Why Don't Musicals Get the Credit They Deserve?

So asks Carrie Dunn on the Guardian website (although personally I wouldn't choose to illustrate my argument with a photo of Jason Donovan dressed as Carmen Miranda). This is in response to the Evening Standard Awards longlist:

"For the awards, both new works and revivals are lumped into a single category, Best Musical. This means that avant-garde innovations compete against tried-and-tested classics, with no rewards for new writing. The brilliant original rock score of Spring Awakening is up against the Open Air theatre's Hello, Dolly!, for instance."

Which is, of course, highly unfair. Hello Dolly!, being an old-fashioned musical comedy written in the mid-60s, is clearly the more radical and culturally transgressive. By comparison a rock musical written a few years ago is merely playing to the cultural mainstream. But I digress.

It is indeed curious. The Critics' Circle awards seem to do the same thing. Presumably the judges of these awards wouldn't think of pitting a new playwright's offering against a Tom Stoppard revival in the Best Play category. The Olivier awards do separate new musicals and revivals but, given that they once gave the gong to Return to the Forbidden Planet over Miss Saigon, they don't have the best track record. Compare this to Broadway's Tony awards which not only separates the awards for new musicals and revivals but also gives awards for Best Book and Best Score.

This shouldn't be too surprising. Broadway invented musicals and it's only right that they should understand and celebrate them the most. I suspect that most judges on British award panels would prefer not to have to spend their time weighing the theatrical merits of Priscilla Queen of the Desert against Never Forget - the Take That Musical. I can't say I really blame them. But to lump new musicals and revivals in the same category seems to deny that musicals even have authors who intentionally create them, as if they are just random happenings brought about by mere chance.

That's a very odd judging standard from the Evening Standard.

Sams' Theory of The Second Act Dream Ballet

Last week The Sound of Music Tour reached Southampton.

Some time ago I actually heard the director, Jeremy Sams, discussing this show and the structure of musicals. His Big Idea was that, structurally speaking, all two-act musicals have a problem. The problem can be stated thus:

1. Act I is longer than Act II. Act I is normally around 1 hour 15 minutes and Act II around 30-40 minutes.

2. During Act I we get introduced to all the main characters, shown the main relationships and conflicts and reach a partial resolution for a suitably climactic finale. All well and good. But, says Sams, this means that...

3. Act II has 30-4o minutes to fill and not much story left to tell.

His solution is The Second Act Dream Ballet. This is the idea that every Act II requires a Dream Ballet. Not a literal Dream Ballet (although it could be) but some kind of biq sequence that doesn't further the plot much but does serve to run down the clock; a time-filling bit of theatrical padding. In his production of The Sound of Music, the Second Act Dream Ballet is the wedding sequence. In terms of plot, this sequence is telling us nothing more than that Maria and Captain von Trapp get married. But fill it up with singing nuns, processional children, vows, rings and a big white dress and, bingo, you've got ten minutes' worth of stage time.

Other examples might be (and these are my own random thoughts, not Sams'):

Carousel - a literal Dream Ballet sequence
The King and I - the Uncle Tom's Cabin sequence
Guys and Dolls - the Luck Be a Lady number
My Fair Lady - the Embassy Ball sequence
Hello Dolly - the Hello Dolly number
The Producers - the Springtime for Hitler sequence

I'm not sure it works for every show (I can't see where it fits in Oklahoma or Cabaret) and in some ways it sounds similar to the traditional "11 '0' clock number" (as in Hello Dolly) but there does seem to be a basic truth to it. Of course, all this theatrical padding still needs to be integrated. It should still be consistent with character, themes, comedy, emotion and so on. But (and this is the important bit) it should do little or nothing to further the plot in any way, shape or form.

So, in summation:

Sams' Theory of The Second Act Dream Ballet = more nuns.

Quote for the Day

David Mamet in the NY Times (via Mr Stage Right at Big Hollywood):

"I have never spent much time thinking about the themes of my plays, as, I have noticed, when an audience begins to talk about the play’s theme, it means the plot was no good."

The Jukebox Keeps Playing

Broadwayworld tells us that the Spice Girls' back catalogue is being lined up as the next big jukebox musical. Many will groan. But many more will go and see it.

It begs the question, how many more pop catalogues are there left that can be turned into commercially viable musicals? There has to be limiting factors. For starters there has to be a solid fan base, willing and able to make a trip to the theatre (so not too rock 'n' roll). Secondly, there needs to be enough material to make up an evening's entertainment. That means at least a dozen hit songs. By my reckoning that there are only a small number of potential jukebox musicals left:

Forever the Young One - the Cliff Richard musical
Hello, Yellow Brick Road - the Elton John musical
Desperately Seeking Something - the Madonna musical
When Irish Guys are Smiling - the Westlife musical
Retirement Plan - the Girls Aloud musical

I'd give 'em 5 more years. Tops.

Conceptions

Recently caught a show performed by the Guildford School of Acting. The show was Baby with a book by Sybille Pearson and songs by David Shire and Richard Maltby Jnr. It was first performed on Broadway in the 1980s. As the strory of three couples and their reactions to pregnancy, it was a small-scale, intimate show in an era of megamusicals. Lovely performances, sweet songs.

But one the most notable aspects of the show was coming out at the interval and not knowing what the ending would be. This doesn't happen often in musical theatre. Most succesful musicals are based on something else - a book, a play, a film, Argnetinian dictators' wives. There are exceptions (The Music Man, Company, A Chorus Line) but they are in the minority. Even the great Rodgers and Hammerstein only managed two musicals based on original ideas and they were two of their least succesful (Allegro and Me and Juliet).

Why should this be the case? Well, in commercial terms, having an already-established element may help with the advance sales. It's easier to sell Mathilda, the new Roald Dahl musical, than an entirely original musical. In practical terms, I'm sure it helps to have a focal point. Musicals are such a curious mix of competing elements and personalities, having an unchanging source material might help give a certain coherence.

But perhaps there's more to it. Perhaps there is something inherently difficult in conceiving ideas for musicals. Ideas often start small - a character sketch, a scene outline - and then get fleshed out. But musical ideas tend to require a certain size, of character, of emotion. In short, there needs to be a reason to sing. Maybe there is a discontinuity between the "smallness" of how ideas begin and the "bigness" required.

I admit this is all very vague. But along with the obvious commercial and practical considerations, it may explain why original idea musicals tend to come from smaller-scale shows. Shows like Baby are simply easier to conceive.

Phantom Rides Again

There's a new trailer for Love Never Dies, the Phantom of the Opera sequel. Sounds as if the story is largely the same as the one produced by Frederick Forsyth who, I think, was Lord Andy's book writer when a sequel was first mooted many years ago. Although I haven't yet seen Forsyth's name attached to any of the publicity for the new show, he did produce a novella called The Phantom of Manhatten. Spooky.

Anyway, good excuse to post a review of the film version of the original Phantom.

All musicals are, in the end, collaborative efforts and the more you look at Lloyd Webber shows, the more you appreciate his collaborators. Tim Rice initiated Jesus Christ Superstar and Evita. Don Black had his finest lyric-writing hour with Tell Me on a Sunday. Cats owes a lot to its choreographer, Gillian Lynne. Perhaps the exception is Phantom of the Opera. That’s not to say that the rest of the Phantom team were unimportant. Maria Bjornson’s designs were spectacular, Hal Prince’s direction was fluid and Lloyd Webber has never been as successful without Cameron Mackintosh as his producer. Only to say that, more than any of his other shows, Lloyd Webber’s contribution was the driving force behind Phantom.

