"Happy to Keep His Dinner Warm", from How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying
(I should mention this is modeled after Beth's recent post on Ragtime.)
How to Succeed... has recently seen a Broadway revival, starring the lovely DanRad as the main character. In this song Rosemary sings about her wanting to find a rich husband and move to New Rochelle (sound familiar?) and enduring his understandable neglect because of his attention to his business. While she sings it happily, there's a darker underside to her words. She's essentially placing herself in a less-than-adequate relationship because of the expectations placed on her as a woman.
I could go into speaking about gender roles and h ow she is conforming to an image of the steadfast wife, shoving aside her needs to allow her husband to come first, but instead I'm doing to talk about wealth and success and its effect on relationships. In Ragtime we see Mother and Father's relationship slowly break down. Yes, it primarily has to do with the incidents following Coalhouse's disappearance; there are other subtexts though. Mother grows slightly resentful over Father's frugality with the money they do have. Father worries how irked she will be when he must return to work from Atlantic City. Beyond the parental relationship, Father notices his frail paternal connection to his son. Perhaps it is only Coalhouse that brought the stress to their family; call me pessimistic, but I think that only acted as a catalyst.
Catalyst: an excellent concept in discussions about cause! Thanks to the chemists for loaning it to us. LDL
ReplyDeleteYeah, I concur, but I saw Mother and Father's relationship as falling apart since his journey-because he's gone, she learns how to become more dominate and he can't function as her equal. I see Coalhouse as the straw that broke the camel's back. I dunno, I tend to overanalyze relationships. :p
ReplyDeleteBut great choice of showtune! Daniel Radcliffe does remarkably well in this revival, even if he didn't receive a Tony nomination.
There was definitely a tension between those gender roles; perhaps Athena and I should discuss this in our Gender class! But yes, I think you're very right to say that it was just the straw that broke the camel's back.
ReplyDeleteI think he did a good job! It's impressive enough that he broke the HP mold, and did it while singing with an American accent.