In 1932 the blockbuster Broadway musical was Of Thee I Sing, with a score by George and Ira Gershwin and a libretto by George S. Kaufman. Actually, it opened at the Music Box Theater the day after Christmas, 1931 – great timing, inasmuch as it was a spoof of presidential politics, much on the national mind in 1932. It had a run of 441 performances and won the Pulitzer Prize, the first musical to do so.
The plot: If elected, presidential candidate John P. Wintergreen promises to marry the winner of a First Lady contest. A femme fatale, Diana Devereaux, walks off with the prize by sleeping with the judges, but Wintergreen nonetheless marries his true love, Mary Turner, a wholesome lass who wins Wintergreen’s heart by baking incredibly tasty corn muffins.
Wintergreen is elected and subsequently impeached (he is a lovable rogue, the Bill Clinton of his era), but Mary saves the day by declaring that she’s pregnant. Who, after all, would dare impeach an expectant father?
There’s much to love in the plot, including diplomatic squabbles with France and the bumblings of Vice-President Alexander Throttlebottom. Then there is that socko Gershwin score, featuring future standards like “Who Cares?,” “Love is Sweeping the Country,” and of course the title song. It was, all in all, a wonderful show, set, as I’ve mentioned, against the background of the FDR-Hoover presidential campaign.
It is time for another Broadway musical based on a political satire. I hereby offer the following outline:
Presidential candidate John P. Peppermint struggles to choose a running mate, the most obvious choices having various shortcomings. Then Peppermint’s brain trust suggests a contest, the winner to be the person who serves the best home-cooked meal. Several male veep wannabes do their best, but the prize goes to lovely Sara Lee, the governor of a desolate, remote, snow-covered State. Sara wins the contest by preparing a delicious caribou roast. But that’s not all; she shoots the caribou with her rifle and cleans it expertly. “That’s my kind of girl,” says John P. Peppermint.
Alas, Sara, it turns out, comes with baggage: As governor, she has used her power to fix a dog-sled race and to settle various personal scores. But, at the end of Act 2, just when it appears that all is lost, Sara announces that she will soon become both a new mother and a new grandmother. The race is over, for who can vote against such a woman? As the curtain falls, the entire cast celebrates the landslide victory by singing, “Of Thee I Sing, Sara.”
It needs work, but it has possibilities.
