You can demand these be accepted all you want, but audiences will still remain unsatisfied, most unable to articulate why, and so by author choice or ignorance, if the work is not corrected to address the problems the audience has with the show it will fail.
That is not going to change and there appears no valid argument that we should ignore this mechanism, just so more authors are motivated to try more absurd tricks to make a name for themselves. At least the greatest artists in music, most who had plenty of work criticized and unaccepted in their lifetime, chose a path of writing for the audience norm and then were, throughout a long career, compelled to explore things beyond that – that raised vitriol until accepted by future generations, as part of a larger body of work that created a niche for that change. For most of his career Ives was despised. Now he is revered, albeit by a shrinking sect of fans. If critics and enough audience members truly appreciate something radically different, even if it fails now, it may return more appreciated in the future as the hive collective gets more informed.
And finally, there is this. I think an artist needs to understand the difference between skilled expression and (to use your words) audacious expression. Spoken or not, there appears an undercurrent in the arts where some artists (Debussy, Schoenberg) are driven to create unique expression of art, something totally their own (nationalism in Debussy’s case, serial music in Schoenberg’s). They want to be recognized as creating something new and uniquely theirs. But, most of them don’t start like that, they practice the craft in the form presently of their time period and find, as they progress in personal style, they need to go a different path. Musical theater ought to be the same. Authors should begin writing, learning craft and gaining experience producing art consumed by present day tastes - they must develop their skills and understanding and then seek out new ways of expressing their art – just as you propose – just as Sondheim did. This comes as a result of natural evolution of their expression.
Instead, those who want to leap forward with expressions of art that tend to fail or are unaccepted by critics or audiences, are certainly missing the needed step of learning craft, learning from failure and success and evolving over time and do so to quickly draw attention to themselves by their unaccepted radical departure from the norm.
Again, I have no right to counsel an artist what road they choose to take, but I will argue vehemently against some notion that we must provide them space and acceptance to do what they want, when we find their effort dissatisfying.
Why is it that plays at our most prestigious theatres are so often embraced and encouraged to be open texts while musicals are not?
Are they? I don’t see that from where I sit. However, plays may be allowed some freedoms to try other forms of expression that musicals are unable to use by the limitations of song, lyric and same pushing the narrative forward. When songs don’t contribute to pushing the plot forward, unless they are exceedingly funny or emotionally compelling (both rare), they are considered by most audiences to be worthless fodder to the event. The argument stands: “why is the song there?” The watches and coughs come out.
As ever, changing our minds might be the best way to give musicals as an art form, the best chance of flourishing.
Or improving the quality and craftsmanship of the effort might allow more works to flourish. You do seem to ignore that most failing musicals are by novices without any training, history of experience and clearly lack a necessary desire to seek criticism in an effort to correct their writing mistakes and build a piece of art the majority audience longs to attend.
If I had a nickel for every first draft, first effort musical written by first time authors who presumes they are genius, their work is genius, while riddled with every conceivable amateur developmental error endlessly repeated ad-naseum, I would have a very pretty pocket of nickels. Enough for a couple of pints, for sure.
If I had a dime for every time I was forced to hear the authors defend their bad choices, defend their bad first draft, avoid getting any relevant critical feedback, surround themselves with sycophants to protect them from criticism, I could afford several Scotch eggs too.
Thank you for providing this place to stretch our minds and reorder our (mine) opinion. I may disagree with some of your assumptions, but I love that you would even think to make this inquiry.
Indeed I often notice musicals that are somewhat open being forced to market themselves as closed or find themselves discussed as closed by those who wish them so.
Interesting - a probable marketing choice that was found to work for them and the show. This suggests, but without any evidence, that the show ambiguities might not (or were found to not) relate to the majority of audiences critical to selling tickets. Again, this makes me think that the philosophical argument mostly at play here is whether works should be written to please critics or audiences. Because it is certainly clear each have their own differing tastes.
Perhaps I can illustrate this with SHUCKED - the musical. From the reviews I read, critics did not want to like this show, it was everything corny and predictable that the title and premise suggests. (It’s a show that adds to their fatigue, as critics.) They wanted to hate it, but ultimately admitted that it was an audience favorite, it provided music audiences wanted to hear and rapid fire jokes flying every 20 seconds creating a laugh riot experience for the majority.
