Pal Joey : the history of a heel /
"The History of a Heel chronicles the genesis, influence, and significance of Rodgers and Hart's classic musical comedy Pal Joey (1940). When Pal Joey opened at the Barrymore on Christmas day, 1940, it flew in the face of musical comedy convention. The characters and situation were deprave...
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| Format: | eBook |
| Language: | English |
| Published: |
New York, NY :
Oxford University Press,
[2020]
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| Series: | Broadway legacies.
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| Subjects: | |
| Online Access: | Connect to the full text of this electronic book |
| Summary: | "The History of a Heel chronicles the genesis, influence, and significance of Rodgers and Hart's classic musical comedy Pal Joey (1940). When Pal Joey opened at the Barrymore on Christmas day, 1940, it flew in the face of musical comedy convention. The characters and situation were depraved. The setting was caustically realistic. Its female lead was frankly sexual and yet not purely comic. A narratively-driven dream ballet closed the first act, begging audiences to take seriously the inner life and desires of a confirmed heel. Although the show appears on many top-ten lists surveying the so-called "Golden Age," it is a controversial classic; its legacy is tied both to the fashionable scandal that it provoked, and, retrospectively, to the uncommon attention it paid to characterization and narrative cohesion. Through an archive-driven investigation of the show and its music, History of a Heel offers insight into the historical moment during which Joey was born, and to the process of genre classification, canon formation, and the ensuing critical debates related to musical and theatrical maturity. More broadly, I argue that the critique and commentary on class and gender conventions in Pal Joey reveals a uniquely American concern over status, class mobility, and progressive gender roles in the pre-war eraThe History of a Heel chronicles the genesis, influence, and significance of Rodgers and Hart's classic musical comedy Pal Joey (1940). When Pal Joey opened at the Barrymore on Christmas day, 1940, it flew in the face of musical comedy convention. The characters and situation were depraved. The setting was caustically realistic. Its female lead was frankly sexual and yet not purely comic. A narratively-driven dream ballet closed the first act, begging audiences to take seriously the inner life and desires of a confirmed heel. Although the show appears on many top-ten lists surveying the so-called "Golden Age," it is a controversial classic; its legacy is tied both to the fashionable scandal that it provoked, and, retrospectively, to the uncommon attention it paid to characterization and narrative cohesion. Through an archive-driven investigation of the show and its music, History of a Heel offers insight into the historical moment during which Joey was born, and to the process of genre classification, canon formation, and the ensuing critical debates related to musical and theatrical maturity. More broadly, I argue that the critique and commentary on class and gender conventions in Pal Joey reveals a uniquely American concern over status, class mobility, and progressive gender roles in the pre-war era"--Publisher's description |
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| Physical Description: | 1 online resource (287 pages) : illustrations |
| Bibliography: | Includes bibliographical references and index. |
| ISBN: | 9780190051228 0190051221 9780190051235 019005123X 9780190051211 0190051213 |