Steam Heat
Steam Heat
#1Steam Heat
Posted: 4/16/13 at 4:35pmI'm currently in a production of the Pajama Game. I love the show, but I have to wonder what the purpose of Steam Heat is. It doesn't provide any plot or character development, and really isn't too entertaining either. It feels pretty out of place. Does anyone know the origins of the song and its purpose in the musical? Thanks!
egghumor
Broadway Legend Joined: 3/9/11
#2Steam Heat
Posted: 4/16/13 at 4:57pm
Hi, belle9, I think a number of people, including myself, would take issue with your assertion that "Steam Heat" "isn't too entertaining." If choreographed and performed well, it's an absolute show-stopper. That number emerged from an era in musicals where all numbers were not required to advance plot, etc. The number certainly shows a wonderful side of Gladys that we wouldn't otherwise know. It was probably developed around Carol Haney's (the original Gladys) strengths as a performer.
I LOVE LOVE LOVE that number, and I hope the director and choreographer will invest some real energy (and artistry) in making the number work. If they do, it will be a highlight of the show.
#2Steam Heat
Posted: 4/16/13 at 5:02pmMy production is using the choreography from the movie. I don't think it's particularly exciting, but then we haven't opened yet, and I'm sure it will improve. I'm just not really sure how it fits into the plot. I had suspected it was a talent platform for the actress playing Gladys.
dramamama611
Broadway Legend Joined: 12/4/07
#3Steam Heat
Posted: 4/16/13 at 5:04pm
I was certain that Gwen Verdon played the role....well, how about that!
But yes, it would have been to show off who you have. It's a GREAT number even if it doesn't advance the plot. (It's probably also covering a big set change as well.)
It OUGHT to be show stopping if down well.
If we're not having fun, then why are we doing it?
These are DISCUSSION boards, not mutual admiration boards. Discussion only occurs when we are willing to hear what others are thinking, regardless of whether it is alignment to our own thoughts.
#4Steam Heat
Posted: 4/16/13 at 5:05pm
If it "isn't too entertaining", you're not doing it right. Check out Fosse's choreography in the movie. (I'm not saying you should steal his staging. Just watch it to get an idea how great the number can be.)
Its function may not be the most organic, but it's pretty typical. "Steam Heat" is there to perk up the audience about half-way through Act II when spectators may be getting tired. (It also reminds us what is at stake without staging a boring union meeting.)
Think of "Honey Bunch" in SOUTH PACIFIC, "Big D" in MOST HAPPY FELLA, "That's How Young I Feel" in MAME and, most of all, the title number of HELLO, DOLLY!
dramamama611
Broadway Legend Joined: 12/4/07
#5Steam Heat
Posted: 4/16/13 at 5:07pmBut they ARE stealing the choreo. Lovely of your director/choreographer.
If we're not having fun, then why are we doing it?
These are DISCUSSION boards, not mutual admiration boards. Discussion only occurs when we are willing to hear what others are thinking, regardless of whether it is alignment to our own thoughts.
#6Steam Heat
Posted: 4/16/13 at 5:11pmThe number comes right after intermission, so it's not covering a set change and isn't in the middle of Act II. I think it would feel more natural if it was in the middle of the second act. We have a fantastic choreographer, but it doesn't seem that this number was given priority. We have 2 girls dancing with Gladys. They're all very talented, so I'm sure it will clean up. I think it just feels out of place to me, and that's why I don't enjoy it too much.
#7Steam Heat
Posted: 4/16/13 at 5:11pm
At the time, Carol Haney was as big a name as Gwen Verdon or bigger. (The latter had just been "discovered" by the public and was still appearing in Cole Porter's CAN-CAN.)
Haney went on to be a well-respected choreographer (her last show was FUNNY GIRL), but died at age 40 from, per Wiki, a combination of pneumonia, diabetes and alcoholism.
#8Steam Heat
Posted: 4/16/13 at 5:18pm
The number comes right after intermission...
I apologize. I was thinking of the movie, probably because I haven't seen the stage play in 40 years.
But you answer your own question, at the top of Act II, its function is to lift the audience's spirits and get them engaged in the show again. PAJAMA GAME is a musical comedy, when all is said and done, not a serious musical play a la CAROUSEL.
