| re: John McWhorter on a Black Rose in GYPSY. | |
| Posted by: Chazwaza 02:22 pm EDT 06/13/24 | |
| In reply to: re: John McWhorter on a Black Rose in GYPSY. - Chromolume 01:36 pm EDT 06/13/24 | |
|
|
|
| I'm not sure it's fair to say "their songs would not be those sung in Styne's score" ... there are 2 songs meant to be in performance in vaudeville, the morphing "Baby June and her Newsboys" songs, and "Let Me Entertain You"... is it really inconceivable that they'd have been done by black children in the other vaudeville circuit? Even if directed by Wolfe to be performed in that style? And the rest of the songs are not of a specific style of popular music per se, are they? I think Gypsy is one of the more pliable scores in this sense. We don't associate it with or not with any particular sound other than perhaps "broadway". Rose is seen as white for 2 reasons ... A) She was white, she's a real person, and this musical was openly adapted from a book by a very famous white person about her sister and herself and her mother, all white people, working at a time when entertainment was largely segregated, so most of the characters would also be white. B) Because it's never been played on Broadway or in a movie by a non-white person. I think a Black Rose / Louise can make sense with the show written with or without morphing it to fit the historically accurate racial experience or music of the time. Many many many musicals have people singing songs, with music, that wouldn't even exist in the time it takes place letalone that they'd sing, or hear others singing in the reality of the show. I'm not sure why we can't extend that suspension of disbelief or of musical artistic license to shows already written. |
|
| reply | |
|
|
|
| Previous: | re: John McWhorter on a Black Rose in GYPSY. - Jason 09:19 pm EDT 06/13/24 |
| Next: | Haven't we moved on? - Zelgo 02:35 pm EDT 06/13/24 |
| Thread: |
|
Time to render: 0.751433 seconds.