Originally Posted by
BookishXer
I think I'm misunderstanding how you're using the arts to reflect the moods of the micro-turnings. I was assuming that the crises of the Turnings would be, as a 4T Crisis is, the dissolution of the old paradigm and establishment of the foundation for the new. So, in the case of a Crisis-crisis, the pieces of art most representative of that mood would be those that reflect the crumbling and battle to rebuild.
For example, The Sound of Music opened on Broadway in '59, the first year of the High-crisis. I'm not familiar with the stage show, so I'm basing this example on the film. Though also a love story, the backdrop was an event just prior to America's most recent Crisis-crisis, so the fears and the drives to eradicate enemies that threaten collective survival were magnified versions of what was happening in the mini-crisis of the High.
Am I making any sense??
TSM is a kind of hybrid in itself considering that it has the music by R&H, but the script is by Howard Lindsay & Russel Crouse.
Yes, your making sense. I have a lot more I want to say about what's in these musicals & the things being expressed through them. However I'm currently going through "hell week" of Die Fledermaus, so my posts are really shrinking and not up to my usual verboseness. I didn't really have a lot of time to make that update, but thanks for replying to make sure I'm not just talking to myself. I'm also discovering that I'm going to have to split my "Big Post" up in order to get everything I want expressed.
That said, I wouldn't necessarily think of
Oklahoma! as a typical Crisis-crisis production.
Carousel might be, given its very dark history as a Hungarian-written tragedy about gypsies. I don't know that
Carousel embodies the same brand of hope and sweeping musical pagentry as an
Oklahoma! or
Guys and Dolls.
Others I'm thinking of, then:
West Side Story (film)--High-crisis
Splendor in the Grass (film)--High-crisis
Yes, but also with Oklahoma!, you have the Jud sequence where he very nearly kills Laurie and Curly before they have a chance to go off on their happy life, and his death really sobers the high spirits that belong to the ending of the musical. His death almost stops the action of the play, and manages to make the ending unrealistically happy.
Oklahoma! also is a mirror to Carousel. Oklahoma! ends on an unrealistically & forced happy note (well, he's dead, Curly killed him, let's just ignore that fact & pretend that that didn't happen & we'll be okay), while Carousel ends on more of a realistically happy note (yes, bad things have happened, but we can move on & find forgiveness and acceptance).
Also Carousel isn't the only piece to be white washed, Oklahoma! is based off of the 1931 play: Green Grow the Lilacs, which is about all of these actions taking place between some mixed blood White & Cherokee Native-Americans (let us not forget that Oklahoma prior to 1907 was called "Indian Territory")--it was also written by a 1/8th Cherokee-American. Curly's fate for having killed Jeeter (Jud) is left undecided at the end of that play, instead of being unbelievably swept aside at the end--there Jeeter's death stops the show. Also Will Parker is named, but never seen in GGL, unlike in Oklahoma! where he's a second lead, and comedic relief. So I'd say it's fairly safe to say that both Oklahoma! & Carousel have darker overtones that were edited by R&H.
Also, I'm looking more at when pieces were written than when they were turned into movies, because most of R&H golden musicals (State Fair [1945], Oklahoma! [1943 *I double checked & it was 1943, not 1941*], Carousel [1945], and South Pacific [1949]) were written in the 1940s, but were turned into movies in the 1950s. Although in certain cases, like West Side Story, you have a piece that's ahead of its time. West Side Story is a 1960s style of musical. WSS belongs more to the Kennedy Era than to the Eisenhower Era it was written & debuted in [1957-1958]. Eisenhower era musicals are more along the lines of: Kiss Me Kate, My Fair Lady, Damn Yankees, The Music Man, Bells Are Ringing, etc. They have more of a definite Lost & GI artistry. Kennedy era musicals are more GI & Silent artistry. WSS is a perfect example with everyone who wrote it, except the GI Bernstein composing the music, being a Silent.
~Chas'88
Last edited by Chas'88; 04-15-2010 at 04:00 PM.
"There have always been people who say: "The war will be over someday." I say there's no guarantee the war will ever be over. Naturally a brief intermission is conceivable. Maybe the war needs a breather, a war can even break its neck, so to speak. But the kings and emperors, not to mention the pope, will always come to its help in adversity. ON the whole, I'd say this war has very little to worry about, it'll live to a ripe old age."
: See above. :
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