| Show Boat | |
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Original 1927 Sheet Music for Ol' Man River, from Show Boat |
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| Music | Jerome Kern |
| Lyrics | Oscar Hammerstein II |
| Book | Oscar Hammerstein II |
| Basis | Edna Ferber's 1926 novel Show Boat |
| Productions | 1927 Broadway 1929 Film 1932 Broadway revival 1936 Film 1946 Broadway revival 1951 Film 1966 Lincoln Center revival 1983 Broadway revival 1994 Broadway revival |
| Awards | Tony Award for Best Revival Olivier Award for Best Revival |
Show Boat is a musical in two acts with music by Jerome Kern and book and lyrics by Oscar Hammerstein II. It was originally produced in New York in 1927 and in London in 1928, and was based on the 1926 novel of the same name by Edna Ferber. The plot chronicles the lives of those living and working on the Cotton Blossom, a Mississippi River show boat, from 1880 to 1927. The show's dominant themes include racial prejudice and tragic, enduring love.
Show Boat is widely considered one of the most influential works of the American musical theatre. As a "musical play", it marked a significant departure from the operettas, light musical comedies and the "Follies"-type musical revues that had defined the Broadway of the 1890s and early 20th century. According to The Complete Book of Light Opera,
"Here we come to a completely new genre – the musical play as distinguished from musical comedy. Now... the play was the thing, and everything else was subservient to that play. Now... came complete integration of song, humor and production numbers into a single and inextricable artistic entity."[1]
The quality of the musical was recognized immediately by the critics. Show Boat is still frequently revived, not only because of its songs, but also because its libretto is considered to be exceptionally good for a musical of its era. At the time, trivial, unrealistic, and silly plots were nearly expected in musical stage productions, just as they were in the later Busby Berkeley "putting-on-a-show" movie musicals, the Astaire-Rogers films, and the Betty Grable Technicolor extravaganzas. Awards for Broadway shows did not exist in 1927 when the original production of the show premiered, nor in 1932, when its first revival was staged, but recent revivals of Show Boat have won both the Tony Award for Best Revival of a Musical (1995) and the Laurence Olivier Award for Best Musical Revival (2008).
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In doing research for her proposed novel Show Boat, Edna Ferber spent several weeks on the James Adams Floating Palace Theater in Bath, North Carolina, gathering material about a disappearing American entertainment venue, the river showboat. In a few weeks, she gained what she called a "treasure trove of show-boat material, human, touching, true." Jerome Kern was impressed by the novel and, hoping to adapt it as a musical, asked the critic Alexander Woollcott to introduce him to Ferber in October 1926. Woollcott introduced them that evening during the intermission of Kern's latest musical, Criss Cross.[2]
Ferber granted Kern and his collaborator Oscar Hammerstein II the rights to set her novel to music. After composing most of the first act songs, Kern and Hammerstein auditioned their material for producer Florenz Ziegfeld, thinking that only he could create the elaborate production necessary for Ferber's sprawling work.[3] Ziegfeld was impressed with the show and agreed to produce it, writing the next day, "This is the best musical comedy I have ever been fortunate to get a hold of; I am thrilled to produce it, this show is the opportunity of my life..."[3]Show Boat, with its serious and dramatic nature, was considered an unusual choice for Ziegfeld, previously known mainly for revues such as the Ziegfeld Follies.
Though Ziegfeld anticipated opening his new theatre on Sixth Avenue with Show Boat, the epic nature of the work required an unusually long gestation period and extensive changes during out-of-town tryouts. Impatient with Kern and Hammerstein and worried about their keeping a serious tone, Ziegfeld decided to open his theatre in February 1927 with Rio Rita, a musical by Kern's collaborator Guy Bolton. When Rio Rita proved to be a success, Show Boat's Broadway opening was delayed until Rita could be moved to another theater.[4]
Note: There is no definitive version of the libretto of Show Boat, although the basic plot has always remained the same; minor revisions have been made by the creators, and subsequent producers and directors over the years.
In 1887, the show boat Cotton Blossom arrives at the river dock in Natchez, Mississippi. Its owner Cap'n Andy Hawks introduces his actors to the crowd on the levee. A fist fight breaks out between Steve Baker, the leading man of the troupe, and Pete, a rough engineer who had been making passes at Steve's wife, the leading lady Julie La Verne. Steve knocks Pete down, and Pete swears revenge, suggesting he knows a dark secret about Julie. Cap'n Andy pretends to the shocked crowd that the fight was a preview of one of the melodramas to be performed. The troupe exits with the showboat band.
