Broadway Babies Say Goodnight: Musicals Then and Now

The Broadway musical was never simply a jazzed-up form of Viennese or English operetta, Mark Steyn argues in this book; it always set its own terms and conditions. At some time during the 1970s or ’80s, though, the Broadway musical hit the buffers, which coincided with the arrival of the “British Broadway musical”. With “Miss Saigon”, “Aspects of Love” and “The Phantom of the Opera”, the British musical in the West End is in rude health, attracting serious directing and acting talent, and serious money. Steyn asks the question: “Whither the musical?”. Are the current successes in the great tradition of musical theatre established by Cole Porter, Rogers and Hammerstein, Lerner and Loewe, or is there too much emphasis on “production value”, spectacular effects for effect’s sake, and never mind the story-line? Is the musical still a valid form, or has it become fatally self-conscious?