All That Chat - re: Hammerstein vs. Lindsay & Crouse

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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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