Interview with Nina Kristofferson

My interview with the very talented classical/jazz singer/actress about her touring show Nina Kristofferson's Billie Holiday Story is now available over at the ever-s'wonderful Musical Theatre Review.

I am Woman, Hear Me Score

Buried in the penultimate paragraph of this piece in the Independent by Claudia Pritchard which previews the new musical, The A to Z of Mrs P, is this little footnote:

"The A-Z of Mrs P is the first major musical by a female lyricist and composer team..."

Now this doesn't quite make sense. The lyricist and composer "team" in this case is Gwyneth Herbert who is providing both music and lyrics. The book writer is Diane Samuels.

But there is a point to be made about the male dominance of musical theatre writers. There have, of course, been some top-flight female writers. Off the top of my head: Betty Comden (On the Town), Dorothy Fields (Sweet Charity), Carol Bayer Sager (They're Playing Our Song), Lynn Ahrens (Ragtime). The notable thing about that list, however, is that they are all lyricists (and some librettists too). No composers.

Why is this? I really have no idea. Maybe it's evolution. Maybe it's the cultural norms of a patriarchal hegemony. Who knows? But it is a curious thing that an art form whose audience is predominantly female should have so few female composers.

Gwyneth Herbert, exception though she may be, sounds more than promising. It's worth taking a listen to this demo of the new song, Lovely London Town, sung by Isy Suttie and taken from the forthcoming musical. I don't know much about the character or story (or, frankly, anything) but I do know that this is an interesting song.

If there is a common criticism of songs from new musicals, it is that they are too generic. I've probably used the word myself before. What is meant by it? Well, it's simply that the music sounds too general. It may be musically correct, it may be tuneful, it may sound inoffensively nice; but if it has nothing distinctive to offer, then it will ultimately lack character. And that's not good, especially in musical theatre.

The good news is that it doesn't take much to make the music distinctive. Going back to "Lovely London Town". It's relatively simple; for the most part, four chords underneath and a repeated four-note melody in a triplet rhythm on top. Yes, there are some nice musical sound effects in the middle (something tinkly and something that sounds like a miniature anvil) but these are for colour, not character.

The character bit is the wordless backing vocals, a chorus of humming and ah-ing that continues throughout the whole song. The light and swoopy sound is immediately evocative. You only have to listen to the first few notes and you know this character is a dreamer. For my money, the simple chords and melody also suggest an introverted or reserved nature. This woman may be a dreamer but she's content in her own dream and doesn't need to tell the world about.

As I said before, I know nothing of the story so I could be way off the mark here. Alternatively (but far less likely) the composer could be way off the mark and have misjudged the drama and written the wrong kind of characterful music. But characterful it is which, to my ears, puts it ahead of much of the competition.

So does this mean that The A to Z of Mrs P will be a rip-roaring runaway success? Impossible to say but hope it is. One thing is clear: the show does have a thoughtful composer capable of writing distinctive music. And that's significant.

The fact that she's a woman is less so.

Taking the Risk It

Dennis Kelly, book writer of Matilda, has been making the case for arts funding under the title of "Matilda, the musical? A risk only subsidised theatre would take":

"In 2006, Jeanie O' Hare at the RSC approached me about adapting Roald Dahl's Matilda into a musical. This was strange for two reasons: the first was that musicals generally start with the director or composer, not the person who's going to write the script"

Although technically it started with Jeanie O'Hare, the "commissioning dramaturg" (I'll bet you don't get them in the commercial theatre). But it's true: the book writer is not usually the primary consideration. Until the show flops and then they're first in the firing line.

"The second reason was that I had absolutely no knowledge of musicals whatsoever. Far from believing this was a problem, I think it was actually what she was after."

