Review by New York Times Review
ANYONE FOR WHOM touring ancient ruins on the Greek island of Delos summons images of Nathan Lane in a toga singing "Everybody Ought to Have a Maid" from "A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum" is my kind of die-hard musical theater fan. Still, it was hard to imagine how Jack Viertel would be able to fill a 300-page book about how Broadway hits get made. Doesn't every musical have its own particular alchemy? Is there really a recipe for success? As Viertel lays out in "The Secret Life of the American Musical: How Broadway Shows Are Built," both are clearly true; there is a certain amount of magic that transforms a show into a classic. But there is also time-tested architecture that makes some musicals more effective than others. Viertel has been explicating those nuts-and-bolts principles to students at New York University's Tisch School of the Arts. In his book, he does the same for us, deconstructing traditional musicals like "Fiddler on the Roof" and "Gypsy" and more recent shows like "Hairspray" and "The Book of Mormon" to help us understand precisely why they work. The result is both revelatory and entertaining. Viertel combines a scholarly approach with a light touch that enables us to see anew familiar songs and musical theater moments we'd long taken for granted. How certain numbers, for example, serve as "tent poles" that "keep the roof from caving" - like Tevye's dream in "Fiddler" or the "Havana" sequence in "Guys and Dolls." At the same time, he acknowledges that some of the biggest hits happen when rules are broken. "This und er fines the reality that good musical theater writers rarely write to pattern, even though this book keeps describing the pattern they don't write to," Viertel says. "The best writers are always trying to break the mold they perceive in the work of their predecessors and mentors, none more than Sondheim. And yet, when the dust settles, the result often fits the pattern anyhow." Along the way, Viertel provides some fascinating Broadway history. Many of us may know that "Oklahoma!" was the first show to make songs integral to the story. Less obvious is his assertion that "A Chorus Line" in 1975 made "fragmentary storytelling" acceptable and - as embodied by the influential Michael Bennett - shifted creative control from the author to the director. He points out that "a direct fine can be drawn between 'Little Shop' in 1982 and 'Hairspray' almost exactly 20 years later" in that both were based on cult films and situated in the 1960s, with a beat grounded in doo-wop and rhythm and blues. And Viertel connects the dots between Jerome Robbins's "serious shows," noting that all of them "in some way confront the clash of cultures and the cost of the outcome" - "Fiddler" grapples with the destruction of shtetl fife in Russia; "West Side Story" with the arrival of Puerto Rican immigrants in America; "Gypsy" with the death of vaudeville. There is, moreover, an authority to Viertel's analysis; he knows from whence he speaks, given a background in dramaturgy (at the Mark Taper Forum in Los Angeles), criticism (at The Los Angeles Herald Examiner) and producing (as the senior vice president of Jujamcyn Theaters). Jujamcyn owns and operates five Broadway theaters - home most recently to "The Book of Mormon," "Jersey Boys," "Something Rotten!" and "Kinky Boots." Viertel is also the artistic director of New York City Center's Encores! series, which presents concert productions of less-well-known musicals. And he helped shepherd six August Wilson plays to Broadway, along with Tony Kushner's "Angels in America" and the original productions of "Into the Woods," "City of Angels," "Jelly's Last Jam" and "Hairspray," among others. To be sure, some of the devices Viertel highlights may be obvious to longtime theatergoers, like the many "second couples," who offer subplot and relief from the main pair - such as Nathan and Adelaide in "Guys and Dolls"; Carrie Pipper id ge and Mister Snow in "Carousel"; Ado Annie and Will Parker in "Oklahoma!"; Liat and Lieutenant Cable in "South Pacific"; Lun Tha and Tuptim in "The King and I"; and Seaweed and Penny in "Hairspray." Many of us know to look out for the solo number that brings down the house before the final curtain - most notably "Rose's Turn" in "Gypsy," which Viertel calls "the signature 11 o'clock number of all time." We recognize villains as a musical theater staple - "there must be adversarial forces if there is to be a contest worth watching," Viertel says - and that the first-act finale generally offers "a crisis that seems completely beyond redemption" to get us back after intermission. But Viertel nevertheless enables us to see these patterns more clearly. He isolates the "I Want" song-usually delivered early in Act 1 - in which the protagonist's motivation is made clear. These range from the brazenly declarative - like Eliza Doolittle stating "all I want is a room somewhere" in "My Fair Lady" and Seymour Krelborn pleading "someone show me a way to get outta here" in "Little Shop of Horrors" - to the more understated: Tony predicting "something's coming, something good" in "West Side Story." "He doesn't know what," Viertel writes, "but it's out there." The book explores the "conditional love song," which Viertel says is best exemplified by Rodgers and Hammerstein's "If I Loved You" in Act 1 of "Carousel" - "arguably the most perfect scene ever written in a musical." And he identifies the songs that kick off second acts as generally benign confections that don't advance the plot but allow viewers to re-enter and reacclimate. Viertel calls such numbers - like "Take Back Your Mink" from "Guys and Dolls," "This Was a Real Nice Clambake" from "Carousel" and "The Big Dollhouse" from "Hairspray" - "one for nothing," or "a gift to the audience." Viertel also offers a few general principles. He observes, for example, that "great shows have clear stakes" and good source material (he says "Annie" is "faultlessly built," in part because it owes its structural impulses to "Little Lord Fauntleroy"), and often traffic in extremes. "Musicals - the great ones - are rarely about ordinary fife plodding by," Viertel writes. "They're about the outsize romance that can't be controlled, the special world we'd love to live in for a while, the faraway time and place we're waiting to be seduced by, the larger-than-life force of nature we so rarely encounter in real life." I'm not sure how much the book will appeal to those who aren't conversant in the musical theater canon. It helps to be able to summon up the scenes to which Viertel refers. So when he likens the elegance of "Sweeney Todd" to that of "Guys and Dolls" as examples of how tying together the plot and subplot requires proper planning in Act 1, for instance - "No one can make a move in either story without affecting both stories" - it's good to know both stories. Still, the book is accessible and breezy with some especially nice fines - Frank Loesser's music "sounds the way a good corned beef sandwich tastes" - and it's fun to read of behind-the-scenes wrangling that complicated the making of certain musicals. Viertel writes of how he "fought like a dog" to keep out of "Hairspray" the Act 2 number "I Know Where I've Been," arguing that Motormouth Maybelle's gospel-like power ballad about struggles with racism was not germane to the plot (he lost that battle and the song consistently brought the house down). Viertel could have treated us to more such tidbits, since he has presumably been privy to a number of creative clashes over the years. But in general, the book offers a fresh way to look at familiar musicals - to break them down, pull them apart and examine more closely the structural elements that make them strong - even as Viertel acknowledges that there is ultimately no blueprint for the frisson that leaves audiences floating on air. "Musicals in general may be sentimental, mythologized, full of false optimism and showbiz glitz," Viertel writes. "But every now and then one features a moment that manages to be profound. That's what we wait for." ROBIN POGREBIN is a reporter on the culture desk of The Times.