A handsome riverboat gambler, Gaylord Ravenal, appears on the levee and is taken with eighteen-year-old Magnolia ("Nolie") Hawks, an aspiring performer and the daughter of Cap'n Andy and his wife Parthy Ann. Magnolia is likewise smitten with Ravenal (Make Believe). She seeks advice from Joe, a black dock worker aboard the boat. He replies that there are "lots like [Ravenal] on the river" and, as Magnolia excitedly goes inside the boat to tell her friend Julie about the handsome stranger, Joe mutters that she ought to ask the river for advice. He and the other dock workers reflect on the wisdom and indifference of Ol' Man River, who, no matter what, "jes' keeps rollin' along".
Magnolia finds Julie inside and announces that she's in love. Julie cautions her that this stranger could be just a "no-account river fellow." Magnolia innocently retorts that if she found out he was "no-account," she'd stop loving him. Julie warns her that it's not that easy to stop loving someone, explaining that she'll always love Steve (Can't Help Lovin' Dat Man). Queenie walks in and asks why Julie knows that song; Queenie says she has only heard "colored folks" sing that song. Magnolia says that Julie sings it all the time, and when Queenie asks if she can sing the entire song, Julie obliges.
During the rehearsal for that evening, Julie and Steve learn that the town sheriff is coming to arrest them. Steve takes out a large pocket knife and makes a cut on the back of her hand, sucking the blood and swallowing it. Pete returns with the sheriff, who insists that the show not go on, because Julie is a mulatto woman married to a white man, and local laws prohibit miscegenation. Julie admits that she is a mulatto, or mixed race person. Though he is white, Steve, because he swallowed Julie's blood (and therefore has at least "one drop of black blood"), claims he also has "black blood" in him. The troupe backs him up, boosted by the ship's pilot Windy McClain, a longtime friend of the sheriff. The sheriff lets the couple go, but they prepare to leave town because blacks are not allowed to act onstage. Cap'n Andy fires Pete for his actions. Gaylord Ravenal returns and asks for passage on the boat. Andy hires him as the new leading man, and assigns his daughter Magnolia as the new leading lady, over her mother's objections. Julie leaves with Steve. As Magnolia and Ravenal begin to rehearse their roles and in the process, kiss for the first time (infuriating Parthy), Joe reprises the last few lines of Ol' Man River.
Weeks later, Magnolia and Ravenal have been a hit with the crowds and have fallen in love. He proposes to Magnolia, and she accepts. (You Are Love) The two become engaged and make plans to marry the next day while Parthy, who disapproves of him, is out of town. Parthy has discovered that Ravenal once killed a man. She arrives with the Sheriff at the wedding festivities, but the Sheriff says that Ravenal was acquitted. Cap'n Andy calls Parthy "narrow-minded" and defends Ravenal by announcing that he also killed a man. Parthy faints, and the wedding party proceeds with the ceremony.
Six years have passed, and it is 1893. Gaylord and Magnolia have moved to Chicago, where they make a precarious living from Gaylord's gambling. At first they are rich and enjoying the good life (Why Do I Love You?). By 1903, they have a daughter, Kim, and after years of varying income, they are broke and rent a room in a boarding house. Depressed over his inability to support his family, Gaylord leaves Magnolia. Frank and Ellie, two actors on the boat looking for a place to live, discover that Magnolia is living in the rooms they want to rent. The old friends seek a singing job for Magnolia at the Trocadero, the club where they are doing a New Year's show. Julie is working there, but has fallen into drinking after having been abandoned by Steve. At a rehearsal, she tries out the new song Bill, and while singing it, she is obviously thinking of her husband and performs the song with great emotion. From her dressing room, she hears Magnolia singing Can't Help Lovin' Dat Man for her audition, the song Julie taught her years ago. Julie secretly leaves her role so that Magnolia can fill it without learning of her sacrifice.
On New Year's Eve, Andy and Parthy go to Chicago for a surprise visit to Magnolia. He goes to the Trocadero without his wife, and sees Magnolia overcome with emotion and nearly booed off stage. Andy rallies the crowd by starting a sing-along of the standard, After the Ball. Magnolia becomes a great musical star.
