a review of it, and they made I don't know if they just didn't know better or what, but, like, they made Lin Manuel Miranda sound like he was just like some Puerto Rican street kid who had, like, just read Ron Chernow's biography of Alexander Hamilton and then out popped this rap musical. And I was like, oh, that's really incredible.
Tim Benson:And then I started reading about, like, Emmanuel Miranda. I was like, oh, wait. He's just another theater kid. So, I mean, it's not as it's not as, like, completely, you know, out of the blue sui generis as I thought. And for some reason, that's always just like
outtro:You resent to that.
Tim Benson:Yeah. It's just like it's our first in my bubble. And then I never wanted
outtro:to He was teaching high school. I mean, he was not you know, he
Tim Benson:Oh, yeah. Yeah. I mean, like, he wasn't successful, but, like, they made it seem like he was completely divorced from, like, musical theater entirely. Like, he'd, like, never had any sort of concept of that whatsoever and just, like, he read the book and then just outflowed this, you know, this rap musical. And then so I got really excited about it, then I found out that that's not true.
Tim Benson:He actually went to, like, a, you know, school for the arts and all that stuff. And
outtro:Oh.
Tim Benson:I was like, oh, wait. Alright. So it's not as special as I thought.
outtro:But let me ask you this. Do you think that's the reason for not seeing it?
Tim Benson:No. No. It's just, no.
outtro:Of course. I'm sorry to be open.
Tim Benson:No. Of course. I mean, I'm gonna well, by then, by then, I think it had exploded into that sort of cultural phenomenon that it became I I think when I read it at the time, it was just like the talk of sort of New York and the, you know, sort of the theater world before it had, you know, just, I think the other thing too that made me resent it was, like, Hamilton was always, like, my my dude, my guy of the founding fathers. Like, I always loved Hamilton because, I mean, he was like I mean, I grew up in Jersey, so he was, like, the one, like, main founding father that had, like, the most you know, like, Boston had their guys, you know, like Sam Adams and John Adams and all that. And Philly had Ben Franklin, and Virginia had, you know, Washington and Jefferson and Madison.
Tim Benson:And, like, we had we had Hamilton. And I remember, you know, just going to, you know, visit my dad, walking past his grave at the Trinity Church and all that stuff and just oh, and all that. And so and then everybody became, like, super into Hamilton. And I I I guess you could sort of relate to, like, a guy who's a fan of a band, like an underground band, and then, like, that band becomes like, it's on a major label and becomes, like, popular and so has, like, a platinum record, and then that fan, like, hates the band for like, resents it that, like, everybody now likes his favorite band, that sort of thing. I think, partially, that's what it is.
Tim Benson:But
outtro:I get that. I get that.
Tim Benson:So because now because now if people like, oh, and I I mean, I don't know who really has these conversations, but whether you're talking about your favorite founding fathers. But if you just, like, bring up Hamilton, like, oh, like the musical and all that. It's like, no. It's like it has nothing to do with the musical. So, you know, that sort of thing.
Tim Benson:So I I I think that's really the the genesis of my ambivalence towards
outtro:Hamilton. You've heard some of the score maybe? You've heard any of it?
Tim Benson:Yeah. You know, shoot your shot
outtro:and Oh, okay.
Tim Benson:All that. Yeah. I've heard I've heard parts of it. I haven't heard the whole thing, but, I mean, I could you know, I I've heard, I'm trying to think what are the can't remember the names of some of the other songs, but I'm I'm aware of what the some you know, the most famous pieces of the, of the, score are for you. Anyway
outtro:I do hope you see it. I do hope you see it.
Tim Benson:I know. I I mean, it's on Disney plus. I can just, you know, I mean, I could watch it right after we record this.
outtro:You can watch it right now. I could.
Tim Benson:I could. Maybe I'll
outtro:do that. Put it on. I'll watch it with you.
Tim Benson:Yeah. I'll bring the computer downstairs, and, we can watch Hamilton together. No. Alright. So we've already gone over an hour.
Tim Benson:Just a couple more things. It sucks that we're gonna have to, like, not really talk about Carousel and King and I and South Pacific and all these things. But,
outtro:Well, maybe your listeners will demand a part 2.
Tim Benson:Okay. Yeah. Maybe. But I wanna get to there was you had this critique of Rogers and Hammerstein from John Marr in there that I think it said that, quote, that Rogers and Hammerstein engineer the musical equivalent of the interchangeable part, which ensured sort of quality control. I I'm assuming you disagree with that is I I mean, I I see there there's a sort of a a a true a kernel of truth to that, but that seems like a very, at best, a backhand compliment.
Tim Benson:You know? It suggests, like, it suggests artistic competency, but not greatness, you know, like, or genius. You know? Like, obviously, a Ford is not an Aston Martin or a Ferrari. You know what I mean?
