Sample Solution

The second world war, 1939-1945, brought about a lot of change as well as providing ‘extraordinary job opportunities for women’ (Colman, P. 1995, n/a). To elaborate, due to men going away to war, women had to become more active in the labour force and the idea of woman became more frequently synonymous with working people, bringing the concept of the working woman. Since musical theatre always strived to reflect real life, it made sense that this change offered a whole new side to women which was used in musical theatre as new interesting roles to represent the everchanging roles in society.

This can be seen in the Rodgers and Hammerstein show Oklahoma (1943), when instead of seeing a group of chorus girls opening the show, which was more common in the revue where ‘as many as 280 chorus girls might be used;’ (Mates, 1987, p.148), the curtains rose to reveal the simple scene of a woman churning butter, something that at this time would be considered a normal task. As theatre has always strived to represent real life, as previously mentioned, this shows how women were becoming less seen as objectified entertainment and more as hardworking people.

This idea of the working woman was additionally exemplified by real women working in the show business industry. Once again using Oklahoma as an example, we can look at the work of Agnes de Mille who was said to have revolutionised the way dance was utilised in musical theatre. This was done with her dream ballet scene in which dance was integrated into the storyline of the musical for the first time. It was said in the book ‘America’s Musical Stage’ by Julian Mates, ‘Agnes de Mille’s dream-sequence dances moved the story forward, so much so that no musical with serious pretensions could do without a dr