- Person
- Lorenz Hart
- Lived
- 1895–1943
- Field
- Broadway lyricist
- From
- American
The story
By 1940 Lorenz Hart and Richard Rodgers had decided that musical comedy needed more of the naturalism found in contemporary literature and drama. The novelist John O'Hara offered them his New Yorker stories about Joey Evans, a charming but unscrupulous small-time nightclub performer who uses an affair with a wealthy, married older woman, Vera Simpson. Joey was amoral, but he was neither a villain nor reformed by the end, a striking departure from the usual musical hero.
EBSCO's biography of Hart calls Pal Joey the first musical to feature unromanticised, gritty realism in its plot and characters. Most of its numbers were harshly witty, and Rodgers and Hart deliberately contrasted tacky nightclub routines with more elegant songs whose sentiments were often ironic. Its hits included 'I Could Write a Book' and 'Bewitched, Bothered and Bewildered'. Directed by George Abbott, the show opened at the Ethel Barrymore Theatre on 25 December 1940 with Gene Kelly in his first leading role and Vivienne Segal as Vera.
On its first run the reaction was mixed. Some critics praised it as brilliant, but others and many theatregoers disliked the subject matter; the critic Brooks Atkinson asked how one could draw sweet water from a foul well. The show still ran for 374 performances. For much of the 1940s its songs were kept off the radio by a broadcasting dispute, slowing their path to popularity.
The world caught up. The popularity of a studio recording of the score led the composer and producer Jule Styne to revive the show, which opened on 3 January 1952, nine years after Hart's death, with Segal returning as Vera. This time audiences, prepared by darker musicals of the 1940s, embraced it. The revival ran for 540 performances, won the New York Drama Critics' Circle Award for best musical and became the first musical to receive eleven Donaldson Awards. Atkinson now wrote that it renewed confidence in the professionalism of the theatre.
Pal Joey is now regarded as the partnership's masterpiece and a turning point in musical theatre. It was filmed in 1957 with Frank Sinatra, Rita Hayworth and Kim Novak, and it was revived on Broadway as recently as 2008.
Why it matters
Pal Joey proved that musicals could tell honest, adult stories, influencing the serious musical dramas that followed.
About Lorenz Hart
Lyricist of Rodgers and Hart, whose witty, rueful words for “Blue Moon” “My Funny Valentine” and “The Lady Is a Tramp” helped make the Broadway song an art form.
More about Lorenz Hart
- One Hart show gave the world 'My Funny Valentine'Babes in Arms (1937) alone gave the world 'My Funny Valentine', 'The Lady Is a Tramp', 'Where or When' and 'Johnny One-Note'.
- Lorenz Hart helped bring Shakespeare to musical comedyRodgers and Hart's The Boys from Syracuse (1938), based on The Comedy of Errors, was a pioneering Shakespeare adaptation for musical comedy.
- Lorenz Hart turned Mark Twain's Connecticut Yankee into songRodgers and Hart's A Connecticut Yankee (1927), based on Mark Twain's novel, confirmed Hart as a leading lyricist; he revised it as his final work.
- Lorenz Hart pioneered the conversational song lyricLorenz Hart was among the first lyricists to use polysyllabic rhyme for wit and insight and to write in a natural, conversational voice.
- Lorenz Hart wrote 'Isn't It Romantic?' for the moviesIn Hollywood in the early 1930s, Lorenz Hart wrote film songs including 'Isn't It Romantic?' for Maurice Chevalier, as well as 'Lover' and 'Blue Moon'.
- Hart's I'd Rather Be Right satirised a sitting presidentRodgers and Hart's 1937 musical I'd Rather Be Right took the unprecedented step of satirising an American president still in office.
- Lorenz Hart wrote lyrics for 28 Rodgers and Hart musicalsLyricist Lorenz Hart and composer Richard Rodgers wrote 28 stage musicals and more than 500 songs together, including 'Blue Moon', many now classics of the American songbook.
Sources
- Lorenz Hart EBSCO Research Starters
- Lorenz Hart PBS, Broadway: The American Musical
- Pal Joey (musical) Wikipedia
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