For starters, it was his idea. He read the book and saw the potential. It’s hard to imagine now but Phantom wasn’t always obvious material for a musical. The original Gaston Leroux novel is a patchy pot-boiler. The silent film versions play up the gothic horror. The Hammer Horror versions focus on, well, mainly the blood and the heaving bosoms. What Lloyd Webber provided was the romance. For him, the story of a beautiful young singer and her ghostly, disfigured tutor was, in fact, a high romance; the pitiful love of the unlovable.

According to some it is also the most commercially successful entertainment in the history of the world, ever. I remember reading that fact somewhere and thinking that (a) there’s no way anyone could possibly prove such a thing and (b) it’s probably true. On a commercial level Phantom can easily compete with biggest blockbusters that Hollywood can offer. Which brings us neatly to the film version and the simple question, what went wrong? How do you take the most successful stage show ever and turn it into a dud film? Here are a few thoughts, roughly in order of importance:

1. The show is “through-sung” which basically means that they cut most of the talking bits. This was Lloyd Webber’s biggest break from traditional musicals. The difficulty in traditional musicals is to get the characters to move easily from dialogue to song. With a “through-sung” musical, the opposite problem occurs: nobody stops singing and you end up with banal conversations being sung for no good reason. The stage show gets away with it because the whole thing crashes along on a big wave of emotion and the audience is swept along by the live performance. On film, there’s more distance and the endless singing starts to feel awkward and unnatural.

2. The film tried to out-size the stage show. Can’t be done. Grand and spectacular designs are always going to look better in three dimensions than two. The most memorable images from the film are the small things - the rose in the snow, the toy monkey music box. They should have found a few more of these.

3. The film tries to provide a bit of back story. We’re shown the Phantom as a child being ridiculed in a freak show. There’s no need. It skews the story away from the romantic and towards the psychological. The Phantom should be driven purely by desire, not the psychological need to work out any lingering abandonment issues.

4. The Phantom’s disfigurement isn’t nearly disfigured enough. In the stage version, half of his skull is caved in leaving a moon-like crater where is head should be. When the mask is whipped off in the Big Reveal, it is genuinely shocking. In the film, he has some severe burn marks and a touch of hair loss. It’s really not that bad; at least, not bad enough to spend your life in a sewer.

5. During the big climax in the Phantom’s underground lair, Raul finds himself singing with a noose around his neck. Inevitably this raises a snigger. There is an unspoken rule in musicals that singing should not be attempted in certain situations. (I seem to remember a song from Sweeney Todd, during which, the actor self-flagellates). It’s silly.

When it came out the film announced itself with no major stars and as the most expensive independent British film ever made. That, too, was typical of Lloyd Webber: big risk, big money. You can understand why he wanted to maintain control. There is something about the story that resonates with the composer. His curious mix of opera and rock, melody and bombast, sincerity and grandiose melodrama, all found their home in Phantom. There have been echoes in his subsequent musicals: the monstrous Norma Desmond in Sunset Boulevard; the dangerous relationship between the young girl and the convict in Whistle Down the Wind; and now, finally, he’s written a Phantom sequel, Love Never Dies. I think it’s probably worth the effort; this is a very unique relationship between author and story. Let’s just hope that the film version works out a bit better.

Dancing on the Edge

Lovely piece in The Guardian by Sanjoy Roy - a dance critic, he - taking time out from the high-falutin' stuff to cast an eye on dance in the some of the current West End shows. His conclusions:

"In the end, I realised that you can't judge dance in musicals by the same standards as you would use for ballet or contemporary dance. Far more than in those forms, it is designed to be looked through rather than looked at. Its focus is often elsewhere – a story, a person, a feeling, a song – and to achieve that, it sometimes matters less if a dancer can do a split leap than if she can wiggle a finger well."

This seems to me an eminently sensible conclusion, especially the distinction between "looking through" and "looking at"; dance as a tool for storytelling as opposed to dance for its own sake.

But it does raise an issue regarding performance in musicals. The problem is that doing a split leap is far more impressive than wiggling a finger. With a ballet or contemporary dance piece, even if you don't get what's going on, the sheer athleticism and physical achievement can still be impressive for an audience. It's clear that the abilities of the dancers go way beyond those of the average audience member and so the average audience member is suitably "wowed". So how can that same "wow" factor be achieved in a musical if the dance is less physically demanding (less "wowey", if you will)?

Some thoughts:

One is to have specialist dancers as Sanjoy Roy notes is the case in Dirty Dancing. The dancers don't have to sing; the singers don't have to dance. Each can specialize.

Two is to impress by versatility. Have the performers doing lots of things - acting, singing, dancing, juggling poodles - and doing them well. The World Champion heptathlete, Jessica Ennis, may not be the fastest runner in the world but the fastest runner can't also hurdle, high jump and throw stuff. Musical performers can be impressive all-rounders.

Three is...well, to be honest, I'm not really sure if any of this really matters. Let me digress.

A few years ago I had the good fortune of seeing Tony Bennett performing with a jazz quartet. As wonderful as Mr. Bennett was, the performer I most remember from that concert was the pianist. During one particular song the piano part started off simply enough but gradually became more and more complicated. The improvisations got more and more involved, the synchopation more and more off the beat. I became aware that this top-class pianist was actually struggling with the music. By the end his eyes were focused like a madman and he was concentrating like his life depended on it. He was on the edge of his ability and it was thrilling.

A few years later and I'm listening to a children's Christmas concert. A little girl, maybe only 5 or 6 years old, comes on with a guitar about the same size as her. She's only been learning a few weeks but is desperate to perform "God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen". So she plucks out the first line of the melody. It's going well until, ooh, she hits a duff note. The audience shift politely in their seats but the little girl doesn't seem to notice. Her focus is on her fingers and that note. She tries again but can't quite get it right. She bites her tongue and has another go and finally, finally gets the note out. The performance continues in the same vein, only by this time the audience is hooked. Rather than feeling embarassed for her (she isn't embarassed herself), they are actually willing her on, beyond every wrong note and on to the end of the piece. Will she make it? The tension was almost unbearable. She was on the edge of her ability and it was thrilling.

Digress over.

This is a roundabout way of saying that perhaps it is not the level of performance that matters so much as the risk that the performer takes. A performer in a musical may not display the same physical prowess as a specialist dancer (or the vocal gymnastics of an opera singer, for that matter) but they can still be thrilling if we know that they're pushing to the edge of their ability. Like those high-wire acts who, now and then, pretend that they're about to fall off, even when they're not. It's reminding the audience that what they're doing is difficult. And musicals should always be difficult.

PC Peddlers

Following up from the post below on Oklahoma!, here's an interview with Michael Matus who plays the Persian peddler, Ali Hakim, in the Chichester production. Rather than playing the character as an actual Persian, Michael Matus plays him as a conman with a phoney accent and a painted moustache (at one point this is made clear when he briefly drops the accent and wipes off the 'tash). The Chichester Observer article explains:

As for Oklahoma!, Michael is playing a part described as a Persian peddler, a part he admits may well have raised a laugh in its day but could potentially come across as very un-PC today.

"Now it could just appear tasteless."

And so the current company have a different take on the role. Ali Hakim, they have decided, is probably from Chicago, quite a sinister character, a conman, not from Persia at all.

"I wouldn't want to end up with a fatwa on my head!"

