Search/Recent Changes
DBTropes
...it's like TV Tropes, but LINKED DATA!

Allegro (Theatre)

 Allegro (Theatre)
type
TVTItem
 Allegro (Theatre)
label
Allegro (Theatre)
 Allegro (Theatre)
page
Allegro
 Allegro (Theatre)
comment
Allegro is a 1947 Broadway musical by Rodgers and Hammerstein, their third after their triumphs with Oklahoma! and Carousel and their first collaboration with an original story.The first act begins in an unnamed small American town with the birth of the protagonist, Joseph Taylor Jr., the son of the town doctor, who plans for Joe to take over for him when he's gone. A series of scenes and musical numbers take us through Joe's childhood up to his graduation from high school. Joe becomes college buddies with another aspiring doctor, the lazy but likable Charlie, and despite the girls he meets at college, he still courts his childhood sweetheart, Jenny Brinker, a manipulative young woman who thinks Joe would be a failure if he became a small-town doctor like his father. Joe's mother, Marjorie, considers Jenny an unsuitable wife for Joe because of this, but she dies of a heart attack before she can express her reservations, and the act ends with Joe and Jenny's wedding.In the second act, Joe and Jenny are struggling financially because of The Great Depression, and when Joe has an offer to leave his hometown and work at a big hospital in Chicago where Charlie works, Jenny persuades him to take it. After a time skip, Joe has become a well-paid city doctor who spends most of his time treating wealthy hypochondriacs and sucking up to influential donors, and begins to feel that he has failed to do the important work he was planning to do back home. This preoccupies Joe so much that he fails to notice that his secretary Emily has fallen in love with him, or that Jenny is having an affair.Allegro was even more ambitious than the two revolutionary musicals that preceded it. In telling the story of a man's life and career, the creators used theatrical devices influenced by everything from Our Town to ancient drama. There were no realistic sets, with props and projections used instead, and there was a Greek Chorus that commented on the action or expressed characters' thoughts. Characters who died would come back onstage to observe the action unseen, and the design and lighting team came up with complicated effects like dissolving from a group of clumsy student dancers to the way they imagined themselves to be dancing.The show received mixed reviews and was not a hit; it ran only 315 performances, toured only briefly, and had no international productions or movie adaptation. Hammerstein talked about revising it to deal with some of the problems critics had noted such as an excessively preachy second act, but his 1960 death put an end to that. However, it was admired as an attempt to expand the range of stories musicals could tell and the theatrical techniques they could use, inventing what would later become known as the "concept musical" built around a non-realistic staging concept, a format which later musicals like Cabaret and Chicago would successfully use.Hammerstein's protégé Stephen Sondheim, who was with the production as a gofer, was highly influenced by its experimental style despite what he saw as its flawed execution. Producer Cameron Mackintosh once told Sondheim that he had spent his entire career trying to fix the second act of Allegro. "The more I think about the shows I've worked on," Sondheim wrote, "the more I suspect he was right."
 Allegro (Theatre)
fetched
2023-09-17T23:38:55Z
 Allegro (Theatre)
parsed
2023-09-17T23:38:55Z
 Allegro (Theatre)
processingComment
Dropped link to ManipulativeBitch: Not a Feature - UNKNOWN
 Allegro (Theatre)
processingUnknown
ManipulativeBitch
 Allegro (Theatre)
isPartOf
DBTropes
 Allegro (Theatre) / int_1ba17583
type
The Ghost
 Allegro (Theatre) / int_1ba17583
comment
The Ghost: Joe is not seen onstage until he arrives at college; before that, the Greek Chorus gives us his thoughts and characters address him while looking offstage or into the audience.
 Allegro (Theatre) / int_1ba17583
featureApplicability
1.0
 Allegro (Theatre) / int_1ba17583
featureConfidence
1.0
 Allegro (Theatre)
hasFeature
Allegro (Theatre) / int_1ba17583
 Allegro (Theatre) / int_1c8e096e
type
Childhood Friend Romance
 Allegro (Theatre) / int_1c8e096e
comment
Childhood Friend Romance: Deconstructed with Joe and Jenny; their marriage doesn't work in part because Joe doesn't really know the person she's become, just the girl he met when they were children.
