ZNote

In some ways, "Something Wonderful" is something wonderful. Framed initially around the meteoric success of the original telecast of Cinderella, author Todd Purdum sets out to explore in as much detail as he can muster exactly what makes Richard Rodgers and Oscar Hammerstein's collaborations so magnetic. Relying upon primary source material, as well as his own evaluations of the shows and their music and lyrics, he makes the compelling argument that aspects of R+H's reputations must be re-evaluated. With the men and their shows often labeled as dewy-eyed, naïve, and almost too sweet for words (echoing Walter Kerr's assertions about the Broadway version of The Sound of Music), he positions R+H as a tour-de-force of pioneers far too daring to be labeled so crudely. Walking through every major production they worked on and showing the problems they had to overcome with their own worries, Purdum's research is extensive in the connections he can draw from one event to another. Of particular praise is making sense of Hammerstein's habit of lyrical refinement, illustrating just how much work needs to be done to get those lyrics that people are a little quick to disparage. Though he tries with limited success to technically explain some of Rodgers's own musical contributions, the effort is most welcome. The chapters on Oklahoma! and Carousel stand out, with the best balance of material, history, and analysis. Considering that the former changed American musical theatre forever and the latter pushed that even further, that should come as no surprise. Much has been written about them, but the consolidation and easy-reading nature of the prose can provide strong reminders for those familiar and wide-eyed wonder for those who simply never considered such perspectives.

It is perhaps most unfortunate though that the book does fall into three trappings. First, it no doubt provides a wealth of information and anecdotes about many behind-the-curtain aspects of R+H show business, but to say that one comes away from the book "knowing" the two men would be untrue. Though the book does try to keep things in proper perspective by focusing mostly on their partnership after a by-mandate "pre-R+H" two-chapter-long period, the reliance of their real-life stories and how they interweave with their professional endeavors brings this lack of "who they are" into the equation. Rodgers especially, himself vastly more private than Hammerstein, always feels kept at something of a distance, rarely his own person except in relation to someone else. Perhaps the definitive Rodgers biography is waiting somewhere - this may admittedly be a pipe dream, but Meryle Secrest's biography and Rodgers's memoir and its own shortcomings cannot be the best we can do in 2026.

Second, as I woefully expected, any show or endeavor that was not a success is not analyzed with the level of precision as Oklahoma! or Carousel, or even The King and I. I speak in particular of Me and Juliet and Pipe Dream, both of which are crammed into a single chapter. The impact is that they are written off as though Hammerstein himself disapproved of their inclusion (to quote one anecdote about his opinion on Me and Juliet, "I hate that show."). Perhaps in Purdum's exercise to exonerate the duo for being cloying, naïve, or sanctimonious, he has made the mistake of denigrating these shows even further. Especially for the myriad of us unable to see them for ourselves--nobody wants to put them on--a prime opportunity to truly put on the show doctor uniform is passed up. It's likewise a shame since R+H's failures are just as much a part of their musical professionalism as their successes, and though the effects of the failures are explored, the failures themselves are less so. Allegro is exempt from this treatment not just because its production was so infamously tumultuous, but also since it was their "first failure," so to speak. Yet most perplexingly, Flower Drum Song is given similar lack of attention. Especially considering that the show was not a box office failure (600 performances), and how knotted it can be in regards to its portrayal of Asian-Americans, I was hoping to see more here and found little. The musical is thrown into the end of a chapter about the Hollywood film adaptations of R+H's work, which while not misguided, does reflect a seeming lack of worthiness for attention. Is this short-changing because the musical wasn't as boundary pushing as what came before? Hardly. Putting the script and music-lyrics aside, the idea of a show with an Asian-American cast (even though most were not Chinese as they are supposed to be in the show) in the 1950s is unheard of. Most musical theatre fans would only be able to point to Pacific Overtures in the mid 1970s for the next major opportunity, and even that didn't make as big a splash as Miss Saigon about 13 years later. To put this into perspective, The Sound of Music film adaptation from 1965 is given just slightly less attention than Flower Drum Song, even though Rodgers had virtually nothing to do with its production.