I'd disagree with the "tasteless" accusation. It certainly didn't seem to harm the National Theatre's 1998 production. I suspect that the over-sensitivity was more to do with a white-skinned actor having to "brown up" in order to play a Persian. As such the decision is more understandable and, despite being a significant character change, actually makes surprisingly little difference to the storytelling. The most important thing about Ali Hakim is that he is a comically dodgy salesman of comically dubious wares; his ethnic origin is really by the by.

In related news Stage Right comments on another instance of change in the name of PC. In this case it's the original Shriner scene from Bye Bye Birdie which, according to the actress scheduled to play Rose in the forthcoming Broadway revival, is a bit too "gang-rape-y". Whoever knew?

Watch the clip and make up your own mind.

Chichester: Oklahoma!

Just caught the production of Oklahoma at Chichester Festival Theatre.

A few notable things about the production:

1. Not much of a set. Or "minimal", to be proper about it. A roundish wooden floor and two plain sheets draped at the back. There's just the one entrance/exit between the sheets. Chairs, a barrel, a box and horse-carts are brought on by the actors as and when required. Oh, and a big rope swing that descends from above the stage. Various characters sit and stand and swing on it throughout Act I, at the end of which, it ascends. Of course, no change of scenery means quicker scene changes. The whole thing moves along nice and swiftly, sometimes not even bothering with applause-getting at the end of a song. In a longish show, that's much appreciated. Problem is that, at times, we don't know where we are.

2. Chorus hangs around a lot. In the scenes with only two or three characters the chorus members loiter, either sitting on the edge of the stage or a-standin' like statues staring into space. Not sure why. Maybe they're supposed to be a Greek chorus or a visible reminder of the Hammersteinian "community" theme. But they do tend to get in the way. Also tends to take away from the more intimate moments.

3. Lights occassionally get dimmer. Pale, ghostly light and shadows bring out the darker moments. This works well in Act II when, after the auction, Jud almost manages to stick a knife into the unwitting Curly. The chorus slowly freezes, the lighting dims. It's a genuinely tense moment.

4. Things get thrown on the floor. All sorts of things: leaves, petals, Jud's risquee picture postcards, coins. At the start, Jud rolls a basket-load of apples across the stage and then repeats the action at the very end of the end of the show (um, after he's been killed). The leaves and petals are fine but the pictures, coins and apples all have to be picked up again by the chorus members, which is a bit cumbersome.

5. Moving from sad to happy at the end. The end is tricky, no two ways about it. Basically the villain, Jud, interrupts the wedding of the hero, Curly, who accidently kills him in a fight. Not so happy. After a hasty, vaguely comical, impromptu trial Curly is aquitted and is soon getting cheerily waved off on his honeymoon. Everybody happy! This move from sad to happy isn't easy to pull off in any credible way. I think the only way to do it is by slowing things right down. There needs to be enough time for the horror of the killing to sink in and for everyone to get over the shock. Not easy when you're pushing towards the final curtain.

These are not intended as criticisms or a review. As it happens, I enjoyed the production very much. But it's a reminder that staging a piece of theatre, especially a musical, is a very practical art. Simply getting everything on and off stage in a reasonably fluid and orderly way is a challenge in itself. And this isn't just down to the director; it stems from the writing. The original concept and the structure of the story need to consider how one scene flows into the next. Most people think that the reason why "classic" musicals such as Oklahoma are done so often is the wonderful and well-known songs. That's undeniably true, but it's because they're also so do-able.

Ecological Apocalyptism and Rock 'n' Roll

Over at Broadway World they're reporting that The Who's Pete Townsend is working on a new musical called Floss. The story is about a married couple who go through difficulties when the husband, a songwriter, scores a big hit and retires early. But here's where things get really interesting:

"When he tries to return to music after a fifteen year hiatus, he finds that what he hears and what he composes evoke the ecologically rooted, apocalyptic mindset of his generation."

Ecological apocalyptism? In musical terms I guess that translates to a sort of folksy eco-Wagner, then. Pete Townsend explains:

"I now want to take on ageing and mortality, using the powerfully angry context of rock 'n' roll."

My mistake, it's a rock musical. Like Tommy. And Hair and Jesus Christ Superstar and Rent and...er, that's it. There aren't many examples of successful rock musicals. Rock 'n' roll has just not proved to be that great a musical idiom for the theatre. The reason for this is, in part, that "powerfully angry context". That's fine for powerful and angry characters (like Judas Iscariot, say) but what about the rest? What about the sweet-natured ones? Or the old, doddery ones? Or even just the mildly comical ones?

Like rap and hippity-hop music, rock 'n' roll has certain qualities: heavy backbeat, shouty vocals and plenty of "attitude". That may make it dramatic, in the sense of attention-seeking, but it also limits its dramatic possibilites. The first rock musical, Hair, literally lost the plot. After Jesus Christ Superstar, Lord Andy's scores had to get a lot less "rocky" in their sound. Pete Townsend pulled off the trick with Tommy but only by turning the whole thing into a strange allegorical comment on religion. It'll be interesting to see whether he can do it again.

Miss Saigon? I Certainly Do

The good folks over at MusicalTalk have been talking about an upcoming celebration of the orchestrator William David Brohn. Brohn has been the orchestrator of many musicals including Miss Saigon. Just listen to the start of that musical's overture and you can appreciate his skill. (The complete recording is available on Spotify). The sound of an approaching helicopter gives way to delicate chimes, interrupted by a punchy bit of brass and followed by an oriental flute. It perfectly sets the scene of war-torn Vietnam. And in only 24 bars or so. Quite amazing.

Anyway. this gives me a good excuse to jot down a few reflections on Miss Saigon, one of the first shows I remember seeing in the West End and one that got me hooked on musicals. The London production has closed now but is well worth remembering.

If you’ve heard anything about Miss Saigon it’s probably about The Helicopter. It’s part of a major set-piece in Act II that recreates the dramatic evacuation of the American embassy at the end of the Vietnam War, when burly marines sat astride the embassy wall, pulling up anyone in the crowd with a white face and leaving the locals to their fate. It remains a potent image of America’s involvement in Vietnam. In the stage musical, at the climax of the scene, a huge helicopter descends on the stage, fills with soldiers and flies off. This is not easy subject matter for a musical to cover and it’s easy to think that this impressive bit of staging is just a distraction. Fortunately the drama being played out on stage is equally as impressive as The Helicopter.

Chris, an American GI, wants to return to the US with his Vietnamese bride, Kim. Amidst the chaos of the evacuation they are ripped apart by a missed phone call. Their last words are hopelessly banal and confused:

JOHN: Please Kim, hear the phone
I can’t get there, please be home
KIM: Please Chris, no one sees
I am lost here, find me please

If this were an Italian opera, at this point, the action would come to a juddering halt and they’d be singing for half an hour about how they would meet in paradise or eternity or something. But the singing language of musicals tends to be punchier and closer to everyday speech. Their love ends, not with any high-minded ponderings, but with a broken phone conversation. Off-setting the messy break up of two people against the historic events happening all about them is an astute bit of drama.

The other thing you notice is the telephone. You won’t find telephones in any of the other West End mega musicals. Les Mis and Phantom of the Opera both emerge from the romantic mists of the 19th century. Cats is based on a collection of 1930s poems and set in some kind of fantastical rubbish tip. Only Miss Saigon is a modern, recognizable place with modern, recognizable people. It’s not just the props and the clothes that are modern, the score is too. Rock ‘n’ roll rhythms, wailing saxophones and contemporary slang:

The heat is on in Saigon
The girls are hotter than hell
One of these slits here
Will be Miss Saigon
God, the tension is high
Not to mention the smell
Is there a war going on?
Don’t ask – I ain’t gonna tell.

