Here's a piece I've written for Premier Christianity magazine about the 50th anniversary of the London production of Jesus Christ Superstar. It's a show that has been both embraced and rejected by Christians and atheists alike.
It's about a new American musical, The Book Thief, with a famous novelist for a book writer, Jodi Picoult. And it's getting its premiere in the UK.
"Picoult has made a long journey herself, temporarily relocating from New Hampshire to Bolton, Greater Manchester..."
Bolton? I hope she likes curries and Peter Kay.
Back in the Broadway heydays, I'm sure that New Hampshire was one of those out-of-town try-out places. Somewhere a producer could safely put on a show and knock it into shape away from the withering gazes of the Broadway critics.
So, if Bolton is the new New Hampshire, that's quite a development and one that raises a few questions. Namely, why stop at Bolton? Why not Warsaw or Mumbai? It's a globalised world, after all. It'd be cost effective. In future, I wonder if we'll be outsourcing musical theatre development around the world in the way that some big corporations do with their call centres.
"Picoult has recently thrown herself into the world of musicals."
Brave lass.
"She was part of a team that adapted one of her own books, Between the Lines, which has just finished an off-Broadway run...But its preparations were ravaged by Covid..."
In normal circumstances, I'd say that it's easier to blame external events for a dud show than try and work out what went wrong with Act II. However, in the case of the pandemic, I suspect even the greatest new work would have struggled on or off Broadway.
Still, must have been a pretty bruising experience if it sent her all the way to Bolton for a follow-up. And why The Book Thief, a story set in Nazi Germany?
"And, for us, we're four Americans who have seen a rise to power of an administration that sought to divide America rather than unite it, that leaned into the ideas of lying, of calling the press fake news, of calling immigrants the enemy of the state, of banning books..."
Ah, yes. He Who Must Not Be Named.
I can't help wonder if this is another reason why they're in Bolton rather than the US.
It's a remarkable thing. After all, here is an American writer selling her product and, in doing so, dissing half of her potential home market. Whatever you think about Big Orange Donald Trump, half of America voted for him (and may do so again). I'd suggest that openly comparing his administration to Nazi Germany is not a great marketing move if you ever want Americans to see your show.
"In American right now, the gatekeepers of Broadway are a very small group of mostly older white men who are making the decisions about what comes to Broadway and what does not."
That's interesting.
"They like to see shows that reflect their own experience."
Are there lots of musicals about small groups of elderly white men? Does Hamilton count?
But here's the really concerning bit.
"Picoult believes 'the Broadway system is a little broken'...'And the UK has, I think, a much more generous system for creating new musicals and new content.'"
That's odd because it is literally the opposite of what I usually hear from UK writers: that Broadway has the systems to develop new musicals which the UK lacks.
Interesting discussion over on MusicalTalk (episode 759) between Nick Hutson and Stagey Rebecca over the topic of jukebox musicals: love 'em or loathe 'em? The greatest thing since Ethel Merman on toast or the end of Western civilization?
Well, it's tricky. And, as ever, it's useful to define terms.
As far as I can tell, jukebox musicals fall into three broad categories:
1. BIO TUNERS, where the story is essentially the story of a famous band/pop singer with their big hits covered along the way (e.g. The Buddy Holly Story, Jersey Boys)
2. BACK CATALOGUES, where a story is fitted around the back catalogue of a famous band/pop singer (e.g. Mamma Mia, We Will Rock You)
3. COMPILATION SHOWS, where a story is fitted around a pot pourri of old pop songs from any number of famous bands/pop singers (e.g. Moulin Rouge)
What is most definitely NOT a jukebox musical, as suggested on the podcast, is Oh! What a Lovely War. That was a devised piece of bleakly satirical theatre about the First World War using theatre songs from that period. For my money, a proper jukebox musical, as the name suggests, should use songs pop songs, not theatre songs.
This, I think, is an important distinction. I would guess that part of the appeal of shows like Mamma Mia or We Will Rock You is the opportunity to hear songs performed live that are much more familiar as a recording. (I say "guess" as I'm not really a consumer of jukebox shows. Nothing against them, just not my cup of Early Grey.)
One other interesting point made during the conversation is that jukebox musicals seem to be more of a British than a Broadway invention. Why should that be the case? Well, my best guess is that, following the Brit hit mega-shows of the 80s and 90s, there was a large audience for musicals. So there was a big demand, plus a burgeoning pool of musical theatre talent, but not enough supply. Britain has never had quite the same tradition as Broadway of nurturing new musical theatre writing. So, jukebox musicals filled the gap.
