Why Musical Theatre is shit.

August 7, 2008 in Music, Theatre | 9 comments

Mike Bartlett & I are, intermittently, working on a project together, involving music by me and words by him; we’ve already performed a short version of the piece at the Royal Court, who seem to be enthusiastic about our taking it further. As part of the preparations for this, I wrote a little bit about why I cannot stand Musicals and, a little later, went on to set out a manifesto for a different way of combining music & theatre.

In a small way, I’m a musician, composer and playwright; I love theatre, and I love music. This is why I despise Musical Theatre. Musicals are an affront to anyone who cares one iota about the impact that theatre or music can have. They can never express anything deeper than the purely superficial, and can’t show anything interesting about the world. Here’s a, far-from-exhaustive, selection of reasons why:

• The music is always trite, cliché-ridden, cheap and emotionally manipulative, and the narrative likewise.

• No emotion is ever expressed that can’t be summed up in a rhyming couplet.

• The entire premise is inconsistent- the idea of naturalistic acting being interrupted by a band, and by breaking into song, is an incoherent mess of a structure.

• The idea that, as emotional intensity increases, the only way to express oneself is through song is flawed. a) people don’t become more expressive as they become more emotional; if anything, it’s the opposite. b) any attempt to become more eloquent through music is immediately frustrated by the need for rhyme, rhythm, singing range etc, which confines rather than liberates the character & performer.

• Singing well is hard. Acting well is hard. Finding one person who can do both these things is very, very hard. Finding a cast who can do both very well is nigh on impossible.

• Musicals are expensive, and thus have to make a lot of money to make it worthwhile; this means appealing to as many people as possible, challenging nothing and offering a cheap emotional sop to all.

• Part of this need to make money results in the need to make something showy, glitzy and gaudy which, patently, the world is not.

• Music, sound and song are never the product of the world they’re in- they come from some out-of-world decision that “we need some song here”, not from an in-world activity or emotion. The music is just layered on top of the narrative.

• There’s no dialogue between the forms- one of the signs of something’s artistic worth is that the form and content inform each other. In the creation of the work, they should be considered equally; there should be a dialogue and interrogation between them that explains their relationship. In Musical Theatre very little, if anything, makes the musical and theatrical elements a cohesive whole.

• “Hummable tunes”, easily achieved emotional gratification, a plot simply designed to string pop songs together, music and narrative composed by lumping together populist clichéd tropes like Lego blocks- these are fucking anathema.

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  1. Ben Walker’s avatar

    Ben Walker on August 7, 2008 at 12:49 pm

    Yes…, yes…, I like what you’ve done there… but aren’t you missing the point of Musical Theatre? It’s funny. And as a wiser man than I once said, “Funny is always better than good”.

    Hmm. You’re right. But I don’t like it. How am I ever going to bring myself to write the double-suicide Can Can finale of Shakespeare’s Monkeys now? Eh?

  2. admin’s avatar

    admin on August 7, 2008 at 3:32 pm

    I would argue that no, musical theatre isn’t funny. They might try to be, but no.

    I mean, come on. The funniest thing in the West End is Avenue Q, whose major quirk is that It’s Puppets! Being Rude! Groundbreaking.

    And here, we’re only talking about the ones that are *trying* to be funny. For every Spamalot, there are a million incredibly earnest Phantoms, Miserables, Rents and all the sodding rest of them.

    On the plus side, it does appear that the comments are now working, doesn’t it?

  3. RW’s avatar

    RW on August 7, 2008 at 4:46 pm

    They do appear to be.

    I’ve written and deleted this comment three times now because I could write an essay here. I’m in a particularly ranty mood.

    Basically, what’s the problem with being entertained, watching something because it makes you happy, if part of an artistically controlled diet?

    I’d like to draw your attention to the logical conundrum at the top of the page:
    [Musical Theatre] can never express anything deeper than the purely superficial, and can’t show anything interesting about the world.
    Mike Bartlett & I are, intermittently, working on a project together, involving music by me and words by him.
    Does this imply that it is impossible for your work to be good?

    (I have a hatred of superlatives because I am a wuss)

    How are you with verse plays? Or opera?

    Are you implying that Spamalot is funny? Avenue Q isn’t ground breaking. It’s just an adult romcom. It’s the stage equivalent of Shaun of the Dead.

    Must stop rambling. Must go back to work.

  4. admin’s avatar

    admin on August 7, 2008 at 7:18 pm

    Ah, you see, it’s not a logical conundrum (or “Paraduck”, as I like to think of it) because…

    Musical Theatre ≠ Plays With Music.