Yeah, nothing about this felt like art, it was not written to advance the genre by any degree, it was a pastiche homage to past musicals and 70s TV. It was written for the lowest common taste held entertaining by the much wanted slapstick humor riddled throughout. It likely also hit the market at the right post-pandemic time. More than ten years in the making, with one first draft completely discarded and a new draft shepherded by a new director, its success was probably more timing than anything. It might still be playing if the theater owner hadn’t their own investment project to get on the boards. It will do very well on the road and in regional release in the years to come. Audiences will love it and critics will have to tolerate it.
As Sontag says later in ‘Against Interpretation’ “Real art has the capacity to make us nervous…By reducing the work of art to its content and then interpreting that, one tames the work of art. Interpretation makes art manageable, conformable.”
Because something can make us uncomfortable does not follow that it should be used to do so. That needs to be the choice of the author, a form of writing with that intended purpose for reasons that serve the work.
Admittedly, I cannot immediately think of any reason why a subject of a musical play needs to instill nervousness or discomfort within the audience experiencing the unfolding plot. There may be conscious reasons to add shock value like theater macabre, I suppose. But, to add it for sensationalism or show notoriety doesn’t serve the work itself.
But, I have no right to opine whether it should or should not exist. Instead, I maintain that: 1) it had better serve a useful purpose to the story, plot, event, 2) it is used to provide an intended reaction from the audience 3) it had better provide some level of understanding with and acceptance from the audience to benefit their experience and 4) it should be handled by an experienced writer who understands the complexity of using such a device effectively.
Musicals are rarely given the chance to make us nervous, or uncomfortable or balance multiple meanings. In fact even pieces that have multiple meanings and a sense of openness are often told to conform to what seems to be the one true meaning of musical theatre; to give audiences a good night out.
This feels like you’re going around in circles. (Or perhaps this is your collective summary?)
Never the less, this depends entirely on who you are attempting to appease - critic or audience. If you want the audience to change and accept “open text” projects you must undo two millennia of western theater expectations and desires ingrained in them. Good luck with that. I haven’t time to do that, so the best I can do is move towards this by degree, as the audience allows me to take advantage of their expectations in a clear way that entertains and satisfies them.
I would ask two things. Firstly that we respect and recognise that writers and makers of musical theatre should be allowed to make more open text musicals if the form is going to flourish, grow and expand. Secondly that criticism and discourse about musicals should wherever possible look to allow musicals as many meanings or complexities as the work itself desires. Or perhaps more.
Hmmm. We already allow the first request. An author is free to explore and deliver whatever they want. But good luck demanding audiences change their tastes, wants and expectations just to allow a greater array of writing options to appear and demand acceptance.
Why is it you don’t want the market to decide, by ticket sales and attendance, what should be accepted as art and what is denied successful recognition? I really do not understand why you think that all effort must be held as art, when clearly some works are not up to market standard to be art - by critic or audience judgment.
I understand you want to change the standard, but I fail to see what advantage there is to doing so. Like you, I do not want musical theater to stagnate and die because of its sameness (which we might agree is prevalent), but I also think that pursuing wildly unproven expressions of art in this genre doesn’t necessarily solve the problem. By all means try it and let the market decide if it is successful or not.
It appears that throughout his career, Sondheim longed to uncover new means to engage an audience in musical theater. After a long successful career, he would dabble with forms other than straightforward narratives. He was not always successful. Buoyed by a genius score, he managed well with Company, but failed miserably with the two-unrelated one acts of SUNDAYS IN THE PARK (which sees very little regional revival) and failed twice with the Kaufman-Hart, backwards in time MERRILY WE ROLL ALONG.
My personal bias in his actions was that he seemed to pursue projects with very little emotional heart. (Just like the man himself, as he admitted.) Clearly in both MERRILY and SUNDAYS he expected the audience to care about, feel empathy for, very dislikeable characters in very distasteful relationships. Lapine failed to ever make us care about Dot and George and Furth is far too late to get us to care about Franklin Shepherd. They were dislikeable people from the outset and only Franklin is supposedly redeemed by seeing how he was once a decent guy. (But, how he or Kaufman thought discovering his former self good provides a catharsis that transforms the character to audience satisfaction is beyond me. (Apparently beyond the audiences too and the critics.)