What's also interesting is how the former may be affecting the latter. When it comes to jukebox vs. new writing, the usual complaint is that jukebox shows are crowding out original work, sucking up all the space and all the funding. I have some sympathy with this. There's no obvious way to get over the inherent commercial bias of a show with an established songbook. But I also wonder, are jukebox musicals are beginning to shape the kind of new work being produced?
Take Six.
Although it's an entirely original show, doesn't it have the feel of a jukebox musical? It uses pop songs, written in the style of particular pop bands/singers. The story is framed as the creation of a pop band, almost like a bio-tuner. Now, I confess I've never actually seen Six on stage. So I may be talking a load of old gammon [wouldn't be the first time - ed.]. But from what I've read, it would seem like a good show for audiences who have been primed by jukebox musicals. It would certainly feel more familiar to a jukebox audience than, say, a Rodgers and Hammerstein musical or a Sondheim musical.
Still, my own feeling is that, when it comes down to it, jukebox musicals can never really be the future of musical theatre. At some point, I imagine the jukebox shows will simply run out back catalogues to plunder (although it doesn't appear to be happening anytime soon). They are essentially franchises of those back catalogues. Nothing wrong with a franchise or inherently uncreative. You could get The Empire Strikes Back or wind up with Jar Jar Binks. But franchises are about the familiar.
Jukebox musicals offer audiences the opportunity to hear old songs that they already know and love. That's great, but it's not enough. Musicals need new songs. Songs that surprise. Songs that startle. Songs that we don't know and are yet to love.
Should I ever happen to end up running a highly-lucrative online songwriting course, I would probably start with this video. In fact, it would make the perfect introductory exercise:
Objective #1 - write a hit song using two fingers and your nan's miniature Casio keyboard (10 points).
Jarvis Cocker is best known as the lead singer/songwriter of the band Pulp who, in turn, are best known for the hit song "Common People". And, although he's written many more great songs, it's probably the one song for which he'll be remembered. Still, as he himself noted, Black Lace had "Agadoo", so it could be worse.
By his own admission, he is not a sophisticated musician and this video, where he explains how he first picked out the basics of "Common People" on a miniature keyboard, is a good reminder that songwriting is a remarkably democratic thing. You don't need an alphabet of qualifications after your name to have a go or, even, to do it well.
This is also true of musicals.
We rightly eulogise the sophisticated and highly-educated musicians like Cole Porter and Stephen Sondheim and Leonard Bernstein. All were accomplished musicians with an unusual capacity for ingesting and employing an array of musical influences and styles. As talents, they were exceptional. But what about the common people?
Well, musicals are also the domain of Irving Berlin, who could only play the piano on the black notes; Bob Merrill, who composed his songs on a toy xylophone; and Lionel Bart, who couldn't read or write music, and would instead hum his tunes to a pianist to get them transcribed.
So, you can be a sophisticated, world-renowned symphonic conductor-composer or you can play a toy xylophone and, whichever you are, it seems that you can end up writing a classic musical. That's astonishing, when you think about.
But why should this be the case? I think Jarvis has the answer:
"I prefer simple songs to complicated songs. The simpler a song is, the better. You can have a couple of notes and that will suffice. Because, in a way, the less notes you use, it leaves more of a gap which you can imply other notes and stuff like that."
He's right.
In the case of music, harmonics are literally that, where the sound waves of a single note produces faint echoes of (or "implies") other notes which, in turn, provides us with the basis of Western harmony.
In the case of songs, the "gap" is being filled by the lyric.
And, more broadly, in the case of musical theatre, the "gap" is not only being filled by the lyric but all the other theatrical/dramatic considerations.
I wonder if this is a different way of thinking about musical theatre writing; that it is as much to do with what you leave out as what you put in. To put it another way, perhaps musical theatre writers are more sketchers than painters. That is, they draw the outlines but leave gaps for the colour to be added. An inherent part of the job is to allow space and room for others.
And, perhaps, that's why even the non-credentialed composer and the simple songwriter can, from time to time, make a real go of it.
I feel that the universe is telling me to write about this.
