Songs of the Ziegfeld Follies

SONGS OF THE ZIEGFELD FOLLIES DISSERTATION Presented in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree Doctor of Philosophy in the Graduate School of The Ohio State University by Ann Ommen, B.M., M.A. The Ohio State University 2007 Dissertation Committee: Professor Graeme Boone, Adviser Approved by Professor Thomas Postlewait Professor Danielle Fosler-Lussier _________________________ Adviser Graduate Program in Music Copyright by Ann Ommen 2007 ABSTRACT Enormously popular in their own time, the Ziegfeld Follies have become an icon of American popular culture. Produced annually by Florenz Ziegfeld, Jr. between 1907 and 1931, these revues were and still are best-known for their lavish production numbers which brought unprecedented attention to members of the chorus. They have served as inspiration for generations of filmmakers, playwrights, and popular authors, but have only been studied by a small number of scholars, primarily those working in cultural studies. For the first time, this dissertation brings a musicological identity to the Follies by examining their songs. It addresses the legends surrounding certain songs so that their performance history can be better understood. It discusses representations of gender, race, and national identity in songs of the Follies, revealing the cultural beliefs Ziegfeld thought would be most acceptable to his largely white, middle-class audiences. It dissects comic song performances to show a specifically musical component to the humor of the Follies. Finally, it analyzes compositional techniques in the lyrics of Gene Buck and in the songs written by Irving Berlin for the Ziegfeld Follies of 1927 , the only Follies production to have been written by a single songwriter. ii ACKNOWLEDGMENTS This study has been supported by numerous individuals who deserve my heartfelt thanks. I am especially grateful to my adviser Graeme Boone. He has offered support and advice not only on this project but throughout my graduate studies. I am also deeply appreciative of Tom Postlewait. He has provided additional encouragement and guidance, acting as a secondary adviser on numerous occasions. I would also like to extend a special thank you to Danielle Fosler-Lussier for serving on my dissertation committee and for offering helpful feedback. My research efforts have been facilitated by the aid of several librarians and archivists, most notably Marty Jacobs of the Museum of the City of New York and Rick Watson of the Harry Ransom Center in Austin, Texas. These individuals helped me gain access to valuable source materials. I am also grateful to Rebecca Bryant for personally offering insight into her own research on song and social dancing in the 1910s and 1920s. Finally, I want to express my gratitude to those who have offered their personal support. I am eternally indebted to my parents, Richard and Wanda Ommen, for their love, generosity, and belief in my abilities. Most of all, I am grateful to my fiancé, Geo, for his love, understanding, and encouragement. iii VITA September 24, 1978……………………..Born, Jacksonville, Illinois May 2000………………………………..B.M. Voice, University of Illinois December 2004………………………….M.A. Music, The Ohio State University September 2002 to present……………..Graduate Teaching and Research Assistant, The Ohio State University PUBLICATIONS Huron, David and Ann Ommen. “An Empirical Study of Syncopation in American Music: 1890-1939.” Music Theory Spectrum 28: 2 (Fall 2006), 211-231. Ommen, Ann. Review of America’s Songs: The Stories Behind the Songs of Broadway, Hollywood, and Tin Pan Alley , by Philip Furia and Michael Lasser. Journal of Popular Culture 40:1 (February 2007). FIELDS OF STUDY Major Field: Music Minor Field: Theatre Studies iv TABLE OF CONTENTS Abstract……………………………………………………………………………ii Acknowledgements………………………………………………………………..iv Vita…………………………………………………………………………………v Chapters: 1. Introduction………………………………………………………………1 2. Legends………...…………………..…………………………..………..12 3. Chorus Girls and Suffragettes.…..…………...……………………….28 4. Steps and Shimmies………………..………….…………………….....40 5. Patriotism………………....………………………………………….....59 6. “Musical” Comedy……………………………………………………..71 7. Gene Buck……………………..………………………………………..83 8. The Ziegfeld Follies of 1927.. ………………………………………......94 9. Conclusions…………………………………………………………….108 Appendix……………………………………………………………………….111 Bibliography…………..