The brash slang gives way to oriental chants and songs about the Sun and Moon and the Gods of Fortune. It’s the old clash of cultures story; two lovers caught between East and West. And it’s not just the lovers. The clash is impressively written into the comic character, the Engineer, an unscrupulous shyster trying to hustle his way to America. The pentatonic (five-note) scale, commonly heard in Eastern music, is used to great effect in his jittery little number “If You Want to Die in Bed”, punctuated by syncopated brass. We not only see the clash onstage but, most importantly for a musical, hear it in the songs.

There’s still little critical love for these mega musicals. For most critics they’re simply too big, too commercial and too naff to be any good. When Miss Saigon opened in London the Olivier awards judges, in their wisdom, decided to hand that year’s Best Musical gong to the jolly jukebox musical Return to the Forbidden Planet. Now I still have a few quibbles with the through-sung format and, granted, some of the Miss Saigon lyrics are a bit syrupy but, really, what was up with those judges? In terms of sheer ambition the two shows are in different leagues. I can only imagine that the judges took one look at the huge moving sets and concluded that it must be no more than empty spectacle. Fortunately audiences around the world were more discerning and chose the difficult, contemporary drama over the fun but frivolous piece of nostalgia. That’s a theatrical lesson worth learning.

Musicals and Operas and Plays With Songs

Interesting article from Guy Damman in the Guardian about a new "play with songs", Midsummer, by David Greig, who does the "play" bit, and Gordon McIntyre, who does the "songs". In considering the piece, he ponders on the difference between a musical and an opera and, indeed, a "play with songs". He's undoubtedly correct in thinking that marketing and audience perceptions play a big part in the different descriptions. I'm sure that Greig and McIntyre want to bring in the straight-play audience and worry that a "musical" might attract the wrong kind of crowd. So a "play with songs" is a pragmatic solution. That's fair enough.


But Damman goes on:

"Yet, lurking behind this is a more evaluative position which relates to the hoary old chestnut of highbrow arts v populist commercial culture...what distinguishes an aria from a tune in a musical or play is not its dramaturgical role, or its ability to capture the emotions or state of mind of a particular character. Rather, it is simply that the songs or arias in opera tend to be better crafted, better sung, and better tied to their ultimate dramatic and artistic purpose."

This is pure snobbery. Let's take these points in order. Better crafted? He's already indicated that musical tunes are able to "capture the emotions or state of mind of a particular character" just as well as an operatic aria. That seems to me a pretty good definition of the craft of musical drama. Better sung? It's true that opera singers tend to have more power, control and a wider vocal range. But being a better singer depends on what you're singing. Jose Carreras is one of the great operatic tenors but, when he tried recording "Something's Coming" from West Side Story, he struggled to pick up the jazzy rhythms that come instinctively to most musical performers. Better tied to their dramatic purpose? Listen to "Old Man River" from Showboat and tell me how that could be made to fit the drama any better.

"Yes, it is unfashionable to use the term 'better' in a culture where art is routinely confused with entertainment."

No, it's not unfashionable, just imprecise; better in what way?

I admit that I've never fully understood the confusion surrounding what is a musical and what is an opera. It's always seemed fairly clear to me. It is essentially the difference between an aria and a song: an aria is a piece of music, a song is a marriage of music and words. Of course, arias have words and their meaning is important, but the emotional core remains with the music. In a song, it is not only the meaning of the words that is important but the way that they sound. There is more consideration of fitting the natural inflection of the words to the musical phrasing. In short, arias have words but songs have lyrics.

This has several effects:

1. Operas tend to be more musically sophisticated: the melodies have a greater range, the harmonies more developed, the rhythms more varied and so on. (I suspect that this is what Damman really means by "better"). But in a musical, the music only counts for half of the song. The music is necessarily restricted as it has to make room for its other half, the lyrics.

2. Opera arias often use melissma, that is, stretching a vowel sound over many notes ("I l-u-u-u-u-ve you-oo-oo-oo"). The general rule with musical songs is one syllable per note because the music and lyrics meet on an equal footing. In opera, the music is predominant.

3. The composer is the driving force behind an opera. In a musical the composer is only one half of a songwriter. This is why we tend to refer to Mozart's Magic Flute, but Rodgers and Hammerstein's Oklahoma.

4. If the traditional definition of opera is "drama through music" then musicals could be defined as "drama through song".

Now these definitions are not set in stone but I would say that there is a fairly clear distinction between The Marriage of Figaro, Aida, The Ring Cycle and La Boheme on the one hand and Showboat, Oklahoma, Cabaret and Les Miserables on the other. Both groups are successful examples of musical dramas and which you prefer is a matter of taste. But when it comes to craft, there's plenty to be found in both opera and musicals.

Simples.

A Reason to Rhyme

A great essay from One-Man Global Content Provider, Mark Steyn, about the Rodgers and Hammerstein song "I'm in Love with a Wonderful Guy" from South Pacific. In particular, he points out the abundant use of rhyme:

I'm as trite and gay
As a daisy in May
A cliche coming true!
I'm bromidic and bright
As a moon-happy night
Pourin' light on the dew!

That's a lot of rhyme in a short length of time. Why? Certainly rhymes reinforce the structure of the music but, in this case, they also add to the character. The excitable pile-up of rhymes reflects the giddiness of the character, Nellie Forbush, a corn-fed Kansas girl who's just fallen in love. It's a peach of a song and the rhymes are part of the peachiness. (The only mistake might be the word "bromidic" which sounds a bit out of place).

Stephen Sondheim is famously critical of some of his use of rhyme in West Side Story, especially Maria's song "I Feel Pretty" which comes as she prepares to go to her first dance:

I feel charming
Oh so charming
It's alarming how charming I feel

Not to mention the additional alliteration:

I feel fizzy and funny and fine

The argument goes that here is a poor, uneducated Puerto Rican girl coming over like Noel Coward; it's not authentic. Now I hate to disagree with Big Steve but I think this lyric does work. Rhyme doesn't always demonstrate sophistication. It can also, a la Nellie Forbush, demonstrate emotional excitement; a fine and funny kind of fizziness, if you will. It's this emotional quality of the lyric that makes it work and helps us to overlook the fact that Maria's language skills have suddenly improved. It may not be technically authentic but, more importantly, it is emotionally credible.

That's the crux of the matter. In a musical, it's not the rhymes themselves but how you use 'em. And you don't always use 'em the same way. Sometimes you don't use 'em at all. Indeed sometimes you don't even need that many words:

I'm in love
I'm in love
I'm in love
I'm in love
I'm in love
With a Wonderful Guy

Now that is a clever lyric.

Flopping Like Pancakes

Fascinating interview from Emma Brockes at the Guardian with one of the greats, Arthur Laurents. Much to chew over, including this:

"Everyone in the theatre wants to do a musical. There's a glamour. What could be more theatrical than a musical, and besides look at all the money I'm going to make! Except they flop like pancakes. But there is an excitement about it. Nobody stops to think two things: it's a craft, and it's very, very hard."

Which brings to mind the recent West End pancake, Too Close to the Sun, a musical about the final days of Ernest Hemingway. Now some may point to the subject matter but there have been worse ideas that have found success (Evita?). So, apart from dodgy rhymes and collapsing sets, what was fundamentally wrong with Too Close to the Sun? Nearly everyone can spot a bad musical but few can analyse what makes it so bad. Arthur Laurents may be one of the few.

