Understanding Musical Theater: A Journey from Opera to Musicals, Study notes of Theatre

Download Understanding Musical Theater: A Journey from Opera to Musicals and more Study notes Theatre in PDF only on Docsity! THE 101 Lecture 5 1 Hello. I’m Bob Bradley. This is THE 101, Introduction to Theater and Drama Arts. We are going to begin today a section on musical theater and I’m going to talk about musical theater and what it is, talk a little bit about how it developed in this country, and then we will, following this, have some visitors who will be with us and who will talk about musical theater and their involvement in it, and how and what they see when we talk about musical theater. Now, why musical theater? Why are we sort of singling this out? Well, one, because it is unquestionably the most popular fo rm of theater going today. In fact, most of you, if after this class is over and during the semester in which you are enrolled, you will have to actually see real theater productions and actually make an effort to get there. But if — and we can only hope that maybe you will want to continue going. Probably most of you will — more than likely what you will go see in the future will be musical productions of some kind. So consequently, certainly recognizing, one, the popularity of this with an audience, recognizing that this is among the offerings that you will find almost anywhere in the country, almost any theater group, whether it be commercial Broadway, whether it be regional theater, whether it be community theater, university theater, or high school theater, almost all of those groups at some point or the other will present musical theater. In fact, there is no question that that which is the theater capital of the United States — New York City — that New York is also the musical capital of the world. There is no question that the musical dominates the commercial Broadway scene. Out of the 40-something theaters that make up what is called Broadway in New THE 101 Lecture 5 2 York, out of those 40-something theaters at any one time, there will be at least 15, 18, 20 musicals that will be your choices. So that when you go to New York, if you do, and you want to go see a Broadway production, most people end up choosing to go see a musical. And in a number of cases many of these musicals have been running now for many years. They have become established hits. In fact, the musical “Cats” holds the longest running record of any show on Broadway, having played over 20 continuous years at one Broadway theater. It had originated in London the year before it came to New York and there was a New York production, and it ran its 20-some odd years and then it continued on in London even longer than that. So that when one these days looks at a popular musical or choosing a popular musical, you will find musicals that have long running history behind them. And, of course, many of those musicals then mount touring productions and those productions then fan out across the United States. “Cats,” for example, did indeed have about three different companies playing at the same time, going across the United States and playing, yes, St. Louis and Kansas City and Tulsa and, yes, even two different times coming to Springfield, Missouri, and playing in the Juanita K. Hammons Hall for the Performing Arts. So for that reason, then, this is why we certainly want to spend some time looking at musical theater and talking about what musical theater is. I use the term “musical theater” and that’s sort of an all-encompassing term. One, because we really don’t have a very exact vocabulary in talking about theater at all and musical theater in particular. But anyway, in this term called “musical theater,” certainly we should understand that it would include opera. An opera is a form that at least most people usually think of as being THE 101 Lecture 5 5 must be something else. And so it just simply evolved into the musical. What we first need to come to is and let’s understand is that all of these forms that we have been talking about up until now — and that is opera, operetta, musical comedy, the musical — that all of these revolve around and have some kind of story — they have story and characters. And that through then this combination of music, words and, yes, frequently dance, that what we then have is that the story and characters are going to be developed. The emphasis here is going to be on the story, on the characters and they’re being told then through these musical forms. Because at least one of the forms of musical theater that I want to mention and that is what is simply — or what is usually labeled musical review. Now, this is a production where one is not going to have a story. One may find that musical reviews have some kind of theme which is going to unite what is going on within this production or it may have some other kind of uniting factor of some kind, or it may not even have any seemingly unifying factor that’s going to run through it at all. But in one way or the other, it is going to be a musical review which is