    ‘Cloud Nine’ isn’t a musical, yet it has some songs in it.

    As to Spamalot being funny, that’s not what I meant- Ben commented that musical theatre is “funny”, and I wanted to point out that lots of musicals take themselves very seriously (whilst being shit) and that the ones that try to be funny fail.

    I would also argue, for what it’s worth, that Shaun of the Dead has a far greater claim to being “art” than any musical, containing as it does numerous metatheatrical and metacinematic devices. Plus, it isn’t gash.

    “Opera” is an entirely different proposition. Which, personally, I don’t like, but for slightly different reasons.

  5. Jaylenurph’s avatar

    Jaylenurph on August 8, 2008 at 1:43 am

    I pretty much agree with all your points. And what the first comment said.

    It’s only for about a generation that Musical Theatre has taken itself seriously and pretended it was “good” theatre.

    Which is a mistake — modern musicals are descended more or less from American book musicals which were descended from an unholy gobbledegook of really awful 19th Century American melodramas, stranded European can-can girls and a displaced orchestra.

    But than again, what do I know? I thought Edward II would be better with a few Franz Ferdinand songs in.

  6. RW’s avatar

    RW on August 8, 2008 at 11:04 am

    (SOED) Musical: A film or a theatrical piece (not opera or operetta) of which music is an essential element.

    I didn’t choose Shaun of the Dead at random. They both play the meta game in very similar ways. They are set in variants of established worlds which they play off but do not acknowledge. On top of this they drop a romantic comedy story. They use perversion of the standard forms of those worlds to create humour. They both resort to a blatant Deus Ex Machina in order to give some kind of happy ending. Even the foreshadowing is there, although in SOTD it’s done as an in joke while in Q it’s done with a sledgehammer.

    I agree with most of what your saying, but I’m inevitably going to find it difficult not defending something which I love so much. If someone acts through music well, it can cut through a lot. I think most of what I value about live music is watching someone who cares about what they’re playing.

    I still get a thrill when I listen to a new Sondheim or a new William Finn. I cried at the end of The Drowsy Chaperone, where the lonely man has his only happiness ripped from him by a quirk of fate. I still leave a pantomime giggling like a child. If you suggest that these things are wrong, then I will inevitably have to invoke Godwin’s Law, just in time for the emotional headfuck of Tomorrow Belongs To Me.

  7. nick’s avatar

    nick on August 8, 2008 at 5:09 pm

    Ah yes, but the problem with the SOED definition is that Musicals *are* films or theatre of which music is an essential element, BUT not all films or theatre of which music is an essential element are Musicals. Musicals are a subset of film&theatrewithmusic. Aah, do you see? Mmm.

    “Shaun of the Dead”‘s deus ex machina is typical of zombie films, and is part of the pastiche; I wouldn’t say that deus ex ending is a standard part of a musical, and thus it’s not available for pastiching in a musical- it’s only available for use by LAZY WRITERS WHO WANT TO CASH IN ON A GIMMICK.

    I’m glad you’re defending it, although artistically, I think the inherent structural problems are indefensible. But, of course, my opinion doesn’t matter. Most people want, first and foremost, some entertainment, not a coherent piece of art.

    I still hate it, though.

  9. Hamish’s avatar

    Hamish on October 31, 2009 at 4:02 pm

    I think you are a fool. If you had gone away and actually done some research into musical theatre you would be able to find a contradiction to nearly every point you raised. Take a look at Stephen Sondheim’s musicals, Sweeney Todd for instance has no glam or glitz and the music is certainly not how did you put it “always trite, cliché-ridden, cheap and emotionally manipulative, and the narrative likewise.”
    Singing and acting are both hard but this is the point you want to see a person stretch them self’s and show their talent. I do not see you arguing that Opera is SHIT; Opera is great and was the birth of musical theatre. I have been a classical singer for 10 years but two years ago I changed my direction and have headed towards musical theatre, I find the emotion and delivery of a caricature here in a way that I could never have felt in some of the opera that I have sung.
    You miss the point of musical theatre; it is not there to give you an exact replica of the world it is supposed to glam it up a bit (or a lot) and of course there are some that take this to a extreme take Barry Manilow’s “Copac bana” as an example but this does not give you the right to condemn musical theatre as a whole.
    Musicals are expensive but this is due to the tec side being very costly, however there are exceptions I don’t know if you have heard of Jason Robert Browns “the last 5 years” but here is an example of a show which can be easily pulled off with virtually no tec at all. And take Avenu Q as an example of a non PC musical.