Make Believe: Showboating in America

“Others find peace of mind in pretending…couldn’t you, couldn’t I, couldn’t we?” ― from the song “Make Believe,” written for the Broadway musical Show Boat, with music by Jerome Kern and lyrics by Oscar Hammerstein II

A friend of mine, who is a theatre performer, and I were talking the other day about the Broadway musical, Show Boat. He said, “If I ever have to do or see that show again, or even hear ‘Ol’ Man River’ one more time, I’ll puke!”

I happen to love the show, but I understood, as a “black” person, why he felt that way, especially if you’ve ever seen Show Boat presented onscreen or in live theater. Virtually every time I have performed in it, or seen a production of it, the people mounting the show are “white.” And they seem or pretend to be clueless about what the main theme of the show is. The director will mutter a few vague words about “race relations” and then run off to rehearsal with no clear point of view in mind other than to present some very mild, palatable entertainment to a very safe and satisfied, mostly middle-class, “white” audience. They get to hear pretty songs, see pretty dancing girls, have some laughs, shed a tear or two and—oh yeah—they get to feel sorry for the not-so-pretty, downtrodden “colored folks” who sing about how difficult life is for them on the Mississippi River.

Directors and choreographers always seem awkward when rehearsing the part of the show dealing with the “colored” people. They pretend not to know what to do with “them.”  It’s as if they are afraid to venture too far into the dark “neighborhood” of unresolved “black” animus lest something should happen to these directors and choreographers.  It is as if they are afraid they might get mugged there, with their pure, unblemished, pretend-to-be clueless “white” world forever blackened by the experience of coming into contact with the brutal condition of the African in America.

None of the productions I’ve ever seen, including all of the film versions, has ever dealt with the central theme of this show. They all “miss the boat.” And while I totally get why my friend can’t bear doing or seeing Show Boat again, I think he misses the point of the musical, as well.

First, it must be said that Show Boat is a quintessential American masterpiece if ever there was one. It was written at a time when Eugene O’Neill was beginning to define American drama in the first half of the twentieth century. As a musical, it is unsurpassed, not only because of the stunning beauty of every song in the show or because of its heartrending drama, but because of its theme, which makes it all the more criminal when it and other great theatre works are reduced to ineffectual, innocuous, escapist, non-offending little ditties the way they so often are.

The great theologian, Reinhold Niebuhr said, “Great religion seeks to comfort the afflicted and afflict the comfortable.” The very same can be said of great art. Some theatre is meant merely to entertain, some conceived to entertain and instruct. Then there is theatre that entertains, instructs and enlightens. I would put Show Boat in that category.

It is actually good for us when we sometimes are made to feel and think more deeply about how we live our lives. It can be cathartic, liberating, uplifting, redeeming. In this way, the arts and artists have been comforting the afflicted and afflicting the comfortable for as long as there have been the arts or artists. Why do you think Mozart’s body was thrown into some anonymous Viennese “garbage can”? He afflicted the comfortable just a little too much in eighteenth century Vienna, although now in all their Viennese pretense he is, of course, a god there. But if you’ve ever seen the operas Don Giovanni, The Marriage of Figaro or Cosí fan tutte, you might begin to understand why he was so loathed by the “safe and secure” establishment of his time. His librettist, Lorenzo Da Ponte, died in exile in New York City. “Whatever you do, don’t show us ourselves, we may just have to kill you.” No unflattering mirrors, please.

Another example is Henrik Ibsen. After he wrote A Doll’s House, he had to get out of Dodge for years to come, Dodge being the whole of his native Scandinavia. You definitely do not show Scandinavians their own reflection. Not then, not now, not ever! You will be murdered silently, insidiously, surreptitiously, and no one will even bat an eye or don a Viking helmet to save you. But now, of course, Norway is proud of their great playwright. Artistically, he put them on the map.

And so it goes. When it comes to truth, the land just cannot bear the artist’s words, that is, of course, unless and until they are dead.

I think the reason why the heart of Show Boat, which is its theme, has never been fully allowed to beat freely is that the artists and theatre producers who decide to put on this show are first and foremost more American than artist. That translates, in this case, to being more “white.”