Musicals are sometimes reckoned to be money-spinners and a hit show can certainly make a fortune for those involved. But only a few people seem to be able to make musicals that work. It's remarkable that, considering the scale of the success of West End megamusicals in the 80s and 90s, it only ever involved a handful of shows created by a small group of people. In fact, take just two of those people out of the equation during that period - Lord Andy and Sir Cameron - and you'd pretty much be left with Blood Brothers and The Buddy Holly Story. Nowadays the playing field has opened up a bit, but it remains the case that most musicals are flops. In that way, at least, Too Close to the Sun is not exceptional.

Why should this be the case? Musicals are mercurial things. If they were formulaic then a lot more people would be cashing in on their popular appeal. But the truth is that they are hard things to get right. With so may elements involved there are plenty of wrong turns to take. Perhaps it is the difficulty of trying to get so many different elements to cohere. Or finding a workable structure. Or knowing what is singable. All difficult issues. As Arthur says, it's a craft and it's very, very hard.

Shall We Dance? Yes, We Shall!

Curious piece from Matt Wolf in the Guradian about a new Adam Cooper dance show using the music of Richard Rogers. OK, let's get the pedantries out of the way. Exhibit A:

"What matters, too, is Rodgers's own interest in extending the very range of musical theatre, whether via the frontier sensibility he brought to his 'western' sounds for Oklahoma! or the liturgical elements in The Sound of Music"

T'ain't nothing 'western' about the music for Oklahoma. He did write a piece for the Sound of Music that copied a liturgical choral style but that was an exception not the rule. In general, whether the setting was New England, the Pacific Islands, Siam or California, the music remained his own; it was and is essentially Broadway.

Exhibit B:

"Rodgers' eleventh-hour waltz in The King and I lets the stern-faced King of Siam cut loose to the delight of an audience..."

Rodgers' elenth-hour waltz is actually an eleventh-hour polka (1,2,3, AND 1,2,3, AND...etc.etc. etc.). Rodgers was exceptionally good at writing romatic songs in 3/4 time ("Hello Young Lovers") but, for this most romantic of moments, he decided to write a decidedly un-romantic polka. That's what makes the moment so good.

Exhibit C:

"Rodgers' vast output across more than 40 Broadway musicals is both sufficiently dance-friendly and also varied enough to sustain itself across the kind of evening one would be hard-pressed to devote to, say, Andrew Lloyd Webber (notwith-standing his Lordship's 1980s venture, Song and Dance)"

Needless Lloyd Webber dig. Not only Song and Dance but Cats also disproves the assertion. Whatever other kind of musical Cats is, it is most definitely a dance musical. Maybe the only British dance musical.

Exhibit D:

"His output is often granted unique pride of place in the UK, where London's Cadogan Hall, for instance, next month hosts a musical revue of Rodgers and Hart, to star Maria Friedman, and the same city's tiny Finborough theatre will mount the European debut of the duo's State Fair"

Er, that was actually by Rodgers and Hammerstein. Poor Lorenz Hart had died by the time of State Fair.

But enough wrangling. The main point is whether Richard Rodgers' music can stand on its own two feet in a purely dance show. Well, yes and no. As tunesmiths go he was undoubtedly the best in the business, maybe one of the best of the 20th century (Lloyd Webber ranks him just behind Shostokovich). The music is good music in its own right. But I don't think the tunes can ever really separate themselves from the lyrics. Just try humming the first notes of "My Funny Valentine" without thinking of the words. Or the jaunty down-and-up phrase of "Oh, What a Beautiful Morning". Or countless other examples.

So when audiences are watching Adam Cooper dancing up storm in his new show, they'll be listening to Rodgers' music but hearing Lorenz Hart and Oscar Hammerstein as well. That's the legacy of popular song, the indivisibilty of words and music. Like love and marriage, you can't have one without the other.

Four and a Half Times Love

An interesting article from Mr. Steyn who is indeed online. Whilst pondering the Leonard Cohen song, "Dance Me to the End of Love", he discusses the old lyric-writing problem of finding a decent rhyme for "love". Basically there are only four and a half: "above" and "of" (pronounced "uv", that's the half) are the most convenient; "shove" and "dove" are the most problematic. The most curious one, however, is "glove".

Here's how Cohen makes use of it:

Touch me with your naked hand or touch me with your glove

Dance Me to the End of Love

It's all about finding a fresh angle. Steyn finds a couple of more examples but misses a big one. Here's Oscar Hammerstein's "People Will Say We're in Love" from Oklahoma:

Don't start collecting things

(Give me my rose and my glove)

Sweetheart they're suspecting things

People Will Say We're in Love

I always liked that one, especially if the interruption is done with a touch of indignation. It's also a good example of Hammerstein's deflected love songs like "If I Loved You" or "Make-Believe". By having two people singing about love rather than openly declaring their love, you get to use all the old romantic lingo (dancing, holding hands, stars above) but in a fresh and interesting way. It's also more human.

Anglo-lyricists sometimes look jealously at their French counterparts and the dozens of useful rhymes for "amour". But limitations can be good for the imagination. They should be grateful for their four-and-a half.

REVIEW: Billy Elliot, Original Cast Recording

Here's a review of the original cast recording of Billy Elliot, currently available from the good folks at Spotify. Book/lyrics by Lee Hall and music by Elton John.

Solidarity, solidarity
Solidarity forever
We’re proud to be working class
Solidarity forever

Whoever knew that Arthur Scargill would make it to Broadway? Obviously the comrades on the Tony awards panel had no such doubts about the appeal of arguments surrounding nationalised industries in Thatcher’s Britain. Or maybe they just liked seeing a bunch of talented kids in a follow-your-dreams kind of plot. Who knows? What does seem certain is that the story of the little dancer that could looks set to become the latest West End megamusical.

Like all the best musicals, Billy Elliot is deeply weird. Set against the background of the 1980s miners’ strikes in North East England, it’s about a young lad who discovers an unlikely love of ballet. As Billy’s talent, literally, takes flight, the miners and their traditions, literally, sink into the ground. Lee Hall wrote the original film and has done the musical adaptation, writing both the book and the lyrics. As you might expect, he’s at his best in the world that he grew up in, that of the mining community. From its earthy socialism (“Once we built visions on ground we hued/We dreamt of justice and men renewed”) to its nastiest vitriol (“Merry Christmas, Maggie Thatcher...one year nearer death”), this provides the real heart of the show.

As for Billy, although much of the time his character is naturally expressed in dance, there is one big number. It comes at Billy’s final audition for the Royal Ballet when, with his entire future hanging in the balance, a member of the audition panel asks him to explain what it feels like when he dances. If that isn’t a cue for a song, then I’m Ethel Merman. But it also requires the right song and “Electricity” fits the bill. The music starts hesitantly as Billy tries to find the words (“It’s a bit like being angry/It’s a bit like being scared”). Like a lot of things young kids say, there’s a kind of articulacy to the inarticulate mumblings. Then the chorus jumps up a gear:

And then suddenly I’m flying
Flying like a bird
Like electricity, electricity
Sparks inside of me
And I’m free, I’m free

The ideas are simple and sentimental but there’s no doubt that it works. It’s a genuine musical theatre moment.

