It’s March 31, 1943. Opening night for Oklahoma!, the first musical written by Richard Rodgers and Oscar Hammerstein II, at the St. James Theatre on Broadway. Suffice it to say, everyone loves it.
Everyone, that is, except Lorenz Hart (Ethan Hawke), Rodgers’ former songwriting partner, who leaves the show during its title number and heads down the block to Sardi’s, where he proceeds to lambaste everything about the production, from its corny lyrics (pun intended) to the exclamation point in the show’s title.
It’s clear from the start that Hart is not just being catty; he’s also jealous of Rodgers and contemptuous of the show’s success. He knows it’s a lesser work. He still wishes he’d written it. “Am I bitter?” he asks the bartender (Bobby Cannavale). “Fuck yes!”
That’s the setup for Richard Linklater’s excellent new film, Blue Moon, which resists the usual biopic sweep, and focuses not on the stories behind Rodgers and Hart musicals like Pal Joey, On Your Toes, and Babes In Arms, or songs like “My Funny Valentine,” “The Lady Is a Tramp,” and the film’s title song, but rather, on the moment when Hart watches Rodgers leave him behind and move on to even greater success with Hammerstein. (The duo would go on to become the most successful songwriting team in American musical theater history, writing such enduring Broadway classics as Carousel, The King and I, South Pacific, and The Sound of Music.)
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