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Christopher Gleason

Professor Ottinger

Musical Theatre History

December 12, 2018

Forgotten but Begotten

Best known for “the cliche of a group of young performers getting together and putting

on a show,” Babes in Arms is an original musical comedy by Richard Rodgers and Lorenz Hart

that premiered in 1937 in the Shubert Theatre. Although largely forgotten and rarely produced,

Babes in Arms has a lasting impact on American musical theatre then and now. From the

economic to the socio-cultural relations of the piece, there is plenty to unpack.

For the first time ever, Rodgers and Hart write the book, lyrics, and score on their own. In

earlier years, George Abbott writes the books for Jumbo (1935) and On Your Toes (1936);

Abbott is a huge proponent of a tightly structured plot. Without his aid, Babes in Arms has “not

an inspired book, perhaps; not so terse as a Broadway playgoer might like it” (Atkinson),

according to The New York Times. Evidently, short and sweet was the money ingredient for a

script in the 30s. On the bright side, this lack of focus makes for a larger wealth of informative

moments in the script as to what the current America that inspired this musical is like.

The show begins with protagonist Valentine LaMar and his best friend Marshall

Blackstone being abandoned by their parents. Dan and Maizie LaMar and Nat and Emma

Blackstone are leaving for the vaudevillian circuits, a dead genre at this point. Some argue that

the use of vaudeville is symbolic commentary on the nature of the arts in the suffering economy.

As we are deep in the Great Depression, family breakdowns are common; “the stress of financial

strain took a psychological toll … Some men deserted their families out of embarrassment or
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frustration” (Konkel). Val and Marshall are forced to become independent. Oftentimes “children

were expected to acclimatize to the economic and practical requirements of the family, taking on

adult responsibilities at an early age” (Whittaker 156). The two brothers end up meeting more

young people who also seem devoid of a more permanent caretaker. On what they call a “work

farm,” they are forced to labor in order to earn their residence. Billie Smith then arrives on the

farm and joins the chosen family. Billie is a failed Hollywood hopeful and a hobo travelling on

her own back to New York. During the Depression, “It’s estimated that more than two million

men and women became travelling hobos. Many of these were teens who felt they had become a

burden on their families and left home in search of work. Riding the rails - illegally hopping on

freight trains - became a common, yet dangerous way to travel” (Konkel). Val convinces her to

stay and their mother-and-father type dynamic glues the group together.

Among the other members of the group include Dolores Reynolds, the Sheriff’s daughter,

and Gus Fielding, her love interest. Influenced by Operetta Structure, this relationship serves as

the comic romantic subplot under the romantic main of Val and Billie. Also included in the cast

is Baby Rose, an ex-child star from which Val gets the idea to put on a show for profit so they

can get off the farm. The sheriff agrees and gives them two weeks to do so. Money is obviously a

huge character and (likely) a source of satirical Great-Depression-themed wit, since they seem to

lose money and find it again frequently. Lee Calhoun, one of the more well-off members of the

group whose biological family is actually functional, backs the revue with $42.76 (Whittaker

163). After Lee’s father goes bankrupt, another kid - Peter - wins a raffle. Naturally everyone

wants him to invest it in the revue, but he has other plans. So, as is customary in musical theatre

during this era, Peter gets a dream ballet about where he will travel with the money. But then he
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loses it. Eventually a pilot named Rene Flambeau lands on the farm and miraculously agrees to

back the show in the end, and of course it is a huge success.

Lee is one of the larger sources of conflict in the show; in addition to competing with Val

to win Billie, he divides the family with his racist prejudices. Written as a stereotypically hateful

southern white man, he threatens to rescind his backing money if two of the members of the

group, Irving and Ivor DeQuincy, are allowed to perform in the revue. The DeQuincy brothers

are African American, played in the original 1937 version by the Nicholas Brothers. Val,

however, does want them in the show. The community at large is in favor of treating the

DeQuincy boys as equals, including Lee’s own brother, Beauregard, who is close friends with

Ivor:

LEE: Come on! You ought to be ashamed hanging around those little

black tramps. I don’t know what’s gotten into your Southern blood.

BEAUREGARD: I thought the Civil War was over.

LEE: Not for Southerners. Have you forgotten General Lee?

BEAUREGARD: Of course not. That’s the guy that was licked by General Grant.

LEE: Fine southern spirit!

BEAUREGARD: I don’t feel as Southern as you do.

LEE: You got the same ancestors.

BEAUREGARD: Yeah. One Great Grandfather born in South Dakota. (Hart 45)

Rodgers and Hart take the subject seriously in painting such an ugly picture of Lee’s hate. In

fact, Lee is portrayed here as a joke. So why do reviewers respond to the Nicholas Brothers’

performance as if it is a joke? The New York Times said, “Among the Harlem pickaninnies there

are two dancing fools, Harold and Fayard Nicholas, who clatter across the stage with the
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rhythmic frenzy that only the Negroes can conjure” (Atkinson). It may be that, like so many

forward-thinking racially integrative plots of this time period, it is still a show for white people.

