Delivered at a head-spinning pace, “Ya Got Trouble” seems like it could have only emerged out of the righteous precincts of mid-century America.
An article in last Wednesday’s New York Times reported that the Broadway show Beetlejuice will be evicted from the Winter Garden Theater in June to make way for a revival of The Music Man. Apparently, the producers of the weird and ghoulish Beetlejuice feel like they cannot move the expensive sets and still recover their $21 million in costs. And it’s not certain any theater is actually available. The owner of the Winter Garden believes a splashy Music Man will be a bigger draw.
There’s nothing especially wrong with Meredith Wilson’s hopelessly square but entertaining musical. It is an antique built on a familiar kind of middle American monoculture. Robert Preston did his best to breathe life into a long Broadway run and the successful 1962 film.
But I have a compromise that should please everyone. Simply merge the shows.
There’s no reason the two casts and a few script doctors can’t come up with a new production that combines the best of both. The Music Beetle, perhaps. Or maybe Beetleman. The combined show would probably be a little more hip and a lot of more fun.
Problem solved.
As you can see, I’m good with titles. It’s what follows that’s hard.
There is actually a point to all this. Taken as a whole, The Music Man is full of perhaps too many trombones and more four-part harmony than might be good for a person. But it does offer one song that’s destined for the ages. Wilson hit a rich vein of Americana with the rapid-fire ‘patter’ song, “Ya Got Trouble.” Wilson’s home of Mason City Iowa was a pretty tranquil place. But at least he knew how people loved to parade their righteousness. It’s a perfect evocation of an American hustler in full flight: filled with trumped up worries that would excite the fantasies of folks in the play’s fictitious River City. Delivered at a head-spinning pace, “Ya Got Trouble” seems like it could have only been sung and believed in small-town mid-century America. The fun of the song is that Americans know a lot about pitches for things that are probably more evocative than true. Peddling fear can also be profitable. It’s a perfect representation of the sell-at-any-cost spirit that helped build the country.
I’m thinkin’ of the kids in the knickerbockers Shirt-tail young ones, peekin’ in the pool Hall window after school, ya got trouble, folks!
The popular historian Daniel Boorstin wrote a great deal about hustlers in America who were constantly on the make (The Americans: the Democratic Experience, 1974). He was right to note that it was a particular American type. Many went on to be innovators or builders of business empires. Others were charlatans. Surely the contestants on CNBC’s Shark Tank are heirs to this tradition. So, I fear, is our President.