Well, ignorance is bliss, as they say. But is this a risk that the commercial theatre would never take? Let's take a look at some of the book writers with commercial musicals currently or soon to be playing the West End:

David Greig (Charlie and the Chocolate Factory)
Catherine Johnson (Mamma Mia)
Lee Hall (Billy Elliot)
Bill Oakes (From Here to Eternity)
Harry Hill (I Can't Sing)

All of whom, as far as I can tell, are first-time musical writers. And for good measure let's chuck in a couple of old hands:

Christopher Hampton (Stephen Ward) - a playwright whose first musical was the commercially successful Sunset Boulevard.
Ben Elton (We Will Rock You) - a screenwriter/novelist/playwright whose first musical was the commercially less successful Beautiful Game.

The point is that the commercial theatre seems quite happy to take a punt on first-timer musical book writers. That's probably because most people aren't primarily musical book writers. They are lyricists or playwrights or award-winning 70s Hollywood soundtrack supervisors who, for whatever reason, have found themselves with the unenviable task of writing the book for a musical.

"Then to make things even riskier, instead of getting a tried and tested composer to write the songs, the RSC went for a comedian, Tim Minchin"

Nope, the commercial theatre would never get a mere comedian to write the songs for a musical. Oops.

Whilst not an obvious choice, Tim Minchin was not completely left-field. For starters, he is/was not merely a comedian but is/was a songwriting comedian. For mains, he is/was a Roald Dahl fan and had even tried writing a musical of Matilda ten years earlier. For desserts, his dark and slightly twisted sense of humour is/was a perfect match for Roald Dahl (something that perhaps didn't quite work with Charlie and the Choclolate Factory with the more campy optimism of Marc Shaiman and Scott Wittman).

"Could all of that have happened outside of a subsidised organisation? The answer is simple: no."

Actually the slightly more nuanced answer seems to be: possibly. I'm not saying that Matilda was risk-free. Far from it. It must have taken some far-sighted imaginings to bring that creative team together and nobody could have known the outcome. The point is that exactly the same risks are being taken in the commercial theatre. As Viva Forever proved, even the sure-firest kind of crowd-pleasing jukebox fare can go belly up.

Ah, but it's a different kind of risk.

"It's just that there is a different ethos when a theatre is largely funded with public money, a different sense of what it is you're responsible to and it allows for a different kind of risk, a risk that can lead to unexpected and peculiar things."

Well, this is an edited version of a longer speech, so I'll have to give Mr. Kelly the benefit of the doubt and assume the details have been lost. But if all you've got to show for the riskiness of subsidised theatre is "unexpected and peculiar things", then this is no case for more funding. Is Matilda any more "unexpected and peculiar" than Cats? Or We Will Rock You? Or Billy Eliott? In fact, "unexpected and peculiar" would make the perfect subtitle for my monumental yet-to-be-written masterpiece on the history of musical theatre.

I'm sure there are differences between the subsidised and commercial worlds but I'm not convinced it's to do with risk. I suspect it's more to do with process. Subsidised theatre offers longer development periods and ensemble casts which, I imagine, means more workshops and improvisation. The commercial world favours shorter rehearsal periods which, I imagine, means getting the script finalised before you start hiring the actors.

Really, I'm just guessing. The point is that, whatever the process, the final product is indistinguishable. Personally I would struggle to discern the subsidised qualities of Les Miz and Matilda from the commercial ones of Phantom of the Opera and Charlie and the Chocolate Factory. They are all risky in their own ways.

Then again, so is all musical theatre.

Interview with Louise Dearman

My interview with Wicked star Louise Dearman now available in issue 5 of the ever-thrillifying Musical Theatre Review (subscription required).

One interesting note about the interview was her comment on singing live as compared to singing in the studio:

“Very often with songs I’ve recorded for the album, there will be notes that I had to do ten times in the studio which live, with the crowd out there and the adrenalin pumping, I can nail.”

Which reminded me of Tom Daley. I remember the Olympic diver explaining in an interview how he could only perform the hardest dive (a quadruple somersault, I think) in competition. He couldn't do it in training because he needed the adrenalin of competition to give his body the extra speed required to make the turns.

It never occurred to me that the same might be true of musical performers. It backs up my previous little theory about performance: it's not the level of performance that matters so much as the risk that the performer takes. The more risk, the more thrilling the performance.

