UP ON THE ROOF

“The history of the Broadway musical in the 20th century is also a not-so-secret history of the parallel project of Jewish assimilation in America. Nearly all the best-remembered golden-age musicals were written in whole or part by first- and second-generation Jewish immigrants, but scarcely any of them had explicitly Jewish subject matter–or, in most cases, recognizably Jewish characters. Their creators, most notably Richard Rodgers and Oscar Hammerstein II, preferred to write deracinated, determinedly optimistic fables of the American dream in action…”