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The Black Crook and the History of Musical Theater
The poster for the original production of The Black Crook depicts a provocatively dressed (for the 19th century) dancer. This poster is an interesting historical document to illustrate a story of unusual, if somewhat undeserved, success. This is a story of artists pleasing the tastes of public with help of smart publicity and fortunate circumstances. The Black Crook had a dividing critical response and financially impressive theater run, and, consequently, became a precursor to the modern American musical theater. All the factors, which contributed to the creation, reception and aftermath of this stage phenomenon, will be addressed in this research.
Historical Context
The historical and cultural contexts explain how a show like The Black Crook influenced the formation of American musical theater. The play was created during a period of major social changes in America. After the end of the Civil War, America was going through the economic renewal. As a result, the entertainment industry gained noticeable popularity, including theater. As post-Civil War business boomed, there was a sharp increase in the city's working and middle class population, and these growing masses of people craved entertainment. This caused a growing admiration of various entertainment types such as ballet (mostly an export cultural product from Europe) and theater. The theatrical and entertainment collection at the time was already diverse. Travelling opera and ballet troupes from France and Italy were common guests in theaters of New York. Other popular genres, such as extravaganza, pantomime, variety and minstrel shows were designed to please much broader and undemanding audience. Extravaganza performances were musical shows with total artistic freedom, which utilized elements of grotesque, colorful sets and costumes. Their main goal was to please as wide public as possible. The pantomime developed from individual performances into a genre, which used machinery and elaborated mechanized sets. Various shows reminded salon entertainment, including singing, dancing, circus acts and acting aimed at mature audience. The promoters of variety were not looking to attract a family audience. So long as respectable women would not be caught dead in such establishments, husbands and sons could carouse without interference. Minstrel shows in the USA were inspired by European tradition of travelling musicians, but incorporated the racist tradition. American shows combined musical and comedic plays, performed by white actors in blackface. The shows included parodies of black culture and attempted to recreate their traditions on stage, using them as an inspiration. Since most of these shows were exported from Europe, there was an exigency for original theatrical production. This period in cultural life of America was characterized by growing diversity, openness to innovation and desire to please the public. All these tendencies essentially led to formation of musical comedy as a genre.
Creation of The Black Crook
The Black Crook, which premiered on September 12, 1886, was the first major success of an original musical comedy produced on Broadway by local authors. The play was an unintentional pioneer of the genre. The production of the play was legendary and, since then has overgrown with various myths. The predecessor of the play was a ballet performance, which was supposed to be held in, then famous, halls of Academy of Music. Unfortunately, the hall tragically burned to the ground before the show managed to premiere. The fire broke on the 21st of May, during a performance of the opera "La Juive". As a result, several neighboring buildings also burned, and several firefighters were killed. Since the building vanished, it left numerous artistic troupes homeless. After the destruction of Academy of Music, its producers Henry C. Jarrett and Harry Palmer were forced to find a new place for the European ballet troupe to perform. As a result, they found a partner, William Wheatley, who was a manager of Niblo's Garden, one of the most popular theaters in Manhattan. Along with the performers, they brought complex mechanized sets and, consequently, this partnership laid a foundation for large-scale shows. The play written by Charles M. Barras drew inspiration from Goethe's Faust, Weber's Der Freischutz, and several other well-known works.
The play itself was a characteristic representative of melodramas, a genre that dominated the theatric stage in the 19th century. Melodrama used various motifs from supernatural stories to simple family dramas to promote often-simplified universal theme of good and evil:
Part of what caused melodrama to be so endearing was its popular formula. These stories of virtue could be placed in any time with any setting and any character. They could also have any of a range of endings - from happy to sad. Their great flexibility made them very adaptable to any type of audience, and allowed actors to take advantage of a great range of materials and talents.
The Black Crook contained all of the elements of melodrama, including distinct moral values, romantic motives and fantastic elements in simple storytelling. Such plots provided fertile ground for numerous theatrical special effects, colorful decorations, bright music and dance techniques. The directors focused on the production of musical and dance performances, using expensive sets, which were designed to amaze the audience. At the time, The Black Crook was one of the most costly stage productions on Broadway with an estimated budget of 35, 000 dollars. The special effects, colorful transforming sets and female dancers in revealing costumes were the right choice to dazzle the viewers.
Critical Response
The original play was almost six hours long. The musical performances in the play were loosely connected with the plot. Most of the musical performances included popular songs of the time described as "songs from local music shops". Despite its exhausting running time, the show was an instant success, the combination of dance, spectacle, song and story was irresistible, and the show ran 475 performances in a day when thirty performances were considered a hit. Another thing that draws the attention of the audience was the female ballet dancers that performed in more revealing costumes than it was traditionally allowed. Thus, the original run got most of the criticism from the moralists. Critical reception of the play was diverse. While most of the critics appreciated the effort put in the production and overall scope of the play, others ridiculed its derived plot.
Another critical contribution to the success of the "Black Crook" was the scandal surrounding it. The press, including The New York Herald, condemned the indecency of the play, comparing it to Sodom and Gomorrah. At the same time, the newspaper encouraged the public not to miss the controversial show. In an article “Musical of the Month: The Black Crook” researchers wrote:
The editor of The New York Herald was likely aware that such condemnation would promote the show and was rewarding Wheatley for his loyalty to the paper. The moral crusade against the show was taken up by Reverend Charles Smyth who preached a fire and brimstone sermon against it as part of a public lecture series. All of this, of course, simply increased public interest in the play.
This ingenious publicity stunt attracted even more audience to the play. The Black Crook instantly became the hottest and most talked about show on Broadway.
Success and Historical Significance.
The success of the play can be attributed to a number of factors. Firstly, it utilized popular melodrama plot structure to address as wide audience as possible. Secondly, the play united many popular entertainment genres in one spectacle performance. Thirdly, its provocative nature and scandalous releases contributed to the growth of its popularity. The experts mention two other post-civil war economic factors, which helped The Black Crook to become a great phenomenon. First, respected women started attending the shows, thus, increasing the target audience. Since the railroad system in America began to grow, the shows could tour around the country.
The Black Crook is often referred to as the first American musical, however, this statement requires clarification. While the show was based on the European extravaganza's, it still provided some of the ritual subsequently identifying American musical comedy: chorus girls, ornate production numbers, elaborate costuming, songs provocative with sexual innuendos, large dance numbers and so forth. However, there is no consensus on the historical importance of the play. The play did not have songs and dances integrated into the plot of the play, which is one of the integral features of a musical. Rogers also doubts whether the show can be credited with the overall originality of the combination of various elements. The Black Crook added no new elements and no new ways of integrating spectacle, music, and drama. It did, however, offer the traditional forms on a very large scale. In contrast to this view, the original text of the play proves that it was clearly written, "as a melodrama in spectacle form, with opportunities of song and dance built in.” There are opposite points of view on its role in formation of the musical comedy genre. However, the contribution of The Black Crook to the popularizations of the genre should not be underestimated.
Even after almost 150 years after its premiere The Black Crook still divides critics and draws controversy. Despite its questionable artistic values, The Black Crook singlehandedly put the musical comedy genre on the map of the entertainment industry. It proved that combinations of different subgenres in performances could be economically profitable. As the play brought substantial income, other shows tried to recreate the model. It brought popularity to expansive, complicated and large-scale productions, which combined various genres and styles of performances. Moreover, it introduced a simple story with melodramatic roots and fantastic elements as a canvas for the stage performances in the future. Another innovation the play brought was its flexibility, since the songs, musical performances and actors changed in later productions. It caused the popularity of extravaganzas' and burlesque musicals. Moreover, The Black Crook is considered to be a foundation of what is now known as American Musical. It helped to form various elements of the genre from plot construction to production and publicity.
The article was conducted by the professional writer from plagiarism search https://plagiarismsearch.com/ service - Milly Jones.

2019-10-21 22:52:56, views: 78, Comments: 0