The Theater: New Musical on Broadway, Nov. 30, 1959

The Sound of Music—with Richard Rodgers supplying the music, Oscar Hammerstein the lyrics, Howard Lindsay and Russel Crouse the libretto, and with Mary Martin as the star—provides “What’s in a name?” with at least one answer: “A $2,325,000 advance sale.” The show itself, in accordance with Rodgers and Hammerstein’s desire not to repeat themselves, goes to Austria at the time of the Anschluss for its story, to the famous Trapp Family Singers, who dramatically escaped from the Nazis’ clutches. Besides Captain Georg von Trapp, there were his seven children and their governess, a young novice from a neighboring abbey, who taught the children to sing, won their love, and married their father. As musicomedy, The Sound of Music combines the cloister and the kindergarten. nursery rhymes and Nazi salutes.

It is Composer Rodgers who meets the challenge best. With easy versatility, if no great distinction, he has written perky ditties and part songs for children, a lilting quartet for nuns, nice music for folk dancing, nice music for lovemaking, a swelling processional, a kind of hallelujah chorus. But, in general, the show’s virtues are marred by its weaknesses. For one thing, Rodgers and Hammerstein do repeat themselves: governess, children and children’s papa seem at moments the twins of The King and I. And The Sound of Music suffers badly by comparison, has less swing, less gaiety, less piquancy, less the very air of musicomedy.

The show’s pervasive fault is that, instead of offsetting sweetness with lightness, it turns sticky with sweetness and light. Though often attractive, the abbey scenes come off too pretty; though sometimes fetching, the children’s scenes come off too cute. Even Mary Martin, however deft, comes off a little too lovable. The milk of human kindness is not enough for The Sound of Music. It insists on the syrup, till even the Nazis seem mere bad goblins in a fairy tale.

As a result, a good deal of rewarding detail blurs into a June-moon landscape, an all-church-bells-and-wedding-bells kind of world. In spite of a triangular love story, there is not one tantrum; in spite of seven Trapp children, not one brat. Surely even an unexceptionable family show can be more fun: The Sound of Music ends by making its warmheartedness as cloying as a lollipop, as trying as a lisp.