America is the land where all Europeans arrive to become “white.” And American theatre artists are invested in keeping that world “white,” even if it means creating the occasional false and misleading image. But Show Boat’s theme shatters all notions of “white” pretense by making the claim that: Whiteness is pretense.

Let’s look at it.

What do all of the characters in Show Boat have in common? It doesn’t take a Harvard degree to see that every character is, in some way or other, pretending to be someone or something that they are not.

Julie pretends to be “white” when she is actually “black”—she is a “black” woman pretending to be a “white” woman in a “white,” more socially privileged world. Curiously enough though, the one moment when she spends time with the “colored folks” in Queenie's (the black cook) kitchen, she sings, “Can’t Help Lovin’ Dat Man of Mine,” which is a song that supposedly only “colored” people at the time knew. (Music didn’t “crossover” in those days the way it does today. That didn’t fully change until the 1960s.) Queenie actually says to Julie, quite “innocently,” “Ah didn’t ever hear anybody but colored folks sing dat song. Sounds funny for Miss Julie to know it” and when Joe hears the singing as he enters the kitchen he says, “Was dat you, Miss Julie?” Now you know Queenie and Joe exchanged some kind of look with each other on the sly.

I and Thelma ain’t dumb!

Julie’s husband, Steve, plays along in the deception also by pretending that she is “white,” because if he didn’t know she was “black,” he certainly isn’t shocked when she is exposed, fired from the showboat, and run out of town. In fact, at one point when Julie is confronted he cuts her finger with a knife and sucks her blood so that he could now assert that he too, is “black.” Although he leaves with her, their relationship doesn’t survive the obvious social strain it must have put on both of them back then and Julie is finally abandoned.

The next pretentious character is Gaylord Ravenal, the romantic leading man. He pretends that he comes from a higher social class than he actually comes from. He is only a common riverboat gambler, a river rat, a low-life, albeit a very good-looking one. (We’ve all met those types.)

Magnolia, the romantic ingénue, pretends she is more grown up and worldly than she really is. She pretends throughout the entire story.

Captain Andy, her father, pretends that he is running the most successful showboat on the Mississippi when it is really only third-rate.

His wife, Parthy, pretends that she is a highborn New Englander who married and is living beneath her station.

Then there are Frank and Ellie, who pretend that they are a top-notch vaudeville act, and later when they do become more successful, they visit Magnolia, who pretends that her marriage to Ravenal is just fine, and they pretend not to notice.

And then there is Queenie, who pretends that she is just a dumb, “black” cook when actually, she is not dumb at all.

A few characters however, do not pretend. But they serve only to highlight even more how the other characters in the musical do.

There’s Pete, a white worker on the showboat who had an affair with Julie and started off pretending not to know that Julie was “black,” but now because she leaves him for Steve, threatens to expose her as the “black” woman she really is, and later does, totally betraying her pretense and initiating her destruction.

There is the sheriff who follows Ravenal wherever he goes, reminding us—and Ravenal—of his less-than-sterling past.

Finally, and most profoundly, there is Joe, who watches the whole story unfold in a detached, philosophical way. He is the one who points out to the audience that despite all of life’s trials and tribulations the “ol’ man” Mississippi River (whom one can only assume must also be “white”) just keeps rollin’ along, unaffected by the wretchedness of the life to which it bears witness.

Joe begins the song by singing, “Dere’s an ol’ man called the Mississippi, dat’s de ol’ man dat I’d like to be…” He means that ironically, of course. He would “love” to be like that “white” man who pretends that no misery and pain are happening around him. I auditioned for that role once. After I sang the song, the director ran up to me and said, “That was the first time I ever heard the song sung that way. Most guys just sing it with anger, or bitterness, but the irony you gave the character brings the whole thing to life.”

I got the job. I am not saying this to toot my own horn, but it seemed clear to me that it was the way the thing was written. Think about it—Paul Robeson played this part! You know Joe was no cliché Negro role.

I and Thelma ain’t dumb!!

In the Random House unabridged dictionary, the third definition of the word “pretense” is, “a piece of make-believe.”

In the first love-duet, Ravenal and Magnolia sing,

We could make believe I love you,
Only make believe that you love me
Others find peace of mind in pretending.
Couldn’t you, couldn’t I, couldn’t we?

