Rodgers & Hammerstein Encore!

OLLI Summer Term 2020 • Alan Teasley, Instructor

Class 5 • The King and I (1951)

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R&H Chronology

1945 State Fair (film)—Class 8* 1951 The King and I—Today 1952 Victory at Sea (TV)* 1953 Me and Juliet—Class 6* 1955 Pipe Dream—Class 6* 1957 Cinderella (TV)—Class 8* 1958 Flower Drum Song—Class 8* 1959 The Sound of Music—June 25

*on class website under Fall 2019 Classes

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Focus on The King & I

• Source material(s) • The musical sounds of Western

and Eastern characters’ songs

• The tragic second couple • The relationship between Anna

and the King

• “The work that perfects [the R&H] revolution” (Mordden)

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The King & I: Sources

• Memoirs of Anna Leonowens (1831-1915): The English Governess at the Siamese Court, 1870, which was . . .

• Fictionalized by Margaret Landon: Anna and the King of Siam, 1944, which was in turn . . .

• Adapted by Talbot Jennings & Sally Benson for the 1946 film (same title), some aspects of which were used in . . .

• Oscar Hammerstein II’s book for The King and I.

Anna Leonowens

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Mordden’s Assessment of K&I as the “Perfection of R&H’s Revolution”

• “[Hammerstein’s book] does center the work’s hatred of slavery, as everyone is now part of the problem [King, Kralahome, Lady Thiang] or on the side of a solution [Anna, Tuptim, Lun Tha, Chulalongkorn].

• “[Anna and the King] must come to grips with the very core of what they cannot abide in each other—her resistance to authority and his egomania. Moreover, this happens only moments after the ‘Shall We Dance?’ scene, in which they have drawn closer to each other than ever before.”

• “Anna and the King are the show: but Tuptim is what the show is about.”

—Ethan Mordden, Rodgers and Hammerstein (Abrams, 1992)

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Mordden’s Assessment of K&I as the “Perfection of R&H’s Revolution”

• “[K&I] might well be the ‘other’ R&H masterpiece, as fulfilled a composition as Carousel, less experimental but more tightly built.

• “Of the Big Five . . . Oklahoma! is the exuberant ground breaker, Carousel the showpiece, Allegro the marvelous failure, and South Pacific the brooding treat, so mournful yet so elated.

• “But The King and I, for all the difficulty R&H had in writing it, is the work that perfects their revolution. Only Carousel is as passionate, and even Carousel’s two leads aren’t as fascinating as Anna and the King.”

—Ethan Mordden, Rodgers and Hammerstein (Abrams, 1992)

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The Rules in Ethan Mordden’s “R&H Handbook”*

1. Develop each story’s community background, culture, mores. 2. Write about people whose lives have meaning. 3. Start uniquely. 4. Anchor the score with character traction. 5. Change your genre from show to show. 6. The second act should last half as long as the first act with

twice as much action. 7. [Don’t have rules.]

*Anything Goes: A History of American Musical Theatre (2013)

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Time to Submit Your “Top 20!”

It’s now time to submit your a list of (at most) 20 Rodgers and Hammerstein songs you would include on your own “Essential R&H” playlist, album, concert, or revue

After Class 5 (today, June 18), I will send you a link to an online survey as a way for you to indicate your chosen songs (Thanks to Susan Dennison!) LINK

Submit your survey by 9 pm on Tuesday, June 23, and I will compile the results to be revealed at the last class on June 25.

If you plan to include any from The Sound of Music . . .

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