Having not heard this song for what must be decades, it popped into my head recently. Next thing I know I'm reading about how the singer Mark Wynter apparently went on to have a great career in musicals and is back on tour. Should he ever appear in a production of Kismet, I'll have to get a ticket. I mean, I really will have to. That's just how it works.
Anyways, I remember hearing this song as a child and, like all music you listen to a child, it stays with you. So, naturally, when I listened again decades later, I could remember every single word.
And what fine words they are:
"La da da di da da da di di dum"
OK, not the very first line. I mean the next bit:
"She's Venus in blue jeans"
Now that is how to write a song title. The second line is even better:
"Mona Lisa with a pony tale"
This kind of thing is straight out of the Ira Gershwin playbook: juxtaposing the classical with the contemporary ("Of Thee I Sing, Baby"). And I love those two little interval drops in the melody on "Venus" and "blue jeans", like the sentimental sighs of an oh-so-earnest teenager in love.
This characterisation carries on in the middle section which switches perspective from "she" to "they":
"They say there's seven wonders in this world
But what they say is out of date
There's more than seven wonders in this world
I just met number eight!"
I do believe that is an early draft of a poem by Adrian Mole, aged 13 and 3/4. Add in the melodramatic heartbeat of the snare drum, a swooning choir and an obligatory modulation and you have the perfect love song for a smitten teen.
But, most of all, I'm amazed by the brevity. The video says two minutes. In fact, if you exclude the intro and repeated verse, it's more like one. In just over sixty seconds, the songwriters have managed to capture this boy's character: the dreaminess, the naivety, the purple prose, the hopelessly pedestal-placing attitude to the opposite sex.
It's a little glimpse inside somebody else's world.
That is, whenever I watch one, I can't help wondering what it would be like if all that congratulatory self-importance were to be directed at an industry that is actually essential - plumbing, say. Perhaps one day we'll see a bloke called Dave, clutching a golden u-bend and tearily thanking his parents for showing him the beautiful possibilities of a central heating system.
I'd definitely watch that.
But I only managed around twenty minutes of the Oliviers. Maybe I should have stuck it out for longer, given that I am a musical theatre fan. To be honest, I rather suspect that the reason I switched off was because I'm a musical theatre fan.
You see, musicals and the Oliviers have had a rocky relationship. Generally, the Oliviers like their musicals old and American. So, back in da heights of the Boubil/Schoenberg megamix era, the Oliviers plumped for the half-century-old Me and My Girl over Les Miz. A few years later, not to be outdone by their own nutty decisions, they made sure that Miss Saigon lost out to, er, nostalgia jukebox show Return to the Forbidden Planet.
"Back to the Future was named was named best musical - one of the night's most competitive categories."
To be fair, at least that show has some original songs, unlike the majority of the nominees. Nothing against jukebox musicals but I wouldn't place them in the Best New Musical category any more than I would award Best New Band to a tribute act, no matter how good they were.
And, note, not a British show amongst the nominees.
"There were live performances throughout the night from the casts of shows including Moulin Rouge, Back to the Future, Drifters Girl, Frozen, Life of Pi, Anything Goes and Get Up, Stand Up"
So, to sum up. The premier awards for current British theatre chose to showcase mostly decades-old American songs written by dead people. Say what you like about Lord Andy's Cinderella but, had that show been nominated, at least the composer could have collected his award in person, on account of the fact that he still has a pulse.
Whatever the future of British musical theatre is, one thing's for sure: it'll have little to do with the Oliviers.
As Blackadder once explained to Baldrick when he was presented with a particularly tiddly and undernourished Christmas tree: "Well, it 'ain't what you got, it's where you stick it!"
And so it is with songs in a musical.
To demonstrate the point, let's take a look at The Greatest Showman. Now I only caught up with this film musical a few weeks ago and, to be honest, I have no idea what to make of it, other than the vague thought that, should I ever watch it again, it'll probably be with a stiff drink to hand.
The songs, however, require a bit of sober reflection.
For what it's worth (clue: very little), my own feeling is that the songs, although beautifully written, don't always work in the context of the film. And, to be honest, I can't put it any better than Stagey Rebecca does in her excellent review:
"My problem was that every damn one of them songs was trying to be The Showstopping Number of the film. I was like 'THIS is the one I'll remember' then ten minutes later 'no THIS is the one''. It's as if they were all trying to outdo each other that in the end, I couldn't hum a single one while exiting the cinema."
