The Search for America's Soul
Theatre in the Jazz Age
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 4551793 |
|---|---|
| Authors | David Savran (corresponding author) |
| Year | 2006 |
| Volume | 58 |
| Issue | 3 |
| Pages | 459-476 |
| Publication date | 2006-10-01 |
| Peer Reviewed | Yes |
| Open Access | No |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | Theatre Journal (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 0192-2882 • E-ISSN: 1086-332X |
| Publisher | Project MUSE (PUBLISHER • US) |
| DOI | 10.1353/tj.2006.0171 |
| OpenAlex | W2014602556 |
| Language | EN |
| References cited | 7 |
During the 1920s jazz was by far the most important and controversial form of cultural production in the United States. It was also decisive in separating an emergent literary theatre, which disdained jazz for its alleged social and moral depravity, and musical comedy and vaudeville, which not only embraced jazz but became crucial arenas for its development and dissemination. By analyzing early Gershwin musicals, this essay argues that musical comedy, by ingeniously mixing highbrow and lowbrow, became a privileged site in which the debates about the social, cultural, racial, and ethnic status of jazz were both thematized and enacted
Aesthetics · Art · Comedy · Dance · Highbrow · Jazz · Jazz dance · Literature · Musical · Soul · Visual arts · Music History and Culture · Musicology and Musical Analysis · Philosophy · Theater, Performance, and Music History
| Citation velocity | historical |
|---|---|
| Highly cited | No |