going to have songs, going to have skits, usually also may well have production numbers — and we’ll come back and talk about a production number — production numbers of some kind or the other. Now, musical reviews of all kinds were enormously popular in the United States in the 19th century and the first half of the 20th century. And then we find that the musical reviews sort of play out so far as theater is concerned, but what we find is musical reviews by the early 1950s had moved to television. And during those early days of the 1950s and ‘60s, what we find is that there were many musical reviews that appeared on television. THE 101 Lecture 5 6 They were usually frequently united through the factor of the star performer and so thus we had the Dinah Shore Show, the Andy Williams Show, the Carol Burnett Show. Or maybe it didn’t necessarily unite around an entertainer, the Kraft Music Hall. By the time of the early ‘60s and into the early ‘70s, most of these had begun to fade away and it is only infrequently that we find these days that there is a musical review that appears on television. There is, however, today one place — or I should say maybe several places — but there is one place in particular, as far as we’re concerned, where the musical review is still alive and well. And if you stop and think for a moment where is that, and that is in Branson, Missouri. Yes, that is when one goes to Branson and one goes to see the shows in Branson. What you are seeing are musical reviews. Many times they are -- the unifying factor if the star performer and so thus we have the Shoji Tabuci Show, the Andy Williams Show, or the Jim Stafford Show. And then in some cases we have it being united by a group such as the Baldknobbers. Those are all musical reviews and that is through the course of usually about 2 hours an evening, you will have a number of songs frequently done by the star performer or by solo singers and then, in some cases, those people will come together and they will do duets or, in some cases, maybe trios and maybe then there will even be something called the production number. Now, maybe we should say what is a production number? Well, what we find is a production number is where we find usually that the whole group, ever how many may make up the whole — and a musical, in a Broadway musical, that may well be 20, 25 or THE 101 Lecture 5 7 more people. What we then have is that the whole group — a soloist, a group — may come together. They sing the number, they may begin in a solo. It begins in a solo, develops into a group number, and then it moves out of that into frequently what is called the dance break and that is where everybody or certainly some of them begin and go into a dance part of that particular song. So this is what is called usually a production number and we will come back later and talk about how then the production number fits into the musical and how it fits into the totality here. But what we find then certainly is that the production number is frequently a part of the musical reviews. Now, at this point what we’re going to spend -- now that we’ve sort of looked at this overall view of musical theater, what we’re going to spend the rest of our time looking at is musical comedy, musical comedy evolving into the musical. Now, we did not invent this in this country. But what we did do is we did take it and develop it. And when I say we didn’t invent it — because as we can see here and as we look at it, what we certainly see is that musical comedy comes out of some combination of operetta, musical review, and you begin to put all of these together and you tie them together with a story. And remember this is what we’re doing. You tie it together with a story and you have characters then who are going to go through the story, who have actions and yet this ties it back into the Aristotelean part that we’re talking about, because a musical is going to present and show us characters in action in some way or the other. But what we did do is we did take this and develop it into something which was particularly and peculiarly American. It is something that belongs to us. Now, at this point you may say, “Well, what’s the difference between this and — isn’t this a play with THE 101 Lecture 5 10 picture, and so what I will attempt to do here is to be very specific in the examples that I am going to give you. As I said, most of them are going to come from “Oklahoma” with one example coming from “West Side Story.” But what will happen then is perhaps you can get a CD and listen to “Oklahoma” or, better still, get the movie version. The movie version of “Oklahoma” is really pretty good. Sometimes the transference of Broadway musicals into Hollywood musicals — those transferences were not always successful. But in this case, with perhaps one exception that I’ll talk about in a few minutes, the transference is pretty good. And there is a copy, by the way, of the movie version of “Oklahoma” in the SMS library. So consequently, if you really want to follow through and see how this works together a little