What Would Barbra Do?

Brockes, Emma. What Would Barbra Do: How Musicals Changed My Life. New York: Harper. 2007. Print

First Sentences:

Two summers ago I flew from London to L.A. to interview a man called Lemmy. 

Lemmy, if you are as unfamiliar with him as I was, is the lead singer of Motorhead, a heavy metal band that sold a lot of records in the 1970s, mainly to boys with black t-shirts with the arms cut out of them and girls with Manson family hairdos. 

I say heavy metal; for all I know it is thrash metal that Motorhead does, or death metal; in any case, it is the sort of metal that sounds like two trains crashing and is guaranteed, as Lemmy puts it, to "make your lawn die if it moves in next door to you."
I was not an obvious choice for the job.

Description:

Are you someone who constantly hums and/or sings showtunes? Someone who watches The Sound of Music each time it airs on TV? Do you strongly feel something is lacking in all musicals after Fiddler on the Roof? I'm talking about a person with a passion for music, a sucker for odd characters, catchy tunes, and a determined buying-in on even the most ridiculous of plots. 

If these traits describe you, take heart. You are not alone. And you now have a champion, a clever, funny writer who shares your passion and writes breezily and cuttingly about this genre. Please meet Emma Brockes and her wonderful book,  What Would Barbra Do: How Musicals Changed My Life. 

Currently a writer for the UK Guardian, Brockes has ample background to poke into the world of musicals. You have to love an author who as a child, watched Mary Poppins (her friend's only video) "twice a week for a period of some three years." She also had a mother who, when Brockes crossed the street, "ward[ed] off predators with a type of maternal sonar she called 'singing me across the road,'  vocalizing show tunes with the "power to disable passersby as effectively as a missile taking out a warship."

Her mother steered her to musicals at an early age with her philosophy that:

"Musicals were old friends who could always be relied upon to say the right things. They cheered you up when you were down and egged you on when you were miserable and made you feel lighter than air at all stages in between."

Brockes definitely became a fan, a knowledgeable critic, and a person of passion opinions. Throughout the book, she gleefully relates personal antecdotes about her experiences with the plots, characters, and snappy show tunes of a wide variety of stage and screen musicals.

To Brockes, musicals are "hard-wired to your brain." She feels everyone knows musicals, whether they love them or hate them, noting that, at parties ordinary people can sing the entire score of Fiddler on the Roof, complete with Topol impressions. She also heard people discuss whether Mary Poppins is about feminism, an allegory of the crucifixion, or, in the "Feed the Birds" scene, "about a woman for whom both the state and community have failed to provide." 

She has plenty of favorites and disappointments, each described in her chatty, funny, and highly personal evaluations, both praiseworthy and scathing for the "bad/bad musical, (commercial and critical failure), the "bad/good" musical, (lousy, but a commercial success), and the "good/bad" musical ("so audaciously bad as to be kind of great").

Some examples:

• [bad/bad] Heathcliff - "the lyrics -- 'spineless, Edgar, feeble Edgar/ Catherine only wanted me' -- really didn't. flatter Tim Rice's abilities relative to Emily Bronte's  
• [bad/good] Les Mis - "very, very long, like reliving the revolution in real time"
• [good/bad] The Jazz Singer (remake with Neil Diamond) -  "what saves The Jazz Singer from awfulness is its combination of one hundred percent self-belief with zero percent self-awareness."

But her tone is always light and clever, never bogged down with a heavy-handed examination of the pieces. To Brockes, in-depth analysis of musicals removes the core foundation. For every musical, the "fun is its own justification and reward." Sometimes, as Cameron Mackintosh said about his creation, Cats: "It's just about cats."

What Would Barbra Do? is a chummy, clever, satisfying read, as if the author is sitting in your living room talking and sharing her opinions on current and past musicals. It is more than merely a book of reviews; it is practically a memoir, describing many of Brockes' life experiences that just happen to revolve around musicals.

Her conclusion?

"No matter how dire the situation, it is never beyond the redemptive reach of a Rodgers and Hammerstein show tune."

Amen to that! 

Happy reading. 

Fred

www.firstsentencereader.blogspot.com

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If this book interests you, be sure to check out:

Hammerstein, Oscar Andrew. The Hammersteins: A Musical Theatre Family  

wonderful portrait and loads of photos documenting the golder age of musicals started with the author's grandfather, the builder of theaters in New York City, and then his father, the composer of the most classic musicals of all time. (previously reviewed here)