Show Boat was one of the three longest-running Broadway musicals of the nineteen-twenties. Produced by composer Jerome Kern and lyricist Oscar Hammerstein II, it pioneered a new kind of musical play in which songs established character and drove the action. Previously, songs in musical comedies tended to be spectacular set-pieces which had little to do with the story being told. In Show Boat they were integrated in a revolutionary way which has been seen as the norm ever since.
Essentially, Show Boat is a family saga. It follows the fortunes of Magnolia Hawks and Gaylord Ravenal, singers on a Mississippi show boat, from their passionate love-affair of the mid-1880s to their touching reunion in 1927.
In a life full of incident they marry, move to Chicago for the show-stopping possibilities of the World's Fair of 1893, wrestle vainly with Gaylord's compulsive gambling habit, and then separate in despair. This gives Magnolia an opportunity to go it alone. She immediately becomes a success as a musical-comedy star (cue more songs), sees her daughter, Kim, follow her onto the stage, and magnanimously forgives Gaylord, bathed in the shared glow of their daughter's success.
A sub-plot follows the ill-fated romance between Julie, a mulatto, and Steve, the show boat's leading man. This was the first cross-racial relationship portrayed on the musical stage in America. Kern's realistic and sympathetic portrayal of the life of African American dock workers was also seen as revolutionary in a genre which usually showed coloured people as comic or quaint.
The show opened in New York on November the 27th, 1927. A ten-month tour followed the Broadway run. Three years later it was back in New York for 180 performances, followed by a five month tour. 1946 saw another Broadway revival and a tour which lasted a year and a half. The show also had successful productions in London in 1928, 1943 and 1971.
The cast of the first Broadway revival included the bass singer Paul Robeson, whose interpretation of the aria Ol Man River became known and loved throughout the world.
He recreated his Broadway performance in the Universal Studios film of Show Boat in 1936. Two other film versions were made; one by Universal in 1929 and another by MGM in 1951.