It is now 1927. An aged Joe on the Cotton Blossom sings a reprise of Ol' Man River. Cap'n Andy has a chance meeting with Ravenal and arranges a reunion with Magnolia. Andy knows she is retiring and returning to the Cotton Blossom with Kim, who has become a Broadway star. Kim gives her admirers a taste of her performing abilities by singing an updated, Charleston version of Why Do I Love You?. Ravenal sings a reprise of You Are Love to the offstage Magnolia. Although uncertain about asking her to take him back, Magnolia, who has never stopped loving him, greets him warmly and does. As the happy couple walks up the boat's gangplank, Joe and the cast sing the last verse of Ol' Man River.
The musical numbers in the original production were as follows:
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The original production ran four-and-a-half hours during tryouts, but was trimmed to just over three by the time it got to Broadway. During previews, two songs, "Mis'ry's Comin' Round" and "Let's Start the New Year", were cut from the show. "Mis'ry's Comin' Round" was nevertheless published in the complete vocal score,[2] and fragments of it are still heard in the scoring, notably in the original 1927 overture and in the miscegenation scene. The 1988 album reinstated the entire song, and it was also included in the 1994 Hal Prince revival. "Let's Start the New Year" was performed in the 1989 Paper Mill Playhouse production.[5]
The show is generally cut in modern productions, although productions still run to nearly three hours. Two songs, "Till Good Luck Comes My Way" (sung by Ravenal) and "Hey Feller!" (sung by Queenie) were written mainly to cover scenery changes and were discarded beginning with the 1946 revival, although "Till Good Luck" was included in the 1993 Harold Prince revival of the show. The comedy song "I Might Fall Back On You" was also cut beginning in 1946, although it was restored in the 1951 film version and several stage productions since the 1980s. On record, "Hey Feller!" appears only on the 1988 EMI album. Kern and Hammerstein wrote two new songs for revivals and three more for the 1936 film version.
The score also includes four songs not originally written for Show Boat: "Bill" was originally written by Kern and P. G. Wodehouse in 1917 and was reworked by Hammerstein for Show Boat. Two other songs not by Kern and Hammerstein, "Goodbye, My Lady Love" by Joseph E. Howard and "After the Ball" by Charles K. Harris, were included by the authors for historical atmosphere and are included in revivals.[6] The New Year's Eve scene also features an instrumental version of There'll Be a Hot Time in the Old Town Tonight.
The Harold Fielding production in London in the early 1970s used the entire score--all the songs ever written for the show, including Ravenal's first act solo "I Have the Room Above Her," "Dancing in the 20s," Frank and Ellie's "How'd You Like to Spoon with Me?" and others--all of which were recorded in two separate sessions. The first, a two-disc set, starred Cleo Laine as Julie. When she was replaced by Shirley Bassey, a one-disc version was released with Bassey covering Julie's songs.
Some of the following numbers have been cut from subsequent productions, as noted below: (The songs Ol' Man River, Can't Help Lovin' Dat Man, and Bill have been included in every stage and film production of Show Boat)
Additional numbers have been included in films and revivals as follows:
Before the New York premiere of Show Boat, Ziegfeld previewed the production in a pre-Broadway tour from November 15 to December 19, 1927. The locations included the National Theatre in Washington, D.C., the Nixon Theatre in Pittsburgh, the Ohio Theatre in Cleveland, and the Erlanger Theatre in Philadelphia.[11][12] The show opened on Broadway at the Ziegfeld Theatre on December 27, 1927. The critics were immediately enthusiastic, and the show was a great popular success, running a year and a half, for a total of 572 performances.
