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re: Hammerstein vs. Lindsay & Crouse

Posted by: LegitOnce 11:44 am EST 12/07/13
In reply to: re: Hammerstein vs. Lindsay & Crouse - lordofspeech 11:05 am EST 12/07/13

Yes, this seems to be the outline, Leland Hayward and Richard Halliday conceived the show originally as essentially a straight play with a few "diagetic" folk songs from the Trapp Famly's repertoire. The next step apparently was to add a song or two by Rodgers and Hammerstein in a similar folk vein, so that the show would be a "play with music." Apparently as the piece was developed, it began to feel more and more like a full-scale musical, and so became the Sound of Music we know.

The point, though, is that it began life a straight play by Lindsay and Crouse, and it was that text that eventually became the libretto of The Sound of Music. Oscar Hammerstein might have told the story in a different way had he been involved from the beginning, and presumably he had some hand in shaping the material during rehearsal.

One possible reason the book feels a little stilted is that obviously a lot of a straight play would have to be cut away to make room for music -- so what remains is rather bare-bones.


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re: Hammerstein vs. Lindsay & Crouse

Posted by: simbo 02:45 pm EST 12/07/13
In reply to: re: Hammerstein vs. Lindsay & Crouse - LegitOnce 11:44 am EST 12/07/13

It's also not an obvious project for Lindsay and Crouse - their musicals tended towards lighter fare ("Anything Goes", "Red Hot and Blue", "Call Me Madam"). The closest in their ouvre is probably "Life with Father" and "Life with Mother" and even there, it's not really that close... It's still a tad odd that they were the go-to-guys for this one.


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