Furthermore it suggests that we should have as high a regard for top West End performers as we do for Olympians. And that Tom Daley should be the next Elphaba.

Not Content With Context

So here's a curious thing. The good Mr. Seckerson has been considering Sondheim out of context:

"Watching the Stephen Sondheim/Julia McKenzie compilation cabaret Putting It Together (is that a fair description of this hybrid?) in its latest incarnation – courtesy of producer/musical supervisor Alex Parker – one’s thoughts turn once more to the issue of 'context' in Sondheim. It is, of course, the reason why so few of his songs have an independent life outside of his shows and why, even if they do, something feels lacking – as if the life-blood of these numbers has been drained along with the surrounding drama."

Is this true?

On the contrary, it seems to me that Sondheim songs have been unusually successful out of context. Indeed Mr. Seckerson goes on to give an example of how one song in the show is actually improved by a different context:

"The interesting (and occasionally irritating) thing about Putting It Together is the way in which the character and subtext of a song subtly (or in some cases unsubtly) shifts in response to its new context, how a number like “Lovely” from A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum is actually funnier and more ironic split between the bimbo and the world weary wife (in whose voice it becomes a bitchy cocktail party aside) than it ever was as merely a “dumb blonde” number."

OK, that's just one song. But let's look at the bigger picture. Here's a list of significant professional productions of compilation shows (according to this very handy online guide):

Marry Me a Little (5 productions)
Putting It Together (5 productions + one cast recording + one video recording)
Side by Side by Sondheim (9 productions + 3 [count 'em!] cast recordings)
Sondheim on Sondheim (1 production + cast recording)

Not to mention the compilation CDs. And all those Sondheim Songbook cabarets and recordings by various devoted performers. Has any other Broadway songwriter had so much success with compilations of their work? I'd be surprised.

For all the talk about how Sondheim songs are so wrapped up in the warp and the woof of the drama, it seems that fans are more than happy listening to them out of context.

So when Mr. Seckerson says that "so few of his [Sondheim's] songs have an independent life outside of his shows", I think he means that, although treasured by his fans anywhere they find them, his songs have rarely reached the wider public. And that's not because of lack of context. The wider public aren't particularly fussd about them in context either. On the whole, Sondheim just doesn't write hits.

Why is this?

I think there's a clue further into Mr. Seckerson's review:

"There’s one startlingly effective moment, musically speaking, where the 50s pop song parody from Assassins “Unworthy of Your Love” becomes a touching little sofa duet at the heart of the show. It’s startling because the music is so untypical of the composer and without the original context to explain why it sounds like it does, it’s as if another composer has infiltrated the party."

Again it's improved out of the original context. That's because in context that "touching little sofa duet" is sung by the obsessive nutjob John Hinckley who took a shot at Ronald Reagan in order to try and win the love of Hollywood actress Jodie Foster. Not so touching now. The problem is that lifted out of context, it doesn't sound much like Sondheim. It's just a really good parody. I think that's why he doesn't have hit songs. In context they're full of irony, cynicism and black humour. Out of context, they sound fake.

No doubt some will say that's because it's all too difficult and sophisticated for Mr. and Mrs. Joe Public slobbing around in their Les Miz t-shirts and drinking sentimentality from their Phantom souvenir gift mugs; Sondheim is just too good for the average man. Alternatively it could be that Sondheim songs simply don't chime with most people's reality; you pays your money and takes your choice. And most people don't choose Sondheim.

That is the context.

The Don

Lord Grade of Yarmouth has been at it again. This time introducing a tribute show to Don Black and chinwagging with him on a sofa on the stage of the Royal Festival Hall. As you do.

During their initial banter there was some time spent on rhyme. Like a dedicated stamp enthusiast, The Don apparently collects rhymes and files them away in little books. But, it seems, he doesn't post 'em. That's to say, he isn't really a flambuoyantly rhyme-y lyricist in the Noel/Cole sense.

