Enchanted Evenings:The Broadway Musical from 'Show Boat' to Sondheim and Lloyd Webber Block, Geoffrey (large ebook reader .txt) 📖

well as European audiences.59 Ravenal apologizes for “the words that betray my heart,” but Magnolia, who has in fact betrayed her heart by joining Ravenal’s waltz, is not quite ready to abandon the “game of just supposing” when she sings, “we only pretend.” Although Magnolia wants to pretend that Ravenal is only “playing a lover’s part,” Kern’s music belies Hammerstein’s words.

The third section of “Make Believe” leaves the tonic D major and modulates four notes above to the subdominant (G major) with another metrical change, this time from triple (waltz time) back to duple meter. Now Magnolia plays her game with a new level of flirtation accompanied by appropriate melodic playfulness (“The game of just supposing”). Following Ravenal’s reply to this flirtation, Magnolia introduces a fourth section in the parallel minor mode (G minor, foreshadowed in Parthy’s theme), a response to her sobering realization that “the cold and brutal fact is” they have never met before. But the pessimism of the minor mode disappears after only four measures when Magnolia states her rationale: since they are only playing a lover’s part, they “need not mind convention’s P’s and Q’s.” Clearly, imagination that “can banish all regret” can also banish minor modes.60

Magnolia, a bystander in the first section and half of the second, has now dominated all but eight measures since she first pointed out to Ravenal that they are only pretending, after all. Most significantly, Magnolia introduces the return of the central “Make Believe” melody more intensely than Ravenal’s opening gambit, and to match this intensity the music escalates a half-step higher (E major) from the original tonic D. When Ravenal joins her on the words “others find peace of mind in pretending,” it is by now unequivocally clear that Ravenal and Magnolia are not like these others. Their love is real.

The distribution between Magnolia and Ravenal during this return of the main tune underwent several changes between the tryouts and the New York premiere, and there remains some lingering ambiguity about who should sing what after the first two lines (invariably given to Magnolia). For example, according to the libretto typescript in the Library of Congress’s Jerome Kern Collection (see “Manuscript Sources” no. 1 in the online website), Kern and Hammerstein had once indicated that Magnolia alone should sing the next lines (“Others find peace of mind in pretending—/ Couldn’t you, / Couldn’t I? / Couldn’t we?”) before they conclude their duet. The evolution of the final line is especially intricate.

Hammerstein remained unsatisfied by his decision to have both principals sing the last line (“For, to tell the truth,—I do”). Was Magnolia ready to admit the truth of her love to Ravenal? In a penciled change Hammerstein has Ravenal sing the “I do” without Magnolia. In the New York Public Library libretto typescript (see “Manuscript Sources” no. 2 in the online website) the entire last line is given to Ravenal alone but placed in brackets. In the New York production libretto published with the McGlinn recording (no. 3) Ravenal sings the final line (without brackets), and this version is preserved in the published London libretto of 1934 (no. 4), the 1936 screenplay (no. 5), and the 1946 New York revival (no. 6).61 Further contributing to the ambiguity and confusion is the lack of correspondence between these text versions and the piano-vocal drafts and published scores, none of which specifies that Ravenal profess his love alone until the Welk score (which corresponds to the 1946 production), where Magnolia’s “For, to tell the truth,—I do” is placed in brackets.62

Perhaps most revelatory about these manuscripts are Kern and Hammerstein’s gradual realization that this portion of the scene needed to focus more exclusively on Ravenal and Magnolia. The New York Public Library and Library of Congress typescripts, for example, present two versions of a conversation between Ellie and Frank that would be discarded by the December premiere.63 Hammerstein eventually concluded that this exchange slowed down the action and distracted audiences from their focus on Ravenal.64

A second interruption, also eventually discarded, occurred after the B section of Ravenal’s song “Where’s the Mate for Me?” (based on Magnolia’s piano theme, Example 2.4). Both the Library of Congress and New York Public Library typescripts present some dialogue and stage action during the twenty-six measures of underscoring that have survived in Draft 2: Parthy’s theme (Example 2.3), Cap’n Andy’s theme minus its six opening measures (Example 2.2c), and Ravenal’s theme (Example 2.5).65 Moments later Parthy intrudes once again, shouting “Nola!,” and Hammerstein provides the following comment: “Magnolia looks down on this splendid fellow, Ravenal. Her maidenly heart flutters. She really should go in and answer mother—but she stays.”66

Like the brief dialogue between Ellie and Frank that intrudes on this moment in the 1936 film, the appearance of Parthy here and after the B section of “Where’s the Mate for Me?” interrupts the focus on the soonto-be-lovers. Parthy, while always unwelcome, is also unnecessary during this portion of the scene, particularly since she had made a prominent exit shortly before we met Ravenal. Wisely, Kern and Hammerstein in 1927 allowed Parthy’s music to prompt Magnolia to tell Ravenal she “must go now” and avoided the reality of Parthy’s intrusion on the young couple’s private moment before “Make Believe.”67

After Show Boat Kern and Hammerstein would collaborate on three of the composer’s remaining five Broadway shows, two with respectable runs, Sweet Adeline (1929) and Music in the Air (1932), and a disappointing Very Warm for May (1939). Despite their considerable merits, none of these shows have entered the repertory (although Music in the Air was chosen for New York City Center’s Encores! Great American Musicals in Concert in the 2008–09 season). Less than a year after Show Boat Hammerstein collaborated with Romberg on The New Moon, a show that went on for an impressive 509 performances. Then, despite the success of individual songs, including “All the Things You Are” from his final collaboration with Kern, Hammerstein’s series of unwise choices (both in dramatic material and collaborators)