The grown-up characters seem less well drawn. There’s a personal and political ambivalence here that is never quite spelled out. The key scene is the confrontation between the older son, standing alongside the striking miners, and the father, who breaks the picket line in the hope of funding Billy’s future. Politics has suddenly become deeply personal and the father explains his actions:

He could be a star for all we know
We don’t know how far he can go

The neatness of the internal rhyme (“far/star”) is fine but the character is all wrong. This is not some pushy parent shoving their kids on stage in the hope that they’ll be the next Wayne Sleep. This is a man dropping everything he knows and believes in. He does it, not in the hope that Billy will become a star but because, as a father, it’s imply what he has to do. The father’s personal struggle is a distillation of the political conflict between “society” (the miners) and the “individual and the family” (Billy and his Dad). The problem is that we’re supposed to celebrate the “individual” winning out whilst, at the same time, mourn the loss of “society”. The father’s change of heart is an empathetic one; we understand his choice and we’re on his side. But to spell it out more clearly would require that empathy to be mirrored in the political story. That never really happens and leaves a strange hole in the drama. Presumably, to do so, would be to admit the unconscionable, that perhaps Maggie had a point after all.

The music is provided by Elton John who has a unique place in musical theatre. He’s one of the only bestselling chart acts to have had a crack at new musicals. Instead of re-packaging his back catalogue into some Yellow Brick Road Extravaganza, he’s actually trying to make a go of original material and, for this, we should be exceedingly grateful. So far the results have been a little mixed. He’s had two successes (The Lion King and Billy Elliot) but these have been off the back of smash hit films. His two straight-to-theatre musicals have fared less well (Aida and That Weird Vampire Musical) which is a bit of a worry.

Similarly, the music for Billy Elliot is a mixed bag. The more “Broadway” the music tries to sound the less successful it is. So “Shine” and “Expressing Yourself” feel like fillers; generic showbiz numbers shoved in just because they’re the sort of songs you get in a musical show. The sound jars with the British sensibility of the piece, although the singers do have a rum go at keeping up the Geordie accent (“Give ‘um the auld razzul dazzul, like”). The flip side is that the less “Broadway” the music sounds, the better it gets. In fact half of the score is basically male voice choirs and brass bands and hymns. Unlike most pop composers, Elton John writes his songs on piano, rather than guitar, which tends to make the harmonies more interesting. But the really interesting part is the harmonic rhythm. The harmonic rhythm is the rate at which the harmony changes in relation to the beat. In most pop songs the harmony changes every 4 beats (or every bar). In a lot of the Billy Elliot songs,
however, the harmony changes every 2 beats. This doesn’t make them hymns exactly (in a hymn the harmony changes every single beat) but it does make them more hymn-like. It’s what gives the ballads that feeling of earnest reverence. It’s not for no reason that the most famous moment in Elton John’s career came whilst he was sitting at a piano in a church, singing about a secular saint, the late Princess Diana.

It’s this aspect of the music, along with Lee Hall’s more heartfelt lyrics, that give Billy Elliot a British feel. That’s a rare achievement and should be celebrated as such. More than any other Billy Elliot points to a possible way forward for British musicals. In the meantime the show seems destined for world domination. Those posters of leaping little Billies are becoming as familiar as the cat’s eyes and French urchins of the other global brands of the West End megamusical. It seems as though you can sell anything these days, even 1980s socialism. Sing out, Arthur:

Solidarity forever!

A Little Cavilling

"So finally, an arts council grant that surely nobody can cavil...

Oh, I don't know. When it comes to arts funding, I'm always game.

"...an award given to develop new musical writing"

This is news from the Guardian that Perfect Pitch Musicals is to receive a £188,860 from the Arts Council.

"So why is help needed? Mainly because the musicals seen in our theatres today are usually not original works - and rarely British in origin."

Agreed. Although it may be more interesting to ask might be why the old, foreign stuff is more popular. Just a thought.

"If I use just West End shows to illustrate this point, we see they are either revivals of American classics – Carousel, The King and I – or, if they were written more recently, based on films, such as The Lion King, Sister Act and Billy Elliot."

Well now, hold up there. Granted, the songs for The Lion King were susbstantially transplanted from the film, but Sister Act has an entirely original score. And Billy Elliot had no singing at all in the film. If you're not counting that as "original" then you're setting the bar very high. Almost all successful musicals are adaptations of something or other - a book, a play, a film - but they're still original musicals.

Now, about being "British in origin"? That's a tougher cookie, sorry, biscuit. Billy Elliot certainly is. We Will Rock You is (although not an original score). Mamma Mia? Sort of - the production is but the songs are Swedish. It quickly gets complicated.

Even more complicated is the question of what a British musical sounds like. What makes a song distinctively British? Most new British musicals sound American. They're either a bit Sondheim-ish or Broadway-ish or American pop parody-ish. The simple reason is that musical theatre's vernacular and, more broadly, popular song's vernacular is still and always has been essentially American. Finding a genuinely original British voice may take a lot more than a bit of arts funding.

End of cavil.

Chicago 2?

Over on Big Hollywood, mystery man Stage Right is looking at the trailer for the new film version of the Broadway show Nine. Can't say I'm quite as enthusiastic. Looks a bit like an expensive perfume ad to me. Still, nice lingere.

It's being brought to us by director-choreographer Rob Marshall who also did the oscar-winning film version of Chicago.

Here's a review I wrote when that film first came out. We've had a few more Hollywood musicals since then - Hairspray, Mamma Mia, Sweeney Todd - but I think that my main points still hold up: the stars should be musical stars, not just stars who do musicals and the films themselves should be conceived as musical films, not just souped-up stage shows with a lot of machine-gun edits.

Anway, here's the review:

Chicago is the brilliant new film that single-handedly brings back the movie musical to our silver screens. Oops, that was the Moulin Rouge review. Or was it Evita? Ho hum, never mind. Musicals on the big screen are still a rare enough thing to elicit a lot of wishful thinking. But Chicago, like the other recent attempts, still hasn’t managed to re-discover the magic touch of the Golden Age.

One of the big differences between now and then, of course, is the stars. Then, there were musical stars; now, we have stars who do musicals. Take Renee Zellweger, for example: brilliant, brilliant comedy actress (Jerry Maguire, Bridget Jones Diary). But, as you listen to her warbling through the Chicago song list, all you think is: “Oh, she can sing too”. The last Kander and Ebb show that was put to celluloid was Cabaret with Liza Minnelli. But I’ll bet nobody ever saw Liza and thought: “Oh, she can sing too”.

If Zellweger was the newcomer, then Catherine Zeta Jones was supposed to be the old West End trooper. In the interviews we were told how hard she worked, grinding her way through gruelling days, nights, weeks, months of preparation. But that’s just the problem: it still looks like hard work. Her dancing lacks that easy, flowing grace that marks a great performance and she gets found out in the best routine in the film, the Cell Block Tango, where the chorus of murderesses steal the scene from under her nose. To make matters worse, with those long legs and jet black bobby-cut, she bears a striking resemblance to Cyd Charisse in Singing in the Rain. And it only reminds you of what you’re missing.