(This ties into another slight problem, which is that the level of sociological analysis Purdum brings is inconsistent. He'll repeat what has been said about Oklahoma!, Carousel, and South Pacific in relation to World War II, but sometimes won't make other connections with other musicals, either repeated or original)

Third, it is a necessary evil that opinion sometimes has to take a stronger forefront stance in regards to evaluating these shows. But some of the assertions Purdum makes are baffling. This is admittedly my own ego imposing itself, but calling David Hwang's revival / revisal of Flower Drum Song from 2002 proof that the show was "worthy of a respectful rehearing" flies in the face of reality. Barring the sheer number of script changes (to the point where calling it a "rehearing" feels dishonest), critics were mostly lukewarm--if not outright hating it--and audiences burned out rather quickly, making it a financial disaster. There's also the comment on the Douglas Carter Beane revisal of Cinderella, which Purdum labels as "...splashy, elegant, and successful." While he might be right in saying that seemingly impossible things were happening by virtue of Cinderella making it to Broadway after its original television production from the 50s, turning a faerie tale into a deformed version of itself through making Cinderella herself a class consciousness politiquette, a profoundly-out-of-place stepsister rewritten to be sympathetic, and a "the right ruler makes everything better" ideology, saps the original story of its magic. Purdum seems a little too eager to uncritically accept anything that isn't Me and Juliet or Pipe Dream, at least for the Broadway stage. Though I imagine if Me and Juliet and Pipe Dream had been remade, he'd be singing their praises, too.

Perhaps I have been overly critical. Purdum's efforts, however flawed the end result might be, do not take away from the book's readability and strong sense of flow. The fact that I finished a 320-page nonfiction book as quickly as I did, even for something that I already know so intimately, is a testament to the strength of how it's put together. I cannot help but feel that I might be the wrong audience for it, or that I set my standards too high. But I will unequivocally say that, regardless of my misgivings (and I do feel that they are quite legitimate even given my musicological background), I am sincerely glad that I read it and own it. If one cannot find the time or money to go see a R+H show for themselves, this might be a worthwhile way of getting to know them, getting to know all about them, getting to like them, getting to hope they like you too.

Despite Lachman's best efforts, the book cannot fully escape the overall framing of historical fiction. The best way to glimpse Hildegard is not through this book or the movies that have been made about her like Visions, but rather in reading translations of her actual work, which are more present than ever. The Hildegard present in this book is, at-best, a construction assembled from her writings and biography. While ambitious, I could not help but feel like I was reading the thoughts of a homunculus. Especially given that Lachman uses the King James Bible for certain passages rather than a version that Hildegard would have been more familiar with, there's also a religious ideology distance that is unintentionally created. Hildegard as a religious and feminist (depending on who you ask) figure is too fascinating to be condensed in this manner.

That being said, the passages themselves are the product of thorough research and are rhetorically written in a way that makes for easy reading. It provides a surprisingly adept overview of the many feast days observed in the Christian liturgical calendar, as well as attempting to get to the heart of the sociopolitical climate of the time. There are, however, times where it feels that information is being crammed in as much as possible, creating pockets of density that don't make for the most mellifluous flow. Perhaps it is a necessary evil or consequence that Lachman's book can't quite "do everything" within the one year it explores, but as an introduction to Hildegard, it has its uses.

In many ways, James Currie's approach to self-help could be considered "anti-self-help," in that he spends time ruminating on his own existential crises brought about by merely existing in a world that demands we "do something!" Combining history with his job as an academic, as well as the Covid pandemic and his own oscillation between fearing that he's failing as an adult and discussing Lars von Trier's Melancholia, he flirts with the time-consuming and alluring seduction that vanishing from the world provides. He personifies objects, gets deeply anecdotal, and it flows from one thread to another in a jarringly graceful manner. The end result is a book that advocates for a different kind of self-liberation, in which an ideal time of becoming like unto air should be sought, even if only briefly. Whether we succeed at doing so (the inherently perverse playfulness of the phrase "doing something by doing nothing"), it is worth remarking that we are, in essence, slaves to the modern world and chastised when we fail to "do something." Perhaps what Currie said about teenagers is true - that when approached from the right angle, they are aristocracy unto themselves, defiantly doing nothing as their parents yell at them to make something of their lives.

To a child that has been bounced around from family to family, all while her own mother is always "somewhere else" that isn't here, it seems like love is impossible for Galadriel "Gilly" Hopkins to feel or find. Every lashing out of her anger is a misdirection that she doesn't fully understand, and the incomparable, almost-nauseating Trotter shows through the simple acts of patience, compassion, and community how to live in new light. Affection beyond postcards shows that not only is love never gone, but it will bloom in ways that subsequently disarm and nourish us. The final exchange is simple, but its core is moving.

Completely impressionable when I first was exposed to this story as the stage musical in second grade. I loved the story when I read it proper not long afterwards. Re-reading it many years later, its power has not waned.