Studies in Musical Theatre - Volume 5, Issue 3, 2012

In composing La Bohéme, based on the novel Scénes de la vie Bohéme/Bohemians of the Latin Quarter by Henry Murger, Giacomo Puccini used musical themes symbolic of characters, emotions and settings. Jonathan Larson also based Rent on Murger's novel, and the characters, plot and themes of both the opera and musical are close to identical. Larson signposted a clear motivic connection to La Bohéme within Rent and this led to the development of my hypotheses: that Larson transposed a number of Puccini's themes into Rent; that he was aware of their symbolism; that the 'Musetta's Waltz' transposition was the most important transposition from La Bohéme to Rent; and that the transpositions applied to the 'Musetta's Waltz' theme throughout Rent were the most dramatically significant. This study compares the scores and musical themes of both works in an attempt to establish Larson's intention behind the transpositions.

In her article, '"Defying Gravity": Queer conventions in the musical Wicked', Stacy Wolf suggests that, although conforming to many of the conventional modes of the musical genre, the musical Wicked queers the stage by refocusing on the queer relationship between Glinda and Elphaba. Although such queering occurs to some extent, the production aims to marginalize and then reformulate the relationship as a friendship rather than a queer romance. By forcing Elphaba from the role of tom-boy to sexy witch and by reorganizing the Glinda/Elphaba/Fiyero love triangle, the musical mutes the more aggressively contentious elements of the novel in order to create a performance with an appealing heroine and a storyline that features female friendship as well as the standard romantic plotline. I further assert that when the narrative of the Wicked Witch of the West moves to the larger-than-life venue of Broadway, the complexities of the novel necessarily fade as the creators reformat the material in order to appeal to a broader audience. This Elphaba can be neither the Witch in Maguire's novel nor a replication of the Witch from the 1939 movie The Wizard of Oz. As the heroine of the narrative, one who must somehow garner the sympathy of the audience, Elphaba can be neither a hideous manifestation of evil or the complex ungendered being of the novel. Consequently, although the heroines, Glinda and Elphaba, represent an innovation on Broadway, the intervention that the musical provides is not queer in nature. Instead, what the musical offers is a focus on female friendship, a trope little seen on the musical stage, while still appealing to the base audience by refocusing the sexual tension on Fiyero.

In the late nineteenth and early twentieth century the theatrical traditions and dramatic conventions of the early nineteenth century were challenged by the new modern dramas that would come to dominate the stage in the years that followed. From a musical perspective the changes in the relationship between music and drama that took place during this period are extremely important. The realistic aesthetic could not support the presence of music provided by an offstage orchestra. However, if the non-diegetic underscoring was removed so too were the dramaturgic functions that it completed. One solution to this problem was to use diegetic accompaniments performed by musicians within the storyworld as the vessel through which musical meaning was imparted. This article identifies and explores the techniques adopted to facilitate a switch from non-diegetic to diegetic musical accompaniments and the ways in which this transition created and restricted dramatic possibilities.

In 2007, the distinguished scholar of musical theatre Bruce Kirle died unexpectedly. In tribute to his contribution to this field of scholarship, the Music-Theatre-Dance focus group of the Association for Theatre in Higher Education (ATHE) established a competition for new scholars researching in the field. This is now the third season in which three prize-winning entries to this competition have been presented both as conference papers (at the 2011 ATHE conference in Chicago), and as written articles in Studies in Musical Theatre. David Savran, respondent to the papers at the ATHE conference, introduces them in this short preamble.

In 1868, Lydia Thompson and her British Blondes were the most popular theatrical engagement in New York City. Their burlesque performances drew immense crowds but also critical condemnation. A close reading of the source text for their American premiere Ixion: Or the Man at the Wheel reveals that the cultural anxieties that their performances raised – about gender roles, the economic viability of 'legitimate' theatre and American nationalism – were not unrelated to the themes within the script. Ixion engages with the idea of American Revolution, celebrating the nation's participatory culture while at the same time probing its limits. Although a century had elapsed between the Revolution and the Blondes' premiere, Thompson's decision to open with Ixion illustrates her willingness to use the theatre as a means to assess the country's democratic initiatives against the rigid limitations in contemporary cultural ideals.

