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Better Foot Forward
Better Foot The History of American Musical Theatre [May 01, 1976] Mordden, Ethan
369 pages, Hardcover
First published January 1, 1976
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Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews
October 3, 2022
Ethan Mordden's history of musicals was probably one of the most important books of my early adult life, in terms of personal development. His brash, insouciant, irreverent outsider's perspective on my favorite subject at the time (musical theater) made me realize that my perspective might matter as well...and two decades later I started my theater website nytheatre[dot]com and for 20 more years I wrote thousands of reviews and published more than a dozen anthologies of new plays. If I hadn't read Better Foot Forward, none of that might have happened.
As to the book itself: it's fun but spotty, opinionated musical theater history. Mordden's writing constantly calls attention to itself (an example I can remember, more than 40 years after reading it, is his statement that the song cues in Call Me Madam were so obvious you could hear them in New Jersey, whatever that means). He's a wise-guy kid spitting in the eyes of the establishment and the gatekeepers: just look at the title, which is a grammatical correction of the title of a relatively obscure George Abbott musical. He's unhampered by academic credentials or Broadway theater experience (and not afraid to tell us so: in one section he tells three theater anecdotes and then says, those are the only stories I know).
But Better Foot Forward is vivid and always arresting and engaging. He champions shows he loves and savages those he doesn't respect. His affection for the artform he's writing about is always clear and unabashed. Most important, in an era when state-of-the-art writing about Broadway musicals was the oh-so-staid works by David Ewen, Abe Laufe, and Stanley Green, Mordden takes his readers on a thrill ride through a hundred years of musical theater that's unlike anything that you'd ever read before.
I have not reread this in decades: I suspect it won't hold up all that well. I'm certainly apt to disagree with a lot more of it now that I know more about the Broadway musical. But reading this for the first time, in 1977, was an eye-opening experience, and I am better for having read it.
As to the book itself: it's fun but spotty, opinionated musical theater history. Mordden's writing constantly calls attention to itself (an example I can remember, more than 40 years after reading it, is his statement that the song cues in Call Me Madam were so obvious you could hear them in New Jersey, whatever that means). He's a wise-guy kid spitting in the eyes of the establishment and the gatekeepers: just look at the title, which is a grammatical correction of the title of a relatively obscure George Abbott musical. He's unhampered by academic credentials or Broadway theater experience (and not afraid to tell us so: in one section he tells three theater anecdotes and then says, those are the only stories I know).
But Better Foot Forward is vivid and always arresting and engaging. He champions shows he loves and savages those he doesn't respect. His affection for the artform he's writing about is always clear and unabashed. Most important, in an era when state-of-the-art writing about Broadway musicals was the oh-so-staid works by David Ewen, Abe Laufe, and Stanley Green, Mordden takes his readers on a thrill ride through a hundred years of musical theater that's unlike anything that you'd ever read before.
I have not reread this in decades: I suspect it won't hold up all that well. I'm certainly apt to disagree with a lot more of it now that I know more about the Broadway musical. But reading this for the first time, in 1977, was an eye-opening experience, and I am better for having read it.
August 5, 2018
This history of the American musical theater is dated, being written in the mid-1970's. However, it's informative about the musical's development up through the 1950's. It's a little dry in spots, with some flashes of wit in other places. Overall, if you want to be better informed about the subject, this is a good book to read.
Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews