Show Boat is a romantic story full of pathos and beauty. The story this American musical theater classic follows the plot of the novel by Edna Ferber, which touches on the social life of the time. The black workers sing of the greatness of "Old Man River," and of a land that still ain't free, while Broadway producers continue to have them pronounce their "dees" and "dats." These workers are a strong part of the setting and form much of the chorus of the musical. There are two pairs of lovers in the play. Magnolia Hawkes is a beautiful young girl who has had a sheltered and loving home life, while Gaylord Ravenal is a romantic riverboat gambler, who throws his "freedom" away because of his love for her. When the two hit rock bottom, he leaves her and their young daughter and doesn't return until after his wife has had a successful career on the stage and his daughter is grown up. The second couple is comprised of a white man and a mulatto woman named Julie La Verne, a strong character who dominates with her strength of personality and vocal talents. However, their romance also fails, due to a society which cannot sanction an interracial liaison, and she ruins herself with drink. One of the strengths of the story is the friendship between Julie and Magnolia, whose bond survives throughout the trials and tribulations of their relationships with men.

Show Boat opened at the Ziegfeld Theater in New York on December 27, 1927. It was a tremendous success with the public, because of the depth of the story by Ferber and the beautiful music of Jerome Kern. The characterizations are keen, and the interpersonal relationships complex. The settings of the story are particularly good and create a rich background for the epic tale, which takes place over many years. Very different than other, more lighthearted musicals of the time, it began a new trend in musical theater, in which more dramatic and complicated emotional and political issues were addressed.

Paul Robeson made the song "Ol' Man River" a well known and well loved concert piece for the bass voice. The range of the song is such that a virtuosic talent is required to sing it well, and it became one of his finest showcases. He was intended to play the character of Joe in the original show, but ended up joining the cast in subsequent productions.

© Rita Laurance, All Music Guide

Ol' Man River

American musical theater came of age with the 1927 production of Show Boat. In a striking departure from the earlier traditions of musical comedies and splashy but superficial revues, Show Boat dared to stage realistic, human characters in often disappointing circumstances: failed marriages, prejudice, the passing of time. More importantly, and even more daring, was the show's portrayal of the harsh life faced by Southern blacks. The very opening chorus establishes the racial themes, by contrasting the white socialites' excitement over the arrival of the steamboat "Cotton Blossom" to the drudgery of the black shoreworkers' duties loading bales of cotton. Both the musical and the novel by Edna Ferber on which it is based also confront the issue of miscegenation in the challenges faced by one of the main characters when her mulatto heritage is revealed. Jerome Kern and the lyricist Oscar Hammerstein II underscored the musical's racial themes by closing the entire show with a reprise of the first act's leitmotif, the song "Ol' Man River."

"Ol' Man River," thus treated as the show's unifying theme, is a melody first sung by one of the African-American dockworkers. The young daughter of Cap'n Andy has met a charming young man, and asked the Negro named Joe where she can find her friend Julie. Joe responds that she would be better to ask the "ol' river," because "he knows all about everything." Leaning on a bale of cotton, Joe then sings this song, Kern's replica of an African-American work song. Joe's aria moves forward with a rhythm relentless as the river's flow, or the weary feet of those who must "tote that barge and lift that bale." Yet the river, he sings, continues its rolling when those who plant are forgotten, and those who "sweat and strain" have long become sick of trying to live. The full chorus of Negro workers joins in the song, singing that they'd all like to escape "de white man boss," and cross that River Jordan. The flow of the Mississippi becomes the flow of time toward death and new life in the musical Show Boat, and it closes the play 50 years later in the characters' lives.

"Ol' Man River" became a showpiece for the many fine baritones who have sung it: Paul Robeson made it famous in the 1927 Ziegfeld production and the first film (1936), and William Warfield re-introduced America to "Ol' Man River" in the 1951 MGM film.

© Timothy Dickey, Rovi