The production was staged by Oscar Hammerstein II.[13] Choreography for the show was by Sammy Lee. The original cast included Norma Terris as Magnolia Hawks and her daughter Kim (as an adult), Howard Marsh as Gaylord Ravenal, Helen Morgan as Julie LaVerne, Jules Bledsoe as Joe, Charles Winninger as Cap'n Andy Hawks, Edna May Oliver as Parthy Ann Hawks, Sammy White as Frank Schultz, Eva Puck as Ellie May Chipley, and Tess Gardella as Queenie. The orchestrator was Robert Russell Bennett, and the conductor was Victor Baravalle. The scenic design for the original production was by Joseph Urban, who had worked with Ziegfeld for many years in his Follies and had designed the elaborate new Ziegfeld Theatre itself. Costumes were designed by John Harkrider.[14]
In his opening night review for the New York Times, Brooks Atkinson called the book's adaptation "intelligently made", and the production one of "unimpeachable skill and taste." He termed Norma Terris "a revelation"; Charles Winninger "extraordinarily persuasive and convincing"; and Jules Bledsoe's singing "remarkably effective".[15]
The character Joe, the stevedore who sings "Ol' Man River", was expanded from the novel and written specifically by Kern for Paul Robeson, already a noted actor and singer. Although he is the actor most identified with the role and the song, he was unavailable for the original production due to its opening delay. Jules Bledsoe premiered the part. Robeson played Joe in four notable productions of Show Boat: the 1928 premier London production; the 1932 Broadway revival; the 1936 film version; and a 1940 stage revival in Los Angeles.
Reviewing the 1932 Broadway revival, the critic Brooks Atkinson described Robeson's performance: "Mr. Robeson has a touch of genius. It is not merely his voice, which is one of the richest organs on the stage. It is his understanding that gives 'Old Man River' an epic lift. When he sings...you realize that Jerome Kern's spiritual has reached its final expression."[16]
After closing at the Ziegfeld Theatre in 1929, the original production toured extensively. The national company is notable for including Irene Dunne as Magnolia. Hattie McDaniel played Queenie in a 1933 West Coast production, joined by tenor Allan Jones as Ravenal.
Dunne was soon offered a contract by RKO and appeared in the 1936 Universal Studios film adaptation, as did Jones as Ravenal. It featured Charles Winninger (Cap'n Andy), Helen Morgan (Julie), Sammy White (Frank), and Francis X. Mahoney (Rubberface) repeating their original Broadway stage roles, with Hattie McDaniel joining them as Queenie.
Show Boat was revived by Ziegfeld on Broadway in 1932 at the Casino Theatre with most of the original cast, but with Paul Robeson as Joe[17] and Dennis King as Ravenal. Further Broadway revivals were produced in 1946 (a return to the Ziegfeld Theatre); in 1948 and 1954 at New York City Center; and in 1983 at the Uris Theatre (presented by Douglas Urbanski).[18] Other American productions include one in 1966 at the New York State Theater by the Music Theater of Lincoln Center company, and one in 1983 at the Kennedy Center, Washington, D.C., starring Mickey Rooney as Cap'n Andy.
In 1989 the Paper Mill Playhouse of Millburn, New Jersey mounted an important revival that tried to recapture Show Boat's creators' original intentions. Described in the New York Times as coming "close to being a full visual realization of the piece as it was meant to be seen", the production restored numbers discarded from the show in the previous decades. It was directed by Robert Johanson and starred Eddie Bracken as Cap'n Andy. The Paper Mill production was preserved on videotape and broadcast on PBS.[9]
Livent Inc. presented the most recent major production of Show Boat on Broadway in 1994. Produced and directed by Harold Prince, it premiered in Toronto, Ontario in 1993 prior to opening in New York on October 2, 1994 at the George Gershwin Theatre. It ran for 947 performances, Broadway's longest-running Show Boat to date.[19] This production went on tour, playing at the Kennedy Center; and it was also staged in London and Melbourne, Australia. Prince's production revived interest in the show by tightening the book, dropping and adding songs cut in various productions, and highlighting its racial elements. Perhaps the most notable change in the score was Prince's transforming "Why Do I Love You?" from a duet between Magnolia and Ravenal to a lullaby sung by Parthy Ann to Magnolia's baby girl. The change was partly to accommodate the song's being performed by stage actress Elaine Stritch. The love duet for Magnolia and Ravenal "I Have the Room Above Her", originally written by Kern and Hammerstein for the 1936 film, was added to the production. Two new mime and dance "Montages" in Act 2 depicted the passage of time through changing styles of dance and music.
Show Boat has been seen on multiple occasions in London's West End. The original London production opened May 3, 1928 at the Drury Lane Theatre and featured among the cast, Edith Day as Magnolia,[20] Paul Robeson as Joe, and Alberta Hunter as Queenie. Mabel Mercer, later famed as a cabaret singer, was in the chorus. Other West End presentations include a July 1971 production at the Adelphi Theatre, which ran for 909 performances,[12][21] and a 1998 production at the Prince Edward Theatre. Other notable revivals in England have been the joint Opera North/Royal Shakespeare Company production of 1989[11] and the June 2006 production directed by Francesca Zambello, conducted by David Charles Abell and presented by Raymond Gubbay at London's Royal Albert Hall – the first fully staged musical production in the history of that venue.
