Mary Lee Costa examines how the times have changed in the state of musical theatre
With two recent productions of Tennessee Williams’ plays, Arthur Miller’s The Crucible, and lesser-known works such as the The Laramie Project making it onto the Oxford stage, it seems our interest in the work of American playwrights is growing. Judging by the widespread grief of the British public following Arthur Miller’s death, we still take a lively interest in writers from across the herring pond.
America’s most talked-about theatrical contribution has long been in the category of musical theatre. Both the Broadway and West End programmes suggest that the popularity of the musical remains unabated, and there is no shortage of big names eager to tackle them. Having recently returned from his round-the-world motorcycle tour, Ewan McGregor will assume the role of Sky Masterson in Guys and Dolls this May. Last year, Oxford itself saw a revival of this acclaimed musical. However, many of the hit songs from Guys and Dolls, such as Luck Be A Lady, no longer enjoy such a high status. They are rarely still thought of as free-standing pieces of music.
The American musical theatre of the 1920s and 1930s was strewn with music by some of the twentieth century’s greatest composers, such as Cole Porter, the Gershwin Brothers and Jerome Kern. At the time, it provided the popular music of its day, and many of the songs from this period have remained beloved favourites after the shows they were written for have been long forgotten. Hits such as Someone to Watch Over Me, Tea for Two and New York, New York still reach a wide audience today, while the musicals they featured in, such as On the Town, are almost entirely forgotten. Only a lucky few musicals of this era survive in performance.
The songs from this pre-war period were usually considered far more important than the actual dialogue. This is aptly demonstrated by the fact that many of those that proved popular were used in a host of different plays. Such was their appeal that they were eventually recycled into fresh plots for Hollywood stars such as Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers.
In recent years, Broadway has featured less comic and more dramatic new musicals, such as The Scarlet Pimpernel alongside those with operatic scores, such as The Life. However, modern Broadway’s innate conservativism means that such innovations remain the exception, rather than the norm. For the most part songs tend to be remembered only as part of the musical itself, without being strong enough to stand alone.
Few modern Broadway musicals have achieved long-lasting fame of the classic American plays. By the very nature of their performance, with the necessary presence of music and often dance, musicals do not have the same ability to survive as straight plays. The majority of Broadway musicals that are wellknown remain so because they have been adapted to film, as in the cases of The Sound of Music and My Fair Lady. It remains to be seen whether the wave of star-studded West End musicals will be enough to reverse this disappointing trend.ARCHIVE: 0th week TT 2005
The sound of musical theatre
