Competing With Motion Pictures
The motion picture mounted a challenge to the stage. At first, films were silent and presented only limited competition. By the end of the 1920s, films like The Jazz Singer were presented with synchronized sound, and critics wondered if the cinema would replace live theatre altogether. The musicals of the Roaring Twenties, borrowing from vaudeville, music hall and other light entertainments, tended to ignore plot in favor of emphasizing star actors and actresses, big dance routines, and popular songs. Florenz Ziegfeld produced annual spectacular song-and-dance revues on Broadway featuring extravagant sets and elaborate costumes, but there was little to tie the various numbers together. Typical of the 1920s were lighthearted productions like Sally; Lady Be Good; Sunny; No, No, Nanette; Harlem; Oh, Kay!; and Funny Face. Their books may have been forgettable, but they produced enduring standards from George Gershwin, Cole Porter, Jerome Kern, Vincent Youmans, and Rodgers and Hart, among others, and Noël Coward, Sigmund Romberg and Rudolf Friml continued in the vein of Victor Herbert. Clearly, the live theatre survived the invention of cinema.
Read more about this topic: Broadway Theatres
Famous quotes containing the words competing, motion and/or pictures:
“A genuine Left doesn’t consider anyone’s suffering irrelevant or titillating; nor does it function as a microcosm of capitalist economy, with men competing for power and status at the top, and women doing all the work at the bottom.... Goodbye to all that.”
—Robin Morgan (b. 1941)
“If we shall stand still
In fear our motion will be mocked or carped at,
We should take root here where we sit, or sit
State-statues only.”
—William Shakespeare (1564–1616)
“Every individual, like a statue, develops in his life the laws of harmony, integrity, and freedom; or those of deformity, immorality, and bondage. Whether we wish to or not, we are all drawing our own pictures in the lives we are living ...”
—Harriot K. Hunt (1805–1875)