Musicals seem to be more widely approved, applauded and accepted when they are morally and narratively straightforward.
I think there is profound audience satisfaction in being taken on a journey that provides a confirmation of hoped for expectation. As a stage director, you must see this all the time.
When they have a message and a meaning that is immediately digestable by audiences paying huge ticket prices.
Again, I think this is a leap of logic, a summary finding without evidence or merit. What on earth was the theme, message or moral of the CHARLIE AND THE CHOCOLATE FACTORY musical? I can tell you, it was obvious the authors didn’t know and didn’t care. I saw a lot of happy spending people in the West End seats raving about it. Of course, Wonka’s flying Tartus contraption floating over the first few rows was gonna sell tickets. In musical and opera, spectacle trumps substance. (Said tongue in cheek.)
I will clarify that I think there are two things going on here. More musicals are being made that are closed texts and also the more open a musical is, the more it leaves itself open to being criticised by audiences and critics who feel much more comfortable with musicals as closed texts.
I would love to see some concrete evidence of this. I do not, have not denied that musical plays tend to be “closed text” by your definition. But, it does not logically follow, evidence is not presented, that many new musical failures are the result of critics (or audiences?) not accepting ambiguous, complex “open text” efforts.
I would better guess, from 50 years of writing for this genre, that ignorance, not intention, were the cause of most show failures. The audience does not arrive and deduce the project to be “open text” and therefore unacceptable. In fact, over 40 years of workshopping material in front of countless audiences, I can state resolutely, the vast majority of audience hasn’t a clue what they are thinking and feeling – merely a vague sense of satisfaction or not. It takes a few days of persistent consideration for some more enlightened folk, to begin to target what were the distractions that caused them to have a poor experience. And even then, by my professional experience, half of them don’t get the damn cause correct, they merely uncover the symptom. I can tell you dozens of examples of this. But, here’s a very short one. After a reading, a majority of audience thought the act break should occur half way through the existing first act, collectively they felt like the dramatic hook to be resolved in the 2nd act occurred there. Shaking off 12 hours of panic, I realized that this was because we completely failed to inform them of two unspoken and unresolved wants of the protagonist, which are crucial to informing the act break. Oh, yeah, we thought it was there. But, it wasn’t. We made sure they were inserted and now no audience feels this way. Their solution was worthless, but from the problem a telling hint was found and corrections made.
As for audiences selectively eschewing “open text” musicals, I really don’t think the average audience member pays today’s ticket prices hoping to dislike a show, happy to malign it because it consciously attempted to be “open text.”
Indeed I often notice musicals that are somewhat open being forced to market themselves as closed or find themselves discussed as closed by those who wish them so.
Interesting - a probable marketing choice that was found to work for them and the show. This suggests, but without any evidence, that the show ambiguities might not (or were found to not) relate to the majority of audiences critical to selling tickets. Again, this makes me think that the philosophical argument mostly at play here is whether works should be written to please critics or audiences. Because it is certainly clear each have their own differing tastes.
Perhaps I can illustrate this with SHUCKED - the musical. From the reviews I read, critics did not want to like this show, it was everything corny and predictable that the title and premise suggests. (It’s a show that adds to their fatigue, as critics.) They wanted to hate it, but ultimately admitted that it was an audience favorite, it provided music audiences wanted to hear and rapid fire jokes flying every 20 seconds creating a laugh riot experience for the majority.
Yeah, nothing about this felt like art, it was not written to advance the genre by any degree, it was a pastiche homage to past musicals and 70s TV. It was written for the lowest common taste held entertaining by the much wanted slapstick humor riddled throughout. It likely also hit the market at the right post-pandemic time. More than ten years in the making, with one first draft completely discarded and a new draft shepherded by a new director, its success was probably more timing than anything. It might still be playing if the theater owner hadn’t their own investment project to get on the boards. It will do very well on the road and in regional release in the years to come. Audiences will love it and critics will have to tolerate it.
As Sontag says later in ‘Against Interpretation’ “Real art has the capacity to make us nervous…By reducing the work of art to its content and then interpreting that, one tames the work of art. Interpretation makes art manageable, conformable.”
Because something can make us uncomfortable does not follow that it should be used to do so. That needs to be the choice of the author, a form of writing with that intended purpose for reasons that serve the work.