Copyright (c) The New York Times Company [February 7, 2016]
Review by Publisher's Weekly Review
Viertel's friendly scrutiny of Broadway is a valuable addition to the theater lover's bookshelf. Viertel, senior v-p of Jujamcyn Theaters (owner of five Broadway houses) and artistic director of New York City Center's Encores! series, writes from authority and experience, having had a hand in such Broadway hits as Hairspray and The Book of Mormon. As a professor at the Tisch School of the Arts at New York University, he began to offer critical courses on Broadway musicals. This book emerged out of those classes. It uses iconic shows such as Gypsy, Guys and Dolls, My Fair Lady, and South Pacific to explain and explore the patterns underlying much of musical theater. Viertel shares unvarnished opinions-for example, he declares that the bench scene from Carousel (when "If I Loved You" is sung) is "arguably the most perfect scene ever written in a musical"-as he takes readers from overture to the "11 o'clock number," or final star turn. It's a shame that Viertel doesn't acknowledge a debt to legendary Broadway musical director Lehman Engel, whose Words with Music set the bar. In the end, theater fans will appreciate the dips into memoir and Viertel's takes on original cast albums. (Feb.) © Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved.
(c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved
Review by Library Journal Review
Viertel (theater, Tisch Sch. of the Arts, New York Univ., and senior VP, Jujamcyn Theaters, which owns five Broadway houses) here offers a scholarly analysis of the American musical and explores the structural elements that contribute to its success. Beginning with Oklahoma, which premiered in 1943, Viertel shows that famous successful productions (Carousel, Gypsy, A Chorus Line, Hairspray, et al.) all employ similar key elements. Viertel breaks down the specific trademarks, such as the "I want" song in a show's first act in which a protagonist reveals motivation and the "conditional love song" that introduces a romance. He also discusses the few instances in which hit shows have not followed these rules. David Pittu's (Tony nominee for LoveMusik) austere narration is appropriate to the subject matter. VERDICT This textbook-like analysis will be more suited for theater students or serious Broadway devotees. ["What Harold Bloom did for Shakespearean exegesis and Peter Drucker for management, Viertel has done for theater: written a definitive work by raising the curtain and laying bare the work of playwrights, composers, librettists, choreographers, and directors": LJ 12/15 starred review of the Sarah Crichton: Farrar hc.]-Phillip Oliver, Vancouver Community Lib., WA © Copyright 2016. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
(c) Copyright Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
Review by Kirkus Book Review
From overture to final curtain, a close look at how musicals work. As a screenwriter and drama critic, senior vice president of Jujamcyn Theaters, which owns five Broadway venues, and artistic director of City Center's Encores! revivals, Viertel is well-steeped in Broadway culture, lore, and productions. He adores musicals, which, he writes, deserve the same kind of attention that literary scholars give to Shakespeare: a scene-by-scene examination, "trying to piece out why every line of dialogue was there, what every lyric accomplished, and how music supported whatever the fundamental idea of the show was." That's the project he brings to his class at New York University's Tisch School of the Arts, focusing on four musicals from Broadway's golden age, from Oklahoma! in 1943 to A Chorus Line in 1975. After that, he claims, "formal rigor and craft" faded. This copious book could well serve as his text. Besides the four iconic showsGypsy, Guys and Dolls, My Fair Lady, and South PacificViertel adds others, including The Music Man, A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum, Fiddler on the Roof, The Producers, West Side Story, Carousel, and The King and I. He also deconstructs more recent fare, including, among other productions, The Book of Mormon, Wicked, and even the current hip-hop musical Hamilton. Viertel is lively, deeply informed, and irrepressibly enthusiastic, but the problem with translating his analysis into a book is that readers may not know the musicals as well as his students dostudents who likely have scripts, lyrics, cast recordings (he offers a list of his favorites), or videos. Nevertheless, he offers discerning insights about structure: the "I want" song that sets out the protagonist's hopes, the "conditional love song" that starts a romance, energetic interludes known as "the noise," subplots, next-to-last scenes, star turns, and resolutions. He examines, too, a good show's "happily unpredictable" qualities. An enlightening trip for lovers of musicals. Copyright Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