Show Boat has been adapted for film several times, and for television once.
Show Boat was adapted for live radio at least seven times. Due to network censorship rules many of the radio productions eliminated the miscegenation aspect of the plot. A notable exception was the 1940 Cavalcade of America broadcast.[22]
There have been many other studio cast recordings of Show Boat in addition to those mentioned above. The soundtrack of the 1936 film version has appeared on a so-called "bootleg" CD label called Xeno.
Show Boat boldly portrayed racial issues, and was the first racially integrated musical, in that both black and white performers appeared and sang on stage together.[28] Ziegfeld’s Follies allowed solo African American performers like Bert Williams, but would never have had a black woman in the chorus. Show Boat had two choruses — a black chorus and a white chorus, and one commentator noted that "Hammerstein uses the African-American chorus as essentially a Greek chorus, providing clear commentary on the proceedings, whereas the white choruses sing of the not-quite-real."[29]
Show Boat was the first Broadway musical to seriously depict an interracial marriage, as in Edna Ferber's original novel, and to feature a character of mixed race who was "passing" for white. The musical comedy Whoopee!, starring Eddie Cantor, supposedly depicted a romance between a Native American man and a white woman. In Whoopee!, however, the Native American character turns out to be white.
The show has been the frequent object of controversy, primarily because of the use of the word niggers in the lyrics (in fact it is the very first word in the opening chorus of the show), and also the historical portrayal of blacks serving as passive laborers and servants. The show originally opened with the black chorus onstage singing:
In subsequent productions, "niggers" has been changed to "colored folk," to "darkies" and in one choice, "Here we all," as in "Here we all work on the Mississippi. Here we all work while the white folk play." In the 1966 Lincoln Center production of the show, produced during the height of the Civil Rights struggle, this section of the opening chorus was completely omitted rather than simply having the lyric changed. The 1988 CD for EMI restored the original lyric, while the Harold Prince revival chose "colored folk".
Others believe that Kern and Hammerstein wrote the song to give a sympathetic voice to an oppressed people, and that they used the word in an ironic way, when it was so often used in a derogatory way; they were dramatically alerting the audience to the realities of racism:
'Show Boat begins with the singing of that most reprehensible word – nigger – yet this is no coon song... [it] immediately establishes race as one of the central themes of the play. This is a protest song, more ironic than angry perhaps, but a protest nonetheless. In the singers' hands, the word nigger has a sardonic tone... in the very opening, Hammerstein has established the gulf between the races, the privilege accorded the white folks and denied the black, and a flavor of the contempt built into the very language that whites used about African-Americans. This is a very effective scene.... These are not caricature roles; they are wise, if uneducated, people capable of seeing and feeling more than some of the white folk around them.[29]
The racial situations in the play provoke thoughts of how hard it must have been to be black in the South. In the dialogue, some of the blacks are called "niggers" by the white characters in the story. (Contrary to what is sometimes thought, black slavery is not depicted in the play; U.S. slavery was abolished by 1865, and the story runs from the 1880s to the late 1920s.) At first, it is shocking to believe they are allowed to use a word that negative at all in a play... But in the context in which it is used, it is appropriate due to the impact it makes. It reinforces how much of a derogatory term "nigger" was then and still is today.[31]
The word has never been used in film versions of the musical. In the show, the Sheriff refers to Steve and Julie as having "nigger blood", while in the 1936 and 1951 film versions, this was changed to "Negro blood". Likewise, the unsympathetic Pete calls Queenie a "nigger" in the stage version, but refers to her as "colored" in the 1936 film, and does not use either word in the 1951 film.
