When I talk to people about musicals I have two different reactions; those friends who partake in musical theatre or dramatic arts who are really excited in conversations and those who hear the word ‘musical’ in the theatre sense who immediately think ‘musical = singing, dancing, slapstick and therefore stupid’.
If I ask someone who has little to no knowledge about musicals to name three I guarantee at least one of those will be a Disney film. Now, Disney films are all well and good but they are all filled with happy endings and things designed for kids to handle. If I were to ask any of my friends they might want to count beyond their fingers trying to decide which to mention as if picking their favourites. However, I would guess many of them would mention Rent, Hairspray, and any Gilbert and Sullivan work they prefer.
Look at any of these shows and you be guaranteed to find some serious content that kids aren’t ready for or wouldn’t understand, and these are the lighter stories that you find in an average musical (though those are classics).
If you’re the kind of person who would ask ‘but why do they break out into song and dance? It makes everything look ridiculous’. If you have this opinion after seeing a show, was it a comedy? Like any movie or play, musicals have several genres ranging from comical to tragic (with some ridiculously heavy themes).
I like to think of it this way; when there is a heated or emotionally powerful moment in a film you expect a character to cry out, to unleash the pent up and suspended emotion in a massive rant-based monologue with real raw actions. A musical takes this opportunity to break into song. The best songs in any artists respect people find to be the really emotional ones. Multiply the power of that emotion by ten and that’s a musical theatre song mixed in with the dialogue. For example, I suggest just about anything by Jason Robert Brown (Songs For A New World, The Last Five Years, Parade, etc.), in particular the opening number The New World from Songs For A New World.
Before elaborating more on the song, a bit of info on the show. Songs For A New World is not so much a musical than a song revue as there is no linear story but a linking theme of facing problems and getting through them with different results. So, although there are four singers (speaking of the original 1997 recording) each song pertains to different characters. This opening number introduces some of the emotional situations of later songs, almost like an overture. With lines like “you have a house in the hills/you have a job on the coast/you find a lover you’re sure you believe in/ you’ve got a pool in the back/you’ve got the part of your life/ you hold the ring in your hand” give rapid fire situations and emotions heightened by lyrical notes.
In a film we have an underscore playing the emotions to the audience while a character feels what they feel but in a musical there is no middle man, so to speak, the character (with the help of the band/orchestra) bombards us with musical emotions much more powerful than dialogue or music alone. There is no screen barrier to look in form the outside. You are as much a part of it as the character and in any moment the actor can break the fourth wall and bring the audience in more.
This brings me to talk about a musical I viewed recently; Avenue Q. A little background, Avenue Q is, to summarise, a very adult version of Sesame Street, performed with muppets as well as real person characters on stage. It looks at everyday realities such as paying rent, not having a job or experience after graduating from tertiary education (What Do You Do With A B.A. In English/It Sucks To Be Me), sex and relationships and overall growing up. It is a clever comedy in which (to complete a previous point) they broke the fourth wall at the performance I saw at Enmore Theatre, Newtown. In the number The Money Song they had the minor characters, the Bad Idea Bears, come around to collect money. Whether they meant collect actual money in that scene I do not know but they collected what they received and presented it on stage. One of the things they collected was an Opal card, breaking the fourth wall in addressing the gentleman that gave it jokingly.
In musicals, being live, they can improvise and so with lines regarding the collections were improvised as was lines in For Now following lyrics expressing that youth was ‘for now’, sex was ‘for now’ and then following it up with “Tony Abbott” is for now which won excellent applause.
Of all performance, a musical is probably the most interactive and engaging form which just needs to be experienced properly to be understood. It’s not a happy-slappy art form where everyone has a smile on their face. It can be emotionally gripping, drawing you to tears quicker than the saddest movie scene or the sweetest song lyrics.
For my next post I will look in depth at 10 musicals of differing calibres to give a good look at the styles, the structure, stories and differences of iconic and notable musicals.
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