Its not that the leading ladies are bad, its just that they’re not great and all this has a disastrous knock-on effect. The film crosscuts so relentlessly between the dance sequences and the story you begin to suspect that the performances are deliberately being hidden under a blizzard of machine-gun edits. At one point, when the showbiz lawyer, Billy Flynn (Richard Gere), presents his case for the defence in Roxie’s trial, the “fantasy” Billy Flynn starts a little shoe-shuffling tap routine on a stage somewhere. The camera cuts frantically between the two scenes – the court and the stage – as the taps get quicker and the lawyer dramatically winds up the
case. But all the momentum is built up by the editing, rather than the dancing. Gere may be the best tapper in the world, the Gene Kelly of Gigolos, but how could you tell? The camera never stays on him long enough for us to find out. Fred Astaire used to rehearse his routines for weeks, then stroll on to the film set and nail it in one long, continuous take. Imagine the director deciding to break up his dance into a few, snatched cuts here and there. With Astaire you don’t need any fancy editing, all the drama’s in the way he moves.

All this heavy-handed editing comes across as an attempt not to appear too stagey. But that’s missing the point: it’s the routines themselves that need to be more filmic, routines you could only do on film, like dancing on a ceiling or singing in a downpour.

One of the unique things about the show Chicago is that there aren’t really any likeable characters in it: a slick lawyer, a corrupt gaoler, a wussy loser of a husband and a bunch of sensation-seeking murderesses. Who are you supposed to root for amongst that lot? Maybe that explains the reason for all those TV celebs currently traipsing through the London cast. We already like these people from their television roles so they don’t need to earn our applause as characters. But, on film, it’s a different story. The only way we can like these people is if they entertain us, if they really razzle dazzle. Then, and only then, will we like them enough to make them stars.

Chicago, like Moulin Rouge, has bagged itself a clutch of awards but hasn’t really shattered any box office records and I doubt it will open the flood gates for reviving the genre. The movie musical won’t really get going again unless there are great singers and dancers who can fill our screens with all the joy and brilliance of a Liza, Cyd, Gene or Fred. Meanwhile, the biggest stars of film musicals over the last couple of decades have all come from animated films. So forget Chicago; go and rent South Park – the Movie.

Did Beethoven Write Any Disco?

So asks the composer of Sister Act, Alan Menken, at the end of an interview with Jasper Rees in the Telegraph. And an excellent question it is, too. It puts me in mind of this post by Stephen Fry and the following musical truth:

"You can't dance to Beethoven"

The point being that pop music is meant to be danced to and classical music listened to, give or take. Musical theatre has always existed in a bit of a twilight zone between the two, borrowing happily from both; it is determinedly middlebrow. I'm sure that, had Beethoven ever written any disco, it most certainly have ended up in a musical.

Asking the Important Questions

Charles Spencer gets to the heart of the Andrew Lloyd Webber issue in the Telegraph:

"Could it be he harbours dark erotic fantasies about nuns?"

Which raises other important questions, such as:

"Is Charles Spencer insane?"

Big Steve

Always interesting to hear what Stephen Sondheim has to say for himself; certainly a lot more interesting than what anyone else has to say about him. This interview seems like a typical bit of smirky indifference:

"I can’t say I enjoy writing [lyrics]. I find it extremely difficult, but then I can’t think of a lyric writer I’d rather work with than myself!”

I've always thought that that has been a great shame. For me his greatest work was as a lyricist for other composers. I'm kind of a Sondheim fan in reverse: merrily rolling along with the early stuff, from West Side Story up to Company, but gradually getting more take-it-or-leave-it from Follies onwards.

I don't like the fawning of some critics and it must irk his Broadway contemporaries no end, but Sondheim himself is always worth listening to. He always seems clear-sighted about his own work, never openly scornful about the work of others. And a lot jollier than you might expect.

What's "Football" in Canadian?

It seems that Citizen Elton and Lord Andrew are polishing off their football show "The Beautiful Game" and putting it on in Winnipeg. I remember going to the London original not long after it opened and was pleasantly surprised. I didn't rate the songs too much but the story-telling - and, in particular, the second act - was very strong.

Having had success with sitcoms, novels, plays you'd expect Elton to be good at structuring a story which might explain his success as a bookwriter for musicals and also makes this little nugget very interesting:

"I did it as a favour over a weekend," he says of writing the Phantom of the Opera sequel. "Andrew didn't have the story in any kind of shape at all. He asked me to take a look. I did it as a favour for a bloke. That's it. I don't take much interest in it." Lloyd Webber had been toiling over the project for years, and Elton says he immediately saw where the holes were. The four-page plot synopsis he wrote will form the basis for Love Never Dies...

If he can just fix the title as well.

Anyway, just as an aside, here's my old review of the original cast recording for "The Beautiful Game":

On the pre-opening interview circuit Ben Elton was always keen to point out that The Beautiful Game was the first Andrew Lloyd Webber show with knob gags. Well, here's another first: this is the first Lloyd Webber CD with one of those black-and-white "parental advisory" labels on the front cover (although, to be fair, some of his harsher critics have been issuing health warnings for years now). Even more significantly its Ben Elton's first musical. So the big question is just how well does Britain’s top supplier of knob gags cope with the demands of lyric writing? Well, the jury's still out.

Elton has a reputation as a bit of a political animal but comedy-wise he's always been better at the everyday observational stuff like getting on a train ("Double seat, double seat, got to get a double seat") or the incidental idiocies of love. It’s the same with his lyrics. So, for example, there's a cute number called "Don't Like You" where the two leads John and Mary get together and do what most teenagers who fancy each other do, they start trading insults like 5 year-olds in the playground:

MARY: Don't like you. Don't like you. I don't think I like you.
You're bad. You're sad. And I know nicer boys.
JOHN: Not bothered. Not bothered. I simply am not bothered.
You're vain. A total pain. And I know sweeter girls.

Its not vintage but its sweet and simple and in character. He even manages to catch a bit of Oirishness in the odd turn of phrase: "I never flippin' did sure it was you who called me".

The problem comes with the serious stuff. Elton initially had the idea of making the whole thing a big metaphor for conflict and setting it in various locations around the world - Belgrade, Kosovo, West Bank, wherever. With some of the lyrics we're still not sure that he's settled for 1970s Northern Ireland. He's big on the general statements ("If hatred's all we're fighting for then I don't want to win") but short on the particulars of time and place that make songs memorable. The song titles don't really help. Some are hopelessly saccharine ("Let Us Love in Peace", "All the Love I Have") while others read more like scenic sub-headings ("Off to the Party", "The Happiest Day"). The result, in both the politics and the love, is a kind of plodding earnestness; well-intended but uninvolving.

Musically Lloyd Webber is up to his old tricks: a mix of catchy, soft rock and the trademark, sweeping melodies. But there's signs that his dramatic instincts are letting him down. Take the big heart-tugger of the score, “Our Kind of Love". It’s a gorgeous melody, beautifully sung by Hannah Waddingham, but sounds nothing like a care-free young girl swooning over her boyfriend and George Best's thighs. The words put up a good fight but there soon drowned underneath the bombast and by the time you get to the end, you're not really sure it was worth the effort:

People must love,
Now and forever.
There’s only one love in the end.

But its an odd thing that, in musicals, pretty much anything can be made to work so long as its in the right place. At the end of Evita the big song "Don't Cry for Me Argentina" was meant as a string of meaningless, overblown cliches that comes back to haunt Eva Peron in her demise. Something similar happens with the reprisal of "Our Kind of Love". In the finale Josie Walker belts out the cliches with all the bitter frustration of someone who has gradually seen her friends imprisoned, murdered or knee-capped. And what has she to show for it? Nothing but a handful of trite, peace-and-love truisms. Like Tony Blair's sentimental guff about "the hand of history", the soundbites aren’t enough to hide the tragedy underneath. It’s a moving moment that all too briefly brings the score to life.

