I Remember Mama is a musical

Musical theatre

Musical theatre is a form of theatre combining songs, spoken dialogue, acting, and dance. The emotional content of the piece – humor, pathos, love, anger – as well as the story itself, is communicated through the words, music, movement and technical aspects of the entertainment as an...

 with a book by Thomas Meehan

Thomas Meehan (writer)

Thomas Meehan is an American writer, best known for Annie, The Producers and Hairspray.-Life and career:Meehan grew up in Suffern, New York, and graduated from Hamilton College...

, lyrics by Martin Charnin

Martin Charnin

Martin Charnin is an American lyricist, writer, and theatre director. Charnin's best-known work is as conceiver, director and lyricist of the hit musical Annie....

 and Raymond Jessel, and music by Richard Rodgers

Richard Rodgers

Richard Charles Rodgers was an American composer of music for more than 900 songs and for 43 Broadway musicals. He also composed music for films and television. He is best known for his songwriting partnerships with the lyricists Lorenz Hart and Oscar Hammerstein II...

.

Origins

I Remember Mama originated as a memoir

Memoir

A memoir , is a literary genre, forming a subclass of autobiography – although the terms 'memoir' and 'autobiography' are almost interchangeable. Memoir is autobiographical writing, but not all autobiographical writing follows the criteria for memoir set out below...

 by Kathryn Forbes

Kathryn Forbes

Kathryn McLean née Anderson , best known by her pen name Kathryn Forbes, was an American writer and memoirist. Many of her works were based on the experiences of her family.-Life:...

 titled Mama's Bank Account. It was adapted for the stage by John Van Druten in 1944; Richard Rodgers

Richard Rodgers

Richard Charles Rodgers was an American composer of music for more than 900 songs and for 43 Broadway musicals. He also composed music for films and television. He is best known for his songwriting partnerships with the lyricists Lorenz Hart and Oscar Hammerstein II...

 and Oscar Hammerstein II

Oscar Hammerstein II

Oscar Greeley Clendenning Hammerstein II was an American librettist, theatrical producer, and theatre director of musicals for almost forty years. Hammerstein won eight Tony Awards and was twice awarded an Academy Award for "Best Original Song". Many of his songs are standard repertoire for...

 produced its original Broadway production. It was filmed in 1948

1948 in film

The year 1948 in film involved some significant events.-Events:* Laurence Olivier's Hamlet becomes the first British film to win the American Academy Award for Best Picture.-Top grossing films : After theatrical re-issue- Awards :...

, and served as the basis for a 1950s television

Television

Television is a telecommunication medium for transmitting and receiving moving images that can be monochrome or colored, with accompanying sound...

 series. Every incarnation basically was the same, a series of heartwarming vignettes

Vignette (literature)

In theatrical script writing, sketch stories, and poetry, a vignette is a short impressionistic scene that focuses on one moment or gives a trenchant impression about a character, an idea, or a setting and sometimes an object...

 centering on a family of Norwegian

Norway

Norway , officially the Kingdom of Norway, is a Nordic unitary constitutional monarchy whose territory comprises the western portion of the Scandinavian Peninsula, Jan Mayen, and the Arctic archipelago of Svalbard and Bouvet Island. Norway has a total area of and a population of about 4.9 million...

 immigrants living in San Francisco in the early 20th Century. At its core is the oldest daughter, Katrin, who yearns to be a published writer and conspires to meet renowned author Dame Sybil Fitzgibbons, a guest at the Fairmont Hotel, for professional advice and guidance. It is through Katrin's eyes we see the struggles, hopes, and dreams of the Hansens unfold.

Production

The musical adaptation was beset with problems from the beginning. Rodgers and Charnin had composed a full score before the libretto was written, so they ended up having to replace a significant number of songs throughout rehearsals, and the director was also replaced. After 40 previews, the Alexander H. Cohen

Alexander H. Cohen

Alexander H. Cohen was a prolific American theatrical producer who mounted more than one hundred productions on both sides of the Atlantic. He was the only American producer to maintain offices in the West End as well as on Broadway.-Personal life:Cohen was born in New York City...

-Hildy Parks

Hildy Parks

Hildy Parks was an American actress and writer.Born in Washington, D.C., Parks pursued acting following her graduation from the University of Virginia...

 musical production, directed by Cy Feuer

Cy Feuer

Cy Feuer was an American theatre producer, director, composer, and musician.Born Seymour Arnold Feuerman in Brooklyn, New York,he studied trumpet privately with Max Schlossberg, he became a professional trumpeter at the age of fifteen, working at clubs on weekends to help support his family while...

, opened on May 31, 1979 at the Majestic Theatre, where it ran for 108 performances. The opening night cast included Liv Ullmann

Liv Ullmann

Liv Johanne Ullmann is a Norwegian actress and film director, as well as one of the "muses" of the Swedish director Ingmar Bergman...

, George Hearn

George Hearn

George Hearn is an American actor and singer, primarily in Broadway musical theatre.-Early years:Born in St. Louis, Missouri, Hearn studied philosophy at Southwestern at Memphis, now Rhodes College before he embarked on a career in the theater, training for the stage with actress turned acting...

, Dolores Wilson

Dolores Wilson

Dolores Mae Wilson was an American coloratura soprano who had an active international opera career from the late 1940s through the early 1960s. Beginning her career with major theatres in Europe, she performed in six seasons at the Metropolitan Opera in New York City during the 1950s...

, and George S. Irving

George S. Irving

George S. Irving is an American actor, known primarily for his character roles on Broadway. Born George Irving Shelasky in Springfield, Massachusetts, he made his debut in the original 1943 production of Oklahoma!, only to be drafted days later to serve in World War II...

.

Reception

By 1979, Broadway audiences had become accustomed to edgier musicals such as Sweeney Todd

Sweeney Todd (musical)

Sweeney Todd, the Demon Barber of Fleet Street is a 1979 musical thriller with music and lyrics by Stephen Sondheim and libretto by Hugh Wheeler. The musical is based on the 1973 play Sweeney Todd, the Demon Barber of Fleet Street by Christopher Bond....

and Evita. Critics found Mama to be old-fashioned and corny, and all were quick to describe the musically disinclined Ullmann as miscast. Advance box office sales, particularly for matinée performances, had been strong enough to keep the show alive in its early weeks, but attendance quickly dropped in numbers dramatic enough to warrant closing. It was Rodgers' last musical.

An original cast album was never recorded, but a studio recording with Hearn and Irving reprising their stage roles and Sally Ann Howes

Sally Ann Howes

Sally Ann Howes is a British actress and singer, who currently holds dual British-American citizenship. Her career on stage, screen and television has spanned over six decades...

replacing Ullmann was released in 1985.

Song list

Act I

• I Remember Mama
• A Little Bit More
• A Writer Writes at Night
• Ev'ry Day (Comes Something Beautiful)
• The Hardangerfjord
• You Could Not Please Me More
• Uncle Chris
• Easy Come, Easy Go
• It Is Not the End of the World

Act II

• Mama Always Makes it Better
• Lars,Lars
• Fair Trade
• It's Going to Be Good to Be Gone
• Time
• I Remember Mama (Reprise)

External links

• Listing with history and production information at RNH official site