Look at the use of the hats in the film version. I don't see how three dancers can do those hat tricks without electrifying the audience. (Have we become so jaded that we need a stage full of cheerleaders to make a dance number interesting?)
Historical note: Haney's understudy, Shirley MacLaine, has said many times that the first time she went on for Haney, all she could think about was to worry she would drop her hat in that number! (MacLaine, rather famously, did NOT drop the hat; she was discovered by a producer in the audience and became a movie star.)
Updated On: 4/16/13 at 05:18 PM
#9Steam Heat
Posted: 4/16/13 at 5:20pm
But they ARE stealing the choreo. Lovely of your director/choreographer.
It doesn't sound like they are stealing it very well... I'd be surprised to learn a high school has three dancers who can do the very specific Fosse choreography of that number; but maybe everybody does Fosse nowadays.
***
Bottom Line, Belle9, you're right. The song isn't as organically integrated as in the best of the R&H shows (but it's no worse than the first "So Long, Farewell" in THE SOUND OF MUSIC).
But PAJAMA GAME is a musical comedy, not a serious musical play (look at how easily union problems are solved!), a form which retained its vaudeville roots long after they were dropped from the musical play.
For decades, vaudeville comedians, singers and dancers were hired and their acts were inserted into the books of musical comedies. That isn't what was done with PAJAMA GAME, but its director, George Abbott, dated from the early decades of the 20th century and wasn't overly devoted to organic unity.
So relax and enjoy one of the most famous numbers in Broadway history. You won't have any trouble picking up the story again after it is over.
Updated On: 4/16/13 at 05:20 PM
#10Steam Heat
Posted: 4/16/13 at 5:27pmIt's not a high school. It's a reputable community theater, and we have some seasoned incredible dancers. The number is definitely improving, and I'm sure it will be a show stopper by the time we open. I just felt the number was out of place.
#11Steam Heat
Posted: 4/16/13 at 5:32pm
My bad again, Belle9. No offense intended, I assure you.
But if you're "borrowing" the original choreography and performing it well, there's really no excuse for the number to be boring.
#12Steam Heat
Posted: 4/16/13 at 5:39pm
I love that number too!! Fosse is one of my biggest idols and I consider this piece to be one of his masterpieces. It's a historic number, as it was in the first show he coreographed and showcased his signature style for the first time on the Broadway stage.
Fosse was originally asked to coreograph a Ballet to open Act 2, but was then instructed by George Abbot to stage "a small, amateur entertainment that the union could put on a its meeting" instead. Abbot hated the number because it always stopped the show and felt like it didn't had any relevance to the story, but of course the audience loved it and it won Fosse his first Tony.
I think there are some numbers that should remain faithful to their original coreography, this being one of them along with Nowadays and most of A Chorus Line.
Updated On: 4/16/13 at 05:39 PM
#13Steam Heat
Posted: 4/16/13 at 5:45pmWe did Pajama Game in high school (I was one of the two Steam Heat guys as well as a sailor in a closet for the Jealousy ballet--seems fitting.) I remember none of the students were thrilled when it was picked for our show, but everyone grew to really love it--and it got some of the best audience reactions I've experienced from the stage.
#14Steam Heat
Posted: 4/16/13 at 5:46pm
atj, that mob with the torches and pitchforks chasing you is composed of all the directors and choreographers who don't get paid for reproductions of their work.
But I agree with you. The theater made Fosse and Bennett very rich men and rightfully so. If some community theater steals 60-year-old choreography, I can't get too upset.
BrodyFosse123
Broadway Legend Joined: 2/27/06
#15Steam Heat
Posted: 4/16/13 at 5:46pm
"Steam Heat" is performed as a performance in a talent show so it has no purpose in advancing the plot of THE PAJAMA GAME. It is simply a random dance number done by 3 workers at the pajama factory as part of a talent show.
Historical note: Haney's understudy, Shirley MacLaine, has said many times that the first time she went on for Haney, all she could think about was to worry she would drop her hat in that number! (MacLaine, rather famously, did NOT drop the hat; she was discovered by a producer in the audience and became a movie star.)
Here we go. Shirley did indeed drop the hat during her first performance of "Steam Heat" (she says this in her autobiography as well as adding that she said "s**t!" to the shock of the audience in the first few rows who heard her, when she dropped the hat).
