Occasionally abrasive, sometimes overwritten but still an essential book on Broadway.
Mordden continues his decade-by-decade survey of the Broadway musical by moving backwards from the 1950s (Coming Up Roses, 1998) to the ‘40s.
The 1940s was, as the author points out immediately, a unique decade in musical theater history; for the first time, extensive documentation in the form of original cast albums exists for many shows; WWII alters theatergoing habits and casting possibilities; there are certified classics produced that are still performed today more or less intact; and the Rodgers and Hammerstein “revolution” shakes the genre to its foundations. Yet, as Mordden notes drily, at the outset of the decade the state of the art was dire, a compendium of bad jokes, stale books, and nice tunes. Then came Pal Joey and several other shows that challenged the status quo and led up to the earthquake of Oklahoma! As always, Mordden is vastly knowledgeable, witty, and incisive in his judgments. His best writing is as sexy and slangy as a Cole Porter lyric. Where Coming Up Roses seemed somehow subdued, backing away from his usual flash-and-filigreed style, the new volume dives in, sometimes over its head. But the book is never less than entertaining and, at its best, offers a dramatically different viewpoint from other, stodgier theater histories. Mordden is to be congratulated for such gems as his rescue of Cabin in the Sky from undeserved oblivion, and his frank and balanced analysis of much-picked-over classics like Annie Get Your Gun and Kiss Me Kate. That he has something new to add to the mountain of verbiage dedicated to these shows is one indication of how good he really is.
Occasionally abrasive, sometimes overwritten but still an essential book on Broadway.Pub Date: Oct. 1, 1999
ISBN: 0-19-512851-6
Page Count: 272
Publisher: Oxford Univ.
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 1999
Stricter than, say, Bergen Evans or W3 ("disinterested" means impartial — period), Strunk is in the last analysis...
Privately published by Strunk of Cornell in 1918 and revised by his student E. B. White in 1959, that "little book" is back again with more White updatings.
Stricter than, say, Bergen Evans or W3 ("disinterested" means impartial — period), Strunk is in the last analysis (whoops — "A bankrupt expression") a unique guide (which means "without like or equal").Pub Date: May 15, 1972
ISBN: 0205632645
Page Count: 105
Publisher: Macmillan
Review Posted Online: Oct. 28, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 1972
This is not the Nutcracker sweet, as passed on by Tchaikovsky and Marius Petipa. No, this is the original Hoffmann tale of 1816, in which the froth of Christmas revelry occasionally parts to let the dark underside of childhood fantasies and fears peek through. The boundaries between dream and reality fade, just as Godfather Drosselmeier, the Nutcracker's creator, is seen as alternately sinister and jolly. And Italian artist Roberto Innocenti gives an errily realistic air to Marie's dreams, in richly detailed illustrations touched by a mysterious light. A beautiful version of this classic tale, which will captivate adults and children alike. (Nutcracker; $35.00; Oct. 28, 1996; 136 pp.; 0-15-100227-4)
Pub Date: Oct. 28, 1996
ISBN: 0-15-100227-4
Page Count: 136
Publisher: Harcourt
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 1996
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