Admittedly, I cannot immediately think of any reason why a subject of a musical play needs to instill nervousness or discomfort within the audience experiencing the unfolding plot. There may be conscious reasons to add shock value like theater macabre, I suppose. But, to add it for sensationalism or show notoriety doesn’t serve the work itself.
But, I have no right to opine whether it should or should not exist. Instead, I maintain that: 1) it had better serve a useful purpose to the story, plot, event, 2) it is used to provide an intended reaction from the audience 3) it had better provide some level of understanding with and acceptance from the audience to benefit their experience and 4) it should be handled by an experienced writer who understands the complexity of using such a device effectively.
People often don’t seem to want musicals to challenge them or unsettle them.
Totally untrue. In fact, I would hope that they would want to be challenged or moved (unsettled) at times.
However, there is a profound difference between being challenged or unsettled and being reprimanded and taken to task. In the US, a great number of current writers, from the mix considered formerly marginalized, are writing angry diatribes and rebukes against very real societal prejudices. The prejudices are loathsome and must change. Acceptance of all must be pursued. But, is the most effective means to that goal a challenge or forced audience discomfort? Does the guilt of our forefathers really transfer to those of us no longer acting in prejudice? Are the existing haters in that theater as audience? Nope, they avoid such highbrow art knowing it’s too “woke” for them.
US audiences are growing tired of paying money to be rebuked by plays whose material is largely cathartic healing for the author. Angry protest might get headlines, but peaceful protest creates paradigm shift. So, no, I don’t accept that challenge and discomfort are necessary. (I also won’t argue against its place when that is the effect the author wants. But, you better understand what that effect will bring in the way of results. To do it for mere provocation or notoriety isn’t gonna sell many tickets. And stupidly not predicting the audience lack of acceptance, blaming the audience for failing to embrace your work, is defenseless.
They want a cozy sense of theme, meaning, philosophy, and structure.
I won’t argue this. It is what we were taught in the Lehman Engel school of musical theater. And nearly all successful American authors of musical theater are students of his by one or more generation - from places like the BMI MT workshop in NYC. I do think these subjects need to be addressed by the authors. But, I do not know that all must be categorically explained and exposed in the work itself, to the audiences. I do believe one can write allowing some incomplete explanation so that the audience may choose their own interpretation. But, that is tricky and it takes a very well-practiced author to do it. I have tried authoring at least one musical farce with mixed success. It likely wasn’t that farce is not meant to be musicalized (which is certainly claimed), but that one must see song get out of its way if the farce is to work. (That’s extremely tricky to do.) Sondheim and Co pulled this off only once in FORUM. And those three (Shevelove, Gelbart and Sondheim) were geniuses. How many authors of musical theater are geniuses at that level? Not damn many.
So if one is going to approach creating a theatrical musical with elements of “open texts” they damn well better have a pedigree of writing efforts that informs them how to work through the problems that will arise adding these more complicated elements.
Here, and I hate to repeat myself, I think of an example like AIMEE (a very poor musical based on the life and career of Aimee Semple McPherson.) I will not, have no right to, judge whether this idea for a musical had merit or not. But, anyone who knows this woman’s story can see that she is not a noble protagonist and her actions are not the least bit outwardly sympathetic. But, that didn’t stop a completely ignorant and inexperienced set of authors to attempt to glorify this in a dismal two act musical that failed in tryouts and in rewrites on Broadway.
It might have worked in the right hands. It failed in the wrong ones. And I maintain it was the complexities of the challenging material that was beyond the author’s understanding that doomed it to fail. In summary, if one wishes to go against norm (as you propose here), they need to be certain they really have the tools to find the means to deliver something that does not fail. Lehman always said, there are no rules, but there are principles and you better know and understand them when you decide to work outside of them. I would submit, from my experience, most authors haven’t a clue. For that reason, it might be best to hone their craft on the safety of accepted norms.
The musical seems to have actively resisted postmodernism. There are of course examples of postmodern musicals but mostly in America; Company, Fun Home, A Strange Loop, In The Green, Soft Power, and Natasha, Pierre & The Great Comet to name a few seem to signify an occasional acceptance for open text musicals but their rarity is notable, as is works like this near absence in the UK.
