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.