Tim Benson:So Yeah. Yeah. Do you think that's, do you think that that is true, to a degree, or do you think that's just
outtro:I don't think that's true, and you have to look at where John Lars coming from. Let me back up a second. Once you have created something that becomes the the thing that everyone is copying, and it's true that, you know, the musical today is still in some ways harmed by people's adherence to what Rodgers and Hammerstein did because they're not innovating enough or whatever. But, so it's just once it becomes the form, then, of course, people might repeat it or try to, you know, duplicate it. But where John Larr is coming from with that statement is that his his father was Bert Larr, the cowardly lion in the wizard of Oz.
outtro:And the rest of that sentence, I believe, is that, it killed the individual idiosyncratic individual performer, which it it didn't.
Tim Benson:No. Yeah.
outtro:And but it's true that in vaudeville, where Bert Lahr came of age, the individual performer was, you know, like a god. And and once you built a well well built show, yeah, you couldn't have you know, Zero Mostel was constantly ad libbing in Fiddler on the Roof, and it drove the writers insane. You know, they hated that because it's a show that they wrote and they wanna see it performed as they wrote it. Anyway, no. I don't I don't and another thing, John Lawrie is a great writer and a really good thinker, but he also didn't get Sondheim at all.
outtro:Mhmm. So
Tim Benson:Right. But I mean
outtro:great credit.
Tim Benson:I see where he's getting at because with Rodgers and Hammerstein musical I mean, no matter who's in the cast, the star of the Rodgers and Hammerstein musical is Rodgers and Hammerstein. It's not, you know, whoever it may be. You know, you go, you know, you don't I mean, you go to see a Rodgers and Hammerstein musical to hear Rodgers and Hammerstein. You don't I mean, you don't go to,
outtro:Although, you know, stars do do I mean, Hugh Jackman did Curly in Oklahoma. Mhmm. Fucking great also.
Tim Benson:No. That's fine. That's fine. We can we can have the, occasional expletives.
outtro:So stars do, you know, do it.
Tim Benson:No. Sure. Absolutely. But I mean, but They
outtro:can't just do their thing. No.
Tim Benson:Right.
outtro:Right.
Tim Benson:Of
outtro:course. They can't do that in a play either. I mean
Tim Benson:yeah. Alright. Alright. Let's I think we should, probably talk about the sound of music a little bit, just for a few moments at least. Okay.
Tim Benson:Because, again, just this is something I I think probably pretty obvious that this is their sort of most, cherished, work of certainly, mostly because of the movie itself.
outtro:Which is
Tim Benson:all the
outtro:by baby boomers like myself.
Tim Benson:Mhmm. But, I mean, it's, like, one of those things that, like, every kid, I just probably since 1965 has, you know, grown up with that movie to some degree, if you were born in America since 1965. So it's massively successful, one of the most the the play itself, the movie is one of the highest grossing films ever made. Again, we talked about the the soundtrack album and all that. But it's it's so beloved now, and it's just sort of part of, again, it's just sort of part of everyone's lives to some degree that I I don't I don't think people would realize, how much criticism it came in for, when it was released in, was it right before he died?
Tim Benson:Was it 1959 or 19 Well,
outtro:the the state musical was 59. Yeah.
Tim Benson:59. Right. Yeah. But yeah. But, a lot of critics were not, were not too keen on Sound of
outtro:Music. I'm like like we said, I mean, the people who consider themselves too cool for it, you know, were, you know, many. And a lot of the mad jobs as critics. There were critics who loved it, but most people felt it was, you know, very sentimental.
Tim Benson:Yeah.
outtro:Too sentimental. And then the and then the movie musical took out all of the Sharp stuff
Tim Benson:and And all the stuff about fascism.
outtro:Yeah. You were what about all the stuff about fascism because there were there obviously weren't Nazis in the movie. But,
Tim Benson:But the song sort of specifically about
outtro:Oh, yeah. Yeah. The song really interesting song, about why people how people tell themselves that they're not gonna get involved to stop something clearly evil because what can one person do? It's really a brilliant song, and I think it's very relevant today. But, of course, they took it out of the movie.
Tim Benson:Mhmm. Yeah. And then, the last song, you know, because he writes because Hammerstein gets cancer in the late fifties. He doesn't, he doesn't live very long after Sound of Music debuts on Broadway.
outtro:Right.
Tim Benson:And then the last song he his life he writes is is Edelweiss, which, again, is just one of those songs that, is sort of like Old Man River. Like, you sort of just can't imagine not existing. Like, I think I heard a story that, when Jerry Ford was president, they had, like, a state visit from, the Austrian I don't wanna say chancellor if that sounds, sounds too Hitler ish, but but whoever, like, the the president of Austria was. And when, I guess, they the they had the band play Edelweiss because they thought that was, like, the national anthem of Austria. And I was like, no.
