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Show Boat (novel)
Encyclopedia
Show Boat is a 1926 novel by American author and dramatist Edna Ferber
. It chronicles the lives of three generations of performers on the Cotton Blossom, a floating theater that travels between small towns on the banks of the Mississippi, from the 1880s to the 1920s. The story moves from the Reconstruction-Era river boat to Gilded-Age Chicago to Roaring-Twenties New York, and finally returns to the Mississippi, the river that has flowed throughout the novel with implacable indifference to the petty concerns of mere humans. Show Boat was adapted as a Broadway musical
in 1927 by Jerome Kern
and Oscar Hammerstein II
. Three films followed: a 1929 version that depended partly on the musical, and two full adaptations of the musical in 1936 and 1951.
the opening performance of her play Minick
was disrupted by an invasion of bats that had been nesting undetected in the chandeliers and dome of the playhouse. Alarmed theatergoers scurried for the exits. As the crew recovered from this debacle, Winthrop Ames, the show's producer, jokingly remarked "Next time... we won't bother with tryouts. We'll all charter a show boat and we'll just drift down the rivers, playing the towns as we come to them."
Show boats were floating theaters that traveled along the major rivers of the United States from the 1870s to the 1930s. The performers lived aboard the vessels. With song, dance, and dramatic productions, show boats provided entertainment for small riverside towns that were otherwise quite isolated. Ferber, who had never heard of show boats, was immediately intrigued.
In the spring of 1925, Ferber traveled to Bath, North Carolina
and spent four days aboard one of the few remaining show boats in the country, the
James Addams Floating Theatre, which plied the Pamlico River
and Great Dismal Swamp
Canal.
The material she gathered, especially the reminiscences of Charles Hunter, the director and chief actor, provided her with "a treasure-trove of show-boat material, human, touching, true."
Ferber spent the next year in France and New York writing the novel, and published it in the summer of 1926.
The mix of romance, realistic depiction of racial issues, and nostalgia for a vanishing American past was an immediate hit with a still war-weary American public, and the novel was number one on the bestseller lists for twelve weeks. The critical reception was more cautious but still positive. In his New York Times review, Louis Kronenberger wrote:
By the time the James Addams Floating Theatre was destroyed by fire in 1941, the era of show boats had ended, supplanted by the motion picture theater.
and her husband Steve Baker, and Ellie Chipley and her husband, affectionately known as "Schultzy". Other members of the crew are Pete, the engineer of the towboat Mollie Able, which propels the show boat; Frank the utility man, and Windy McClain, the pilot.
Steve and Julie are close, and Julie becomes Magnolia's best friend, showing motherly affection toward her. For a time, all is well, but soon Pete begins making unwanted advances toward Julie. He gets into a fist fight with Steve, is soundly beaten, and swears revenge. He suggests knowing some dark secret concerning Julie. When the troupe arrives at Lemoyne, Mississippi, Pete steals Julie's picture from the box office and takes it to the local sheriff. Julie claims she does not feel well enough to perform, and Parthy observes that Julie fell sick the year before in the same town. When they hear what Pete has done, Steve takes out a pocket knife, makes a cut on Julie's hand, and sucks blood from it.
The sheriff arrives and announces that there is a miscegenation
case on board: since Julie is black and Steve is white, their marriage is illegal. Julie admits that she is half-black. Ellie, who has been very close to Julie, becomes upset at the revelation and denounces her friend. Steve says he has "negro blood" in him, and the rest of the company backs him up. The sheriff, not realizing that Steve's claim is based only on his having sucked some blood from Julie's hand (this refers to social conventions classifying as black anyone with known African ancestry), believes he cannot arrest the couple and leaves. (Miscegenation, or marriage between races was illegal at the time). He tells Steve and Julie to leave the boat, which they do, after Julie sorrowfully says goodbye to the girl Magnolia.
Years later we return to the boat, where Magnolia is now eighteen and the newest leading lady. She has no leading man. After Gaylord Ravenal
, a handsome riverboat gambler, is hired, he and Magnolia promptly fall in love and elope.