Sadly, I only know about half of these. I tend to follow contemporary works less and less every year. But, I’d be very carefully to claim FUN HOME has no moral or theme. It most clearly does and there are a lot of conventions in that musical as well. COMPANY is clearly of the ilk you speak and without a genius score, by any other composer it would have died a horrible death. Even then, Hal Prince went to a lot of effort to find a theme of questioning one’s single life and quest for companionship out of the meager tripe he was given. Thank him for the story-button ending that finally addresses the quest and blame Furth for having no ending. (But, I kid. Furth is your hero, I suspect.)
Words like unclear, messy or unfocused are used to describe musicals that I often read as ambiguous, audacious, or complex.
Intriguing. I really dunno what to make of this, but I do not question what experience you had, as that is uniquely yours. But, that, by itself, may suggest it’s not a completely accurate response or viewpoint. Ultimately, I tend to side with the truth being the majority opinion or accepted norm. I respect your right to that opinion (subjective or not), but would likely lean towards assuming the truth lies in the majority interpretation.
In parsing this, I simply have to wonder whether the author’s goal was the ambiguousness or complexity you felt were intentional. (Audaciousness is in the eye of the beholder and subjective.) I can certainly believe that an author may write with the intention to provoke, shock or astound. But, I wonder just how many are aiming to be audacious?
I must go back to that word “complex.” I have dealt with the subject as a writer many times and I am a bit too sensitive to its use and meaning. So let me suggest this another way: in my experiences, my goal was not to make something complex, my intention was to provide a story narrative that logically followed a series of steps towards a resolution (yes, closed text, by your standards.) Then in first draft public reading, the audience tells me they are confused and then rooting out that source of confusion I learn that I made elements of the story-telling too complex for them to easily follow the logic (often by my stupid assumptions fueled by information in my head, but not on the paper.)
I’d love to illustrate this with a specific anecdote, but I think this is a bit too self-centered. Needless to say, I suspect what you are claiming is an attack on complexity is merely a book problem the result of lack of clarity. And, simplification often provides the clarity the audience needs. It just depends on the particulars.
A closed text is one that chooses simplicity over ambiguity while an open text prizes the perspective of the reader and their unique idea of what the text means to them.
Wait a minute, isn’t this is a bit too slanted without evidence? How is a fully planned plot simplistic? They don’t have to be - though I would guess “closed” projects (as defined here) include some predictability.
And yes, musical books tend to avoid ambiguity, because (mind you, in my experience) the core audience needs to understand some idea of where the plot is going with expectations, right or wrong, how it might end (Greek/Western theater – comic or tragic ending.) There is a dramatic desire for the work to take a protagonist on a journey after a goal (hopefully of some noble value) that may or may not create cathartic change and which either succeeds (comedy) or fails (tragedy.) That is and has been the dramatic requirement of western audiences for a very long time and the degree one wanders away from it may likely determine the degree of failure and success with the average audience.
But, before we get too far into this complicated discussion, I define success not by professional critical praise, but by audience acceptance and appreciation (ticket sales.) It should come as no surprise that working critics desire innovative approaches to theater merely out of necessity – over enough years they suffer audience fatigue – tiring of the predictable sameness. I get it and am sympathetic. The project should bring some unexpected events, but probably not a completely unpredictable path unless it’s a “who dunnit” or intentional misdirection is warranted.
And misdirection can work very well, when handled by a master. My partner and I wrote a 30 minute musical on an old, bad joke and used misdirection to keep the audience from guessing the punchline. It worked very well, to the point that they laugh at the punch line and then, after a moment’s pause, laugh and collectively groan realizing they were also completely had (fooled into failing to see where the plot end was going.) A successful one-act by critical and audience comment.
Unlike a critic, the average audience member is lucky to see 3-6 offerings a year and they long for the comfort of some predictability so to have an empathetic experience and not merely a critical one. STRANGE LOOP was a critical darling, but could not last a year getting paid audiences in sufficient seats to keep open. Okay, the author is the darling of critics and the pariah of audiences, the Producers lost their money and the author is left with an uncertain pedigree. Fleeting fame and then what? I predict the chances of two critical hits unlikely.
But, I guess this point of view depends on who you are writing for.
This of course got me thinking about musical theatre which seems to largely function as a closed form.
A lot of major musicals have a very clear narrative, fixed meaning and a clear moral, and seem designed to make the audience feel a certain way.
