In the following excerpt from Todd S. Purdum's upcoming book Something Wonderful: Rodgers and Hammerstein's Broadway Revolution, we find Richard Rodgers and Oscar Hammerstein II hot off of their debut collaboration, 1943's Oklahoma!. As history goes, they followed up that massive success with the landmark Carousel, which premiered on Broadway in April 1945. The show has since become a beloved classic of the genre, with revivals in 1954, 1957, and 1994鈥攁 brand new Broadway production starring Jessie Mueller and Joshua Henry is currently in previews and scheduled to open April 12 at the Imperial Theatre.
This illuminating passage from the book's fourth chapter "Bustin' Out," examines how Rodgers and Hammerstein selected and adapted source material for that second collaboration. (If you're not familiar with the show's plot, there are some spoilers ahead. We've clearly marked that passage in case you'd like to skip over it.)
Something Wonderful: Rodgers and Hammerstein's Broadway Revolution releases April 3 from Henry Holt and Company. To pre-order a copy, .
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The immediate and overwhelming success of Oklahoma! upon its Broadway premiere in 1943 changed everything overnight for Richard Rodgers and Oscar Hammerstein II, especially for Oscar, who had suffered a long unlucky streak of failures. He was determined not only to savor his success, but also to think carefully and strategically about next steps. In a letter to his son Bill around this time, he explained his thinking. 鈥淒ick and I don鈥檛 want to start on another show unless we see the chance in it for writing another blooming masterpiece,鈥� he wrote. 鈥淭his may require some time to find.鈥�
The idea would ultimately come from Theresa Helburn and the Theatre Guild, who thought a musical adaptation of the well-loved 1909 Ferenc Moln谩r drama Liliom might prove a good choice. The work had initially confused European audiences because its hero dies ignobly halfway through the action. But after the mass loss of life in World War I, theatregoers began to take the play to heart. It also had a curious connection to Rodgers; though he received no public credit, Rodgers鈥� former collaborator Lorenz Hart had penned the play鈥檚 English translation.
Billed as 鈥渁 legend in seven scenes and prologue,鈥� the play tells the story of the title character鈥攊n Hungarian, Liliom means 鈥渓ily鈥� and is an ironic slang term for 鈥渢ough鈥濃攁 ne鈥檈r-do-well Budapest carnival barker, and Julie, the unlucky servant girl who loves him unconditionally, even though he abuses her. The young lovers marry, and Julie promptly becomes pregnant. [EDITOR鈥橲 NOTE: Spoiler alert. Skip to the next paragraph.] Desperate for money, Liliom agrees to commit a robbery, but he bungles it, killing himself to avoid arrest. He arrives in a night court version of purgatory and is given one last chance to set things right on earth鈥攁 chance he also bungles, by striking his teenage daughter, Louise, just as he had struck her mother.
Rodgers and Hammerstein initially balked at the idea, in part because the play鈥檚 Hungarian setting seemed anything but timeless in 1943, with World War II raging across Europe and events unpredictable. But Helburn persisted. Discussions went on for some weeks until Rodgers finally lit upon the idea of setting the story in New England in the late nineteenth century, which everyone agreed might work. Liliom, the title character, would become the euphonious Billy Bigelow, still a carnival barker. Julie would be a millworker instead of a housemaid.
鈥淚 began to see an attractive ensemble,鈥� Hammerstein would recall. 鈥淪ailors, whalers, girls who worked in the mills up the river, clambakes on near-by islands, an amusement park on the seaboard, things people could do in crowds, people who were strong and alive and lusty, people who had always been depicted on the stage as thin-lipped puritans鈥攁 libel I was anxious to refute.鈥� As for the two main characters, he said, 鈥淛ulie, with her courage and inner strength and outward simplicity, seemed more indigenous to Maine than to Budapest. Liliom is, of course, an international character, indigenous to nowhere.鈥�
But even before this crucial decision on locale was made, the team faced another obstacle: Ferenc Moln谩r had resolutely refused to allow a musical adaptation of Liliom, turning down Puccini himself on the grounds that he wanted the property to remain his play, not someone else鈥檚 opera. But nothing was too good for the authors of Oklahoma!, and the playwright, who had emigrated to New York to escape the Nazi persecution of Hungarian Jews, relented the very day after seeing that show. Now the challenge was how to transform his dark and delicate drama into a compelling piece of musical theatre.
As usual, Dick and Oscar began at the beginning. The play had started with a silent prologue, set in the amusement park, which introduced the principal characters. Hammerstein went further, devising a detailed pantomime that swiftly sketched out Billy鈥檚 magnetism; his complex relationship with the carousel owner, Mrs. Mullin; Julie鈥檚 fumbling, intense attraction to Billy; Mrs. Mullin鈥檚 jealousy of Julie; and Billy鈥檚 studied nonchalance toward both of them. In eight minutes, the central dynamic of the plot is laid bare, to the accompaniment of a sweeping set of waltzes by Rodgers. Dick had long felt overtures were wasted on Broadway audiences, with an auditorium full of distracted, rustling latecomers still taking their seats, and was eager to try something new. So the curtain would rise as the first notes of music sounded, and though Rodgers liked to insist that he didn鈥檛 employ the standard songwriter鈥檚 trunk of stored-up tunes that could be plucked at will to suit a new purpose on short notice, in this case he did seize on a bubbling suite of waltzes he had first written more than a decade earlier, for the film Hallelujah, I鈥檓 a Bum.