While the white man is the enemy, the white man is also the hero. In fact, the brothers Ivor and

Irving are written as defenseless without characters like Val and Billie to defend them: “Ivor’s

desire to please his white elders and his deferring to Billie (a tramp, no less!) as ‘miss’ (which

none of the other kids do) has an uncomfortably subservient ring” (Most 131). Additionally, the

brothers perform a duet entitled, “All Dark People is Light on Their Feet,” in which “the lyrics of

the song undercut some of the political power the dancers might have drawn from their virtuosic

performance,” (Most 133) hence the New York Times Review.

Like scores of other composers and lyricists of the early 1900s, Richard Rodgers and

Lorenz Hart were German-Jewish Americans. Anti-Semitism was at an all-time high worldwide

in the 30s. “The Depression caused the United States to retreat further into its post-World War I

isolationism” (“Great Depression and U.S. Foreign Policy”). Americans wanted nothing to do

with anything of foreign origin during this period of intense struggle. This made the day-to-day

immensely more terrifying for Jewish Americans, who were hyper-aware of the events

happening overseas. They could not talk about it, so the United States administration did nothing

about it. In his own newspaper titled ‘Dearborn Independent,’ America’s own Henry Ford

“launched a vicious campaign against what he termed "The International Jew" which he accused

of everything from threatening the capitalist system to undermining the moral values of the

nation, and finally he even held them responsible for World War I” (“Anti-Semitism in the 1920s

and 1930s”). Rodgers and Hart were both born into relatively secure Jewish-American families

and they had little to worry about earlier in their careers. Nearing World War II, “Jewish writers

and producers feared that audiences outside of urban areas would react negatively to Jewish
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characters, and they felt that the best way to combat antisemitism politically was to keep all

matters relating to Jews as quiet as possible” (Most 95). But Rodgers and Hart, being champions

of inclusion and community, do not nix the idea all together. If anything it is more important to

them than with their work in the past. They never before have felt the need to mention the

backgrounds of their characters in that way, but in Babes in Arms, Billie says, “Look at these one

hundred percent descendants (GUS covers the nose of the boy just in front of him) of one

hundred percent parents” (Hart 33). It is subtly satiric but quite powerful.

Billie’s above wit shows that she understands the diversity of the chosen family; she

knows how to get what she wants. As a character, Billie represents current liberal politics and

strong women, particularly Eleanor Roosevelt. Particularly in reference to minority affairs in the

United States, many were tired of nothing getting done in Washington to keep improving the

condition of hate. In regards to Val’s plans to showcase the two DeQuincy brothers, Billie

responds:

BILLIE: You can’t use them!

VAL: Who says I can’t?

BILLIE: Lee, and you can’t antagonize him now.

VAL: It’s not fair that those kids can’t be in the show.

BILLIE: Maybe not, but there are times when you have to compromise.

VAL: You’re an opportunist! … I’ve had enough of this.

BILLIE: What’s the matter?

VAL: I don’t want to be corrupted. (Hart 60)

Drawing a parallel, “In 1934, Roosevelt decided not to support a federal anti-lynching bill …

Roosevelt therefore advocated patience on the race issue.” (Most 126). His argument was that
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every future bill he would try to pass would be shot down so he needed to be cautious, like

Billie. Rodgers and Hart were strongly in favor of the Roosevelts as were many other Jews and

minorities (Most 96). Billie shows both her ability to manipulate politically and her feminist

power when she persuades Lee to back the show:

BILLIE: Well, of course, we’d see a lot of each other if we do the show.

LEE: Would we?

BILLIE: Of course we would. How could I come to any decision without

consulting you? Oh, Lee, we’ve worked so hard to put this over

and sometimes I get so tired and feel so weak and little. (She looks

up at him) And then I realize that I’m only a woman.

LEE: You poor little girl.

BILLIE: Oh, Lee, I do need a big strong arm to lean on some times.

LEE: Billie, I’ll put the show over for you.