better, get a copy of the movie and look at it, and then I think you can begin to see how these things work. All right. Characteristics. One. Music is a different sensory experience from listening to words. Now, that’s really not particularly difficult or complex. What happens is sometimes complex, but it is certainly difficult for us to understand. Because all of you know if you were listening to someone talking or if you were looking — listening to someone in dialogue as in the theater. But when we listen to music, listening to music is a different way — we respond differently. Our bodies respond differently. Our emotions respond differently. Our senses. We appeal to a different sense when we listen to music from listening to words. So therefore when we have then this experience of taking words, uniting them with music, then at that point we’re now certainly beginning to mix two different sensory responses and combining them in some way or the other. So that what we find then is THE 101 Lecture 5 11 that we respond differently. We bring in a different set of senses. We touch senses differently in the musical once the music enters than we do when we have words only. Let me give one example — first example here — from “Oklahoma,” and that is the song called “Surrey with the Fringe on Top.” Now, what happens here is we have the two characters, Laurie and Curly, and they have been sparring back and forth here. And Curly has come to ask Laurie to go to the box social that particular night and she says, “If you did ask me, I wouldn’t go with you. Besides, how you take me? You ain’t bought a new buggy with red wheels on it, have you?” Curly taken aback, “No, I ain’t.” “Well, what’re you expecting me to do then: climb up on the back of your horse and ride to the social? I tell you what. You’d better ask that Cummins girl you took such a shine to over across the river.” Curly at this point is now determined to get the better of Laurie. “Well, if I was to ask you, there’d be a way to take you, Miss Laurie. Smarty.” “Oh, there would?” And Curly then goes, “When I take you out tonight with me, honey here’s the way it’s going to be. You will set behind a team of snow white horses, in the slickest gig you ever see.” And at that point then he goes into and he creates this whole situation in the song of “Hey, there is a surrey. There’s going to be a surrey and yes.” Well, as soon as we enter the song, Laurie’s last line is — his line is, “If I was to ask you, there’d be a way to take you, Miss Laurie. Smarty.” “Oh, there would?” she says, and then there is a single note in the orchestra. At that point we are now transported. We’re transported from words into another round. We are now transported into song and Curly begins singing. And eventually Laurie will answer him back and this develops into a kind of duet here. So at that point we have very definitely entered into something THE 101 Lecture 5 12 different from the way it would be if there was only a dialogue scene, if there was only words. Let me use one other number from “Oklahoma” and this is the number called “Kansas City.” And the reason I want to use this particular number is this is a number done by the comic leading character of “Oklahoma,” Will Parker. Will Parker has just returned — this is Oklahoma territory that we’re talking about. Will Parker has just returned from a rodeo in Kansas City and for him this is — remember, just after about 1905 which is about the turn of the 20th century and going to Kansas City for him was quite an experience. And so at that point he tells us about “Everything’s up-to-date in Kansas City.” And he tells us about all of the sights that he saw in the city which make it different from those things which living on the plains of Oklahoma, that he did not know about. Such as telephones, such as going to the privy without having to go outside at all, so indoor plumbing, and many other kinds of things that he names which are brand new as far as he’s concerned. Will Parker is then joined by the chorus and that is those people who’ve come to welcome him home and hear him talk about his adventures here. And so they go along with him and they begin singing, and this whole thing then develops into first a solo dance break — that is for Will Parker — and then eventually into a full-fledged production number that we explained earlier, into a full-fledged production number with Will Parker, the chorus, everybody singing, everybody dancing here. So we have entered into — and now look: we have words, we have music, and now we’ve added another art form here. And again, something that we respond to differently. We have now added dance to all of this. So consequently now we have words, THE 101 Lecture 5 15 dialogue, somebody responds to that line of dialogue, and back and forth we go. So we hear it line, line, line, line. It is linear in its movement, moving this way. It is linear in its development here. But once we move to music, then what happens is music is — that musical lines, and that is the lines of the music, allow us to hear a number