The Funny Girls

Approximately every fifteen years there is a change in the tide of fashion in the American theater. Actors who stood at the height of their profession subtly fall out of favor. Dramatists who had a secure grip on the public pulse curiously lose touch. Productions of a kind hitherto surefire at the box-office fail to have the expected result. A younger generation of performers, playwrights, directors, technicians, and for that matter critics, starts pounding on the door.

Clearly the American theater is experiencing such a transition now. As is fitting enough, considering the function it has played historically in the development of a national dramatic idiom and identity, the fact of change is most to be noted in musical comedy. In 1943, Rodgers and Hammerstein ushered in a new era with Oklahoma!, distinguished by its integrated character—the production numbers, the songs and dances, flowed naturally from the narrative, instead of being interpolated at random—and buoyantly sentimental idealism.

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Nathan Cohen

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Approximately every fifteen years there is a change in the tide of fashion in the American theater. Actors who stood at the height of their profession subtly fall out of favor. Dramatists who had a secure grip on the public pulse curiously lose touch. Productions of a kind hitherto surefire at the box-office fail to have the expected result. A younger generation of performers, playwrights, directors, technicians, and for that matter critics, starts pounding on the door.

Clearly the American theater is experiencing such a transition now. As is fitting enough, considering the function it has played historically in the development of a national dramatic idiom and identity, the fact of change is most to be noted in musical comedy. In 1943, Rodgers and Hammerstein ushered in a new era with Oklahoma!, distinguished by its integrated character—the production numbers, the songs and dances, flowed naturally from the narrative, instead of being interpolated at random—and buoyantly sentimental idealism.