Aaron Frankel
“Writing The Broadway Musical (revised and updated)”: the essential writers’ reference updated with the latest in Broadway musical theater (sic! – прим. OCR), 2000
Da Capo press
Copyright 1977, 1991, 2000 by Aaron Frankel
ISBSN 0-306-80943-5
pp.1-4
Types of Musical Theater
Creating a musical can be one of the most satisfying experiences in theater. Part of its satisfaction is in conquering its mountainous odds. From its opening steps to the New York opening night, the work never stops. That a show is not written but rewritten applies above all to a musical. That a show is not written but wrought applies even more.
The difficulties start with understanding the differences between musicals and straight plays, and then the differences among musicals. Since the former will be a primary subject throughout this book, a guide to the latter would be a good place to begin.
Musicals may loosely be classified into six main "types," and form a spectrum:
Revue / Musical comedy / Musical drama / "Broadway Opera" / "New" operetta / Play-with-Music
All spectrum bands fade into each other. Defining the two types at each end first, however, will make clear why the four middle ones comprise the heart of musical theater.
The revue is a series of separate songs, dances and skits, unified by a point of view, usually comic, and a distinct style of presentation. However, it is not unified by a through-story with developing characters—or book—and book musicals are musical theater's core. Among themselves, revues vary their styles widely, and strike different balances of comedy, song and dance each time. Any two random choices, from Forbidden Broadway to Bring in 'Da Noise, Bring in 'Da Funk, show the contrast.
The play-with-music is what many laypersons confuse with a musical. In this form, however, the plot can stand by itself without the music. The songs will illustrate or comment, and they will certainly increase the enjoyment. But the plot will remain intact without them, the songs are not pivotal. There is no book in the sense of plot and dialogue propelled by music and dance leading the action. Marat/Sade is a pure example of such a play-with-music, as is the whole Brecht-Weill catalogue. But a more apt illustration is 1776. One song in it, "Molasses to Rum," makes 1776 a musical in particular instead of the play-with-music it is in general—because taking out the song leaves a hole. The plot cannot resume without picking up where the action of the song left off.
Of the four central musical theater types, musical comedy was long the most prevalent. One of the sources of musical comedy was the revue. The revue's bits and pieces began to be tied together by a book, resulting in early musical comedy hits like No, No, Nanette or DuBarry Was a Lady which had loosely constructed plots with the free-wheeling pliancy of revues, interrupting as they pleased for comedy turns or vehicle numbers by stars or specialty performers. Comedy still dominated, though plots were gradually treated more strictly, with better-motivated songs and better-related dances, until finally musical comedy reached the integrated heights of shows ranging from Annie Get Your Gun to Guys and Dolls to Company.
Musical comedy in turn gave rise to musical drama (also called the musical play. The short, joke rhythms of comedy gave way to longer-rhythmed dramatic emphases, and the music grew more ambitious. It first appeared in 1927, in Show Boat, the show which also pioneered the "integrated musical," in which score and plot support each other, and extraneous material is, for the most part, pared away. Drama continued to take over other musicals, character development grew more complex in both song and dialogue, subplots were better connected and comedy threw shadows or served only as relief. Resulting musicals ranged from Pal Joey to Gypsy to Fiddler on the Roof to Raisin. Other musical dramas took an opposite course, minimi/ing one element: dialogue. From West Side Story to Ain't Supposed To Die a Natural Death, song and dance carried the story far more than spoken words.
"Broadway opera" (to coin a term) was the next step up from musical drama. Neither traditional nor modern opera is musical theater, strictly speaking, because they tend to be static rather than move, much less dance, and because they employ music from classical sources and as the dominating element. "Broadway opera" also emphasizes music to a greater degree than any of the other musical theater types, but the music originates out of popular sources and is held in balance with all the other elements in the musical. Both opera and "Broadway opera" lean to the spectacular, but in content and treatment, "Broadway opera" is vernacular, not literary. It has ranged from Porgy and Bess to The Most Happy Fella to Jesus Christ Superstar. It is the area most heralded for future development. Sweeney Todd has turned into Broadway opera all by itself.
Related to "Broadway opera" are new versions of the old operetta form. Old operetta includes the romantic musicals of Victor Herbert (Naughty Marietta), Rudolf Friml (Rose-Marie) and Sigmund Romberg (The Desert Song), written under the European influence of Offenbach, Lehar, Oskar Straus and Johann Strauss II. The last "old operetta" on Broadway was The Song of Norway in 1944. The new versions are more characteristically American, if not in subject, then in treatment. They are exemplified by the musicals Carousel, The King and I and others by Rodgers and Hammerstein, and such additional ones as far apart in style as Kismet and The Fantasticks. Brigadoon has become an operetta for current audiences. "New" operetta is still lyrical above all and still emphasizes fantasy, but now reflects the real world rather than escapes it, unlike old operetta.
These "types" are merely compass points to steer by in creating musicals. Observed rigidly, they are confining; many musicals overlap these classifications. Is My Fair Lady, for instance, musical comedy, musical drama or new operetta? Which type is the highly innovative A Little Night Music? Is Hair a rock operetta, or a barely concealed revue? Is Grease a throwback to revue, or a new form of it? Most of its songs arise suddenly and are indirectly motivated, but are joined so playfully together that episodes become a book. In the revised seventies' book and production of Candide, the songs are better motivated than in the original. Yet is not the show a modern, glorified form of revue?
At the opposite end, is Lady in the Dark a play-with-music, or is it a musical drama? With its preponderance of straight dialogue, it seems solely a play-with-music. Yet all its songs arrive with such force, in the form of Liza's dreams, that they take over not only the stage but the plot, in the manner of full musical drama. Where, finally, does A Chorus Line fit? It revitalizes the neglected trend of the "ballet musical" represented by West Side Story, joins comedy and drama, and once more newly mints revue into book. But its unique enfolding of monologue/dialogue within song within dance makes it a fresh development of its own. Divergent, diverting Contact went one step further: no songs, just words and dance.
These are but a few examples of the American musical's bottomless vitality. It keeps finding new ways of using song, dance and dialogue, and new combinations of them.
When Jerry Bock, composer of Fiddler on the Roof, was asked which comes first, the music or the words, he replied, "The book, of course." It is the procedure to follow.
P.S. Это я книжку нашла интересную. Верить ей во всем, думаю, не надо - автор пишет
только об американских мюзиклах и о том, что надо бродвейскому зрителю. Но поучиться у него есть чему.
Даешь наш собственный воркшоп!!!
Это только ее начало, там дальше пошагово рассматривается процесс написания мюзикла, с примерами из My Fair Lady и Company. В общем, продолжение следует...
Уповаю на то, что названия мюзиклов в тексте вы узнаете - не было сил на то, чтобы все их выделять жирным.
Их там слишком много...