On a Bright Cloud of Music
by Eric Rockwell
In October of 1951, Ayn Rand returned to New York to devote herself to the writing of Atlas Shrugged. While she set out to create heroes that would embody the Objectivist virtues, one such hero was already taking center stage in a Broadway musical. On a bright cloud of music, enlightenment values and the virtue of reason were passionately being presented by a hero in a hoopskirt.
The King and I, a high point in the collaboration of Richard Rodgers and Oscar Hammerstein II, opened at the St. James Theatre on March 29, 1951 and ran for 1,246 performances. In creating this American masterpiece, Rodgers and Hammerstein began with Margaret Landon's novel, Anna and the King of Siam. The novel, set in Bangkok in the 1860’s, tells the story of Anna Leonowens, an adventurous Englishwoman hired to serve as teacher to the king's many children.
Objectivists will find inspiration in Anna, a heroine who unabashedly, proudly in fact, presents western ideals of individual rights to a culture foreign to her. While she humors the king by agreeing to bow to him as do all his subjects, she is forthright in her condemnation of his unjust rulings. Bowing may be a formality, after all, but slavery a gross injustice. And Anna has the courage to squarely confront the King on this.
And she ultimately has a huge effect, not only upon the king, but upon the entire culture. As the king is dying, we see Anna’s young student take the throne and issue a command that would have been unheard of in the prior regime; there shall be no more bowing and scraping before the king, but each individual should stand tall and proud. Anna has introduced Enlightenment values to an otherwise unenlightened country.
Anna has her match in the king, who is steadfast in his positions, however irrational they may be. In justifying his polygamy, and in the double standard that allows men to have several concubines while all women must be true to just one man, he sings:
A girl must be like blossom
With honey for just one man
A man must live like honey bee
And gather all he can.
To fly from blossom to blossom
A honey bee must be free
But blossom must not ever fly
From bee to bee to bee
But Anna’s presence in the king’s life causes him to question this position. For where he once was adamant in defense of tradition, we see the king question his premises:
Is a puzzlement! What to tell a growing son?
What, for instance, shall I say to him of women?
Shall I educate him on the ancient lines?
Shall I tell the boy, as far as he is able
To respect his wives and love his concubines?
Shall I tell him every one is like the other,
And the better one of two is really neither?
If I tell him this I think he won’t believe it –
And I nearly think I don’t believe it either!
And all of this soars on the wings of Rodgers’ melodious score and Oscar Hammerstein’s heartfelt and poetic lyrics. The melodies are beautifully constructed, memorable, and moving. Hammerstein’s lyrics fit each melodic line perfectly, while conveying an earnest optimism and benevolent sense of life. And it is through the addition of this wonderful score that an otherwise documentary-like, naturalistic historical drama is imbued with a passionate romanticism.
The king and Anna, though drawn from actual people, become perfect concretizations of East and West in the hands of our master storytellers. When, after a verse of the beautiful “Shall We Dance,” the two whirl ecstatically around a ballroom, our hearts leap into our throats, for it is actually much more than a dance between a schoolteacher and a king; it is a dance of two cultures. It is the East learning from the West. It is a polka wherein Dictatorship bows in deference to Freedom, and Reason sweeps Irrationality off its feet.
The King and I has its critics.
Just as people will often dismiss the work of Ayn Rand, some will also dismiss the work of Rodgers and Hammerstein, and for similar reasons. Hammerstein’s optimism, which is mirrored by Rodgers’ melodiousness, is for many a reason to consider it shallow or saccharine. The same critics will fall all over themselves for something jaded, cynical and unmelodic.
Others, influenced by multi-culturalism and relativism, will argue that The King and I misrepresents both the east and the west. Such critics have argued that it is skewed and bigoted in its portrayal of traditional Asian culture. They will go on to say that the better and nobler portrayal should be an indictment not against the slavery and injustice of the East, but of the imperialism of the West.
And some may dismiss the musical as mere “entertainment,” which means that it cannot qualify as art. What can account for such an odd view? Is a puzzlement! Yet it is a puzzlement that Ayn Rand answers eloquently in this journal entry:
The idea that “art” and “entertainment” are opposites, that art is serious and dull, while entertainment is empty and stupid, but enjoyable – is the result of the nonhuman, altruistic morality. That which is good must be unpleasant. That which is enjoyable is sinful. Pleasure is an indulgence of a low order, to be apologized for. The serious is the performance of a duty, unpleasant, and therefore, uplifting.
If a work of art examines life seriously, it must necessarily be unpleasant and unexciting, because such is the nature of life for man. An entertaining, enjoyable play cannot possibly be true to the deeper essence of life, it must be superficial, since life is not to be enjoyed.
When people hold assumptions that include the concept that reality is unknowable, they will assume that the more disconnected, illogical and obtuse a work of art is, the more sophisticated it is. And likewise, when a work of art is told logically in an intelligible manner it may be deemed hackneyed, simplistic or devoid of any truth. Truth, for these people, needs to be impossible to grasp. Because of this many people who have been poisoned by the underlying philosophies of post-modernism will be unmoved by the musicals of Rodgers and Hammerstein.
And it is their loss. For in this one work, we have a score rich with melody, a plot filled with passion, a theme of high moral ideals, interesting characters, an exotic setting, a conflict of ideas, romance, song and dance, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera!
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