Of Thee I Sing - Critical Reception

Critical Reception

Brooks Atkinson in the New York Times called the musical "a brisk musical comedy", writing that "There is dancing, both routine and inventive. There are lyrics done in Ira Gershwin's neatest style...Best of all, there is Mr. Gershwin's score. Whether it is satire, wit, doggerel or fantasy, Mr. Gershwin pours music out in full measure and in many voices. Although the book is lively, Mr. Gershwin is exuberant."

In 1932, Of Thee I Sing became the first musical to win the Pulitzer Prize for drama. The 1932 Pulitzer Prize Committee stated, "Of Thee I Sing is not only coherent and well-knit enough to class as a play, but it is a biting and true satire on American politics and the public attitude towards them.... The play is genuine and it is felt the Pulitzer Prize could not serve a better purpose than to recognize such work. The prize was awarded only to Kaufman, Ryskind and Ira Gershwin; George Gershwin received no recognition, since the Pulitzer Prize was considered a literary award. In 1998, at the centennial of his birth, he was posthumously awarded an honorary Pulitzer.

In his New York Times review of the 2006 revival, Charles Isherwood called Of Thee I Sing "a trenchant little musical satire... the laughter that greets the show today is tinged with surprise at how eerily some of its jokes seem to take precise aim, from decades back, at current affairs. A chorus of reporters sings to the new president of the '17 vacations you have had since you've been here.' A politician dismisses Abraham Lincoln's pronouncement about not being able to fool all of the people all the time by remarking: 'It's different nowadays. People are bigger suckers.' ...it serves as a sigh-inducing argument for the enduring follies of American politics."