Whatever the faults of Oscar Hammerstein II, he was a sincere man trying to make the world a better place. Show Boat was sympathetic to a mixed-race couple, depicted and criticized racism, and had an unprecedented cast of Black and White people working together. Remember, this was 1927, almost 100 years ago.
Show Boat can be seen as glass-half-full and it can be seen as glass-half-empty. Show/Boat: A River seems to see it as an empty glass--a broken empty glass. It's fine to re-envision or deconstruct or whatever, but without understanding where the piece comes from, acknowledging its strengths, and having a POV other than "we're better now than they were then," it's just a pointless mess. (One criticism I heard of the original show is that it keeps the Black people in the background of their own story. That's true, but if Hammerstein had put them in the foreground, the show wouldn't get produced--and people now would criticize him for cultural appropriation.)
The solution of course is equal opportunities for Blacks, women, LGBT+ people, and so on. A friend once said that it doesn't matter if the best of each group finds a place; the goal is for all mediocre people to have the same opportunities as mediocre White men, including second and third chances. Although we've made progress, we still have far to go.
I should mention that I find most of Hammerstein's depictions of race to be embarrassing, at best. I'm not a fan of his in general. But I still get it that he was ahead of his time. It seems churlish to dismiss him for only being on the first rung of racial consciousness when the vast majority of White people weren't even aware of the ladder! Re-envision, yes, but understand what you're re-envisioning.
Show/Boat: A River did have moments of insight and legit criticism. But it came across as a high school production. It would have been nice if everyone in the cast could sing. And if the show didn't periodically rely on droning, high, thin, painful notes from guitar (I think) and clarinet. And if it truly had something original to say. (As Hammerstein did, flawed as it was.)
It's interesting to consider what future generations will think we're doing wrong. We certainly don't have all the answers.
Wendy Caster
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