In the 1930s, the Gershwin brothers – George and Ira – were a dynamic American writing team who composed over twenty scores for Broadway and Hollywood. But their biggest hits came in the form of political satire musicals. There’s the Pulitzer Prize-winning “Of Thee I Sing,” which tells the story of a president who vows to marry the winner of a beauty pageant. “Let ‘Em Eat Cake” is about a conspiracy hatched by a bigoted president after his re-election loss, which is oddly relevant to today’s political climate.
Gil Rose, Grammy Award-winning, world-renowned conductor, founder and artistic director of Odyssey Opera and the Boston Modern Orchestra Project, has joined the GBH team Everything taken into account With host Arun Rath on bringing both of these political musicals back to the stage here in Boston. Below is a lightly edited transcript.
Arun Rath: I’m really excited about this because I know these songs really well, mainly because they’re all like jazz standards, right? But I don’t know these stories at all. Let’s just dig into the details.
Gil Rose: Well, yes, these are crazy stories. These stories are highly colored by the current political environment. Essentially, the Gershwins’ second political satire – “Of You I Sing” – was about the presidential election. President John Wintergreen runs for election with the support of his girlfriend Mary Turner, and their efforts are almost thwarted by a woman claiming to be his wife named Diana Devereaux. And from here all madness leads to Senate impeachment.
Rath: There’s so much to cover there, but I want you to quickly give us a more detailed synopsis of “Let ‘Em Eat Cake” because I’ve kind of teased it, but it’s really crazy.
Rose: Well, yes. “Of Thee I Sing” was a huge hit for them. It ran on Broadway for many years, and as it was coming to an end, I think they came up with the idea to keep pumping and wrote a sequel, which is quite unusual in Broadway history. It’s not that there aren’t any sequels in Broadway history, but there are very few.
But they agreed and wrote “Let them eat cake,” which takes political satire to an even higher level. And it’s the story of the same characters, only after he lost re-election and doesn’t fully accept the election results. He tries to organize a new campaign against the clothing company’s finances, challenges the government and leads a revolution – and basically storms the Capitol in an attempt to execute the vice president.
When I tell people they look at me like I’m making something up, but that’s the plot of the Gershwin brothers’ sequel “Let them eat cake.”
“I think if people come out and see it, they’ll spend the first half of the evening tapping their toes, and then the second half they’ll be picking their jaws up off the floor.”
Gil Rose, artistic director of Odyssey Opera
Rath: I mean, I read about it before we talked, but when I heard you say it again, well, I was obviously speechless.
Rose: Yes. I don’t think they knew what they were doing. All this was done with a lot of tongue in cheek. But they all raised many issues – not only electoral issues, but also social issues and issues of political identity. This all appears in musicals from almost 90 years ago and seems prophetic.
I think they were heavily influenced by the Marx Brothers, who were huge Broadway stars before their film careers took off. And the madness of a movie like the Marx Brothers’ “Duck Soup” is really very evident in “Let Them Eat Cake.”
Rath: So “Of Thee I Sing” was a huge success and “Let ‘Em Eat Cake” not so much.
Rose: Yes, it was a flop, to put it bluntly. The music is spectacular. For this story, they actually went with something completely different. You know, a lot of their earlier musicals were like 1920s Broadway musicals. Lots of standard characters and situations and mistaken identities.
But in “Let ‘Em Eat Cake” – with a whiff of Marx Brothers madness – they basically tried to tackle the rise of fascism in Europe with a very, very clear commentary on Mussolini’s rise. So I think they may have just given 1933 audiences a little more than they bargained for. But they definitely tried to raise the stakes in the world of political satire.
Gil Rose joined GBH Everything taken into account to discuss the revival of the Gershwin brothers’ political satires on stage.
Photo: Kevin Condon
Rath: Well, it’s crazy to think about it, because it’s not like there weren’t fascist movements in America at that time.
Rose: Well, I think they wrote this kind of comment: Is this common in this as well? I think they are using the American president in the presidential election to show themselves off. The hero of the first musical follows a very dark path in his bid for re-election.
I think if people come out and see this, they’ll spend the first half of the evening tapping their toes and then the second half of the evening they’ll be picking their jaws up off the floor.
Rath: Are there any songs on Let ‘Em Eat Cake that we would consider standards?
Rose: The title track “Let ‘Em Eat Cake” is a political manifesto of sorts.
Recorded snippet of “Let ‘Em Eat Cake”: Congress, you deserve your daily bread. I’ve always said that. But I will go further: you will have a break. From now on you will eat cake.
Rath: Gil, before you go, regarding manifestos: I wanted to ask you, as the founder of Odyssey Opera, to tell us a little bit about the history there and the ethos of the opera house.
Rose: Odyssey Opera was founded, I think, 12 or 13 years ago with the goal of presenting operas that people otherwise wouldn’t have the chance to hear. A great example is the work of the Gershwins – although they are musicals, in this case they were not much inspired by this style.
But then again, people know “Rhapsody in Blue” and “American in Paris” – but they don’t know most of the Gershwins’ work, which, as you mentioned in the introduction, was performed on the Broadway stage. And these musicals have melody after melody. Some of them are recognizable, but many of them will be new to people, but they will not forget them because they will stick in their memory. It’s a Gershwin melody.
And of course, Ira’s words are as spectacular as the music.