By Eddy Friedfeld
When asked why most of Sid Caesar’s writers were young and Jewish,
the late’ great Larry Gelbart replied, “Because most of our parents were old
and Jewish.”
The answer to why there were so many Jews in Broadway musicals may
not be as glibly succinct, but in Broadway Musicals: A Jewish Legacy,
which debuts on PBS on January 1 at 9:30 p.m., the answers are insightful and
amazingly entertaining.
Written, produced and directed by Emmy-Award Winner Michael Kantor
(Broadway- The American Musical and Make ‘Em Laugh- The Funny Business of
America), the 90 minute documentary tries to answer the question of why
the Broadway musical proven to be such fertile territory for Jewish artists of
all kind, featuring icons from Broadway’s golden age, including Irving Berlin,
Jerome Kern, the Gershwins, Arthur Laurents, Jerome Robbins, Leonard Bernstein
and Stephen Sondheim to “Broadway babies” such as Stephen Schwartz, Marc
Shaiman and Andrew Lippa represent a sampling of the Jewish talents who
continue to leave their mark on musical theater.
The show begins with David Hyde Pearce in a hysterical and
joyful scene-chewing rendition of his Spamalot song, You Won’t Succeed on
Broadway: “You may have the finest sets, Fill the stage with penthouse
pets, you may have the loveliest costumes and best shoes, you may dance and you
may sing, but I'm sorry Arthur King you'll hear no cheers, just lots and lots
of boos “boo,” you may have butch men by the score, whom the audience adore…
But I tell you, you are dead if you don't have any Jews.” “It
wouldn’t be so funny if it weren’t true,” Spamalot creator, the great Eric
Idle, added.
Kantor focuses on this central question left largely
unaddressed in his Emmy-winning Broadway: The American Musical, combining
interviews with performance footage, including many of the rousing anthems and
timeless ballads America has loved for a century.
“The primary force behind the musicals are the guys who write the
songs” Kantor said. “Broadway, The American Musical was principally a
historical and cultural treatment, dealing with The Great Depression and the
advent of Rock and Roll. The new documentary complements the earlier
one. “It’s really an American story and our narrative tells how Jewish
stories were part of an acculturation/assimilation process. My daughter was bat
mitzvahed this year and I can hear the melodies of the prayers differently.”
In the 1920s, nearly one in four New York residents was
Jewish. The film charts how Jewish immigrants and children of immigrants
in the melting pot of old New York helped shape the vision of America through
musical theater. While shows like Porgy and Bess, Show Boat and Oklahoma
are fictions, they represent the artist’s vision of how do we take what we know
from Jewish culture and tradition and make it into America?
The film succeeds in its attention to detail and how it
captures the warmth and emotion of the great artists: Leonard Bernstein
and Adolph Green met as kids at summer camp, worked together on the camp
musicals and became lifelong friends. In 1893, a five year old
Irving Berlin, arrived at Ellis Island. His earliest memory as a child
growing up in Russia was of a pogrom, a vigilante attack on his Jewish
village. And he remembers hiding in a ditch with his brothers and sisters
and parents, watching Russian Cossacks burn down their village. Then he
comes to America, gets off the boat, looks around him, sees all these Americans
and he says, we stood there in our Jew clothes. He realized how different
he was from everybody else. That feeling of being different,
combined with a deep gratitude of being an American, resulted in the
composition of classic tunes, including the definitive American Christmas song.
There was also apprehension about the appeal of Fiddler on the
Roof beyond Jewish audiences. To the producers’ surprise and
pleasure, the show was a worldwide hit that transcended culture and race.
“The opening number “Tradition” was common to every culture so the show was as
common to Japanese family life as it was to Jewish family life,” Hal Prince
recalled. “And it went all over the world and every single place it went
it became their family story despite the idiosyncrasies of what was Jewish
about it. Playwright Joseph Stein said: "There are universal themes:
It’s a story about parents and children, a story about struggling in a strange
world, conflict of cultures, immigrants."
The film also points out that the music of Porgy and Bess was
rooted in Hebrew prayers and then charts the journey of the music into the
brilliants hands of Miles Davis as he re-crafts the liturgical themes roots
into his own classic jazz riffs.
“I’ve always worshiped talent and the magic talented
people can make in people’s lives and make a difference,” said Cabaret star
Joel Grey, who narrated the documentary, and who is one of only eight actors to
have won both a Tony and an Oscar for having portrayed the same role on stage
and screen.
“I remember the day I went to [composer] John Kander’s house and
he told me about the role. When I first heard the song Vilkomen, I
remember thinking to myself- “Oh my God- this is going to be my song. The
MC in Cabaret is one of the most villainous characters of all time in that he
seemed like he was going to be fun. You laughed with him and liked him
and he ended up sticking the knife in.”
“James Cagney (who spoke fluent Yiddish) was both an actor and
song and dance man,” Grey said when asked about his own favorite performers and
composers. “Marvin Hamlisch was my friend and one of the funniest human
beings in history. He was the modern day Irving Berlin, with a brilliant
sense of timing but also with a sense of the outrageous.”
Beginning his theater career at age nine, Grey is part of an
entertainment dynasty. Grey’s father was Spike Jones band member Mickey Katz, whose solo
hits included “Duvid Crockett” and “She’ll be Coming Around the Catskills,” and
is father of Dirty Dancing star Jennifer Grey.
“It’s thrilling the way we as Jews made ourselves useful and found
a place for ourselves after running for so long. Part of my Yiddishkeit
[Jewish identity] comes directly from my Dad who turned popular music into
Jewish experiences, as a way of adapting and owning the Jewish experience of
American Jews.”
