Race and the Legacy of the World’s Columbian Exposition in American Popular Theater from the Gilded Age toShow Boat(1927)

Abstract

The second act of the musical Show Boat begins on the bustling Midway Plaisance, storied entertainment district for the 1893 World's Columbian Exposition, hosted by Chicago (Figure 1). In the original production, which premiered at the National Theatre in Washington DC on November 25, 1927 and made its Broadway debut on December 27 of that same year, the Exposition visitors were played by members of an all-white chorus. A second chorus, constituted of black singers, did not appear onstage until near the end of the scene. Dressed as Dahomians, they sallied forth from the entrance to their "Village," stage right on Joseph Urban's set (Figure 2). Jerome Kern, the musical's composer, heralded their arrival with primitivist fare: a rhythmic ostinato played in unison by the orchestra, joined by an ominous melody in the lower brass. The men in the black chorus sing first, laying into an aggressive motive. Eight measures after their entry the whole complex shifts up a half a step, and the intervallic content is amplified, the prominent perfect fourth replaced by a minor sixth. At this juncture the women enter and engage in antiphonal exchanges with the men. The section culminates with the black chorus--men and women--singing together, emphatically landing on a F-sharp dominant seventh chord. The lyrics, penned by Oscar Hammerstein II, are the chanted nonsense syllables of a stereotypical "primitive" language (Figure 3a). The white chorus responds in horror, spilling a cascade of couplets: "Don't let us stay here, For though they may play here, they are acting vicious, they might get malicious/And though I'm not fearful, I'll not be a spearful, so you'd better show me, the way from Dahomey!" They quit the stage, and the black chorus announces, "we're glad to see those white folks go," continuing on for a moment in primitivist mode. But abruptly the