About the work
Mack and Mabel is a musical with music and lyrics by Jerry Herman and a book by Michael Stewart, premiered on Broadway in 1974 in a staging and choreography by Gower Champion. It tells of the stormy love between the silent-film pioneer Mack Sennett and his star Mabel Normand. Although the original production ran only briefly, Herman's rousing score is regarded as one of his finest and made the show a much-loved cult musical.
Plot
In the Hollywood of the 1910s and 1920s, the gruff, obsessive director Mack Sennett turns the delicatessen delivery girl Mabel Normand into a silent-film star and a queen of slapstick comedy. A passionate love flares between the two, but it is poisoned by Mack's stubbornness and emotional reticence. As Mabel rises to become a celebrated favourite, Mack refuses ever to show his affection openly and clings to outdated forms of comedy as film changes. Through success, separation and Mabel's decline into illness and scandal, the show traces the tragic drifting apart of two people who never quite reach each other.
Cultural significance
Mack and Mabel is one of the most famous "flop musicals" in Broadway history – a commercial failure at first, yet turned into a legend over the years through its cast recording. Songs such as the prickly love song "I Won't Send Roses" and the ballad "Time Heals Everything" belong to the standard repertoire. The overture became additionally world-famous through the British ice dancers Torvill and Dean. To this day, directors wrestle with the material and its difficult ending, while the music is unchallenged as a high point of Jerry Herman's work.