The world and all its history is filled with fascinating characters and events. It is only natural to want to tell the stories of these lives, to examine the moments of the past and see how they resonate with our world. However, there is a challenge at play: real life is messy. It doesn’t always present an easy structure to its events, or a person who can always be easily presented as good or bad. Thus, a writer must face the challenge in how to present these moments of history. On the one hand, they should tailor and alter where they must, finding the story within history and weaving it in a way that is easier to digest in an engaging fashion. On the other, they should still have some truth to the history that did happen, otherwise the results can be a full-on fabrication. To examine this challenge in storytelling, let us consider a figure from American history: P. T. Barnum. The famous showman regarded as the “Prince of Humbug” thanks to his healthy dose of promoted hoaxes alongside true performers and bold embellishments in advertising has been the subject of not one, but two musicals: 2017’s The Greatest Showman and 1980’s Barnum. How do they fare in attempting to tell the story of P. T. Barnum? First, a little history lesson for those unfamiliar.
Born in 1810, Phineas Taylor Barnum had spent his early years running through a variety of businesses before he found his place in the spotlight as a showman. His career began with the notorious exhibition of Joice Heth, and then grew into the acquisition of the American Museum in New York. There, Barnum presented astounding sights to the public, from traditional exhibits like dioramas and a wax museum to wonders like the Fiji Mermaid (a taxidermy hoax that was half-fish and half-monkey) and Charles Stratton (a little person advertised as “General Tom Thumb”). He even invested in the arts, sponsoring a grand opera tour for famed Swedish singer Jenny Lind. However, his career and wealth took a hit when he invested in the Jerome Clock Company, only for the company to go bankrupt shortly after and Barnum to be left dealing with the debt. Lecture tours allowed him to claw out from the pit of debt, and a turn towards politics allowed him a chance to do more direct good in the world, such as bringing improvements to the city of Bridgeport, Connecticut and campaigning against a railroad monopoly. It was not until his 60s that he entered the business that most know him for today: the circus business, when an eventual merger with James Bailey led to the Barnum & Bailey Circus, a three-ring circus once known as “The Greatest Show on Earth”. He would die of a stroke in 1891, with his final words being to ask about the receipts for his show.
When it comes to telling the story of Barnum, a musical makes sense as a medium to choose. Barnum’s own sense of showmanship is a natural fit for that approach, given that he even described himself as “a showman by profession…and all the gilding shall make nothing else of me”. However, the truly fascinating part of Barnum is in just how honest he was in his use of “humbugs” (an old term for something designed to mislead or deceive) to wow the public and fill his coffers, so content was he to engage in some lies if it meant exciting a crowd and giving them their money’s worth in the process. This sincerity in exaggeration is a fascinating contradiction, and one that is mostly avoided in the film The Greatest Showman to its own detriment. Hugh Jackman is clearly giving his all as the legendary showman and bringing his full charisma for the part, but the film tries painting Barnum as a paragon defender of the downtrodden. It treats him displaying “human curiosities” (as they were called) as if it were some bold action to highlight people with differences, rather than the all-too-common exploitative business of a “freak show” in that era. The film is not helped by Pasek and Paul’s score, whose songs languish in a modern pop sound that lacks the grand bombast of Barnum’s sentiments. Despite some strong visual flourish in how the musical numbers are filmed, the movie ultimately suffers in trying to paint over this conflicting figure with a more bland “Be Yourself” moral. Of course, there was an earlier musical that serves a more engaging portrait of the famed showman.
First staged on Broadway back in 1980 with music by Cy Coleman, Barnum presents his life as a three-ring circus starring the man himself. Running through notable events and figures from his life as a series of circus acts, Barnum leads his audience through his life with a grand smile on his face, and a certain truth: this show may be pure humbug, but he will give you a good time all the same. He even boldly announces such during the carnival bombast of the opening song, “There’s a Sucker Born Ev’ry Minute”. Meanwhile, his wife Charity acts as a grounding force amid all the astounding feats, poking at his “humbugs” with a need for some truth in the world. Though there is a tug-of-war between Barnum’s sky-high ambitions and Charity’s grounded realism, their love is certain and their relationship serves as the heart of the show. In a way, it also offers a solid point in exploring the nature of Barnum, offering a critical eye on his use of falsehoods even as it relishes that need for wonder and excitement. Although this stage musical does brush over some spots in his life that could have been expanded on, such as perhaps exploring Barnum using his showmanship for good in politics contrasting with his earlier money-minded pursuits, Coleman’s bombastic score and the circus performance structure offers a strong palette of colors in which to paint Barnum’s life. Ironically, it comes down to one key central tenet: a sheer honesty in what a humbug P. T. Barnum had been, and a desire to entertain audiences like he had done.
A person from history like P. T. Barnum can be hard to capture in a story, given the nuances and elements that can conflict even as a shining core of a story glimmers within it all. The Greatest Showman misses that mark by trying to paper over flaws in the man to make a bland attempt at a heartwarming tale, while Barnum embraces the deceits of the famed showman along with his sense of spectacle.
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