| Precisely the point I raised on another site: Here's the problem with that vexing "Shipoopi": the menfolk of the era and geographic isolation had no logical pathway to the revelations in the new lyric. They have been adjusted via a slick new time machine, corrected by a cosmic overview that recognizes gender bias and the ugliness and immorality in shaming women. Rather than observe the buffoonery in the period-specific misogyny -- which Willson shrewdly knew the leading character, Marian, counters with her own unapologetic agency -- we are now asked to accept male clarity that's still hard to inspire in post-millennial America (see Incel movement, see, oh, where do we start? Hobby Lobby?). Was there a solution to the lyric? Maybe not. But shoehorning epiphanies into a show that takes place 110 years ago feels both artistically suspect and sociologically fraudulent. At least we have Marian, the wisest woman on stage, to show us that women don't need to be categorized or humiliated. But Willson knew that in 1957. |