The whole theme of the show is stated right there. I always wondered why Oscar Hammerstein decided to use the idea of pretending in that song. Now I know.

Show Boat begins very powerfully by showing a stark contrast between “black” life and “white” life in America. On one side, there is the so-called “wretched” misery and toil of the “black” experience in America, where one is forced to face the reality of a depraved existence.

This is contrasted by the so-called “happy,” carefree, playful, secure life-of-leisure of the “white” experience, where one can afford to live in a world of social denial. Once you look at the show this way you can begin to appreciate its artistic merit, depth and effect it must have had on the unsuspecting “white” audience on Broadway eighty or so years ago, who sat there watching in all their immigrant pretense.

It’s 1927:  The curtain goes up in the Jewish immigrant Florenz Ziegfeld’s theatre. We see – for the first time in American history – “black” performers playing three-dimensional human beings right alongside “white” performers. The first words we hear are,

Niggers all work on de Mississippi,
Niggers all work while de white folks play,
Loadin’ dem boats wid’ dem bales of cotton,
Gittin’ no rest till de Judgment Day.

sung by the entire chorus, “black” and “white.” The now Disney-owned (ironically, the ultimate symbol of “whiteness”) New Amsterdam Theatre must have almost caved in on itself. On one side, you have the sad “black folks.” On the other side, the happy “white folks.”

Then the story unfolds…

So what? So what if the theme of this musical is that “The concept of whiteness is a pretense?” What does it mean to an audience watching it then—or now, for that matter?

The history of the United States is the story of poor, tyrannized immigrants, who, for some reason or other, were forced to leave their European homeland in the hopes of finding a better life for themselves and their progeny here in the “land of opportunity.” It is also the story of transplanted Africans who were tyrannized and enslaved by those who themselves fled tyranny. These immigrant people did not come from the arch families of Europe. They were the rejects of Europe. In many cases, they were even criminals ( America, the penal colony) and, in the eyes of old Europe, many were perceived to be religious oddballs. (Hmmm…)  This is in no way my judgment of them, only an assessment of what was happening back then.

These people were not considered “white” before they got here: not the Italians, not the French, not the Greeks, not the Jews, certainly not the Irish—who were referred to as Negroes turned inside-out, not the Russians—no one from eastern Europe: Romania, Hungary, Czechoslovakia, Bulgaria, Lithuania, Poland—none of them. And even the people who were considered “white”—the Scandinavians, the English, the Germans, the Austrians, the Swiss—perhaps the Dutch—certainly did not enjoy “white” privilege in their homeland. They were peasants. But here in America they became and still are considered “white.” You change your name, forget your peasant past, “pick yourself up, dust yourself off, and start all over again.”

As an extra-added bonus, you now get to feel superior to those people of a darker hue. You get to think of them as beneath you (for a change), as if they were who you were back in the “beloved old country.”

Not that everyone played or plays out this twisted pretense in their lives when immigrating to America, certainly. But it must have felt good to know that for once you had something you could bank on—a new account conferred on you, from which you could make withdrawals anytime you wanted. It is a “whiteness” account, complete with dividends, a new name and a promissory note stating that this account would never run out—always be “in the black,” so to speak. To pretend that it was not that way then or that it is not that way now would be…well…a pretense.

I will never forget when as a teenager, I came one day rushing out of my high school building in midtown Manhattan and almost bumped into this vendor’s cart being wielded very slavishly down the street by a person of Greek descent. He was sweating profusely and, by his lack of the command of English, had obviously not been in this country very long. However, he knew one word quite well. In his anger, he managed quite adeptly to hurl it at me, as if it were as natural to him as eating stuffed grape leaves or slurping down a glass of Retsina.

Balled-up in that racial epithet was the message, “I may be new here, I may be low-class, but I am white now—or in any event, better than you are.”

Now if that ain't pretense, I don’t know what is.

I think what some “black” people find detestable about “white” pretense is the affectation of pretending that “white” life is somehow worth more—of pretending that “white” wretchedness—though indeed wretched— is still of a more superior brand than is “colored” wretchedness. As if, by the simple fact of being “white,” your mere existence means you’re better.

Look at what we require of our politicians in this country. They’d better have a squeaky-clean, lily-white past if they ever wish to hold public office. However, if you have lived at home behind closed doors with any “white” person or people, you know a different truth. There is no squeaky-clean, lily-white anything.