Months later, Magnolia has had a baby daughter, whom she names Kim (because she was born at the moment when the Cotton Blossom was at the convergence on the Mississippi of the states of Kentucky
, Illinois
and Missouri
). Shortly after, Captain Andy falls overboard during a storm and drowns. Rather than live with the stern Parthy, Magnolia and Ravenal leave for Chicago
with Kim. In the big city, the couple is alternately rich and poor, depending on Ravenal's gambling winnings (he does not try to find regular work, and cheats on Magnolia with prostitutes). Finally, after about ten years, Parthy announces she is coming to visit; the destitute Ravenal, desperate for money, borrows some from Hetty Chilson, the local whorehouse madam
. He returns to Magnolia at their boarding house but is drunk. As he sleeps off his stupor, she returns the money to Hetty, and discovers the madam's secretary is Julie Dozier. Julie is devastated that Magnolia has found her working in the whorehouse. (The fate of Steve goes unmentioned in the novel.)
When Magnolia returns to the boarding house, she finds Ravenal gone, leaving nothing but a farewell note. She never sees him again. She goes out to get work and is hired at a local nightclub called Joppers.
The story moves forward to 1926, when show boats are becoming scarce on the Mississippi River. Kim has married and become a successful actress on Broadway
in New York City
. Her father Ravenal has been dead for several years. One night, Magnolia receives a telegram announcing the death of her mother Parthy, from whom she has been long estranged. She returns to the show boat, which she decides to keep and manage, rather than to scrap. She gives all of her inheritance from Parthy, a fortune, to her daughter Kim. Joining Magnolia is Ellie, a widow since her husband Schultzy has died.
, the noted New York Times theatre critic, proclaimed the musical adaptation as being "positively slavish" to the novel, Hammerstein made several changes in adapting it to the musical stage. All may have been made to make the then-unusually serious plot palatable to a 1927 Broadway musical audience. (For instance, none of the characters die in the musical, Magnolia and Ravenal are reconciled and reunited at the end, and Ellie, who is not Julie's best friend as in the book, does not become hysterical when Julie's mixed racial heritage is revealed.) The novel's treatment of racism
and its effects on the story's characters is largely retained in the musical, and perhaps strengthened by the show's most famous song, Ol' Man River
.
was broadcast on BBC Radio 4
in the Classic Serial spot. Based only on Ferber's novel, it was dramatised by Moya O'Shea, produced/directed by Tracey Neale and starred Lysette Anthony
as Kim, Samantha Spiro
as Magnolia, Laurel Lefkow as Party, Morgan Deare as Cap'n Andy, Ryan McCluskey
as Gaylord and Nonso Anozie
as Jo, with original music by Neil Brand
.
Edna Ferber
Edna Ferber was an American novelist, short story writer and playwright. Her novels were especially popular and included the Pulitzer Prize-winning So Big , Show Boat , and Giant .-Early years:Ferber was born August 15, 1885, in Kalamazoo, Michigan,...
. It chronicles the lives of three generations of performers on the Cotton Blossom, a floating theater that travels between small towns on the banks of the Mississippi, from the 1880s to the 1920s. The story moves from the Reconstruction-Era river boat to Gilded-Age Chicago to Roaring-Twenties New York, and finally returns to the Mississippi, the river that has flowed throughout the novel with implacable indifference to the petty concerns of mere humans. Show Boat was adapted as a Broadway musical
Show Boat
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...
in 1927 by Jerome Kern
Jerome Kern
Jerome David Kern was an American composer of musical theatre and popular music. One of the most important American theatre composers of the early 20th century, he wrote more than 700 songs, used in over 100 stage works, including such classics as "Ol' Man River", "Can't Help Lovin' Dat Man", "A...
and Oscar Hammerstein II
Oscar Hammerstein II
Oscar Greeley Clendenning Hammerstein II was an American librettist, theatrical producer, and theatre director of musicals for almost forty years. Hammerstein won eight Tony Awards and was twice awarded an Academy Award for "Best Original Song". Many of his songs are standard repertoire for...
. Three films followed: a 1929 version that depended partly on the musical, and two full adaptations of the musical in 1936 and 1951.
Background
In August 1924, Edna Ferber watched asthe opening performance of her play Minick
Minick
Minick is a surname and may refer to:* John W. Minick , United States Army soldier and a recipient of the Medal of Honor for his actions during the Battle of Hurtgen Forest in World War II...
was disrupted by an invasion of bats that had been nesting undetected in the chandeliers and dome of the playhouse. Alarmed theatergoers scurried for the exits. As the crew recovered from this debacle, Winthrop Ames, the show's producer, jokingly remarked "Next time... we won't bother with tryouts. We'll all charter a show boat and we'll just drift down the rivers, playing the towns as we come to them."
