Darkness at Noon: The Musical
John Judis alerted me to this PBS show on the Jewish origins of the Broadway musical. Among other things I learned from it:
- Ethel Merman, born Ethel Zimmerman, was German, but so terrified
she’d be outed as a Jewwas she that people would think she was Jewish that whenever she said she had been praying for the success of a show, she would quickly add, “In church!” She was also so scared she’d have nothing to eat at Jule Styne’s seder—he promised her she wouldn’t have to eat any Christian babies—that she brought a ham sandwich with her. In her purse. [This paragraph was revised from the original version of this post.] - The original last line of “If You Could See Her Through My Eyes” in Cabaret—a song about a man’s love for a gorilla—was “She wouldn’t look Jewish at all.” It was meant to be a satire of anti-Semitism, but Jewish audiences were scandalized. Harold Prince, the director and producer of the original Broadway production, insisted on changing it. A few years later, in the film version, the line was restored.
- The composer of saccharine songs like “Put On a Happy Face” from Bye, Bye, Birdie and “Tomorrow” from Annie was, as a boy, tied to a tree by a group of anti-Semites and had a fire lit under him while his brother was beaten up. They were working on a farm or something. He was saved at the last minute by the foreman who told everyone that lunchtime was over, time to get back to work.
This is just some of the darkness behind the sunshine of American musical theater.