Tim Benson:It's a song written 10 years ago by by Oscar Amherst. Right. But it but it just seems like one of those things that's just been, like, you know, just a a timeless like, instantly timeless. I don't I don't know if that sort of an
outtro:Yep. But but so well known that maybe people don't hear it anymore. Just a really quick story. At my book party in Los Angeles, I had a singer, play and sing a Edelweiss with a kind of a modern more modern tilt toward it. But before she she sang it, you know, I I I talked about Oscar and and his how this was the very last thing that he wrote.
outtro:And and it was a blessing it was it was about his country. The last lyric that he wrote was bless my homeland forever.
Tim Benson:Mhmm.
outtro:And, and when you when you listen to the song with that, like, a kind of new interpretate, you know, a new singer singing it with the knowledge of everything that Oscar had done before and that this was his last this his last words, it's unbelievably moving and everybody was crowded and and seized with the feeling of of tenderness toward their country.
Tim Benson:Yeah. Yeah. Absolutely. It's, incredible. Alright.
Tim Benson:So one final or maybe, like, 2 more questions, but or but, like, wrap up questions, basically. So, you write in the book that Oscar's vision, can be or could be a a touchdown for us today, something we can make use of. How how so? What do you what what is Oscar's vision, and what do you mean by how, how it can be a touchdown for us?
outtro:You know, it's it's it's it's about humanity and how everyone is connected, and everyone, as I said at the beginning, kind of needs the same things in order to fulfill their destiny as a human being. And, you know, that is, you know, freedom, dignity, maybe that's it. So little money. But but it it was the idea that we're all connected, which is such a resonant theme in the theater when everybody is sitting together. When I saw south the South Pacific at Lincoln Center, in the 2000, I was just overwhelmed with this feeling of of of my parents and their generation of what this musical meant to them.
outtro:And and and here we were sitting here, you know, being moved by the same exact stuff. Continuity of that is very moving in the theater, and things about community really resonate in the theater. Anyway, that's why he's more of a theater man than anything else, and it's why that the musicals play better on the stage than they do on the screen. Mhmm. Anyway, it's the big idea is that is that we're we're all alike and we need respect.
outtro:We need to respect each other. It's not about our differences, you know. It's not about what makes us individuals and what defines us against other people. It's just about it's about coming together and I think that's the only hope for us is for people to realize that we we all are. We're all in this together.
outtro:You know the air is polluted, you know, in Georgia. We're gonna feel it in Los Angeles. I mean, it's just anyway, I think it's a very beautiful conception of how we should look together, and I do think it is very much still relevant.
Tim Benson:Alright. Great.
outtro:Fashion.
Tim Benson:Alright. Great. So last exit question. You might have just actually answered it with that last answer, but it's something I always ask, everybody that comes on sort of the last question. And that's, basically, what, you know, what would you like the audience to get out of this book, or, you know, what's the one thing you'd want a reader to take away from the book having read it?
outtro:Well, I'd like them to to feel that he was a great a great American and a great artist because I do think he's often taken for granted and condescended about. But I also kind of want the theater world to keep doing his musicals, and because I think they're just incredibly valuable. So those are the 2 things.
Tim Benson:I I I don't think I can imagine a world where they're not doing Rodgers and Hammerstein. I mean, I I just think it's I mean, you never know, who might be, you know, sort of retroactively canceled for whatever reason. But,
outtro:But you never did know someone probably got canceled in the time we were talking here.
Tim Benson:I know. Right? Yeah. Well well, it might be Hamilton.
outtro:I don't think so. Emmanuel.
Tim Benson:So then I'll be justified and not what no. But, anyway but, No.
outtro:You'll you'll you'll say. You'll say.
Tim Benson:But yeah. I mean, like, the the Rodgers and Hammerstein, the shows and the songs, especially, are just sort of I mean, they're just sort of part of the American lingua franca at at this point. You know, it's, it's just just sort of, like, baked into the culture, it seems like. And, like I said, I don't know. You you stranger things have happened, but I just I I can't see it.
Tim Benson:But I but I'm with you. I hope that never happens.
outtro:Good. We we are in agreement.
Tim Benson:Yeah. Alright. Okay. So, won't keep any longer. The book once again is Oscar Hammerstein the second and the invention.
Tim Benson:Oh, actually, yeah. One more question. Oscar Hammerstein the second and the invention of the musical, is the book from Yale University Press. Do you have, before we go, anything else you wanna you wanna plug? Anything you got going on or appearances or anything like that you wanna Well,
outtro:I moved to France, and I'm writing a book about Hitler because I feel there aren't enough books about Hitler. No. But I really am. And I can't really I just can't explain it, but all will be revealed in time.