And just as he had done when adapting Green Grow the Lilacs into Oklahoma!, Oscar hewed closely to the original playwright鈥檚 scheme, while deftly turning spoken dialogue into sung lyrics. By the time of the producers鈥� story conferences in December 1943, Terry Helburn wrote that Hammerstein had regarded the crucial early scene in which Liliom and Julie meet on a park bench and tentatively explore their mutual attraction 鈥渁s almost too beautiful and too tight to tamper with in any way, but he did feel that the curtain with the falling acacias might lend itself to a beautiful number.鈥� This number would become perhaps the greatest 鈥渃onditional love song鈥� of any Broadway score, and once again, Hammerstein found his inspiration directly in Moln谩r鈥檚 words, in which Liliom queries Julie: 鈥淏ut you wouldn鈥檛 marry a rough guy like me鈥攖hat is,鈥攅h鈥攊f you loved me鈥斺�
鈥淵es I would,鈥� Julie replies. 鈥淚f I loved you, Mister Liliom.鈥�
Oscar鈥檚 first stab at a lyric was as halting as the would-be lovers鈥� exchanges:
If I loved you
I would tremble ev鈥檙y time you鈥檇 say my name,
But I鈥檇 long to hear you say it just the same
I dunno jest how I know, but I ken see
How everythin鈥� would be
If I loved you鈥�
If I loved you
I鈥檇 be too a-skeered t鈥檚ay what鈥檚 in my heart
I鈥檇 be too a-skeered to even make a start
And my golden chance to speak would come and go
And you would never know
How I loved you鈥�
If I loved you.
Through his usual painstaking process of condensation, sharpening, and refinement, Hammerstein eventually produced the far more powerful final result:
If I loved you,
Time and again I would try to say
All I鈥檇 want you to know.
If I loved you,
Words wouldn鈥檛 come in an easy way鈥�
Round in circles I鈥檇 go!
Longin鈥� to tell you, but afraid and shy,
I鈥檇 let my golden chances pass me by.
Soon you鈥檇 leave me,
Off you would go in the mist of day,
Never, never to know
How I loved you鈥�
If I loved you.
The scene continues at length, with sung dialogue in the manner of opera鈥攏ot in the typical singsong of recitative, but with a natural conversational tunefulness. Rodgers once boasted that 鈥渨hat Kurt Weill calls recitative, I call melody,鈥� and the claim was not misplaced in the case of 鈥淚f I Loved You.鈥� Stephen Sondheim would call 鈥淭he Bench Scene鈥� 鈥減robably the singular most important moment in the evolution of contemporary musicals鈥� as Billy sings of the lovers鈥� cosmic insignificance:
There鈥檚 a helluva lot o鈥� stars in the sky,
And the sky鈥檚 so big that the sea looks small,
And two little people鈥�
You and I鈥�
We don鈥檛 count at all.
The scene ends as it did in Moln谩r鈥檚 original, with acacia blossoms softly falling. But Hammerstein one-ups Moln谩r鈥檚 suggestion that 鈥渢he wind brings them down鈥� by having Billy point out that there is no wind, and having Julie acknowledge that they are 鈥渏est coming down by theirselves鈥擩est their time to, I reckon.鈥� For better鈥攁nd for worse鈥攊t is Julie and Billy鈥檚 time, too.
The original production would run for 890 performances on Broadway and a national tour of two years. With the war in Europe now ending, and so many American households touched by years of death and loss, Carousel resonated in a darker, more visceral way than Oklahoma! had two years earlier. Now audiences were filled not with soldiers preparing to ship out to war but with veterans returning from the grim rigors of the battlefield. Jan Clayton, the original Julie, would recall that at each performance when Billy rose from the dead, 鈥渋nvariably you heard from the balcony, 鈥極h, Jesus Christ! That鈥檚 too much!鈥欌�
To the end of Rodgers鈥� life, Carousel would remain his favorite score, his favorite show. 鈥淚 think it鈥檚 more emotional,鈥� he would say. 鈥淭he whole subject matter cuts deeper. I feel it has more to say about human relationships. And I also think it鈥檚 the best score we鈥檇 ever written. I have more respect for it. I just like it better.鈥�
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Excerpted from SOMETHING WONDERFUL: Rodgers and Hammerstein's Broadway Revolution by Todd S. Purdum, published by Henry Holt and Company April 3rd 2018. Copyright 漏 2018 by Todd S. Purdum. All rights reserved. Lyrics from "If I Loved You" used by permission of Williamson Music Co., All rights reserved.