I think there's a lot of wisdom in this. Although, I suspect that it may be the bombastic arrangements and super-charged studio production that gives every song that feeling of being The Showstopping Number rather than the songs themselves. But the point remains: if every number feels like a showstopper, then the show is going to be a bit, well, stop-start. And, that way, none of the songs really land.
However, I'd say there's one exception.
"Never Enough" is a showstopper in the sense that it is a big, belt-y ballad requiring a more-than-healthy pair of lungs. But it's not an obviously theatrical song in the sense that it doesn't have much intrinsic dramatic interest. Nothing in the song itself suggests a specific character or situation. Really, it's more of a pop ballad.
Musicals, however, are extraordinary things where even an apparently non-dramatic song can serve a dramatic purpose, if you just stick it in the right place. In the film, the song is sung by the character of Jenny Lind, a Swedish opera singer who has is being hyped by the legendary impresario PT Barnum. So, we have the world's greatest showman proclaiming the world's greatest opera singer in her American debut performance. A bit of a showstopper feels apt.
Moreover, at this point there are a few other things going on. Jenny Lind is trying to win fame in America, whilst Barnum is trying to win over respectable society with his new operatic signing. Only, it's becoming clear that his infatuation with her is going beyond a mere business transaction and that is also becoming clear to Barnum's wife, Charity.
So, we have a bit of drama built around the song. But what is the song itself adding to the moment?
Well, this is really clever bit. You see, it should be a song of triumph. It should be the moment when a star is born. It should be the moment when the low-born Barnum is finally accepted by high society.
Instead, we get a song of deep despair:
"All the shine of a thousand spotlights
All the stars we could steal from the night sky
Will never be enough, never be enough"
I love the way the rhythm and rhyme breaks down on that second line. If you wanted to follow the pattern of the first line more strictly, you would need something like:
"All the shine of a thousand spotlights
All the cars we could steal on hot nights"
(And yes, that's why I'm not an Oscar-winning lyricist.)
The point is that the pattern is deliberately broken. "Steal from the" has one too many syllables and "spotlights" doesn't rhyme with "night sky". But the effect, I think, is that we hear the despair. We're literally listening to a mini breakdown in song form.
Then the next lines:
"Towers of gold are still too little
These hand could hold the world and it'll
Never be enough, never be enough for me"
I love that sudden switch in perspective from vast images of plenty - spotlights, night skies, towers of gold - to the singer's hands. And, if ever there was a line written to convey melodramatic despair, then it surely is: "These hands could hold the world and it'll/Never be enough...".
Turns out that despair isn't failing to get what you want. True despair is getting everything that you want - money, fame, reputation - and not being satisfied with it; living in the terrible knowledge that nothing can fill the aching void and your inner spirit will forever be left a cold and empty husk.
(If only there were an Oscar for melodrama, I'd be a shoe-in.)
So, what the songwriters are doing are using the conventions of a pop song - the pure emotion, the broadbrush lyrics, the repetitive chorus - and putting them to good dramatic use; undercutting a moment of triumph with the realisation of a terrible despair. To me, this song feels like the one showstopper in the film that doesn't actually stop the show. Instead, it enlarges the drama going on around it. It's the right song for the right moment.
"Sheeran has serenaded London's High Court in an attempt to prove he did not copy portions of his 2017 hit Shape of You from another artist."
Taking every opportunity to increase his audience demographic, I see.
The star is accused of lifting his song's "Oh I, oh I, oh I" hook from Sami Chokri's 2015 single Oh Why.
Asked whether his final melody bore a similarity to Chokri's song, he added: "Fundamentally, yes. They are based around the minor pentatonic scale [and] they both have vowels in them."
Love the sarcasm. Not sure if the judge will appreciate it.
The singer was also accused of being an "obsessive music squirrel"
Nuts to that. That's just rude.
Sheeran was repeatedly asked who had come up with the "oh I" phrase, but explained it had been a collaborative effort with his co-writers Steve Mac and Johnny McDaid.
"It was all of us three bouncing back and forth in a circle," he said. "That was how it originated."
"Three people could not create the germ of the melody," suggested Mr Sutcliffe [QC representing Mr. Chokri].
"Why can't three people create a melody?" Sheeran replied.
Good reply. I can easily imagine three people creating a melody. I'm not sure why you'd need three people but I can easily imagine it.
"Your approach is take it, change it and make lots of money, isn't it?" Mr Sutcliffe asked the star.