of different expressions simultaneously. And, in fact, when these develop in musical forms, we call those duets, trios, quartets, quintets, sextets, up to 3, 4, 5, 6 different people or more in some cases may be expressing in many cases different sets of emotion. And we can hear this all going at the same time. Usually what we will begin to hear is each one of those individuals sort of begins in a solo and then gets joined in some way or the other by the other set of individuals who may be involved here. But by hearing each of those voices first in a solo, then at that point we can begin to distinguish each of those characters and we can begin to hear, our ears allow us to hear, each of those musical moments separately. I was somewhat surprised because it hadn’t occurred to me before until I sat down and looked at it, “Oklahoma” does not have a — does not have any moments where there is such a simultaneous expression of emotions. Now, yes, it has points where there is a development of the chorus and, yes, they’re — but they’re developing usually simultaneously what we happen here. They are developing at the same time. But there’s not different sets of emotions evolved. Perhaps certainly one of the best examples that I can give you and certainly tell you to want to go look at in some way or the other is from “West Side Story.” And this is what I sometimes call the Tonight Quintet. Although actually it is more than 5 people in THE 101 Lecture 5 16 terms of the number of people singing. But what we have here is we do find five different musical lines being developed here. In this particular moment, we are still in the first act. We are scene 8. And what we have had now, up to this point, is we have set up that there are rival ethnic gangs, the Jets and the Sharks. There are individual characters here who come out of the gangs and become then the soloist within the musical. In fact, what this really is is the Romeo and Juliet story moved to New York City in the 1950s, moved to a point where there were ethnic gangs in New York and they were warring gangs, and what we have then is, yes, as could be expected, a boy from one of the gangs falls in love with a girl who belongs to one of the other gangs, and, yes, they then develop the Romeo and Juliet story. So what we have here, then, in this Tonight Quintet, we have been introduced to the warring gangs, the Jets and the Sharks. We have been introduced to Anita who is the sister of the leader of one of the gangs, who is in love with the leader of one of the gangs here. So we have Anita. We’re introduced to Tony. Tony is the member of one of the other gangs and Maria, and Maria who is the sister — I’ll get the sister relationship straight here — Maria who is the sister to one of the — who is the leader of the other gang. So what we have then is we have Jets, Sharks, Anita, Tony and Maria. And each of those, then, in this Tonight Quintet begins singing and telling us about how they or how he or she feels about what’s going to happen tonight. Tonight there is going to be a rumble and the Jets begin. The Jets are gonna have their day tonight. Sharks, the Shark scene, they say the same thing. The Sharks are gonna have THE 101 Lecture 5 17 their way tonight. Jets. The Puerto Ricans grumble fair fight, but if they start a rumble we’ll rumble ‘em right. Sharks: We’re gonna hand ‘em a surprise tonight. And then they go on and they develop this back and forth between each other. Then we sort of focus in on Anita. Anita, remember, is the girlfriend of one of the leaders. “Anita is gonna get her kicks tonight. We’ll have our private little mix tonight. He’ll walk in, hot and tired. So what? Don’t matter if he’s tired as long as he’s hot tonight.” Then we switch to and we focus on Tony. Tony, remember, is one of t he members of the gang who is trying to get himself out of the gang when he was falling in love with Maria. Tony: “Tonight, tonight. Won’t be just any night. Tonight there’ll be no morning star.” And he goes on and develops this. Then we pick up with Riff who is one of the leaders. “I’m counting on you to be there tonight,” speaking to Tony. Then we switch and we focus on Maria and Maria picks up pretty much the same kind of — the same words and number that Tony had used earlier. “Tonight, tonight. Won’t just be any night. Tonight there’ll be no morning star.” Then at this point we now begin to pick up and develop each of those, and we have Jets, Sharks, Tony, Maria, Anita, and as the stage directions say, “All have been singing at once, reprising the choruses they sung before.” And so at that point, then, this thing develops into this full number in which all of these characters and the groups within them are now simultaneously expressing their feelings, THE 101 Lecture 5 20 in sort of spite for all of this, then agrees that she will go to the social with Judd Fry. Curly now in the smokehouse scene goes down to visit Judd and he wants to find out a little more about Judd. And so Curly goes in very sure of himself and they have a comic number or a number which has both