Ask me how I know.

I and Thelma ain’t...well, you know...

A perfect example of the pretentiousness of “whiteness”: on a lot of talk shows after September 11th, in living rooms after dinner on the Upper West Side, and soon after in Newsweek magazine, the question was asked, “Why do they hate us so much?” That’s a typical “white” person’s question and pose, pretending to be clueless so as not to have to think about or deal with the consequences of rancid behavior emanating from putrid thought. I don’t remember too many “black” people asking that question, yet many could be heard answering it. “BECAUSE YOU’RE SO GODDAMNED HATEFUL!!  BECAUSE YOU’RE SO GODDAMNED WHITE!!”

In a Playboy interview in the early sixties, the genius trumpeter Miles Davis was asked how, if he were dying, he would like to spend the last hour of his life. Miles answered, “By choking a white person.” I know what he meant. If you don’t, you are probably a “white” person.

“Whiteness” is pretense. And so guess what? So is “blackness.” In Show Boat, Queenie acts “black” and dumb for the “white” folks in order to get what she wants or needs. Life lived in “whiteness” or “blackness” in America stunts our growth as a citizenry. “Whiteness” and “blackness” are social concepts, mental constructs – and are America’s major worldwide export. Again, I refer you to Disney—or Hip-Hop. In virtually every corner of the globe, the lighter the complexion, the better, the darker, the worse, or the scarier.

I have difficulty with people who never let you see who they truly are because they act “black” all the time, or act “white” all the time, or “gay” all the time, or “religious” all the time, or like a “man” all the time. The words, the attitude, the thought system, stifle genuine communication and human connection and may cause the person on the receiving end of the counterfeit pretense to resent you…

Now for the good news: You do not have to be of European descent to act “white.” Many Asians, for example, act “white” as well. They just keep their ethnic heads down. It’s like those Public Service Announcements of the fifties where they used to tell the kids to “duck and cover” in case Russia should drop a nuclear bomb on the neighborhood. It’s kinda’ like that. They pretend to be ethnically invisible. They try to forget about it and find peace of mind in pretending. Duck and cover. After all, everyone wants to be upwardly mobile.

Orenthal James Simpson was “white,” until they said he killed that “white” woman. Then he was plastered on the covers of both Time and Newsweek, made to look darker than he ever had been upon returning from a vacation, sending the message that, “You are no longer one of us.”

Boy, they hate O.J. so much!

“You got away with murder, who do you think you are, a ‘white’ man?” Or, in the words of the very funny Tallulah Bankhead, “Who do you think you are…ANYWAY??”

In the end, it cost him not only a fortune from his physical bank account, but he was forced to cash in all of his “white” privilege coupons as well. That bank account is now depleted. Boy, they hate him. But wait – they made careers and millions upon millions of dollars off their hatred (e.g., Greta Van Susteren). Oh well, what’s integrity to an opportunity? What a sad people we sometimes are. But that’s another musical…

And the most obvious example of all is the sick and twisted ways in which so many “white” people in the population have and are dealing with the agony of having a “black” president. This man cannot win for losing. No matter how educated and well bred, no matter how “white” his mother was, no matter how conciliatory he is, he’s inferior by nature.

In the end, it is not only the pretense of “whiteness” that cheapens life, it is pretense in all its forms. There is no hell like knowing you are living a lie and no self-loathing worse than the inner sickness one experiences by dissembling.

But, if we must make believe, leave it to lyricist Oscar Hammerstein’s genius for simplicity—with one stroke of his pen, to redeem Ravenal, Magnolia, and all of us:

Might as well make believe I love you,
For to tell the truth,
I do.

Love.

What a relief finally to hear the word one can build a life upon—through a kind of positive, conscious denial—through choosing not to see the imperfections that exist in all of us, but instead to focus—in love, on the essence of what the beloved truly is.

Show Boat is not some vapid, pretty, aiming-to-please, pretending not to know, blonde or lily-white “white” girl. No. Show Boat is the heartbreakingly stunning and beautiful, mixed-race woman that is, tragically for America, a rejected Julie. It’s about time—eighty some-odd years later—that we finally get to know her.