That's called the artistic process. Except for the money part, obviously.
"No," he replied, later adding that a "musicologist went over the song [Shape of You] and found similarities and we changed the similarities".
That's interesting. Do record companies regularly employ musicologists to check for copyright?
What I find curious about these cases is that, when it comes down to it, they are basically having a philosophical argument about what a song is.
It's a bit like golf.
I remember reading about a legal case in America concerning a professional golfer who had some kind of ailment which made it difficult for him to walk between the holes. So he wanted to be transported on a golf cart. However, some of the other players complained that this would be unfair and it eventually wound up in court. In order to reach its conclusion, the court had to decide whether walking between the holes is an essential part of golf. Basically, they had to decide what golf actually is.
I think the High Court is doing the same here. It boils down to definitions. My understanding is that a song is legally defined as the combination of a particular melody and a particular lyric (which seems a bit harsh on the rhythm and the harmony but there we go).
And what's disputed in this case is basically a two-bar, eight-note melodic phrase, lasting around three seconds. In one song, the lyric goes "why oh why oh why oh why" and, in the other song, the lyric goes "I oh I oh I oh I". On the surface, it's an absurd argument. How could such a fleeting phrase be considered the essence of a song? On the other hand, that fleeting phrase is very hooky. In both songs, it gets repeated and sticks in your mind. It's not such a stretch to argue that, without those two bars, each song would be very different.
Now, I don't know the ins and outs of this case and have no idea which way the verdict will go. But it's a good reminder that songs are built (and, apparently, litigated) on the tiniest of details. Song is a form where a mere handful of notes and vowel sounds can, and often do, make all the difference.
So, I've been listening to a great podcast, Sitcom Geeks, which is all about sitcoms (obvs) and is presented by a couple of, er...highly successful comedy writers, James Cary and Dave Cohen.
One thing that struck me (way back in Episode 2, if I remember) was the way in which they described leading sitcom characters. Sitcom characters, they theorised, should be Big in the sense of larger-than-life. They also need Big Flaws. And not just to stand on. That's because the Big Flaws are the root of the comedy so, the bigger the flaws, then the bigger the comedy.
This is often true of musical theatre characters too. Although, in musicals, the Bigness is more to do with the fact that the characters sing and that, perhaps, is easier to believe in a larger-than-life character than it would be in a quieter, more inhibited type. (That's probably not really true but we'll park that thought for the moment.)
Now, I suspect that this Bigness can be off-putting for some people. Sometimes it can make characters feel cartoonish. But I'm not sure the reason for this is the Bigness. It's more to do with the other essential aspect of a sitcom character, as pointed out by the Geeks, and that is a lack of self-awareness. It's this lack of self-awareness that can make characters feel less like a real person.
There's an extraordinary example of this in Fleabag (the TV version, at least). There's a character with the improbable name of Bus Rodent, who has very Big Flaws and is, apparently, completely unaware of the fact. He's awkward and clumsy and says inappropriate things and, on top of that, he has these two enormous front teeth. Basically, he's someone to laugh at.
At one point, however, his character turns on a dime, as our American friends say. Fleabag has just had very ungratifying sex with him and she fakes a climax. Bus picks her up on it: "You don't go through life with teeth like these and not know when somebody's pretending". With that single line and, for the briefest of moments, this ridiculous figure of fun turns into an ever-so-slightly more real and sympathetic character. All because he has shown a smidgen of self-awareness.
Now, the temptation is to conclude that the self-aware characters are the real ones and the big, cartoonish ones are the fakes. But here's the thing. If that's the case, then why do love the cartoon characters so much? And I don't mean, why do they make us laugh? I mean, why do we really, really love them?
In sitcoms, the likes of Captain Mainwaring from Dad's Army, Basil Fawlty from Fawlty Towers and The Office's David Brent are some of the most beloved characters in British popular culture. Yet, a defining feature of all of these characters, is their 'cartoonish' lack of self-awareness. If we met them in real life, they'd be nightmares at best; at worst, monsters (although, worryingly, I always felt that I'd get along with David Brent).
The same is true of musicals. Ado Annie from Oklahoma springs to mind, so completely and innocently unaware of the appropriate way to behave with men ("I'm just a girl who cain't say no"). And Adelaide from Guys and Dolls who wants to be a proper, upright lady but lacks the required sophistication ("Take back your mink/ To from whence it came"). And, perhaps, the ultimate example is Professor Higgins from My Fair Lady, a character so lacking in awareness of his own self-absorption ("Why can't a woman be like me?"), you could easily imagine him in his own sitcom spin-off.