No successful musical has to have a fixed meaning or clear moral (does SWEENEY TODD have a clear moral?) – but they likely do have some of this because we are attempting to take the audience on an empathetic journey – reliving the experiences of the characters, expressing character emotions via the language of music, informing character thoughts or setting dialog `in lyrics, and ….most importantly….with the intent that each musical highlight advance the plot, rather than retard the forward momentum of the story telling (well, story showing, if you permit that term.) That’s pretty hard to do when the play is going nowhere or wanders in no particular form or pattern to no particular end.
More to the point might be the philosophical question: what would be compelling about watching a person wandering nowhere with no direction or purpose? What is the audience waiting for, what do they hope to see happen? Or is the lost character merely on stage to spout anecdote or wisdom without reference to any emotional contact to their life? What is the audience supposed to find cathartic relationship with?
Ambiguousness does not provide any of that. And conversely, no evidence suggests that such goals of song in plays should fundamentally disregard this – because there is no advantage to allowing the audience to guess where things might go or not go and create an air of uncertainty. Again, this casual ambiguity doesn’t really serve the core audience’s need for emotional fulfillment a result of their cathartic journey with the characters of the play.
Even here, I may be misinterpreting your intended meaning, but I am not altogether certain METAMORPHOSES by Kafka is that open – it clearly has a linear plot with beginning, end and struggle that (depending on the viewers definition) is tragic. The audience suspends disbelief, but yearns to see what happens as he transforms. They have expectations that the story (play) ends when the temporary transformation is clearly permanent and the results cathartically change his existence in life. Those are all the elements of western theater. That’s not particularly open text.
Remember too, characters in musicals sing emotionally, revealing their emotional feelings. And they sing about concrete, very specific things. Ambiguity does not serve any of this.
Musicals often seem to actively refute any complexity of meaning or intentional ambiguity.
True. For the very reasons stated above.
In fact, complexity or ambiguity is often read as an example of an individual musical being a failure.
Super complex, to the point of losing the audience (which I have done), is correct. The mistake may not have been complexity, but the solution to repair it was to simplify. I doubt complexity is the problem.
Ambiguity, on the other hand, is a giant problem. I would be curious to hear some of your examples of such successful plays. WAITING FOR GODOT? Even that sets us up with certain expectations and we mark the end of the play by whether that expectation is met or not. (But, I also can clearly see that it is largely just one long diatribe of philosophical exercise framed by two people stuck waiting in one location. It’s situational not dramatic - a framing device to hang commentary.)
Again from my experience, the majority audience craves to have some understanding of the event unfolding, they clearly delight in knowing things not yet revealed to the characters, awaiting the moment when that occurs. When they are lost and uncertain what something means or where it is going, I see lots of watches being checked and an increase in coughing among the orange sellers.
This is so interesting. I wonder a lot (like, all the time) about how capitalistic culture has affected art, and especially musical theatre. Just for clarity, I’m coming from the American point of view. Watching the Oscars recently - which I don’t usually do - I realized how vastly different they are from the Tonys. The Oscars - assumed to be the top of cinematic achievement - celebrates cinema in all its forms; shorts, full lengths, animated, live, etc, and from all over the country and all over the world. The Tonys - assumed to be the top of theatrical achievement - only celebrates this very narrow strip of New York. And only full length plays and musicals. And even then, it focuses on the musicals. Long ago, I stopped respecting the “Best Musical” Tony Award because more than once I used my occasional trip to New York to see one of them at the Tony’s recommendation and was disappointed cause it felt like a fun enough but overly simplistic ‘night out’ as you say, not the more interesting and moving art that I would hope the “Best Musical” of the year would be. Now of course there are many musicals that have won “Best” which are quite good indeed, but that seems to happen more by chance than by any critical artistic merit of the awarders. I wonder if the “top theatrical achievement” were a more international and wide-ranging affair if it might help this whole issue a bit.
PART 5 - last in a series
You can demand these be accepted all you want, but audiences will still remain unsatisfied, most unable to articulate why, and so by author choice or ignorance, if the work is not corrected to address the problems the audience has with the show it will fail.
