Throughout the history of musical theatre, there have been many successful writer double-acts, but none more so than Richard Rogers and Oscar Hammerstein II. Rogers and Hammerstein were extremely influential in musical theatre throughout the 20th century and were innovative, pushing the boundaries of the art-form. They were the creators of many of the biggest hit shows in musical theatre history and are often considered responsible for initiating the Golden Age of musical theatre during the 40s and 50s.
Rogers composed the music, while Hammerstein wrote the lyrics, and all of their shows put together won 34 Tony awards, a Pulitzer Prize, 2 Grammy Awards, and the film versions of their shows won 15 Academy Awards, showing just what a strong reaction there was to their work. The two began their first collaboration in the 40s, releasing their hit ‘Oklahoma!' in 1943. Many musical theatre fans will not realise how big an impact this show had, but it was in fact responsible for a whole revolution in musical theatre. The majority of musicals up until this point had focussed on songs and on an extravagant display for the audience, but Rogers and Hammerstein wanted to focus on the story and a more complex emotional component to their show. Where previous production would have songs as interludes or distractions from the plot, Rogers and Hammerstein wanted to use these as story-telling mechanisms to help convey the drama and where practically all shows up until this point would have opened with a big full-cast number to excite the audience, this production opened with just a single old woman sitting in a rocking chair, leading many to praise their brave and creative take on stage musicals. Furthermore, where so many shows would usually have been based around the talents of a specific star, such as Fred Astaire, this show used no star members of cast, wanting the audience to come and enjoy the story, rather for an individual celebrity to be the real draw of the show.
The duo then had several big successes including Carousel, South Pacific, The King and I and The Sound of Music, all of which were centred around the idea that the story should be the most important element. In fact, this has become the norm in musical theatre, in the form of the ‘book musical’. Straight after Oklahoma’s big success, many tried to imitate their style and used a greater story element in their own shows. Rogers and Hammerstein were also a big influence on many later writers, for example Oscar Hammerstein II helped to teach Stephen Sondheim the art of writing musicals, and Sondheim has now grown up to be another one of the most influential names in musical theatre, and in fact my personal favourite musical composer and lyricists.
Rogers and Hammerstein were not only influential in the theatre scene, but also had a huge impact on the making of film musicals with film reproductions of most of their works also becoming successes. If you want to know more about this team, I suggest watching some of these films at home, and there are also often some great touring productions of their shows, so look out for these at local theatres.
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