And yet, and yet, despite being over-the-top and unrealistic, as with their sitcom counterparts, they are beloved characters. So what on earth is going on?
I think the reason is this: these characters are not fakes. In some ways, they are more real because they are us without the filters. Of course, they are not like 'real' people, the kind that we meet and know in our everyday lives. That's because in our everyday lives we all have filters. We don't express every thought, we don't act on every impulse. We're constrained by norms, morals, other people's perceptions. In fact, probably the main reason for our filters is the fear of being revealed to be just as moronic, embarrassing and petty as these cartoonish characters that we find in musicals and sitcoms.
And that's why we love them; they allow us to acknowledge the parts of ourselves that are usually kept hidden. For all their contrived artificiality, these Big Characters can get to a truth that the more 'realistic' ones fail to reach.
It's another one of those Big, beautiful puzzlements.
This is from Aussie hubby-and-wife songwriting team. Non-antipodeians may know them best for supporting Ben Folds on tour or when Kate Miller-Heidke took on Eurovision whilst balancing on a giant pogo stick. But, for me, it's their songwriting that is special.
Now, this is one of their funny songs, but not funny in a traditional comedy song kind of a way. By that, I mean bouncy and upbeat and crammed with jokes and natty rhymes. Traditional comedy songs can be witty, like a Gilbert and Sullivan or a Noel Coward, or broad and bawdy like a classic Broadway musical comedy. But they do tend towards the joke-joke-joke and rhyme-rhyme-rhyme model.
This, however, is a bit different.
There are few rhymes. It's dry and downbeat. And, I think, it points to a different way of doing comedy songs for musical theatre.
On one level, the joke is just the contrast between music and lyric. Musically, it's a sweet love song but, lyrically, it's about a young girl cracking up over a boy. The unexpectedly sweary title is kind of funny in itself. But the real fun is the way the song develops and the little songwriting details it uses to do so.
If you exclude the bridge, there are basically three sections and each sits in a slightly different vocal register. So, we start at the lower end:
"You look so good tonight
Goddamn it all, you look good
That floppy hair and that stupid smile
And that old blue sweater"
That lower register gives us the feeling that she's talking to herself, perhaps mumbling in the corner of a room at some terrible party, whilst she's watching this boy in his devastating "old blue sweater".
When we get to the chorus, there's a shift in perspective. And so the vocal line shifts up a bit too.
"I swear I'm gonna lose my sh**
If you walk this way..."
And here's the attention to detail.
"Gonna lose it, gonna lose it"
Those little leading notes (probably not the right term, but you know what I mean) on "lose it", they work a treat. Rather than expanding on the fist two lines of the melody, they kind of interrupt it and build the tension. You get the feeling that she could explode at any minute.
Finally, in the third section, just when we might expect to go back to the verse, the voice goes up another notch for a further thought:
"You look like you
You look like you
Belong in my arms"
Those jumpy notes on "you look like" sound breathless and nervy, almost like she's sobbing or, more likely in this case, hyperventilating. It's another little detail that makes the song funny.
Of course, the second verse takes it further. Whilst, in the first verse, she's annoyed at the object of her affection for looking so unreasonably fanciable, now she's just plain angry:
"You look so good tonight
I just can't catch a break
Have some consideration
Where's your sense of proportion?
Scale it in a bit, for fu**'s sake"
Obviously, they're taking the character to a more absurd place. Yes, sometimes an unexpected swear word helps land a punchline but this is really pure character comedy in song.
So, it seems that Lorenz Hart may have been wrong after all: unrequited love doesn't have to be a bore.
So I've had this song going round and round in my head for a while and, when that happens, I like to work out why. And I think it's because the song is actually saying something quite profound.
As far as I can tell, this isn't from a musical but it is from a musical songwriter. And it shows. It's a story song but, more than that, it's a song with a great sense of drama.
Laika was the dog that the Russians launched into orbit back in the 1950s, before the first manned space flights, and as part of the technology race with the Americans.
The song starts by framing the story from the singer's perspective ("Sometimes I think...), so we know it's not merely a narrative. There's going to be something here to ponder.