That is not going to change and there appears no valid argument that we should ignore this mechanism, just so more authors are motivated to try more absurd tricks to make a name for themselves. At least the greatest artists in music, most who had plenty of work criticized and unaccepted in their lifetime, chose a path of writing for the audience norm and then were, throughout a long career, compelled to explore things beyond that – that raised vitriol until accepted by future generations, as part of a larger body of work that created a niche for that change. For most of his career Ives was despised. Now he is revered, albeit by a shrinking sect of fans. If critics and enough audience members truly appreciate something radically different, even if it fails now, it may return more appreciated in the future as the hive collective gets more informed.
And finally, there is this. I think an artist needs to understand the difference between skilled expression and (to use your words) audacious expression. Spoken or not, there appears an undercurrent in the arts where some artists (Debussy, Schoenberg) are driven to create unique expression of art, something totally their own (nationalism in Debussy’s case, serial music in Schoenberg’s). They want to be recognized as creating something new and uniquely theirs. But, most of them don’t start like that, they practice the craft in the form presently of their time period and find, as they progress in personal style, they need to go a different path. Musical theater ought to be the same. Authors should begin writing, learning craft and gaining experience producing art consumed by present day tastes - they must develop their skills and understanding and then seek out new ways of expressing their art – just as you propose – just as Sondheim did. This comes as a result of natural evolution of their expression.
Instead, those who want to leap forward with expressions of art that tend to fail or are unaccepted by critics or audiences, are certainly missing the needed step of learning craft, learning from failure and success and evolving over time and do so to quickly draw attention to themselves by their unaccepted radical departure from the norm.
Again, I have no right to counsel an artist what road they choose to take, but I will argue vehemently against some notion that we must provide them space and acceptance to do what they want, when we find their effort dissatisfying.
Why is it that plays at our most prestigious theatres are so often embraced and encouraged to be open texts while musicals are not?
Are they? I don’t see that from where I sit. However, plays may be allowed some freedoms to try other forms of expression that musicals are unable to use by the limitations of song, lyric and same pushing the narrative forward. When songs don’t contribute to pushing the plot forward, unless they are exceedingly funny or emotionally compelling (both rare), they are considered by most audiences to be worthless fodder to the event. The argument stands: “why is the song there?” The watches and coughs come out.
As ever, changing our minds might be the best way to give musicals as an art form, the best chance of flourishing.
Or improving the quality and craftsmanship of the effort might allow more works to flourish. You do seem to ignore that most failing musicals are by novices without any training, history of experience and clearly lack a necessary desire to seek criticism in an effort to correct their writing mistakes and build a piece of art the majority audience longs to attend.
If I had a nickel for every first draft, first effort musical written by first time authors who presumes they are genius, their work is genius, while riddled with every conceivable amateur developmental error endlessly repeated ad-naseum, I would have a very pretty pocket of nickels. Enough for a couple of pints, for sure.
If I had a dime for every time I was forced to hear the authors defend their bad choices, defend their bad first draft, avoid getting any relevant critical feedback, surround themselves with sycophants to protect them from criticism, I could afford several Scotch eggs too.
Thank you for providing this place to stretch our minds and reorder our (mine) opinion. I may disagree with some of your assumptions, but I love that you would even think to make this inquiry.
PART 4
Indeed I often notice musicals that are somewhat open being forced to market themselves as closed or find themselves discussed as closed by those who wish them so.
Interesting - a probable marketing choice that was found to work for them and the show. This suggests, but without any evidence, that the show ambiguities might not (or were found to not) relate to the majority of audiences critical to selling tickets. Again, this makes me think that the philosophical argument mostly at play here is whether works should be written to please critics or audiences. Because it is certainly clear each have their own differing tastes.
Perhaps I can illustrate this with SHUCKED - the musical. From the reviews I read, critics did not want to like this show, it was everything corny and predictable that the title and premise suggests. (It’s a show that adds to their fatigue, as critics.) They wanted to hate it, but ultimately admitted that it was an audience favorite, it provided music audiences wanted to hear and rapid fire jokes flying every 20 seconds creating a laugh riot experience for the majority.
Yeah, nothing about this felt like art, it was not written to advance the genre by any degree, it was a pastiche homage to past musicals and 70s TV. It was written for the lowest common taste held entertaining by the much wanted slapstick humor riddled throughout. It likely also hit the market at the right post-pandemic time. More than ten years in the making, with one first draft completely discarded and a new draft shepherded by a new director, its success was probably more timing than anything. It might still be playing if the theater owner hadn’t their own investment project to get on the boards. It will do very well on the road and in regional release in the years to come. Audiences will love it and critics will have to tolerate it.
