ABSTRACT
Stephen Sondheim's experiments focused more on the ears and the mind; the majority of Andrew Lloyd Webber's works began to dazzle the eyes. In a society increasingly focused on the visual, Lloyd Webber's new shows found quick acceptance, setting new records on both sides of the Atlantic. Broadway audiences saw a different show than the production playing in London. The Winter Garden Theatre's layout affected the stage designs of John Napier to a marked degree. The musical score of both the original and revised versions resembled Lloyd Webber's pastiche approach to Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat. A mixture of styles is heard, including country-western, torch songs, techno-pop, rock, and even rap. The blues style is featured, appropriately enough, in "Poppa's Blues", when Rusty has visited the old steamer Poppa for comfort. It is itself a hybrid, using call-and-response from the African American field holler and chords derived from European harmonies.