 Allegro (Theatre) / int_1c8e096e
featureApplicability
1.0
 Allegro (Theatre) / int_1c8e096e
featureConfidence
1.0
 Allegro (Theatre)
hasFeature
Allegro (Theatre) / int_1c8e096e
 Allegro (Theatre) / int_7de3aec2
type
What Does She See in Him?
 Allegro (Theatre) / int_7de3aec2
comment
What Does She See in Him?: Stated by the couple's relatives in "A Lovely Day for a Wedding":
 Allegro (Theatre) / int_7de3aec2
featureApplicability
1.0
 Allegro (Theatre) / int_7de3aec2
featureConfidence
1.0
 Allegro (Theatre)
hasFeature
Allegro (Theatre) / int_7de3aec2
 Allegro (Theatre) / int_b680713e
type
Melancholy Musical Number
 Allegro (Theatre) / int_b680713e
comment
Melancholy Musical Number: The show's most popular song, "The Gentleman is a Dope," is Emily's uptempo lament about Joe wasting his potential and her Unrequited Love for her married boss.
 Allegro (Theatre) / int_b680713e
featureApplicability
1.0
 Allegro (Theatre) / int_b680713e
featureConfidence
1.0
 Allegro (Theatre)
hasFeature
Allegro (Theatre) / int_b680713e
 Allegro (Theatre) / int_bec0417c
type
Happily Married
 Allegro (Theatre) / int_bec0417c
comment
Happily Married: Joe's parents seem to have an ideal marriage, as portrayed in their song "A Fellow Needs a Girl." Joe even comments that his middle-aged parents still act the way young lovers do.
 Allegro (Theatre) / int_bec0417c
featureApplicability
1.0
 Allegro (Theatre) / int_bec0417c
featureConfidence
1.0
 Allegro (Theatre)
hasFeature
Allegro (Theatre) / int_bec0417c
 Allegro (Theatre) / int_cb7fda55
type
Minor Character, Major Song
 Allegro (Theatre) / int_cb7fda55
comment
Minor Character, Major Song: "So Far," one of the most beautiful ballads in the score, is sung by a character named Beulah who Joe goes on a date with; he falls asleep while she's singing the song and she never appears again. Hammerstein admitted that he and Rodgers wanted to use the song but it wasn't appropriate for any of their main characters, so he created the character just to sing it.
 Allegro (Theatre) / int_cb7fda55
featureApplicability
1.0
 Allegro (Theatre) / int_cb7fda55
featureConfidence
1.0
 Allegro (Theatre)
hasFeature
Allegro (Theatre) / int_cb7fda55
 Allegro (Theatre) / int_d8979db6
type
Dr. Feelgood
 Allegro (Theatre) / int_d8979db6
comment
Dr. Feelgood: Implied of Charlie's uncle Dr. Bigby Denby, the head physician at the hospital where Charlie and Joe work:
 Allegro (Theatre) / int_d8979db6
featureApplicability
1.0
 Allegro (Theatre) / int_d8979db6
featureConfidence
1.0
 Allegro (Theatre)
hasFeature
Allegro (Theatre) / int_d8979db6
 Allegro (Theatre) / int_e4d079c1
type
Greek Chorus
 Allegro (Theatre) / int_e4d079c1
comment
Greek Chorus: Most of their lines are spoken in unison, though they also sing sometimes in addition to the physically-present singing chorus.
 Allegro (Theatre) / int_e4d079c1
featureApplicability
1.0
 Allegro (Theatre) / int_e4d079c1
featureConfidence
1.0
 Allegro (Theatre)
hasFeature
Allegro (Theatre) / int_e4d079c1
 Allegro (Theatre) / int_ee5131cc
type
Dream Ballet
 Allegro (Theatre) / int_ee5131cc
comment
Dream Ballet: The above-mentioned college dance, where the realistically klutzy dancers are replaced by their own dream of how they want to look and move.
