| re: TB REGIONAL REVIEW: "IDIOT'S DELIGHT" in MINNEAPOLIS/ST. PAUL | |
| Posted by: showtunetrivia 01:48 pm EDT 07/05/17 | |
| In reply to: TB REGIONAL REVIEW: "IDIOT'S DELIGHT" in MINNEAPOLIS/ST. PAUL - T.B._Admin. 12:43 pm EDT 07/05/17 | |
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| Arty, I'm currently researching ID for a study of the 1935-36 season, so this is much appreciated. Interesting that they gender-shifted the hotel manager and the doctor, and that Les Blondes are cut down to just three. Sherwood wasn't being especially prescient--Hitler moved troops into the Rhineland while ID was in tryouts, and he wrote in his diary that if they waited any longer to open, the show would be out of date. As far as the question of its freshness, I think the trouble lies in viewing it as an anti-war piece, and expecting anti-war sentiments to echo nicely among decent-minded people, no matter the decade. It's anti-war, yes, but it's also specifically anti-Fascist, and was written and produced in a time that vividly remembered the horrors of the first world war. Sherwood's own views (he was, as you note, a wounded vet) evolved as he saw what was happening in the world, from a more pacifist--isolationist leaning to "These guys must be stopped." I'm away from my books, but the published preface to ID has RES say something like the whole purpose behind this was a refusal to "imitate the Fascists." It's kind of fascinating to look at his early anti-war comedy, 1927's THE ROAD TO ROME, then his 1940 piece on the Russian invasion of Finland, THERE SHALL BE NO NIGHT, and then his work for FDR. But Arty, what I'm dying to know is, what numbers did Harry perform? Because I'm trying to confirm claims that Irving Berlin's connection to the show, not just in letting them use "Puttin' On the Ritz," but also,writing new lyrics to Foster's "Old Folks at Home (Swanee River)", Laura, who can talk about the Lunts and not just 1776 :) |
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