Maybe it was inevitable that a West End show with all-singing, all-dancing members of the IRA would (ahem) bomb in London. And, whilst its a joy to hear a British musical that's relatively contemporary and about something distinctively British, you have to question the choice of subject matter. Elton is a funny man. He’s written funny books, funny plays, funny TV. If he and Lloyd Webber really want to try something radical, why not do a funny musical? Bring on the knob gags.

I thought it would never happen...

...but it has. Sing out, Leo!

Oh Mummy

Veronica Lee sees "many layers of irony" in Mamma Mia. I've only seen the film but I must have missed them, unless they were in the decision to cast three middle-aged men who can't sing or dance in a musical. Apparently I also failed to experience the "life-affirming joy"; mostly I just cringed behind a cushion.

But you can't argue with money. Mammia Mia is ten years old in the West End, has gone around the planet and done business at the box office. When was the last time that happened? Cabaret in the '70s?

In terms of musical theatre, however, it's really not much more than a souped-up karaoke evening. Nothing wrong with that. It's helped keep many an actor, musician and hen night party off the streets at night, for which we must be grateful. But Kander and Ebb it ain't.

Almost Famous

Michael Billington has been taking in A Little Night Music:

"One of the pleasures of A Weekend in the Country, the second most famous song in this Stephen Sondheim musical..."

The second most famous song in a Sondheim musical? So that would be not very famous at all, then.

Meanwhile Charles Spencer find the seats comfier in the West End. It's good to get some insight from the professionals.

Lordy Lordy

Lord Andy makes a rare appearance in the House on the issue of creative artists and digital piracy:

"The question that occurs to me is whether, in ten years time, Britain will be a place that the Beatles could have emerged from?

Or Connie Fisher for that matter...

... Not in a world where there are no longer shops where you can buy the physical products and where the internet is a Somalia of unregulated theft and piracy."

Although presumably with fewer firearms.

I can see His Lordship's point but I fear that the horse may have bolted on this one. And I'm not so sure that all this digitising will really put a stranglehold on talent. What it will do, however, is put a premium on live performance which, it seems to me, is no bad thing for music and theatre lovers.

Spring is Here, Spring is Here

The daffs are out and all about
The springtime fills the air
The earth makes room for golden bloom
Of flowers bright and fair

And all around is heard the sound
Of bird-call sweet and strange
As folks go by they raise the cry
"Ooh, don't it make a change!"

That's a roundabout way of posting on a new musical to hit the West End. And if I were to discuss a show, well it might as well be Spring Awakening. My hunch is that it's not quite as radical as some people make out. The idea is that in a traditional musical the songs try to arise naturally out of the story. With Spring Awakening the songs make a deliberate break. One minute everyone's acting all 19th century, the next they're singing, like, so totally modern slang, yeah?

But, musically speaking, this is missing the point. Oklahoma doesn't have Oklahoman folk music. My Fair Lady doesn't have mock Edwardian parlour songs. And the gritty, urban, street-wise tragedy that is West Side Story has a symphonic score composed by a posh, classical conductor. The point is that the musical style has always been at odds with the setting. What's really important is whether it's musically appropriate to the drama. The characters in Spring Awakening are frustrated teenagers and they sing like frustrated teenagers so it works just fine. Admittedly, the leap from 19th-century Germany to 21st-century American pop culture is bigger than that from Oklahoma to Broadway. But the difference is one of extent, not form.

So I'm not convinced that Spring Awakening, for all its success, is going to turn everything on its head and usher in a new beginning. Besides if you really want to hear what's getting the kids into the theatre these days, you only have to look at this.

REVIEW: The Producers, Original Cast Recording

Here's a review I wrote a few years back not long after the show began its run in the West End. It's still one of the best nights I've spent in a darkened theatre.

It’s impossible to make a level-headed assessment of The Producers. By the time a chorus line of all-singing, all-dancing Nazi storm troopers start high-kicking their way through a Busby Berkely-style routine in swastika formation, level-headedness has already picked up his jacket and phoned for a taxi. you either love this or just don’t get it. I really, really love it.

This kind of thing might not be to everyone’s taste but its certainly keeping Mel Brooks in a comfortable retirement. The show was a runaway success when it opened in New York and now looks as though it will emulate that success in London. Just don’t expect it to play Berlin any time soon.

Adapted from the 1968 film starring Zero Mostel and Gene Wilder, The Producers is about down-on-his-luck impresario, Max Bialystock, who teams up with wimpy accountant, Leo Bloom. Together they hit on a scheme where they can make more money with a flop than with a hit. So they scam their investors, find the world’s worst playwright, hire the world’s worst director and put on “Springtime for Hitler - a musical romp with Eva and Adolph”. Unfortunately the show becomes an accidental triumph and the two producers wind up commiserating their success: “Oh, we knew we couldn’t lose/Half the audience were Jews…where did we go right?”.

The film was something of a cult hit but, with the Broadway version, The Producers found its spiritual home. Mel Brooks is a man soaked to the marrow in Broadway musicals. His score is pure, adoring parody, from splashy production numbers (“I Wanna Be a Producer”) to Old World operetta (“In Old Bavaria”) to the Negro spiritual yearnings of a black bank clerk:

Oh, I debit’s all duh mornin’
An’ I credits all duh eb’nin’
Until dem ledgers be right!

Even if you don’t know “Old Man River”, that’s still worth a laugh. Sure, there are a few subtleties from the stage show that you miss if you’re just listening to the CD.

The lovely Cole Porter-esque song “That Face” takes on a different shade of meaning when Max starts singing it to the rear end of Ulla, his Swedish secretary. In “Keep It Gay” you miss the choreographer with a pair of rugby socks down the front of his pants and the lesbian in dungarees with the false moustache. Subtleties like that. But there’s still more than enough to love in the recording. The two leads are dynamite. Matthew Broderick’s sweetly earnest voice acts as a perfect counterpoint to Nathan Lane’s bluster and bravado. The brilliant orchestrations capture the sound and soul of a glorious Broadway tradition.

The Producers is also a reminder of the Jewishness at the heart of that tradition. Its not just the Yiddish references (“She Shtupps to Conquer!”) and the spoofs of Fiddler on the Roof, but something more fundamental than that. When the big showstopper of the score comes along, it’s as Jewish as chicken soup:

Springtime for Hitler and Germany
Winter for Poland and France

The pattern of that couplet is straight out of the Psalms: the first line says one thing, the second line turns it around to reinforce the point. You can pass this off as nothing more than meaningless shtick and, to be fair, you’d have a point. Is there really any sense in looking for meaning in a show that includes a crazy German who sings the Fuhrer’s favourite tune, “Der Guten Tag Hop-Clop”, to the accompaniment of a cooing chorus of pigeons and thinks that Adolf’s middle name was Elizabeth? But, without pressing the point too far, there is a deep irony in the merciless ridiculing of Hitler with the most Jewish of art forms, the Broadway musical. It may be crude, rude, vulgar and crass but, by God, is it funny. And the devil cannot stand to be mocked.

The film version - that is, not the original film but the film of the musical of the film - came out a few years later but was something a disappointment. It gave us a lovely memory of the stage show but didn't do much in its own right. They opened up the "I Wanna Be a Producer" number with a big staircase and a gaggle of leggy blondes and they threw in some unnecessary location shots for decoration. But really they might as well have just set up a camera in the theatre. Still you have to love those singing pigeons.

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What makes up
The perfect show?
Not too high,
And not too low...

...a look at musicals from a middling perspective.