 Allegro (Theatre) / int_ee5131cc
featureApplicability
1.0
 Allegro (Theatre) / int_ee5131cc
featureConfidence
1.0
 Allegro (Theatre)
hasFeature
Allegro (Theatre) / int_ee5131cc
 Allegro (Theatre) / int_f22dda19
type
The City vs. the Country
 Allegro (Theatre) / int_f22dda19
comment
The City vs. the Country: The small-town variant, and played mostly straight; Joe's hometown is a seemingly wonderful place full of "men whose hands are strong," Chicago is a miserable world full of phonies, and the Eleven O'Clock Number, "Come Home," is about how much better life will be for Joe if he returns home. Subverted, however, in that the Manipulative Bitch Jenny is a hometown girl while the nurturing and caring Emily is a city girl.
 Allegro (Theatre) / int_f22dda19
featureApplicability
-0.3
 Allegro (Theatre) / int_f22dda19
featureConfidence
1.0
 Allegro (Theatre)
hasFeature
Allegro (Theatre) / int_f22dda19
 Allegro (Theatre) / int_fb6e2ef7
type
Single Stanza Song
 Allegro (Theatre) / int_fb6e2ef7
comment
Single Stanza Song: "Poor Joe," an eight-bar chorus that recurs throughout the play.
 Allegro (Theatre) / int_fb6e2ef7
featureApplicability
1.0
 Allegro (Theatre) / int_fb6e2ef7
featureConfidence
1.0
 Allegro (Theatre)
hasFeature
Allegro (Theatre) / int_fb6e2ef7
 Allegro (Theatre) / int_name
type
ItemName
 Allegro (Theatre) / int_name
comment
 Allegro (Theatre) / int_name
featureApplicability
1.0
 Allegro (Theatre) / int_name
featureConfidence
1.0
 Allegro (Theatre)
hasFeature
Allegro (Theatre) / int_name
 Allegro (Theatre) / int_name
itemName
Allegro (Theatre)

The following is a list of statements referring to the current page from other pages.

 Allegro (Theatre)
hasFeature
A Hero Is Born / int_2248f057
 Allegro (Theatre)
hasFeature
American Media / int_2248f057
 Allegro (Theatre)
hasFeature
College Widow / int_2248f057
 Allegro (Theatre)
hasFeature
Corrupt Corporate Executive / int_2248f057
 Allegro (Theatre)
hasFeature
Cut Song / int_2248f057
 Allegro (Theatre)
hasFeature
Greek Chorus / int_2248f057
 Allegro (Theatre)
hasFeature
Imagine Spot / int_2248f057
 Allegro (Theatre)
hasFeature
Long Song, Short Scene / int_2248f057
 Allegro (Theatre)
hasFeature
Minor Character, Major Song / int_2248f057
 Allegro (Theatre)
hasFeature
Moment of Silence / int_2248f057
 Allegro (Theatre)
hasFeature
Nepotism / int_2248f057
 Allegro (Theatre)
hasFeature
Prank Call / int_2248f057
 Allegro (Theatre)
hasFeature
Sexy Discretion Shot / int_2248f057
 Allegro (Theatre)
hasFeature
Single Stanza Song / int_2248f057
 Allegro (Theatre)
hasFeature
Spirit Advisor / int_2248f057
 Allegro (Theatre)
hasFeature
Survival Mantra / int_2248f057
 Allegro (Theatre)
hasFeature
The Insomniac / int_2248f057
 Allegro (Theatre)
hasFeature
The Wildcats / int_2248f057
 Allegro (Theatre)
hasFeature
What Does She See in Him? / int_2248f057
 Allegro (Theatre)
hasFeature
You Know Who Said That? / int_2248f057