"Thanks for your review. I hesitate to comment as I didn't actually get to see The Scottsboro Boys, although I have done quite a bit of research on the show. But, caveat aside, I do have one quibble with your very interesting comparison with The Book of Mormon (which I have seen). If that show is, at times, 'surprisingly conservative', that's not necessarily an attempt to appease Middle America (given the content, I can't imagine that it's really a Middle America kind of a show). Rather it's that Mormon is an equal opportunites offender, happy to satirise everyone and everything. The Scottsboro Boys, on the other hand, seems to be satirising one thing - Southern racism - and then implicating everyone, i.e. the audience, in exactly the same kind of racism. So the satire is working in different ways (although, you're absolutely right, Mormon is more juvenile than Juvenalian). But, it seems to me, both shows are genuinely challenging. Just because one has been commercially successful, that doesn't make it any less so. To put it another way, which is more likely to garner compassion from a liberal Broadway audience? A poor black victim of Southern injustice or a Mormon? As I said, I'm speaking from semi-ignorance, so could well be off the mark. Still, yours is the most interesting review of The Scottsboro Boys that I've read. So thanks again and keep up the good work."
Some further thoughts.
I've talked a bit about concept musicals before (here and here). In fact, they probably shouldn't be called concept musicals but they usually are so I'll stick with the label for now. One of the limitations of the form, I think, is the fact that the basic concept is always the same. That is, the story is "framed" as an entertainment.
What is interesting is that in the most successful shows that use this device, the framing entertainment is also part of the story. But they are not the whole story. Let's see how this works for Kander and Ebb shows.
In Cabaret, Sally Bowles is a cabaret singer. But the show isn't just about cabaret. It's also about how showbiz can, at first, hide people from ("Leave your troubles outside") and, ultimately, seduce people into accepting ("If you could see her through my eyes...she wouldn't look Jewish at all") an ugly political reality
In Chicago, both leads are wannabe vaudeville stars. But it's not just about vaudeville. It's also about how showbiz can corrupt both the media and the justice system. (Also, according to the costume design, it appears to be about underwear.)
In my previous post I had a niggle about another concept show (not a Kander and Ebb one) Catch Me If You Can, in which the story is framed as a sixties television special. But sixties television has nothing to do with the actual story which is about a serial forger and deceiver. All we have is a loose parallel between the "fakeness" of the conman and the "fakeness" of a television entertainment.
I wonder if the same is true of The Scottsboro Boys, which is about the unjust trial of a group of black men and framed as a traditional minstrel show (including racial stereotyping blacks). But minstrelsy has nothing directly to do with the actual story (as far as I'm aware - again, I'm speaking from semi-ignorance, so happy to be corrected). Instead what we get is a loose parallel between the racism of minstrel shows and the racism of the Southern justice system.
Now, at this point, it's worth making a distinction. I remember the great Broadway producer/director Hal Prince being interviewed one time and saying that it wasn't until late on in his career that he really began to appreciate the distinction between a hit show and a successful show. As I recall, it was around the time that he stopped having hits.
So we should make this distinction: Cabaret and Chicago were hits, The Scottsboro Boys was a success. So this is not to diss The Scottsboro Boys, merely to distinguish it. But it seems that, when it comes to concept musicals (Kander and Ebb ones, at least), audiences prefer that the framing device used to tell the story should also be part of the story. Perhaps this is because it makes it easier for the audience to accept the framing device.
One further further thought.
The framing device of The Scottsboro Boys is a minstrel show and the songs and, as I understand it, the choreography and staging recreate much of the styles and tropes of a traditional minstrel show. Except for one: blackface. Indeed the blacking up of performers (both white and black) is arguably the defining feature of minstrel shows.
Would this have worked? Would it have just been too shocking? Frankly, would it even be legal?
I refer back to Civilian Theatre's excellent review:
"Kander and Ebb are well aware of the power of humour to shock and use jokes like verbal hand grenades; the audience often confronted with the sight of two black men forced into playing the archetypal ‘uncle Tom’ roles for their entertainment and internally reconcile the fact that they have laughed at their ‘antics’. This is comedy operating at the very edge of tragedy, and it is all the more powerful for it."
If the premise is to implicate the audience by getting them to laugh along with the antics of a racist minstrel show, then do we really need to see a racist minstrel show?
I don't know. I imagine that, even if the creators had attempted to use blackface, the controversy around such a show, assuming such a show could get staged in the first place would have distracted entirely from the show itself. To be honest, I feel a bit weird even mooting the idea. Such are modern sensitivities.
The Scottsboro Boys throws up a lot of questions. The answers are never black and white.
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