I don’t think anyone wants to return to
the time when the workplace was rife with sexism and sexual harassment was a
normal occurrence. Nor does anyone want
to see a business setting where the only upward mobility for a woman is limited
to being a secretary to the highest male executive in the corporate
hierarchy.
#HoCoArts |
| Photo by Stan Barough |
But the hilarious musical How to Succeed in Business Without Really
Trying currently playing at the Olney Theatre Center takes us to that place
in the early 1960’s, and for nearly three hours, we can laugh aloud and
appreciate the fact the era is relegated to the dustbin of history.
While those sexist days may be gone in most
places, the office in-fighting, politics, back-biting and ruthlessness cloaked in
ambition, as exhibited in the show’s fictional New York City-based Worldwide
Wicket Company, alas, remains in the real world even today.
How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying is a musical by Frank Loesser with a superb book by Abe Burrows,
Jack Weinstock and Willie Gilbert that is based on Shepherd Meade’s bestselling
book with the same title. The show opened
on Broadway in 1961 and the next year captured seven Tony Awards including Best
Musical. The success of the show spawned
winning revivals in 1995 and 2011 and a film adaptation in 1967.
No comments:
Post a Comment