First, it's interesting to stop and think about why people consider there to be a big difference between studying Shakespeare and looking at musical theatre. As we saw from Katie's presentation, musicals are really prevalent in the popular consciousness, probably especially since what's successful on Broadway often gets made into a movie, which reaches a very broad audience. Shakespeare is well known, of course, but we afford him different status-musicals are, potentially, "just entertainment," but many people think of older plays as something more worthy of serious study. I wonder why we make that "high art" and "popular culture" distinction? Isn't it all culture and part of history? Why is analyzing one kind of script more important than another? Alberto Sandoval Sanchez's book takes a cultural studies approach to the analysis of musicals, which is really another framework for examining a script.
I would encourage people to make room for critiques like this one in your discussions of scripts-be aware that different audiences will experience plays in various ways. But also, be aware that representation carries with it a certain degree of responsibility-how does a play represent a character or group with which the playwright isn't intimately familiar? This doesn't mean that you have to agree with everyone's analysis, nor that playwrights should stick to writing characters in their own identity groups. It's just that it's important not to shut down avenues of inquiry and critique based on identity without giving them some credence. Jose Can You See?: Latinos on and off Broadway uses the first section, entitled "Act One", as a way of critiquing commercial representations of Latino/a characters, and then goes on to examine work by Latino and Latina performers as alternatives to the reigning stereotypes. So, think also of how playwriting itself often serves as an analysis and critique of what came before.
Finally, here's just a little more contextual information with regards to West Side Story, to emphasize that what seems clear to us about how characters come across in that play wasn't always so evident. Broadway in the 1950s was part an parcel of a project that defined what "American" culture and identity were supposed to be. Film and television were big vehicles for that idea of the American dream, bringing it into people's living rooms, and were often exclusionary in their ideas about how people should look in order to participate. Consider these images:
The first is Margarita Cansino, whose father was Spanish and whose career began as a flamenco dancer on the Vaudeville circuit. The second is what happened when she became an "American" film star and sex symbol within the Hollywood system, Rita Hayworth. If one wanted to escape limitations and have a more successful career, serious changes had to be made in a person's image. If Cansino had stayed identifiably Latina, would she have been offered as many substantial "leading lady" roles and become such a legendary figure? So: people writing characters in Broadway plays were shaping the identities of actors and of audience members who emulated those actors. It is the legacy of this environment Alberto Sandoval Sanchez is resisting, some forty years later.
One final suggestion: does the excessive theatricality and "fakeness" of musicals allow us to recognize that these characters and situations are absolutely not real? That is, what about when playwrights work within a style of drama that presents characters as more realistic? Is it more difficult to recognize stereotyping? It's interesting to consider the function of theatricality in scripts in general. This will become a little more clear when we start discussing character in Brecht later in the semester.
2 comments:
I agree that musicals are indeed important as indicators in cultural studies. What I struggle with regarding this issue is whether or not this convention will stand the test of time. Musical theatre, in and of itself is not a bad medium; indeed, I believe that it can be evocative and very powerful, but studying pop culture, I have found, can be at best frustrating, and at worst futile, because popular consciousness sways like reeds in the wind.
Already, operettas like "The Pirates of Penzance" and "The Mikado" are fading from the collective social consciousness, because they were the "musicals" of their day. Some academic somewhere may be studying them as a convention of an archaic culture, but that doesn't put them in the same category as Turandot or La Boheme, operas that still resonate culturally on many levels. Is there a difference between Gilbert and Sullivan and Verdi, or are they to be lumped all the same pile of cultural studies?
The point can be illustrated by the huge difference between Shakespeare and Thomas Kyd, the most popular playwrite of Shakespeare's day. Kyd wrote for the crowds of his time, and his plays are dead (anyone ever seen the Spanish Tragedy?) because they deal with localized themes instead of universal ones.
I'm not suggesting that musicals don't have anything to offer the academic world; I think I am suggesting that modern musicals as a rule have less to offer academia than other more experimental and aggressive forms that seek to alter archetypes and move theatre arts in a new direction.
Excellent points, here, about the value of musicals and the change in popular consciousness. Here are a couple of points to consider:
Gilbert and Sullivan and Puccini are indeed very different. But I would suggest that their differences are very specific and historical. A person studying them together might think of one as having greater beauty or artistic value, but ultimately that seems to be a matter of taste. And taste is a social and historical phenomenon that has roots in one's cultural upbringing. I think using a cultural studies approach allows one to compare all of the details of these art forms and the circumstances of their production.
Also, I feel like it's important to consider that there may be other reasons why Shakespeare has more of a following than Kyd, having to do with who championed his work, and when, and why. I'm going to use an example from popular culture, here, so forgive me, but: why have so many more people heard of Elvis' version of "Hound Dog" than have heard of Big Mama Thornton's version? Is it because it's actually better?
Finally: look at the various ways in which La Boheme has survived! I guess very few people have now read the original novel on which that opera was based. But how many people still see that opera in its original form and understand its resonance? And WHO still goes to see it performed? On the other hand, RENT was an adaptation of Puccini that had a huge contemporary following.
Bust also, this is complicated: La Boheme and Rent are both representations of a "poor" subculture written for audiences who are mostly outside of that culture. About your argument that experimental rather than commercial or popular forms are more important and enduring: have you read Marcuse's "The Aesthetic Dimension"?
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