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By 1955, audiences had become accustomed to book musicals that seamlessly integrated dialogue scenes with musical numbers, so this throwback to vaudeville-style entertainment, complete with burlesque jokes, chorus girls, and impersonations of Marlene Dietrich and Zsa Zsa Gabor, "seemed a shockingly dated effort", according to Ken Mandelbaum.
Ostensibly a sequel to the creative team's 1978 hit The Best Little Whorehouse in Texas, it is more a series of burlesque-style sketches and musical interludes than a traditional book musical.
Resembling a chamber musical more than a traditional book musical, it is based on the 1732 Pierre de Marivaux commedia dell'arte play Le Triomphe de l'Amour and centers on Spartan princess Léonide, whose love for Agis is complicated by the fact her throne was wrongfully wrested by her family from the object of her affection.
In his book Musical Work Analysis he develops some of Roman Ingarden’s concepts on the epistemology of an actually existing work of music.