In Prince’s hands they were imbued with a powerful social vision, while many of his failures went down because they weremore polemical than musical. For the 1946 revival, Hammerstein changed the lyric from “nigger” to “colored folk,” which is used here, though the word “nigger” surfaces several times in the dialogue.īut questioning theater texts and indeed the social role of theater is exactly what Prince has been doing for most of his career, from the 1970s shows that redefined Broadway –“Company,””Follies,””Pacific Overtures,””Sweeney Todd” and “Evita”– right up to last season’s “Kiss of the Spider Woman.” So when the protesters argue that cleaning up the language only makes it possible for white people to view the show comfortably, the point resonates. “Show Boat” begins during the Reconstruction and ends in the Roaring ’20s, and the one thing that doesn’t change is those signs. But they’re not wrong to question the mounting in 1993 of a show whose first sung lines are “Niggers all work on the Mississippi/Niggers all work while the white folks play.” Or a show whose audience faces, for most of the evening, water barrels and theater entrances marked “White Only” and “Colored Only.”

The protesters who have picketed “Show Boat” since it was announced last spring as the inaugural production of the North York Performing Arts Center may be wildly off the mark in screaming “Genocide!” at theatergoers entering the facility.

Houston grand opera showboat review