September 27, 1998

Opening Nights

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Ethan Mordden documents a rich decade in the history of American musical theater.

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First Chapter: 'Coming Up Roses'

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By PETER MARKS

COMING UP ROSES The Broadway Musical in the 1950s. By Ethan Mordden. 262 pp. New York: Oxford University Press. $30.

ou just couldn't bear to part with them, could you? There they are, still taking up space in a box in the back of the closet, the cast albums you never play anymore, the ones of the ancient shows with the grainy tracks of Ethel Merman and Robert Preston and Julie Andrews singing ''The Hostess With the Mostes' on the Ball'' and ''Ya Got Trouble'' and ''I Could Have Danced All Night.''

Well, lug them over to your dusty turntable, because you're going to want them handy as you wander through the musicals of the 1950's with Ethan Mordden's ''Coming Up Roses,'' a breezy, thoroughly diverting account of how the American musical grew and changed during a crucial decade in its development.

The 50's was the decade of ''Kismet'' and ''Can-Can,'' ''The King and I'' and ''My Fair Lady,'' ''Gypsy'' and ''West Side Story.'' It was also the era of McCarthyism, the cold war and white flight to the suburbs, but the author, a Manhattan-based novelist and theater historian, is not in the least concerned with any of the social or political trends taking shape just beyond the theater district. The only things that orbit in Mordden's universe are musicals, musicals and more musicals, and his book is an informative exploration of the specific elements -- from the chromatic nuances of the scores and the structure of the books to the imaginative staging and performances -- that separated the hits from the flops.

Related in chatty though at times lazy prose -- a Runyon parody in a chapter about ''Guys and Dolls,'' for instance, is awkward and only halfheartedly composed -- ''Coming Up Roses'' walks a fine line between the nostalgic and the scholarly; it's authoritative without being either syrupy or stuffy. Mordden, who documented the end of the era of the operetta in the 1920's in ''Make Believe'' and has in mind a series of books about the shows of each decade of the century, views the 50's as the prime time of the American musical, an era in which the form ''was in its vigor and maturity.''

The previous decade, he writes, had encompassed more remarkable innovation, with the unveiling of such dramatically ambitious musical plays as Rodgers and Hammerstein's ''Oklahoma!'' and ''Carousel,'' works distinguished by a new depth of character, choreography more completely integrated into the story and music that propelled rather than merely embroidered the narrative. The follow-up in the 50's was an explosion of musicals, strong on romantic melodies and sharper story lines, by newcomers and old hands alike, including Frank Loesser (''Guys and Dolls''), Lerner and Loewe (''My Fair Lady''), Leonard Bernstein (''Candide'') and Meredith Willson (''The Music Man'').

It was a fertile time, perhaps the period in which the Broadway musical was most in sync with the culture. The cast recording was newly popular; a generation of Broadway choreographer-directors with star power -- among them Jerome Robbins, Michael Kidd and Bob Fosse -- was coming into its own; and, as Mordden relates, audiences wanted to see the new show in town even if it wasn't destined to be a smash hit. ''It isn't feast or famine, as we have today, a 'Phantom of the Opera' or 'Big,' '' he writes, naming one enduring megahit and one recent megaflop.

Mordden addresses each show in pretty much the same way: a bit of gossip, a fairly involved synopsis, a discussion of its place in history or why it belongs in history's dustbin. He adores the score of ''Candide,'' waxes poetic about the professionalism of ''Wonderful Town,'' reacts surprisingly coolly to ''My Fair Lady'' and ably justifies his lack of regard for ''The Sound of Music.'' He is most fun, though, when he is in a state of despair over forgotten bombs like ''Saratoga,'' ''Hazel Flagg'' and ''Whoop-Up.'' But that's to be expected. People always go for a delicious pan.

A major service might have been done for readers without access to the cast albums by the inclusion of a compact disk containing a sampling of the show tunes dissected here. But no matter. Mordden is such a vivacious guide that by himself he can make the old shows sing.

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Peter Marks is a theater reviewer for The New York Times.

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