BILLIE: Will you? (Hart 50)

Billie has Lee in the palm of her hand. Her role in the family as a mother figure reflects the times

as well. Women were gaining ground in the workforce During the Depression; “Despite

widespread unemployment during the Depression years, the number of married women in the

workforce actually increased” (Konkel). Not only did many women take blue-collar jobs, but

they took governmental and administrative positions as well. In fact, “Roosevelt himself and his

federal government fostered these expanded roles for women who worked as heads of Federal

agencies, as political advisors, in the New Deal’s relief programs, etc” (Vázquez 141). Roosevelt

then, of course, was urged by his thoroughly influential wife Eleanor to make these changes.
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Movies and Radio were far cheaper and easier to produce and promote during the

Depression, which is why it is a wonder Babes in Arms was as successful as it was. Rodgers and

Hart actually tried their hand at Hollywood but it went poorly. In fact, Rodgers chastises the

world of film, saying that it offers little for meaningful artistic expression or real talent. The film

medium is satirized in the script by both Billie and Baby Rose’s characters. Billie makes an

attempt as an actress but she fails. Baby Rose had moderate success at a young age but asserts in

her song ‘Way Out West on West Avenue:’

I’ve roamed o’er the range with the herd -

where seldom is heard -

an intelligent word. (Hart 56)

This is a direct implication by the writing duo that those involved in Hollywood are simply

dumb. The pair also makes fun of critics in ‘Johnny One Note,’ in which Baby Rose makes fun

of critics for praising an opera singer named Johnny in Aida who offers little artistically to

Verdi’s composition except for his voice. Ironically, Babes in Arms is made into a movie in

1939. The original musical score’s additions to the American musical theatre and jazz standard

canon include the title song, ‘Where or When,’ ‘The Lady is a Tramp,’ ‘I Wish I Were in Love

Again,’ ‘Way Out West,’ ‘My Funny Valentine,’ and ‘Johnny One-Note.’ But only the first three

of the above were kept for the film. Additionally, the plot is drastically changed; even

Valentine’s and Billie’s names are changed to Mickey and Patsy, respectively (Thames). This

speaks to the scope of Hollywood’s influence on the entertainment industry, as well as why

Rodgers and Hart wrote so cynically.

The methods used to produce the musical in 1937 were innovative ways to bypass the

suffering economy. In the end, the musical only cost $55,000 to produce. To fill the shoes of the
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characters, Rodgers and Hart pioneered a movement to develop young talent. Made up of

entirely new faces, and young ones at that, the cast consisted of later-stars Alfred Drake, Ray

Heatherton, Mitzi Green, Duke McHale, and Wynn Murray, among others (Atkinson). This

absence of any familiar faces saved a lot of money and less star vehicles became a common trend

in this time period. The production also happened upon a stroke of luck by being the only full-on

musical comedy for a period of three weeks, opening on July 17 in the Schubert Theatre. Red,

Hot, and Blue and White Horse Inn were the only other musical comedies that premiered prior

that year, and The Show Is On (a revue), and Frederika (an operetta) were the only two

productions happening amidst its opening (“A Musical Premiere”). It may not have been quite as

popular or lasted as long (289 performances) had its opening been less well-timed (Whittaker

159).

As evident in the script’s themes and the production’s management, Babes in Arms offers

relevant commentary on the late 1930s. From minority relations to women empowerment, it

becomes an engaging, new, and virtuosically challenging piece of theatre. Having taken the

baton from 1927’s Showboat by Kern and Hammerstein, it aided in reforming the genre of

musical comedy and bringing it toward the imminent musical play.

Works Cited

“A Musical Premiere.” Rev. of Babes in Arms, by Richard Rodgers and Lorenz Hart. The

Wall Street Journal. 14 Apr. 1937: 15. Print.

“Anti-Semitism in the 1920s and 1930s.” Abraham Lincoln Brigade Archives. N.p. n.d. Web. 13

Dec. 2018.
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Atkinson, Brooks. “‘Babes in Arms’ With a Book by Rodgers and Hart and a Cast of

Youngsters” Rev. of Babes in Arms by Richard Rodgers and Lorenz Hart. The New York

Times. 15 Apr. 1937: 18. Print.

“Life for the Average Family During the Great Depression.” History. N.p., 19 Apr. 2018. Web.

13 Dec. 2018.

Most, Andrea. “We Know We Belong to the Land”: Jews and the American Musical

Theater. Diss. Brandeis University, 2001. ProQuest Dissertations, 2001. Print.

Rodgers, Richard and Lorenz Hart. “Babes in Arms.” Babes in Arms. Rodgers and Hammerstein

Organization, 1937.

Thames, Stephanie. “Babes in Arms.” Turner Classic Movies. N.p. n.d. Web, 13 Dec. 2018.

“The Great Depression and U.S. Foreign Policy.” Office of the Historian. N.p. n.d. Web.

13 Dec. 2018.

Vázquez, Maria Luz Arroyo. “The Empowerment of American Women during the Great

Depression in Comparative Perspective.” Review of International American Studies. 7.2.

(2014). Print.

Whittaker, Donald. Subversive Aspects of American Musical Theatre. Diss. Louisiana State

University, 2002. ProQuest Dissertations, 2002. Print.