Show boats were floating theaters that traveled along the major rivers of the United States from the 1870s to the 1930s. The performers lived aboard the vessels. With song, dance, and dramatic productions, show boats provided entertainment for small riverside towns that were otherwise quite isolated. Ferber, who had never heard of show boats, was immediately intrigued.
Here, I thought, was one of the most melodramatic and gorgeous bits of Americana that had ever come my way. It was not only the theater — it was the theater plus the glamour of the wandering drifting life, the drama of the river towns, the mystery and terror of the Mississippi itself... I spent a year hunting down every available scrap of show-boat material; reading, interviewing, taking notes and making outlines."
In the spring of 1925, Ferber traveled to Bath, North Carolina
North Carolina
North Carolina is a state located in the southeastern United States. The state borders South Carolina and Georgia to the south, Tennessee to the west and Virginia to the north. North Carolina contains 100 counties. Its capital is Raleigh, and its largest city is Charlotte...
and spent four days aboard one of the few remaining show boats in the country, the
James Addams Floating Theatre, which plied the Pamlico River
Pamlico River
The Pamlico River is a tidal river that flows into Pamlico Sound, in North Carolina in the United States of America. It is formed by the confluence of the Tar River and Tranters Creek....
and Great Dismal Swamp
Great Dismal Swamp
The Great Dismal Swamp is a marshy area on the Coastal Plain Region of southeastern Virginia and northeastern North Carolina between Norfolk, Virginia, and Elizabeth City, North Carolina in the United States. It is located in parts of southern Chesapeake and Suffolk in Virginia, as well as northern...
Canal.
The material she gathered, especially the reminiscences of Charles Hunter, the director and chief actor, provided her with "a treasure-trove of show-boat material, human, touching, true."
Ferber spent the next year in France and New York writing the novel, and published it in the summer of 1926.
The mix of romance, realistic depiction of racial issues, and nostalgia for a vanishing American past was an immediate hit with a still war-weary American public, and the novel was number one on the bestseller lists for twelve weeks. The critical reception was more cautious but still positive. In his New York Times review, Louis Kronenberger wrote:
With "Show Boat" Miss Ferber establishes herself not as one of those who are inaugurating first-rate literature, but as one of those who are reviving first-rate story-telling. This is little else but an irresistible story; but that, surely, is enough.
By the time the James Addams Floating Theatre was destroyed by fire in 1941, the era of show boats had ended, supplanted by the motion picture theater.
Plot
The time is the late nineteenth century. Captain Andy Hawks is a former riverboat owner with a shrewish wife, Parthy Ann, and a ten-year-old daughter, Magnolia. He buys the new show boat Cotton Blossom. Among the actors are Julie DozierJulie Dozier
Julie Dozier is a character in Edna Ferber's 1926 novel Show Boat. In Jerome Kern and Oscar Hammerstein II's classic musical version of it, which opened on Broadway on December 27, 1927, her stage name is Julie La Verne. She is exposed as Julie Dozier in Act I...
and her husband Steve Baker, and Ellie Chipley and her husband, affectionately known as "Schultzy". Other members of the crew are Pete, the engineer of the towboat Mollie Able, which propels the show boat; Frank the utility man, and Windy McClain, the pilot.
Steve and Julie are close, and Julie becomes Magnolia's best friend, showing motherly affection toward her. For a time, all is well, but soon Pete begins making unwanted advances toward Julie. He gets into a fist fight with Steve, is soundly beaten, and swears revenge. He suggests knowing some dark secret concerning Julie. When the troupe arrives at Lemoyne, Mississippi, Pete steals Julie's picture from the box office and takes it to the local sheriff. Julie claims she does not feel well enough to perform, and Parthy observes that Julie fell sick the year before in the same town. When they hear what Pete has done, Steve takes out a pocket knife, makes a cut on Julie's hand, and sucks blood from it.
