Jamaica (musical)
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Jamaica, with music by Harold Arlen and lyrics by Yip Harburg was a musical that opened on October 31 1957, and starred Lena Horne, Ricardo Montalbán and Adelaide Hall. Harburg was at the time blacklisted in Hollywood, and the lyrics are particularly bitter and cynical (as well as very funny).
Arlen's music cleverly parodies the popular, "commercial" form of Calypso music, which had a considerable worldwide vogue at the time - largely as a result of the popularity of Harry Belafonte. Mr. Belafonte was actually sought (unsuccessfully) by the producers to star in this musical.
The plot is almost non-existent, and is largely a coathanger for the songs, but the show was nominated for several Tony awards, and ran for 555 performances, a very respectable run indeed by fifties standards.
After it finally closed it quickly became dated; as the fashion for Belafonte style Calypso faded. Many of the "topical" questions raised in the songs (evolution, nuclear energy, consumerism) remain quite current.