its comic and its serious side that they develop, in which Curly called “Poor Judd is dead.” And then finally they get it out in the open that the [inaudible] which exists between the two of them, and Curly warns Judd to be careful. And Curly then leaves. At this point, then, Judd Fry has a moment which he is going to share with the audience. And Curly has gone out and Judd Fry says, “Don’t want nothing from a peddler’s bag. Want real things. What am I doing shut up here like that fella says, a-crawling and a-festering. What am I doing in this lousy smokehouse?” Then he goes into what is unquestionably one of the most poignant songs in this particular musical, what is really one of the really poignant moments in musical theater, and when it’s done right it can go a long, long way in really making things quite difficult for Laurie and Curly. Because the audience begins to have sympathy for Judd Fry. And he goes into the song called, “Lonely room. The floor creaks, the door squeaks. There’s a fieldmouse nibbling on a broom. And I set by myself like a cobweb on a shelf, by myself in a lonely room.” And he then goes on and develops all of this. And finally he concludes the song with, “I ain’t gonna dream about her arms no more. I ain’t gonna leave her alone. Going outside, get myself a bride, get me a woman to call my own.” It’s a marvelous, wonderful moment in this particular musical and it certainly makes for — as in many musicals, the character revelation becomes one of the high points of the particular musical. THE 101 Lecture 5 21 Number four. Musicals allow for a chorus to develop. Now, I’ve mentioned the chorus a number of times already in reference to “Oklahoma.” And the chorus is a group of people who frequently sing together and who frequently will in some way or the other back up the soloist in a particular number. But in good musicals, the chorus is something more than just a chorus. Although there are musicals in which that’s exactly what they are, and that is they are a chorus. One of my favorite moments happens in a 1920s musical called “No, No, Nanette” at a point in which one of the characters has been singing a song, alone, on-stage, nobody else present, and then suddenly no reason whatsoever, absolutely nothing other than a musical reason, all the doors of the house — this is an interior setting — all the doors of the house open up and all these people pop in. They begin singing and dancing, backing up the soloist. We finish the number and when the number is over, they all just go back through the doors again and disappear. Absolutely no dramatic reason for their showing up at all. So what we find, then, here is — and musicals, as they begin to develop, and especially in the late ‘30s on down to the present day, the chorus becomes a community, a community. That is, it now allows the musical to broaden beyond just the story of the soloist. It now broadens and becomes a story about the community. The scope then increases more here than we’ve had earlier. There’s a good example in “Oklahoma” and that is that which opens the second act, and that is a song called “The Farmer and the Cattleman.” And what we have here then is we develop and set up this community here in which we have the two groups. We have THE 101 Lecture 5 22 the farmers and we have the cattlemen. And the song opens: “The farmer and the cattleman should be friends; oh, the farmer and the cattleman should be friends; one man likes to push a plow, the other likes to chase a cow; but that’s no reason they can’t be friends.” And we go on and develop, and we have these two groups here — a farmer, cattleman. “Territory folks should stick together; territory folks should all be pals; cowboys dance with farmers’ daughters; farmers dance with the ranchers’ girls.” So off we go here then, developing these two particular groups which become the community in which this musical takes place. And five, lastly, in Aristotelean order here, we indeed come to the staging. Now, just by the sheer fact of what we’ve been talking about, one can begin to see that musicals usually begin to be big. They usually begin to be — in fact, many cases call for the extravagant, the more spectacular in terms of scenery and costuming. Musicals frequently are done in many different scenes in many different locations. We’ve talked about “Oklahoma” here. “Oklahoma” had the opening scene which is the backyard of Laurie’s farmhouse. We then go to the smokehouse. We come back to the backyard again and then in Act II, we go off to the box social which is in another barn on another ranch. And then at the end we come back to the backyard again. So we have several different sets here, all of which have to be shifted around, and we move from set to set. We also have, as indicated here, a large number of people. The cast of “Oklahoma” certainly is usually going to number somewhere around 30, and at any one particular point of time we’re certainly going to find out that all of these people come together. We mentioned Kansas City early on and we also have here, when we get to the