'Gilding the Guild': Art Theatre, the Broadway revue and cultural parody in The Garrick Gaieties (1925-1930)

Abstract

The legendary Garrick Gaieties revues of the mid-1920s are credited with launching the Broadway careers of Richard Rodgers and Lorenz Hart, with developing the style of the ‘sophisticated revue’ and with establishing Rodgers’ collaboration with the Theatre Guild, which later produced Oklahoma! (1943) and Carousel (1945). Beyond these more familiar innovations, The Garrick Gaieties invites closer scrutiny for the series’ complex relationship with the Little Theatre and art theatre movements of the 1920s, as represented by the Theatre Guild. Through cultural parody satirizing both the Theatre Guild and Broadway commercialism, the creators of The Garrick Gaieties of 1925, 1926 and 1930 not only used the revue form to destabilize cultural hierarchies and address tensions concerning art and commerce, but to bridge the distinct traditions of the Broadway musical and art theatre during the culturally dynamic years of the 1920s.