About the work
Mame is a musical by Jerry Herman (music and lyrics) with a book by Jerome Lawrence and Robert E. Lee, premiered on Broadway in 1966. Based on Patrick Dennis's novel Auntie Mame and its stage adaptation, it celebrates an eccentric, life-hungry heroine and became one of Herman's signature successes.
Plot
In late-1920s New York, the dazzling, fun-loving Mame Dennis inherits guardianship of her orphaned nephew Patrick. Despite the objections of conservative trustees, she raises the boy by her motto "Life is a banquet and most poor suckers are starving to death." Impoverished by the stock-market crash, Mame muddles through a string of comically failed jobs, finds love with the Southern gentleman Beauregard, and through every reversal preserves her irrepressible zest for life—while clashing with Patrick's snobbish fiancée and reasserting her formative influence on the grown nephew.
Cultural significance
Mame cemented Jerry Herman's reputation as a master of the larger-than-life diva role; the title part was created by Angela Lansbury, marking her breakthrough as a musical star, and was later played by Ginger Rogers, Susan Hayward, and Lucille Ball in the 1974 film. The rousing title song and the ballad If He Walked Into My Life became standards. The work embodies, like few others, the celebration of individual joie de vivre and tolerance, and remained a popular part of the repertoire.