Those who consider Show Boat racially insensitive often note that the dialogue and lyrics of the black characters (especially the stevedore Joe and his wife Queenie) and choruses use various forms of African American Vernacular English. An example of this is shown in the following text:
Whether or not such language is an accurate reflection of the vernacular of blacks in Mississippi at the time, the effect of its usage has offended critics who see it as perpetuating racial stereotypes.[32] The character Queenie (who sings the above verses) was in the original production played not by an African American but rather by the Italian-American actress Tess Gardella in blackface (Gardella was perhaps best known for portraying Aunt Jemima in blackface).[33] Attempts by non-black writers to imitate black language stereotypically in songs like "Ol' Man River" was alleged to be offensive, a claim that was repeated eight years later by critics of Porgy and Bess.[34] However, even these critics sometimes admit that the intentions of Hammerstein were noble, since "Ol' Man River"' was the song in which he first found his lyrical voice, compressing the suffering, resignation, and anger of an entire race into 24 taut lines and doing it so naturally that it's no wonder folks assume the song's a Negro spiritual."[35]
The theatre critics and veterans Richard Eyre and Nicholas Wright believe that Show Boat was revolutionary, not only because it was a radical departure from the previous style of plotless revues, but because it was a show written by non-blacks that portrayed blacks sympathetically rather than condescendingly:
Instead of a line of chorus girls showing their legs in the opening number singing that they were happy, happy, happy, the curtain rose on black dock-hands lifting bales of cotton, and singing about the hardness of their lives. Here was a musical that showed poverty, suffering, bitterness, racial prejudice, a sexual relationship between black and white, a love story which ended unhappily — and of course show business. In "Ol' Man River" the black race was given an anthem to honor its misery that had the authority of an authentic spiritual.[36]
Since the musical's 1927 premiere, Show Boat has both been condemned as a prejudiced show based on racial caricatures and championed as a breakthrough work that opened the door for public discourse in the arts about racism in America. Some productions (including one planned for June 2002 in Connecticut) have been cancelled because of objections.[37]
Such cancellations have been criticised by supporters of the arts. After planned performances by an opera company in Middlesbrough, England were "stopped because [they] would be 'distasteful' to ethnic minorities", a local newspaper declared that the actions were "surely taking political correctness too far".[38] A British theatre writer was concerned that "the kind of censorship we've been talking about — for censorship it is — actually militates against a truly integrated society, for it emphasises differences. It puts a wall around groups within society, dividing people by creating metaphorical ghettos, and prevents mutual understanding."[38] Specifically, the cancellation was based on protests of plans to have all the black roles to be played in this production by white actors in blackface, as apparently no black actors had been hired.[39]
As attitudes toward race relations have changed, producers and directors have altered some content to make the musical more "politically correct": "Show Boat, more than many musicals, was subject to cuts and revisions within a handful of years after its first performance, all of which altered the dramatic balance of the play."[29]
The 1993 Hal Prince revival, originating in Toronto, brought racial matters into focus. Throughout the production, African Americans constantly cleaned up the mess, moved the sets (even when hydraulics actually moved them), with their presence constantly commenting on the racial disparities.[40] After a New Year's Eve ball, all the streamers fell on the floor and African Americans immediately began sweeping them away. A montage in the second act showed time passing: it had the revolving door of the Palmer House in Chicago, with newspaper headlines being shown in quick succession, and snippets of slow motion to highlight a specific moment, accompanied by brief snippets of Ol' Man River. African-American dancers were seen performing a specific dance, and this would change to a scene showing white dancers performing "the same dance. This was meant to illustrate how white performers "appropriated" the music and dancing styles of African Americans. Earlier productions of Show Boat, even the 1927 stage original and the 1936 film version, did not go this far in social commentary.