Tim Benson:Alright. Book about Hitler. Yeah.
outtro:So
Tim Benson:yeah. So ask about it. You'll probably you won't find too many Hitler books out there. So
outtro:No. No. No. There are there I can't find any. I've been searching.
Tim Benson:I know. It it's it's amazing that, you know, it's been so unremarked upon.
outtro:He's like he's like Myra Finn. I was like, no.
Tim Benson:Right? Yeah. Yeah. Oh, god. Anyway, again, yeah, the book is Oscar Hammerstein the second and the invention of the musical.
Tim Benson:Highly, highly recommend this book.
outtro:Thank you.
Tim Benson:It's fantastic. Even if you guys out there are not fans of musicals, which I am sorry for you. I feel like your your your life is a much drearier place. I suggest that you try to reevaluate that and, you know, give them a second chance and maybe, read the book as well. And then from there, you can go on to, you know, either watching the movies or or attending a local performance at Rogers and Hammerstein musical or showboat or something.
Tim Benson:And, yeah, but it's a fantastic book. There was a lot of, a lot of things in here, that I did not realize and, went into the, the context behind the musicals themselves and the ideas behind them, and, thought it was really, really fantastic. So highly, highly recommend, again, for everybody, Oscar Hammerstein the second, and the invention of the musical, and the author and my guest today, miss Lori Weiner. So, miss Weiner, thank you so so much for coming on and doing the podcast.
outtro:My pleasure. Such a pleasure.
Tim Benson:Thanks for staying a little late for me. And, and thank you, lastly, for, you know, taking the time to, actually write the book and, so that we all could, you know, enjoy the the fruits of your labor. So, thank you so much. Alright.
outtro:It was great.
Tim Benson:Alright. Thank you. Thanks. And, again, if you like this podcast, please consider leaving us a 5 star review and sharing with your friends. And if you have any questions or comments or there's any books, out there you'd like to see us discuss on this podcast, you can reach out to me at tbenson@heartland.org.
Tim Benson:That's tbenson@heartland.org. And for more information about the Heartland Institute, you can just go to heartland.org, and you can also reach out to us at our, Twitter account for the, for the podcast. You know, if you have any questions, comments, anything like that, feel free to, you know, give us a follow, send us a DM, all that sort of stuff. Keep it clean, though. Our, where's our Twitter handle?
Tim Benson:Our Twitter handle is at illbooks, at illbooks. So make sure you check that out, and that's pretty much it. So thanks for listening, everybody. We'll see you guys next time. Take care.
Tim Benson:Love you, Robbie. Love you, man. Bye bye.
Outtro:When I take you out tonight with me, Honey, here's the way it's gonna be. You will set behind a team of of snow white horses in the slickest gig you ever seen. Chicks and ducks and geese better scurry when I take you out in the Surrey. When I take you out in the Surrey with a fringe on top. Watch that fringe and see how it flutters.
Outtro:When I drive them high stepping strutters, nosy pokes will peek through the shutters and their eyes will pop. The wheels are yellow, the upholstery's brown. The dashboard's genuine leather. With eyes and glass curtains you can roll right down in case there's a change in the weather. 2 bright side lights winking and blinking.
Outtro:Ain't no finer rig, I'm a thinkin'. You can keep your rig if you're thinkin' that I'd get a swap for that shiny little surrey with the fringe on the top.
outtro:Would you say the fringe was made of silk?
Outtro:Wouldn't have no other kind but silk.
outtro:Has it really got a team of Snow White horses?
Outtro:One's like snow. The other's more like milk. All the world will fly in a flurry when I take you out in the Surrey, when I take you out in the Surrey with a fringe on top. When we hit that road hell for leather, hats and dogs will dance in the heather. Birds and frogs will sing all together, and the toads will hop.
Outtro:The wind will whistle as we rattle along. The cows will moo in the clover. The river will ripple out a whispered song and whisper it over and over.
Outtro:Don't you wish you'd go on forever? Don't you wish you'd go on forever? Forever? Don't you wish you'd go on forever?
Outtro:And to never stop in that shiny little Surrey with a fringe on the top. I can see the stars getting blurry when we ride back hole in the Surrey, riding slowly home in the Surrey with a fringe on top, Dog. I can feel the dig getting older, feel a sleepy head near my shoulder, nodding, drooping close to my shoulder till it falls kerpluff. The sun is swimming on the rim of a hill. The moon is taking a hit.
Outtro:And just as I'm thinking, all the earth is still, alarq will wake up in the moon. Hush, you bird. My baby's asleepin'. Maybe got a dream worth a keepin'. Oh, you team.
Outtro:And just keep a creeping at a slow clip clop don't you hurry with the Surrey with the
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