'If Oklahoma! developed the moral argument for sending American boys overseas, Carousel offered consolation to those wives and mothers whose boys would only return in spirit'. Opening at the close of World War II, Carousel became a voice for the guilt-ridden soldiers coming home to a society in which they no longer knew how to participate. This investigation reads the musical's frequently misunderstood antihero, Billy Bigelow, as a surrogate veteran, whose dramatic through-line parallels the fundamental stages of recovery for veterans afflicted with Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD). Utilizing the work of Judith Herman in Trauma and Recovery: The Aftermath of Violence – from Domestic Abuse to Political Terror (1992), and Elaine Scarry in The Body in Pain: The Making and Unmaking of the World (1985), this deconstruction proposes a richer understanding of the musical as a cultural response to World War II with continued relevancy in the aftermath of the Iraq war.

In 1994 Bill T. Jones premiered a new dance work, Still/Here, that placed onstage the images and gestures of terminally ill people who had participated in workshops he had led previously. Arlene Croce, then the dance critic for The New Yorker, reviewed the work even though she famously refused to attend the performance. In her review she chastised Jones for creating 'victim art' out of his own and others' experiences of illness. The publication of Croce's review raised several questions about the role of dance criticism, the clash of 'high' and 'low' cultures, voyeurism and spectatorship, and the limits of representation in dance. This article argues that Jones's work and Croce's response to it can be understood through the lens of documentary theatre methods and theories. Moreover, articulating the intersection of dance and documentary practices directly addresses Croce and Jones's conflict over the use of the 'real' in 'art'.

London Road, a collaboration between documentary playwright Alecky Blythe, composer Adam Cork and director Rufus Norris, opened at the National Theatre in April 2011. Road Show, by Stephen Sondheim and John Weidman, directed by John Doyle, opened at the Menier Chocolate Factory in July 2011 (a transfer of the 2008 New York production). This article explores their production histories, considering the relationships to historical events within both performance texts, and the intricate relationship between content and form in both cases. It briefly discusses the questions of place that impact upon both the performance texts and the material spaces of production and reception. Finally, it considers the relationship between these works and the 'imagined Broadway musical', in the context of what both pieces represent for musical theatre production in contemporary London.

Garry Lyons is an award-winning playwright, screenwriter, producer and academic. He is currently Lecturer in Writing for Performance & Performance Production within the School of Performance & Cultural Industries at the University of Leeds, and Programme Leader for the School's M.A. in Writing for Performance & Publication. He began his career in the 1980s with Major Road Theatre Company and as Director of the Theatre in the Mill, Bradford before turning freelance. His theatre writing includes Frankie and Tommy (Lyric, Hammersmith, 2000), Wicked, Yaar! (National Theatre, 1994) and Mohicans (Donmar Warehouse, 1984), and among his screen credits are the Royal Television Society award-winning Decisions (Channel 4, 2004), Britain's First Suicide Bombers (BBC 2, 2006) and four seasons of the Bafta-nominated children's series The Worst Witch (ITV, 1998–2001), which has been broadcast in more than 60 countries worldwide. His adaptation of The Secret Garden played to sold-out houses over the festive season at the West Yorkshire Playhouse (2009–2010) and Birmingham Repertory Theatre (2010–2011). The Independent described the new musical as having 'a filmic quality' and added 'this Secret Garden doesn't shout its secrets at the audience. Instead, it creates some lovely musical intimacies which enhance the magical sense of human fragility and reality on stage'. Here, Lyons talks to George Rodosthenous (Lecturer in Music Theatre, University of Leeds) about his collaboration with the composer Tim Sutton and the director Ian Brown, writing the book for a musical specifically 'for a regional English audience' and how 'the lack of encouragement and investment in new musicals in this country is woeful'.

PICK YOURSELF UP: DOROTHY FIELDS AND THE AMERICAN MUSICAL, CHARLOTTE GREENSPAN (2010) (Broadway Legacies), Oxford: Oxford University Press, 298 pp., ISBN 978-0-19-5111110-1, h/bk, $27.95

GEORGE GERSHWIN, LARRY STARR (2011) (Yale Broadway Masters Series), New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 194 pp., ISBN 978-0-300-11184-2, h/bk, £30

THE SONGS OF HOLLYWOOD, PHILIP FURIA AND LAURIE PATTERSON (2010) Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press, x+270 pp., ISBN 978-0-19-533708-2, h/bk, $35

BROADWAY MUSICALS, THE BIGGEST HIT AND THE BIGGEST FLOP OF THE SEASON: 1959 TO 2009, PETER FILICHIA (2010) Milwaukee: Applause Theatre & Cinema Books, xiii+277 pp., ISBN-13 978-1-4234-9562-8, p/bk, US$19.99