During the production in Toronto, many black community leaders and their supporters launched widespread opposition and protests to the show, often using "black hecklers shouting insults and waving placards reading SHOW BOAT SPREADS LIES AND HATE and SHOW BOAT = CULTURAL GENOCIDE" in front of the theatre.[41] Some sympathetic to the protesters thought it was ironic that a supposedly anti-black show was receiving attention and support, while the black community in Toronto was facing economic and social problems. A journalist said,
[the] conclusion that the protest was "misguided" reveals [the] total lack of understanding of the social and political cleavages in North York. It suggests that those blacks protesting Show Boat are wasting their time, when they should be engaged in more pressing struggles for equality in education, employment and housing. The fact is these people are working toward those goals every day. The protesters are trustees, teachers, lawyers, social service workers, and, dare I say it, leaders in their community.[42]
While Hal Prince's production of Show Boat met criticism in Toronto, various theatre critics in New York felt that Prince highlighted racial inequality in his production as a means of showing its injustice, as well as to show the historical suffering of blacks. A critic noted that he included "an absolutely beautiful piece of music cut from the original production and from the movie ["Mis'ry's Comin' Round"]... a haunting gospel melody sung by the black chorus. The addition of this number is so successful because it salutes the dignity and the pure talent of the black workers and allows them to shine for a brief moment on the center stage of the showboat".[40]
Many commentators, both black and non-black, view the show as an outdated and stereotypical commentary on race relations that portrays blacks in a negative or inferior position. Douglass K. Daniel of Kansas State University has commented that it is a "racially flawed story",[43] and the African-Canadian writer M. Nourbese Philip claims
The affront at the heart of Show Boat is still very alive today. It begins with the book and its negative and one-dimensional images of Black people, and continues on through the colossal and deliberate omission of the Black experience, including the pain of a people traumatized by four centuries of attempted genocide and exploitation. Not to mention the appropriation of Black music for the profit of the very people who oppressed Blacks and Africans. All this continues to offend deeply. The ol' man river of racism continues to run through the history of these productions and is very much part of this (Toronto) production. It is part of the overwhelming need of white Americans and white Canadians to convince themselves of our inferiority – that our demands don't represent a challenge to them, their privilege and their superiority.[32]
On the other hand, supporters of the musical believe that the depictions of racism should be regarded not as stereotyping blacks but rather satirizing the common national attitudes that both held those stereotypes and reinforced them through discrimination. In other words, just as quoting an out-of-context line from a play and claiming that it is the view of the playwright is absurd and deceptive, the fact that a dramatic or literary work portrays racist attitudes and institutions does not mean that it endorses them – in the words of The New Yorker theatre critic John Lahr, "describing racism doesn't make Show Boat racist. The production is meticulous in honoring the influence of black culture not just in the making of the nation's wealth but, through music, in the making of its modern spirit."[44]
Broadway writers have long used the musical as a medium to call for tolerance and racial harmony, as in Finian's Rainbow and (by Hammerstein) in South Pacific. Those who attempt to understand works like Show Boat and Porgy and Bess through the eyes of their creators usually consider that the show "was a statement AGAINST racism. That was the point of Edna Ferber's novel. That was the point of the show. That's how Oscar wrote it.... I think this is about as far from racism as you can get."[45] Perhaps the strongest argument in defense of Show Boat lies in an understanding of the socially concerned intentions, aims, and backgrounds of its authors. According to Rabbi Alan Berg, Kern and Hammerstein's score to Show Boat is "a tremendous expression of the ethics of tolerance and compassion."[46] As Harold Prince (not Kern, to whom the quote has been mistakenly attributed) states in the original production notes to his 1993 production of the show:
Throughout pre-production and rehearsal, I was committed to eliminate any inadvertent stereotype in the original material, dialogue which may seem "Uncle Tom" today... However, I was determined not to rewrite history. The fact that during the 45-year period depicted in our musical there were lynchings, imprisonment, and forced labor of the blacks in the United States is irrefutable. Indeed, the United States still cannot hold its head high with regard to racism.
Oscar Hammerstein's commitment to idealizing and encouraging tolerance theatrically started with his libretto to Show Boat. It can be seen in his later works, many of which were set to music by Richard Rodgers.[47] Carmen Jones is an attempt to present a modern version of the classic French opera through the experiences of African Americans during wartime, and South Pacific explores interracial marriage and prejudice. Finally, The King and I deals with different cultures' preconceived notions regarding each other and the possibility for cultural inclusiveness in societies.
Regarding the original author of Show Boat, Ann Shapiro states that
Edna Ferber was taunted for being Jewish; as a young woman eager to launch her career as a journalist, she was told that the Chicago Tribune did not hire women reporters. Despite her experience of antisemitism and sexism, she idealized America, creating in her novels an American myth where strong women and downtrodden men of any race prevail... [Show Boat] create[s] visions of racial harmony... in a fictional world that purported to be America but was more illusion than reality. Characters in Ferber's novels achieve assimilation and acceptance that was periodically denied Ferber herself throughout her life.[48]
Whether or not the show is racist, many contend that productions of it should continue as it serves as a history lesson of American race relations. According to African-American opera singer Phillip Lamar Boykin, who played the role of Joe in a 2000 tour,
"Whenever a show deals with race issues, it gives the audience sweaty palms. I agree with putting it on the stage and making the audience think about it. We see where we came from so we don't repeat it, though we still have a long way to go. A lot of history would disappear if the show was put away forever. An artist must be true to an era. I'm happy with it."[49]
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