From all the songs heard in the tribute the most memorable rhyme was probably found in "Some of Us Belong to the Stars" from Billy:

"Some of us belong to the stars
And that is where I am going
I will soar all over the sky
And I won't need a Boeing"

Which is fun. But not as fun as:

"My name is Dr. Sibelius
Don't worry, that's just an alias"

Which was part of a little tribute ditty performed by fellow-lyricist Richard Stilgoe.

The point is that the greatness in The Don's songs does not, I think, lie in their rhymes. Something else is going on.

Let's take a look at "Diamonds are Forever":

"Diamonds are forever
Sparkling round my little finger
Unlike men, the diamonds linger
Men are mere mortals who are not worth going to your grave for
I don't need love
For what good will love do me
Diamonds never lie to me
For when love's gone
They'll lustre on"

Now I've heard it said that the lyric is made lustrous by that that "lustre". It is the perfect word for the occasion, le mot juste. That may be true, but it's not the perfect lyric. To my ear, it doesn't sing. For starters there's the adjacent consonants of "they'll lustre" which is tricky. Then there's the problem of "lustre on" which, when sung, comes out as Lusteron. It's fine once you know the proper lyric but, until then, you could be left thinking that the song is about one of the randier robots from the Transformers franchise.

No, for me the line that makes the song is a few bars before:

"Men are mere mortals who are not worth going to your grave for"

That sentence-ending preposition may cause some heartache for traditional grammarists but, honestly, this ain't grammar. It's lyric writing. "Mere mortals" and "going to your grave" are the kind of everyday phrases that, in the right context and given the right tune (those menacing triplets from composer John Barry), are turned into a great songwriting. Follow that with "I don't need love" with "love" coming on a big long outburst of a note. What you get is the disdain, the anger, the hurt, the defiance. In short, what you get is a genuine character. And that also explains why The Don moved so successfully from pop songs to the theatre.

I've said it before, he is the Little Black Dress of lyricists: simple, classy, goes with everything.

Belonging to the Stars?

It's been a busy period for Lord Grade of Yarmouth of Her Majesty's Upper House. Taking time our from Lordly duties and following in the family tradition, he's taken to promoting popular theatre. In Michael Grade's Stars of the Musical Theatre he asks the eternal question: is it the musical that makes the star or the stars that makes the musical?

This is, of course, the wrong question. Star-wise the proper question, as previously discussed, is: how to distinguish stars who do musicals from musical stars?

Nevertheless it does give him the opportunity to shoot the breeze with Dominic West. And why not. He's a brilliant TV star who went on to play Henry Higgins in Sheffield. Now, for all I know, he may sing like Domingo. He may dance like Nureyev. He may break a hundred hearts with the rakish tussle of his wavy brown hair. Not a clue have I. But this I know: he is not a musical star; he's a star who's doing a musical.

This is nothing to do with talent, only stardom. To be a musical star requires two things: one, to be in an original musical and two, to have a hit song from a show. That's why we don't have many musical stars these days (and I mean "household name" musical stars). The simple fact is that we don't have many successful new musicals and the ones we do have (Billy Elliot, Matilda) don't really have hit songs. Hence, no stars.

So, until they produce a musical stage version of The Wire which includes Detective Jimmy McNulty's showtopping chart-topper "Tap Your Troubles Away Like Real POH-lice", then Mr. West will not, strictly speaking, be a musical star. On the other hand, if this does happen, I will be first in line for a ticket.

Back to the good Lord's question: is it the musical that makes the star or the stars that makes the musical?

It's tempting to say that it's a symbiotic relationship, like those colourful little birds that sit on top of African rhinos and clean their skin by eating the ticks off their back. I suppose the stars would be the birds, the musical would be the rhino, the ticks would be the lack of narrative drive in the middle of Act II. Or something.

Perhaps a clearer way of putting the questions is: who needs whom? And putting it this way, I'd say the balance is in favour of the musical. After all, there have been many successful star-less musicals (Billy Elliot, Matilda - gosh, they're hit-less and star-less); but there have never been any musical-less musical stars.

In the end, the show is always the star.