"Sometimes I think
Of a dog on the cold streets of Moscow
Sleeping rough and
Getting by on the scraps of the garbage"
And with those lines, we're immediately on the dog's side. Then the scientists get hold of her:
"Hey, girl, would you like to see space?
And her fur was all curled
She was such a good girl"
That line, "she was such a good girl", which gets repeated later, not only accurately reflects the way that people talk to dogs, it also reminds us of Laika's cheerfully obedient nature. That's significant.
Then the language starts getting a bit colder, more technical:
"Kept her, trained her
Sent her round and round in a centrifuge
Put her in an ever-smaller succession of cabins..."
At this point, the music is still rippling chords and a gentle, lilting melody. So the contrasting language is stark. This is where the drama builds.
Dramatically-speaking, one of the ways to make something more interesting is to let the audience know something that the character doesn't. And this, I think, is what makes this song work so well. You see, increasingly, we realise that we know something that the dog doesn't. It's explicitly stated in the brief bridge section:
"They kissed her nose and closed the hatch
They knew she wasn't coming back"
Turns out those rippling chords and that gentle, lilting melody are far more than a nice bit of music. That's Laika that we're hearing, all playful innocence and charm as she gets strapped into a rocket and thrust above the earth, completely unaware of what's happening to her.
Now, this makes for a great bit of drama in song. But, if I were to get all philosophical and above my pay grade, I'd also say that this expresses a profound truth about the human condition. It's the truth that separates man from dog, even the smartest ones like Laika. It is, perhaps, the defining truth about being human: we know that we're going to die.
But, hey, who needs philosophy?
All you really need is a song about a dog in space.
It's been very moving to read all the tributes over the last couple of months to the late Stephen Sondheim.
A tweet from actor Alex Young particularly caught my attention:
"Do you think that all the normal people know that basically Shakespeare has died?"
She went on to clarify that she didn't mean anything superior-sounding by talking about "normal people" but it does make the point. Amongst musical theatre people, Sondheim is regularly compared to Shakespeare or God (I'm never sure which is meant as the higher compliment). Yet for Joe Public, he's mostly the fella who had a hit with West Side Story and "Send in the Clowns".
Now, despite being a musical theatre fan, I have a lingering affinity for normal people and I've always wondered about this issue. Is it that Sondheim is simply too good for the average man? Too sophisticated, too complex, too intellectual? Is it that he was too ahead of his time and the general public will eventually catch up? Maybe the merchandise just wasn't as good and those Pacific Overtures tote bags couldn't complete with the Cats hoodies. Who knows?
To be honest, I don't. But when I think about my own love of Sondheim's work, there may be a clue.
In truth, I am something of a topsy-turvy Sondheim fan. My impression is that many Sondheim-ites treat the early, popular, lyrics-only efforts (West Side Story and Gypsy) as something of an overture. The true Sondheim canon only really gets going with Company. And yet, for me, it's those early efforts that I find fascinating. I'm a bit like that alien in the Woody Allen movie who comes down to earth only to inform the great actor-writer-director: "we enjoy your films, particularly the early funny ones".
So, if I had to choose a favourite Sondheim lyric, I'd be tempted to pick this from West Side Story:
"Maria! Maria! Maria! Maria!
Maria! Maria! Maria!"
That is a nothing lyric. No cleverness or craft. No sophistication, no deep thought. Yet it tells us everything we need to know about a young man who is besotted with the girl he's just met. And it takes a certain kind of courage to put aside all your lyric-writing sophistication (and Sondheim probably had more of that than anyone) and write something so simple and direct.
Then again, I could also choose any lyric from Gypsy which, to my ears, probably has the best set of lyrics of any Broadway show. And, if you really pushed me on the picking favourites front, I'd have to plump for "All I Need Now is the Girl":
"Got my striped tie
Got my hopes high
Got the time and the place and I got rhythm
Now all I need's a girl to go with 'em"
That sudden change in the melody on "Got the time...", from a smooth chromaticism into a bouncy syncopation, along with fresh "rhythm/with 'em" rhyme, is so unexpected, yet so easy-going.
And that's not even my favourite bit of the song. That comes when the young hoofer, Tulsa, is enthusiastically showing off his choreography to Louise and starts shouting out his own commentary:
"Astaire bit!"