Now, here is the bit (from MacLaine herself) on how her 'discovery' went: at her first performance filling in for Carol Haney, a Columbia Pictures talent scout was in attendance to check out Carol Haney. Haney was out, MacLaine was in, talent scout does some 'personality tests' of MacLaine at a hotel later that night, MacLaine goes back to ensemble duty for weeks waiting for something from Columbia Pictures that never comes.
Weeks later, Haney is out again, and MacLaine is in again. As fate would once again have it, a rep for Alfred Hitchcock is in the audience to see this much-buzzed-about Carol Haney. Haney is out, MacLaine is in and MacLaine is the one eventually flown to Hollywood for Hitchcock's THE TROUBLE WITH HARRY. The rest, as they say in Guatemala, is Hollywood history.
The story of how MacLaine got Universal Pictures to allow Bob Fosse to not only choreograph (which is what they only wanted him to do) but DIRECT the film version of his SWEET CHARITY is equally delicious. 
#16Steam Heat
Posted: 4/16/13 at 5:58pm
Brody, MacLaine has told that story at least 500 times by now. I'm not arguing with you; the detail in the book version is very convincing.
But I merely reported what she said the last time I heard her tell the story: on THE GRAHAM NORTON SHOW, where I was in the studio audience. That was about 10 years ago.
Perhaps the version she told there was her "shorthand" version specifically condensed for TV talk shows.
(Please note I didn't say she was whisked to Hollywood as soon as she finished "Hernando's Hideaway". When I heard her tell the story, she didn't bother with the details of what happened after the performance.)
#18Steam Heat
Posted: 4/16/13 at 6:23pm
Don't get me wrong: I agree they should be paid. What is particularly egregious (and this has happened to many friends of mine) is when a director is used for a workshop and paid virtually nothing, then when the production transfers, the producer or writer "recreates" the original staging without paying the original stager.
I don't know about NYC, but this is very common out in the hinterlands.
But re Fosse and work from 60 years ago, I merely said I'm not bothered if his work is imitated. If it weren't for movie studios lobbying Congress to extend copyrights, THE PAJAMA GAME would be in the public domain by now.
#20Steam Heat
Posted: 4/16/13 at 7:08pm
I agree. And of course the same principle should apply to Fosse. But even if he were alive, he wouldn't be struggling to support himself by directing amateur productions.
That's all I meant: the Fosse estate has made millions of dollars, even if we only count royalties since Fosse's death. If a community theater imitates his choreography without paying, I'm not bothered.
CurtainPullDowner
Broadway Legend Joined: 11/4/04
#21Steam Heat
Posted: 4/16/13 at 7:16pm
It's funny (weird funny) that Jerry Lewis takes full credit in his book for discovering McLaine and getting the right person there to see her.
McLaine also says when she first went on she had no black jazz shoes, and they had to paint some and they were still wet when she went on. (Who the hell was the Wardrobe supervisor?
#22Steam Heat
Posted: 4/16/13 at 8:05pmMaybe I'm a bit ignorant on this...but when you pay for the rights for a show, isn't it assumed you will use the original choreography? I'm ashamed that I don't know this...I just do the moves I'm given! :)
#23Steam Heat
Posted: 4/16/13 at 8:15pm
No, Belle9. IIRC, securing performance rights to a show gives you the right to perform the words and music, and stage directions that are included in the script.
The specifics of staging and choreography belong to whoever created them.
The laws on this are being challenged by the guild that represents directors. (One of the problems is that copyright law is based on WRITTEN material, so it applies to text and music and even computer coding; but the courts have struggled with staging, for which there is no standard system of notation. Choreography, on the other hand, DOES have a standard notation system and has been treated differently than directing.)
I honestly don't know where the law stands at the moment. Maybe one of the directors here can explain it.
Updated On: 4/16/13 at 08:15 PM
#24Steam Heat
Posted: 4/16/13 at 8:18pmMy all-time favorite Act Two opener. It leaves "God, That's Good" in the dust.
Well-well-well-what-do-you-think-of-that-I-have-nothing-here-to-pay-my-train-fare-with-only-large-bills-fives-and-sevens....
