Please enable JavaScript.
Coggle requires JavaScript to display documents.
Bob Fosse - The Pajama Game - Coggle Diagram
Bob Fosse - The Pajama Game
Impact
It was revived in 1973, and again in 2006 by The Roundabout Theatre Company.
Enabled Fosse to collaborate with Abbott a year later on Damn Yankees
A 1958 musical film about the New York Yankees baseball team with Gwen Verdon as the female lead (who became the iconic Fosse dancer and became Fosse's third wife in 1960)
First staged in 1954, The Pajama Game won three Tony awards, including best musical, and won another Tony for Best Revival in 2006, a testament to the fact that love, music, and politics are as hot as they ever were.
Start of Fosse’s success - his style was recognised
Fosse received the first of his many Tony Awards for Best Choreography for "The Pajama Game.
Reflected and supported american politics & economy at the time
Fosse's big break after his successful choreography in Kiss me Kate. George Abbott gave him a chance. Jerome Robbins was on standby just in case (in case it was too provocative or not good enough, etc)
Style
Movement does not yet reflect fosse’s extreme sexualised movements seen in Cabaret & Chicago
Syncopated sound effects and rhythmical bounces, staccato shuffles
He incorporated all the tricks of vaudeville that he had learned -- pratfalls, slights-of-hand, double takes.
Steam Heat showcased his trademark choreographic style: sexually suggestive forward hip-thrusts; the vaudeville humour of hunched shoulders and turned-in feet; the amazing, mime-like articulation of hands. Broken wrists, splayed fingers, angular positions
He often dressed his dancers in black and put them in white gloves and derbies, recalling the image of Charlie Chaplin. Could this relate to class?
Jack Cole (the father of "jazz dancing")- dramatic quality
Steam Heat- Performed in a union meeting in the pajama factory
Mechanical Movements- what could this reflect?
The Pajama Game - mention the musical 1954 (directed by George Abbott and Jerome Robbins) but focus on the film 1957 (directed by George Abbott and Stanley Donen)
About a union strike in a pajama factory. Romance is blossoming at the Sleep-Tite Pajama Factory in Iowa. Handsome new Superintendent Sid Sorokin falls hard for feisty Union rep “Babe” Williams, and, despite her dismissal of all things love-related, it seems she’s falling right back. That is, until Sleep-Tite employees are refused a seven-and-a-half cent raise, and the pair find themselves on either side of the union protest that results. The number steam heat is a performance for the workers
Origins
A musical based on the 1953 novel 7 ½ cents by Richard Bissell & George Abbott
Later created into a film in 1957 directed and produced by George Abbot & Stanley Donen
Directed by George Abbott & Jerome Robbins the show made Fosse an overnight success and showcased his style
Based on Labor unions- links to 1950’s politics in America, relates to American workers
It was Fosse's first fully choreographed show (1954 version)
After concerns that Fosse’s work would be too provocative- Robbins encouraged Abbott to take a chance. A chance that paid off
Influences
Charlie Chaplin
Fosse's personal life and training - vaudevillian style
American Politics
Collaboration with Abbott and Robbins
Working class people
Jack Cole
Vaudeville