The sheriff arrives and announces that there is a miscegenation
Miscegenation
Miscegenation is the mixing of different racial groups through marriage, cohabitation, sexual relations, and procreation....
case on board: since Julie is black and Steve is white, their marriage is illegal. Julie admits that she is half-black. Ellie, who has been very close to Julie, becomes upset at the revelation and denounces her friend. Steve says he has "negro blood" in him, and the rest of the company backs him up. The sheriff, not realizing that Steve's claim is based only on his having sucked some blood from Julie's hand (this refers to social conventions classifying as black anyone with known African ancestry), believes he cannot arrest the couple and leaves. (Miscegenation, or marriage between races was illegal at the time). He tells Steve and Julie to leave the boat, which they do, after Julie sorrowfully says goodbye to the girl Magnolia.
Years later we return to the boat, where Magnolia is now eighteen and the newest leading lady. She has no leading man. After Gaylord Ravenal
Gaylord Ravenal
Gaylord Ravenal is the leading male character in both Edna Ferber's novel Show Boat and in the famous Jerome Kern-Oscar Hammerstein II musical play of the same name, based on the novel. He is a compulsive riverboat gambler, and he becomes leading man of the show boat Cotton Blossom at the same time...
, a handsome riverboat gambler, is hired, he and Magnolia promptly fall in love and elope.
Months later, Magnolia has had a baby daughter, whom she names Kim (because she was born at the moment when the Cotton Blossom was at the convergence on the Mississippi of the states of Kentucky
Kentucky
The Commonwealth of Kentucky is a state located in the East Central United States of America. As classified by the United States Census Bureau, Kentucky is a Southern state, more specifically in the East South Central region. Kentucky is one of four U.S. states constituted as a commonwealth...
, Illinois
Illinois
Illinois is the fifth-most populous state of the United States of America, and is often noted for being a microcosm of the entire country. With Chicago in the northeast, small industrial cities and great agricultural productivity in central and northern Illinois, and natural resources like coal,...
and Missouri
Missouri
Missouri is a US state located in the Midwestern United States, bordered by Iowa, Illinois, Kentucky, Tennessee, Arkansas, Oklahoma, Kansas and Nebraska. With a 2010 population of 5,988,927, Missouri is the 18th most populous state in the nation and the fifth most populous in the Midwest. It...
). Shortly after, Captain Andy falls overboard during a storm and drowns. Rather than live with the stern Parthy, Magnolia and Ravenal leave for Chicago
Chicago
Chicago is the largest city in the US state of Illinois. With nearly 2.7 million residents, it is the most populous city in the Midwestern United States and the third most populous in the US, after New York City and Los Angeles...
with Kim. In the big city, the couple is alternately rich and poor, depending on Ravenal's gambling winnings (he does not try to find regular work, and cheats on Magnolia with prostitutes). Finally, after about ten years, Parthy announces she is coming to visit; the destitute Ravenal, desperate for money, borrows some from Hetty Chilson, the local whorehouse madam
Madam
Madam, or madame, is a polite title used for women which, in English, is the equivalent of Mrs. or Ms., and is often found abbreviated as "ma'am", and less frequently as "ma'm". It is derived from the French madame, which means "my lady", the feminine form of lord; the plural of ma dame in this...
. He returns to Magnolia at their boarding house but is drunk. As he sleeps off his stupor, she returns the money to Hetty, and discovers the madam's secretary is Julie Dozier. Julie is devastated that Magnolia has found her working in the whorehouse. (The fate of Steve goes unmentioned in the novel.)
When Magnolia returns to the boarding house, she finds Ravenal gone, leaving nothing but a farewell note. She never sees him again. She goes out to get work and is hired at a local nightclub called Joppers.
The story moves forward to 1926, when show boats are becoming scarce on the Mississippi River. Kim has married and become a successful actress on Broadway
Broadway theatre
Broadway theatre, commonly called simply Broadway, refers to theatrical performances presented in one of the 40 professional theatres with 500 or more seats located in the Theatre District centered along Broadway, and in Lincoln Center, in Manhattan in New York City...
in New York City
New York City
New York is the most populous city in the United States and the center of the New York Metropolitan Area, one of the most populous metropolitan areas in the world. New York exerts a significant impact upon global commerce, finance, media, art, fashion, research, technology, education, and...
. Her father Ravenal has been dead for several years. One night, Magnolia receives a telegram announcing the death of her mother Parthy, from whom she has been long estranged. She returns to the show boat, which she decides to keep and manage, rather than to scrap. She gives all of her inheritance from Parthy, a fortune, to her daughter Kim. Joining Magnolia is Ellie, a widow since her husband Schultzy has died.