Then he starts humming:
"Ya-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-dah"
Did Sondheim write that? Perhaps it was the book writer Arthur Laurents or director Jerome Robbins or maybe it was just the actor ad-libbing in rehearsals. Who knows? Who cares? It's one of those beautiful moments when all the theatrical elements of a musical blur into each other so that you simply can't tell them apart. And it's so natural, it doesn't even feel like it's been written. More like a spontaneous outburst.
This is the kind of artless art in musicals that I find astonishing. Moments that feel so natural, so unself-conscious, and yet are, in fact, complicated and highly contrived bits of a theatre. And I wonder if it is this feeling of artlessness that gives these early shows more popular appeal than later Sondheim works.
To be honest, I'm not sure.
But sometimes it's worth listening to the normal people.
Now I'm generally not that up to date with contemporary Broadway shows, or anything, really. (I'm still using Blogger, for heaven's sake.) Which is one of the reasons why I've only recently caught up with The Band's Visit.
If I'm honest, a lot of modern Broadway doesn't always float my flotilla; generally speaking, I prefer the older stuff. And I'm also getting very parochial (blame it on Brexit) and tend to be more interested in musicals from this side of the pond. But The Band's Visit feels very different. For, despite being both modern and Broadway, The Band's Visit feels more like a classic and, frankly, just a little bit British.
I should caveat the following by saying that I've never seen the show. For reasons unfathomable, I don't think it's ever been performed in the UK. I'm going by the cast recording, a few video clips, podcasts, reviews and whatever else I could find. I still haven't quite grasped the plot and only have a vague idea of the staging, so I could be barking up the wrong lamppost here.
But bear with me.
Firstly, the British connection. I appreciate it's not obvious. The show is based on an Israeli film and that the story is set in Israel. It was written and produced by a bunch of Americans and the eclectic score uses Arab instrumentation, Jewish scales and jazz harmonies. (By the way, how does that score hang together? I mean, it does, but how?) In fact, as far as I can tell, there is zero British input or influence.
But bear with me.
You see, it has emotional reticence and emotional reticence is, traditionally, a very British trait. The whole 'stiff upper lip' understatement thing is part of our national stereotype and, like all good stereotypes, contains at least a smidgen of truth. And that emotional reticence is the opposite of what we often get in modern Broadway musicals where characters tend to express their emotions fully and openly. In the Band's Visit, the emotions are bubbling away under the surface.
It's a bit like whale watching.
Unlikely analogy coming up.
But bear with me.
I once went on one of those touristy whale watching trips. It was memorable, even though you never actually see a whale, only part of one. What you see is the arch of their back whenever a whale surfaces. Then, as they dive, the tail fin rises out of the water and, for a moment, you get the sense of their size and beauty.
This is what it feels like listening to The Band's Visit. Often the emotion is below the surface. When it breaks the surface, you get a glimpse of what is going on inside. It's only a glimpse but it's enough to get a sense of the whole. The effect is to work on our imaginations. Like the whale, we don't see everything but we can imagine the whole.
Take the big song from the show, "Omar Sharif".
The emotion is obviously there with that beautiful minor melody. But it doesn't really burst through until the bridge where the words turn more abstract and poetic:
"And the living room becomes a garden
And the TV set becomes a fountain
And the music flows in the garden
And everything grows"
Then, as soon as its surfaced, the emotion recedes. And I love the way the actor playing Tewfiq (Tony Shalhoub) just sits through the whole thing with a contented little smile on his face.
This all reminds me of a story about the Gershwins.
Tangential anecdote coming up.
But bear with me.
The Gershwins were introducing their new song "They Can't Take That Away From Me" to a potential producer. They started singing - "The way you wear your hat / The way you sip your tea..." - but only got as far as the second line when the producer called them a halt. "This is a love song, right?" he asked.
You see, in those days, love songs sidled up to you and gently murmured something about hats. Nowadays, they tend to deafen with Celine Dion-volume vocals. I wrote something about that difference in an old post with click-baity title of Everyone Says I Love You (Oblique and Declamatory).
The point is that the old songs had more emotional reticence and perhaps this is why The Band's Visit feels closer to a classic show than a modern one.
Now, if you're still bear-ing with me, then you're probably expecting Goldilocks to turn up any moment. So I'd better leave a bowl of porridge and wrap things up.
Basically The Band's Visit is one of the most exciting things I've heard in a long time and I'm still trying to work out why.
It's experimental but feels old-fashioned.
It's full of foreign sounds but feels oddly British.
