Reception
The original Broadway production opened to favorable reviews. Critics unanimously praised Ethel Merman's performance as Annie Oakley, though some thought the score and book were not particularly distinguished. John Chapman of the Daily News declared that the production had "good lyrics and tunes by Irving Berlin... the razzle-dazzle atmosphere of a big-time show" but pronounced Merman the best part of the show, stating "She is a better comedienne than she ever was before", stating that "Annie is a good, standard, lavish, big musical and I'm sure it will be a huge success--but it isn't the greatest show in the world". Louis Kronenberger of PM stated that the show was 'in many ways routine", but greatly praised Merman's performance, opining, "For me, Annie is mainly Miss Merman's show, though the rest of it is competent enough of its kind...Irving Berlin's score is musically not exciting--of the real songs, only one or two are tuneful". Ward Morehouse of The New York Sun declared, "The big news about Annie Get Your Gun is that it reveals Ethel Merman in her best form since Anything Goes...She shouts the Berlin music with good effect. She often comes to the aid of a sagging book". He stated, "Irving Berlin's score is not a notable one, but his tunes are singable and pleasant and his lyrics are particularly good. The book? It's on the flimsy side, definitely. And rather witless too". Lewis Nichols of The New York Times said, "It has a pleasant score by Irving Berlin...and it has Ethel Merman to roll her eyes and to shout down the rafters. The colors are pretty, the dancing is amiable and unaffected, and Broadway by this time is well used to a book which doesn't get anywhere in particular".
However, the show itself was greatly lauded by some critics: Vernon Rice of the New York Post proclaimed, "Irving Berlin has outdone himself this time. No use trying to pick a hit tune, for all the tunes are hits...Ethel Merman is at her lusty, free and easy best...She is now able to develop a consistent characterization and stay with it to the show's end. And when she opens her mouth to sing, she sings!" William Hawkins of the New York World-Telegram said that Merman was "bright as a whip, sure as her shooting, and generously the foremost lady clown of her time" and asserted that the show itself was comparable to those of Rodgers and Hammerstein, proclaiming, "For verve and buoyancy, unslackening, there has seldom if ever been a show like it...the girls in Annie have the beauty and character of looks one associates with a Rodgers and Hammerstein show. And the production has in every way the distinction that has become their hallmark".
Read more about this topic: Annie Get Your Gun (musical)
Famous quotes containing the word reception:
“To the United States the Third World often takes the form of a black woman who has been made pregnant in a moment of passion and who shows up one day in the reception room on the forty-ninth floor threatening to make a scene. The lawyers pay the woman off; sometimes uniformed guards accompany her to the elevators.”
—Lewis H. Lapham (b. 1935)
“To aim to convert a man by miracles is a profanation of the soul. A true conversion, a true Christ, is now, as always, to be made by the reception of beautiful sentiments.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)
“I gave a speech in Omaha. After the speech I went to a reception elsewhere in town. A sweet old lady came up to me, put her gloved hand in mine, and said, “I hear you spoke here tonight.” “Oh, it was nothing,” I replied modestly. “Yes,” the little old lady nodded, “that’s what I heard.””
—Gerald R. Ford (b. 1913)