……………………………………………………….154 v CHAPTER 1 INTRODUCTION The Ziegfeld Follies Between 1907 and 1931, Florenz Ziegfeld, Jr. produced a series of spectacular Broadway revues known collectively as the Ziegfeld Follies. Beyond the popularity they enjoyed in their own time and the long list of stars that appeared in them, the Ziegfeld Follies have had a tremendous influence on the history of American musical theatre in the twentieth century. The elaborate production style of the Follies has influenced musical productions which followed, from the films of Busby Berkeley in the 1930s and 1940s to the Disney productions currently on Broadway. Moreover, the significant role of the ensemble in the Follies has also been modeled in productions of diverse styles and periods, from Oklahoma! to A Chorus Line . Despite their popularity and historical significance, however, the Follies have failed to garner much attention in scholarly histories of American musical theatre. In most instances, the Follies are mentioned only briefly as part of an evolutionary pool including minstrelsy, vaudeville, circus, operetta, and other forms of musical theatre popular in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries from which the plot-driven musical developed. The tendency for history to be viewed in an evolutionary manner is 1 not exclusive to the field of musical theatre studies, but the lack of attention given in this field to early works points to a specific methodological issue. Methodologies used to examine musical theatre depend upon the correlation of music with a plot, something which the Follies – and many other examples of musical theatre from the early twentieth century – did not possess. Instead, the Follies consisted of songs, dances, and sketches loosely strung together by topical themes. As several scholars have argued, the American vernacular music common to the Broadway musical distinguishes it from opera. Nevertheless, the integration of music and drama in the form makes an operatic methodology readily applicable. Joseph Swain’s The Broadway Musical: A Critical and Musical Survey is the clearest example of this; it is founded on an integrative approach to musical theatre defined by Joseph Kerman and ultimately derived from Richard Wagner. 1 Scott McMillin has recently attempted to depart from integration as a model for musical theatre. In The Musical as Drama , McMillin argues that it is primarily the disjunction between music and drama in the American musical that makes it so interesting. In short, he follows a Brechtian model of music theatre rather than a Wagnerian one. 2 McMillin’s study does not, however, 1 Other histories of American musical theatre based on a theory of integration include Cecil Smith, Musical Comedy in America (New York: Theatre Arts Books, 1950), Ethan Mordden, Better Foot Forward (New York: Grossman Publishers, 1976), and Lehman Engel, The American Musical Theatre . New York: Macmillan, 1975. Studies such as Raymond Knapp, The American Musical and the Formation of National Identity (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2005) and David Walsh and Len Platt, Musical Theater and American Culture (Westport, CT: Praeger, 2003) do not foreground integration, but they nevertheless focus on integrated productions. 2 McMillan cites John Willett, ed., Brecht on Theatre (New York, Hill and Wang, 1964), 84-90 as a particularly salient example of what Brecht valued in the combination of music and drama. For example, Brecht suggests that “the most striking innovation” of 2 focus on the revue formats of the early twentieth century which embody this aesthetic of disjunction to the fullest extent. His efforts have therefore resulted in a study which provides a more nuanced understanding of book musicals dating from the 1940s onward but which does not illuminate the history of American musical theatre prior to that point. Ultimately, he still relies on the dramatic characteristics of these later musical works as criteria for approaching musical theatre. These plot-based approaches to musical theatre are valuable. They offer insight into the role of music in individual productions and suggest trends in musical and dramatic construction at different points in the history of American musical theatre. The problem, as Margaret Knapp has rightfully argued, is that a theory of musical theatre history which privileges integrated works neglects “a good deal of the real history of the musical theatre.” 3 Knapp made this argument almost thirty years ago, yet scholarship on American musical theatre history is still focused primarily on the musical. Julian Mates’s America’s Musical Stage: Two Hundred Years of Musical Theatre remains one of the few histories of American musical theatre which overviews the genre in virtually all of its forms: opera, operetta, minstrelsy, circus, melodrama, dance, burlesque, revue, vaudeville, and musical comedy. The Threepenny Opera was its “strict separation of the music from all the other elements of entertainment offered.” 3 Margaret Knapp, “Integration of Elements as a Viable Standard for Judging Musical Theatre,” in Focus on Popular Theatre in America , edited by Henry F. Salerno (Bowling Green, OH: Bowling

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