9:43 p.m. - 20 April 2001
Celebration
I've spent the last week listening to the Original Broadway Cast of Celebration, a CD I finally won on eBay. I've only been looking for it for a couple of years now. It's out of print, and the original production was in 1969, so it's unlikely to be released again anytime soon. But it's a fabulous musical and I've probably heard it half a dozen times at work this week.
I was introduced to this particular show, along with several others, in a class I took my sophomore year in college. Converse has what they call "Winter Term," which is a six-week semester where you take two classes and attend both classes every day. It was possible to take courses that were usually full-semester courses, but I never did. There were too many other interesting classes offered in Winter Term that wouldn't be offered any other time. I took classes like Human Sexuality, Apocalyptic Literature, Adolescent Literature and Fencing during Winter Term, but the most interesting was The American Musical and American Politics. We studied about half a dozen musicals and discussed how they related to American politics: of the time they were written, of the time they were set, and now. Part of the fun of the class (and many of the headaches) was that it was pretty evenly split between liberal theatre types and conservative political types.
We studied the plays by reading the script, with the professor playing the songs for us at the appropriate times. Some of the conservative types were so conservative that they would self-censor as they read the lines, which drove the theatre people nuts. The professor recognized this and deliberately gave all the major parts (and most of the minor ones) in Hair to the theatre students; I don't think we could have gotten through that show otherwise.
It was a great class and we had some very interesting discussions. We had a total of two assignments for the class, I think: a 12-15 page paper analyzing some aspect of Pacific Overtures, a show we had to read and listen to on our own, and a final exam that we got the questions to ahead of time. The professor even hand-picked which students got which questions, so I ended up with questions about Hair and Celebration, my favorites of the ones we studied.
As far as I am concerned, the best part of the class overall wasn't the discussions that we had, though. That class was my introduction to musicals not by Rodgers and Hammerstein: most importantly, to Steven Sondheim. Since the professor was a big Sondheim fan, literally half of the class consisted of Sondheim works. I've since sought out others, and thoroughly enjoyed them as well.
But of all the shows we studied, Celebration really stood out for me. It's not well known, although it was written by Tom Jones and Harvey Schmidt, who also wrote The Fantasticks. It played to packed audiences in the studio theatre where it was created, but received a lukewarm reception on Broadway when it premiered there. It is basically a modern-day myth; there are many ritualistic characteristics of the music and the story of a battle between the new and the old. It's suspected that part of the reason that some critics gave it bad reviews is that the critics identified with Mr. Rich, who is the villian. As for the name, well, subtle they were not. The female lead is named Angel and she enters wearing rather large feathered wings. But it was the '60s, what can I say?
Plus, I just really like the music: lots of rolling drums, piano, and some early electronica. And the voices that were cast are just perfect: clear and lyrical. I'm glad that I finally have it after looking for so long. I just have to find something else to fixate on for a while.
