South Pacific

THE MUSICO-DRAMATIC EVOLUTION OF RODGERS AND HAMMERSTEIN’S SOUTH PACIFIC DISSERTATION Presented in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree Doctor of Philosophy in the Graduate School of The Ohio State University By James A. Lovensheimer, M.A. ***** The Ohio State University 2003 Dissertation Committee: Approved by Professor Arved Ashby, Adviser Professor Charles M. Atkinson ________________________ Adviser Professor Lois Rosow School of Music Graduate Program ABSTRACT Since its opening in 1949, Rodgers and Hammerstein’s Pulitzer Prize- winning musical South Pacific has been regarded as a masterpiece of the genre. Frequently revived, filmed for commercial release in 1958, and filmed again for television in 2000, it has reached audiences in the millions. It is based on selected stories from James A. Michener’s book, Tales of the South Pacific, also a Pulitzer Prize winner; the plots of these stories, and the musical, explore ethnic and cutural prejudice, a theme whose treatment underwent changes during the musical’s evolution. This study concerns the musico-dramatic evolution of South Pacific, a previously unexplored process revealing the collaborative interaction of two masters at the peak of their creative powers. It also demonstrates the authors’ gradual softening of the show’s social commentary. The structural changes, observable through sketches found in the papers of Rodgers and Hammerstein, show how the team developed their characterizations through musical styles, making changes that often indicate changes in characters’ psychological states; they also reveal changing approaches to the musicalization of the novel. Studying these changes provides intimate and, occasionally, unexpected insights into Rodgers and Hammerstein’s creative methods. Early versions of the script further suggest an occasionally abrasive polemic that is modified in the final version. Changes made in characters’ expressions of intolerance, for instance, or in their criticism of racism in American society, demonstrate a tempering of the show’s tone. While some sketches indicate striking similarities to aggressive writings about intolerance by the ii Writers’ War Board, of which Hammerstein was an active member, final versions of the same scenes are more restrained. This study provides thorough analysis of these alterations. Changes in the structural and thematic materials of South Pacific are examined within the context of the postwar era, a time in which attitudes towards race and women, two issues important to the musical, were being transformed by an intensifying Cold War. These changes suggest a heightened awareness of the needs of the musical, as well as of the problematic tenor of the times in which it was created, and they resulted in one of the great works for the American musical stage. iii Dedicated to my parents iv ACKNOWLEDGMENTS I wish to thank my adviser, Arved Ashby, for his support, encouragement, and patience with the many false starts and missteps I made along the way towards completing this study. His sense of humor, along with his insight, were integral to the entire process. I also thank Lois Rosow and Charles Atkinson in particular, and the entire musicology faculty in the School of Music at The Ohio State University in general, for their cooperation in helping to make this project possible, and for their unwavering support not only for this endeavor, but throughout my entire graduate school experience. A profound acknowledgement of thanks and appreciation is due the Rodgers and Hammerstein Organization for their cooperation and support for this project. All materials reprinted are done so with permission from the Rodagers and Hammerstein Organization. All rights reserved. I am indebted to John Callihan for his insight and his suggestions along the way, as well as for his treasured friendship. Thanks also to my friends and colleagues Billee Bonse and Joshua Veltman for their support and their help in getting documents where they needed to go when I was away from campus and unable to run my own errands. At the Library of Congress, I thank Mark Eden Horowitz for his help in locating the many uncatalogued items in the collection of Oscar Hammerstein II and for his encyclopedic knowledge of all matters pertaining to the American v musical theatre. I do not exaggerate when I note that this study would have been impossible without him. Additional thanks to Dita in the Performing Arts Reading Room for loaning me her coat to wear when it was so uncomfortably cold there . in the middle of July. For help with the last computer-specific stages of this project, I am deeply indebted to Greg Barz and Tadd Russo. In the Graduate School of Music at The Ohio State University, Donna Knisely was a friend and helper who provided answers to any and all of my seemingly endless questions. Finally, thanks to Jim and Jean Tidd, wherever they might be, for introducing me to the joys of South Pacific so very many years ago. The songs that so enchanted my three year-old ears still delight, intrigue, and move me all these many years later. Without their copy of the original cast album of this magical show, none of this might ever have come to pass. vi VITA July 10, 1950.................................................Born - Chillicothe, Ohio 1968 - 1972..................................................Attended University of Cincinnati, College-Conservatory of Music 1994...............................................................B.M. Music History, University of Tennessee, Knoxville 1995 - 2002...................................................Graduate Teaching Associate, The Ohio State University 1997...............................................................M.A. Music, The Ohio State University 2002 - present...............................................Lecturer, Vanderbilt University PUBLICATIONS 1. Jim Lovensheimer, “Stephen Sondheim and the Musical of the Outsider.” The Cambridge Companion to the Musical (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2002), 181 - 96. FIELDS OF STUDY Major Field: Music vii TABLE OF CONTENTS Page Abstract...............................................................................................................................ii Dedication.........................................................................................................................iv Acknowledgments............................................................................................................v Vita....................................................................................................................................vii Chapters: 1. Introduction...........................................................................................................1 Rationale.................................................................................................................1 Review of the literature......................................................................................12 An overview........................................................................................................21 2. Stylistic Precedents for South Pacific in the Work of Richard Rodgers and Oscar Hammerstein II..................................................................................24 The “Integrated” Musical.................................................................................26 Richard Rodgers’s Early Attempts at Structural Integration.......................31 Oscar Hammerstein II’s Early Attempts at Structural Integration................46 The Structural Roots of South Pacific in the First Three Works of Rodgers and Hammerstein.................................................................................67 Conclusion...........................................................................................................78 3. An Adaptable Source: James A. Michener’s Tales of the South Pacific...79 Michener and His Tales......................................................................................81 Structural, Thematic, and Narrative Elements in Tales of the South Pacific..................................................................................................................84 Inital Choices in the Transition from Book to Musical.................................97 Conclusion.........................................................................................................110 4. Finding the Focus: The Psychology of Character in Act One, Scene One......................................................................................................................111 Book, Music, and Lyric Sketches for Act One, Scene One.........................113 Conclusion.........................................................................................................141 viii 5. Evolving Musical Characterization...............................................................143 Nellie and de Becque’s Changing Musical Voices......................................145 The Establishment of Cable’s Musical Voices..............................................175 Conclusion.........................................................................................................185 6. Softening the Blow: The Distillation of Social Criticism in South Pacific................................................................................................................186 Racial Theme and Variations...........................................................................186 Nellie

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