The Musical as Drama

ble basis of the musical helps to explain the enormous success
of Oklahoma!, Carousel, South Pacific, and The King and Iin
the 1940s and early 1950s. No writer was so constitutionally
attuned to this element of the form than Hammerstein, and
Rodgers had a wealth of operetta-like romantic melody at
his command to give resonance to the community ideology.
Rodgers had it both ways. With Hart, his romanticism created
a lively tension with the snappy wit of the lyrics. With Ham-
merstein, the romantic melody was freed from the resistances
that gave it bite, and the melodies sang in the same vein as the
lyrics.
Rodgers and Hammerstein were writing about community
at a time when the United States was emerging from the De-
pression and the Second World War to become a worldwide
military and industrial power. The image of community in the
shows has nothing to do with the country’s new power, which
was founded on an economic system that drives people apart at
least as often as it brings people together, but it was not hard
for Americans to believe that their cause was founded on the
kind of good-heartedness that could be turned to song and
dance in the hands of the Broadway masters. So the time was
right for Rodgers and Hammerstein, but there is something
more. They thought about their conventions. They experi-
mented with them, rather than merely using them for the sake
of getting a show on the boards, and their experimental atti-
tude toward the conventions of the musical is what drives the
genre ahead after their time.
Not one of the big four Rodgers and Hammerstein shows
begins in the conventional way, with a singing and dancing
chorus. Their theme of community emerges as part of the
drama itself. Musical ensembles take shape as an outgrowth of
the book, and that is one reason integration seems to be the
hallmark of their style. Open small and let the numbers
spread—that is the technique, although Carouselfinds a way to
open large and let the numbers spread anyway.
The first and most famous opening was an opportu-
nity handed to them. Curly’s offstage “Oh, What a Beautiful

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