NRR Project: 'The Cradle Will Rock' (1937)

 

NRR Project: ‘The Cradle Will Rock’

Music, Lyrics, and Libretto by Mark Blitzstein

Performed by the Federal Theater Project

Recorded 1938

55 min.

It was the show they could not kill, and it’s still relevant today.

It was the brainchild of Mark Blitzstein (1905-1964), an American composer, lyricist, and librettist of some, er, note. He was a child prodigy; fortunately, he came from an affluent family and could afford to continue his musical studies. He learned his craft at the Curtis Institute of Music, and from European mentors such as Arnold Schoenberg and Nadia Boulanger.

Although initially averse to the work of modern composers such as Kurt Weill (who composed The Threepenny Opera with playwright Bertolt Brecht in Berlin in 1928), he gradually came around to using their style. This approach wedded lyrical scoring with bluesy, angular, vernacular tunes. Additionally, he used Sprechgesang, a German expressionist approach that weds speech and singing. As a result, his work on Cradle was very reminiscent of composers of the day such as Weill and Hans Eisler.

Blitzstein was a confirmed leftist, and he didn’t care who knew it. He played a musical sketch on prostitution for a visiting Brecht, who encouraged him to expand and develop it. He stated, “There is prostitution for gain in so many walks of life: the artist, the preacher, the doctor, the lawyer, the newspaper editor. Why don't you put them against this scene of literal selling.” Blitzstein got to work on the bitterly satiric fable that is Cradle.

In it, a prostitute in Steeltown, U.S.A. is picked up for soliciting and brought to night court. There she meets a timid druggist who has lost his store after witnessing an anti-union bomb that killed his son and three others. Also in the court is the town’s anti-union Liberty Committee, mistakenly arrested as union sympathizers. This group begins to bleat for Mr. Mister, the town’s leading industrialist, to bail them out.

One by one, each of the community leaders is co-opted by Mr. Mister, whose economic power means that what he says, goes. Reverend Salvation, newspaper Editor Daily, college President Prexy, Doctor Specialist, and artist Yasha and Dauber all kowtow to him, and follow his orders to support the conduct of war (in order to sell more steel), and to suppress of the working man.

Into this situation steps union organizer Larry Foreman. Mr. Mister tries to bribe him, but Foreman rejects him and summons the people to rally for solidarity and united action. “When the wind blows, the cradle will rock!” he sings.

At this point in American history, socialist thought was at the forefront of the culture. Violent strikes had marred the landscape, and Communism had not yet been discredited. Blitzstein played the score for New York theater groups, to no avail. Finally, he played it for the 21-year-old wunderkind actor and director Orson Welles, who then advocated for the play’s mounting to producer John Houseman, who was with the Federal Theatre Project, a New Deal government entity that funded arts and entertainment programs across the country.

The opera went forward. Rehearsals began in March of 1937. A theater was hired, elaborate sets were built, costumes were constructed, an orchestra was assembled. However – right-wing politicians got wind of the plan to mount a pro-labor show on Broadway, and behind the scenes they sought to cancel the production. Using the excuse of budget cuts, the show was targeted for shutdown. On June 14, the opera had its dress rehearsal; on June 15, the government padlocked the theater. Sets and props and costumes were trapped inside, unusable.

Performances were already sold out, and the play had nowhere to go. Finally, on June 16, Houseman found another vacant Broadway theater, and quickly rented it. The cast, the crew, and an audience of 600 marched 21 blocks north to it, and prepared to present the show in a bare-bones version.

Ironically, the musician’s union nixed the use of the orchestra, and Actors’ Equity wouldn’t allow anyone onstage without the assent of the original producer – the U.S. government, technically. But the players refused to admit defeat. Blitzstein sat at the piano onstage, pounding out the score solo. In the audience, cast members sat among the audience members, leaping to their feet when it was their turn to sing.

The result was electrifying. The rebellious energy of the performers met with the enthusiasm of the crowd, and the applause at the end was deafening. The show lived. Two days later, the Theatre Guild stepped up to produce the opera, and soon it was being seen in New York and across the country.

The recording is posited as the first complete recording of a Broadway show. The censorship of the show led Welles and Houseman to form the Mercury Theatre, soon to be noted for its dynamic and controversial offerings.

To this day, it remains a wry, beautiful testament to the struggle of working people to overcome the domination of moneyed interests in American society. In 90 years, there is still plenty of inequity to be opposed. Not much has changed.

The National Recording Registry Project tracks one writer’s expedition through all the recordings in the National Recording Registry in chronological order. Nest time: Sol Hoopii and his Novelty Five play Fascinating Rhythm.