The musical introduced out among the finest work of each: wit, chunk and heartbreak within the libretto and infectious melodies, cinematic emphasis and operatic sophistication within the rating. Every decade of historical past is indicated by musical cues reminiscent of spirituals and saloon songs within the nineteenth century and an interpolation of George Gershwin’s Rhapsody in Blue within the Nineteen Twenties.
As a result of music is so central to the plot, Kern and Hammerstein additionally wrote essential diegetic songs. Within the first act, Julie, the diva on the present ship, sings “Cannot Assist Lovin’ Dat Man,” which Queenie, the black prepare dinner, interrupts by saying, “How have you learnt that tune?” She’s solely heard “coloured individuals” sing it earlier than, she says, a revelation that foreshadows Julie’s publicity as mixed-race.
In Act II, years later, Magnolia, who’s white and like Julie’s little sister, auditions for Cannot Assist at a Chicago theater. It seems that Julie is the star there, and she or he abruptly leaves to make method for Magnolia. Magnolia then turned a star, as if to embody the concept of black tradition being adopted (or taken over) by white artists, which occurred to fashionable music within the early twentieth century and continues to at the present time.
Kern confirmed the seriousness of this theme with a grand, dramatic A minor chord within the overture. Much more jarring within the unique Broadway manufacturing was Hammerstein’s textual content for the opening refrain, wherein the viewers heard the black singers establish themselves with the harshest racial epithet. (Within the revivals, this phrase was modified to “darkish,” “individuals of colour,” and, benevolently, “all of us.”)
Though there are offensive tropes in Present Boat, Hammerstein’s take was extra nuanced and progressive. The musical additionally incorporates advocacy on Queenie’s behalf, for instance, wherein she is given a scene wherein she is made to undergo, with mock coolness, the humiliation of a white man asking the place she acquired the brooch Julie gave her. And the musical’s greatest hit, “Ol’ Man River,” is reserved for Joe, the opposite important black character.