Musical adaptation
Although Brooks AtkinsonBrooks Atkinson
Justin Brooks Atkinson was an American theatre critic. He worked for The New York Times from 1925 to 1960...
, the noted New York Times theatre critic, proclaimed the musical adaptation as being "positively slavish" to the novel, Hammerstein made several changes in adapting it to the musical stage. All may have been made to make the then-unusually serious plot palatable to a 1927 Broadway musical audience. (For instance, none of the characters die in the musical, Magnolia and Ravenal are reconciled and reunited at the end, and Ellie, who is not Julie's best friend as in the book, does not become hysterical when Julie's mixed racial heritage is revealed.) The novel's treatment of racism
Racism
Racism is the belief that inherent different traits in human racial groups justify discrimination. In the modern English language, the term "racism" is used predominantly as a pejorative epithet. It is applied especially to the practice or advocacy of racial discrimination of a pernicious nature...
and its effects on the story's characters is largely retained in the musical, and perhaps strengthened by the show's most famous song, Ol' Man River
Ol' Man River
"Ol' Man River" is a song in the 1927 musical Show Boat that expresses the African American hardship and struggles of the time with the endless, uncaring flow of the Mississippi River; it is sung from the point-of-view of a dock worker on a showboat, and is the most famous song from the show...
.
Radio
On February 20th and 27th, 2011, a two-part version of Show BoatShow Boat
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...
was broadcast on BBC Radio 4
BBC Radio 4
BBC Radio 4 is a British domestic radio station, operated and owned by the BBC, that broadcasts a wide variety of spoken-word programmes, including news, drama, comedy, science and history. It replaced the BBC Home Service in 1967. The station controller is currently Gwyneth Williams, and the...
in the Classic Serial spot. Based only on Ferber's novel, it was dramatised by Moya O'Shea, produced/directed by Tracey Neale and starred Lysette Anthony
Lysette Anthony
Lysette Anthony is an English film, television, and theatre actress.-Early life:Anthony was born Lysette Chodzko in Fulham, London, the only daughter of actors Michael Anthony, and Bernadette Milnes....
as Kim, Samantha Spiro
Samantha Spiro
Samantha Spiro is an Olivier Award-winning English actress. She is known for portraying Barbara Windsor in the stage play Cleo, Camping, Emmanuelle and Dick and the television film Cor, Blimey!, and DI Vivien Friend in M.I.T.: Murder Investigation Team.-Background:Born in Mill Hill, Spiro grew up...
as Magnolia, Laurel Lefkow as Party, Morgan Deare as Cap'n Andy, Ryan McCluskey
Ryan McCluskey
Ryan McCluskey is an Irish Gaelic footballer who plays for Fermanagh. He plays his club football for Enniskillen Gaels. He also has a successful soccer career, playing for Northern Irish Premiership club Portadown F.C.-References:...
as Gaylord and Nonso Anozie
Nonso Anozie
Nonso Anozie is a British actor who has appeared in several stage plays and four films to date.In the summer of 2002 he became the youngest person in history to play William Shakespeare's "King Lear" and won the Ian Charleson Award in 2005 for his performance as Othello.Anozie was hired in 2006 to...
as Jo, with original music by Neil Brand
Neil Brand
Neil Brand , is a British dramatist, composer and author. In addition to being regular silent film accompanist at London's National Film Theatre, Brand has composed new scores for two recently restored films from the 1920s, namely The Wrecker and Anthony Asquith's Underground. Brand has also acted...
.
See also
- Show BoatShow BoatShow 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...
- Broadway musical - Show Boat (1929 film)Show Boat (1929 film)Show Boat is a film based on the novel by Edna Ferber. This version was released by Universal in two editions, one a silent film for movie theatres still not equipped for sound, and one a part-talkie with a sound prologue...
- Show Boat (1936 film)Show Boat (1936 film)Show Boat is a 1936 film based on the musical play by Jerome Kern and Oscar Hammerstein II , which the team adapted from the novel by Edna Ferber....
- Show Boat (1951 film)Show Boat (1951 film)Show Boat is a 1951 Technicolor film based on the musical by Jerome Kern and Oscar Hammerstein II and the novel by Edna Ferber....
External links
- "Show Boat", BBC Radio