As Sontag says later in ‘Against Interpretation’ “Real art has the capacity to make us nervous…By reducing the work of art to its content and then interpreting that, one tames the work of art. Interpretation makes art manageable, conformable.”
Because something can make us uncomfortable does not follow that it should be used to do so. That needs to be the choice of the author, a form of writing with that intended purpose for reasons that serve the work.
Admittedly, I cannot immediately think of any reason why a subject of a musical play needs to instill nervousness or discomfort within the audience experiencing the unfolding plot. There may be conscious reasons to add shock value like theater macabre, I suppose. But, to add it for sensationalism or show notoriety doesn’t serve the work itself.
But, I have no right to opine whether it should or should not exist. Instead, I maintain that: 1) it had better serve a useful purpose to the story, plot, event, 2) it is used to provide an intended reaction from the audience 3) it had better provide some level of understanding with and acceptance from the audience to benefit their experience and 4) it should be handled by an experienced writer who understands the complexity of using such a device effectively.
Musicals are rarely given the chance to make us nervous, or uncomfortable or balance multiple meanings. In fact even pieces that have multiple meanings and a sense of openness are often told to conform to what seems to be the one true meaning of musical theatre; to give audiences a good night out.
This feels like you’re going around in circles. (Or perhaps this is your collective summary?)
Never the less, this depends entirely on who you are attempting to appease - critic or audience. If you want the audience to change and accept “open text” projects you must undo two millennia of western theater expectations and desires ingrained in them. Good luck with that. I haven’t time to do that, so the best I can do is move towards this by degree, as the audience allows me to take advantage of their expectations in a clear way that entertains and satisfies them.
I would ask two things. Firstly that we respect and recognise that writers and makers of musical theatre should be allowed to make more open text musicals if the form is going to flourish, grow and expand. Secondly that criticism and discourse about musicals should wherever possible look to allow musicals as many meanings or complexities as the work itself desires. Or perhaps more.
Hmmm. We already allow the first request. An author is free to explore and deliver whatever they want. But good luck demanding audiences change their tastes, wants and expectations just to allow a greater array of writing options to appear and demand acceptance.
Why is it you don’t want the market to decide, by ticket sales and attendance, what should be accepted as art and what is denied successful recognition? I really do not understand why you think that all effort must be held as art, when clearly some works are not up to market standard to be art - by critic or audience judgment.
I understand you want to change the standard, but I fail to see what advantage there is to doing so. Like you, I do not want musical theater to stagnate and die because of its sameness (which we might agree is prevalent), but I also think that pursuing wildly unproven expressions of art in this genre doesn’t necessarily solve the problem. By all means try it and let the market decide if it is successful or not.
It appears that throughout his career, Sondheim longed to uncover new means to engage an audience in musical theater. After a long successful career, he would dabble with forms other than straightforward narratives. He was not always successful. Buoyed by a genius score, he managed well with Company, but failed miserably with the two-unrelated one acts of SUNDAYS IN THE PARK (which sees very little regional revival) and failed twice with the Kaufman-Hart, backwards in time MERRILY WE ROLL ALONG.
My personal bias in his actions was that he seemed to pursue projects with very little emotional heart. (Just like the man himself, as he admitted.) Clearly in both MERRILY and SUNDAYS he expected the audience to care about, feel empathy for, very dislikeable characters in very distasteful relationships. Lapine failed to ever make us care about Dot and George and Furth is far too late to get us to care about Franklin Shepherd. They were dislikeable people from the outset and only Franklin is supposedly redeemed by seeing how he was once a decent guy. (But, how he or Kaufman thought discovering his former self good provides a catharsis that transforms the character to audience satisfaction is beyond me. (Apparently beyond the audiences too and the critics.)
PART 3
Musicals seem to be more widely approved, applauded and accepted when they are morally and narratively straightforward.
I think there is profound audience satisfaction in being taken on a journey that provides a confirmation of hoped for expectation. As a stage director, you must see this all the time.
When they have a message and a meaning that is immediately digestable by audiences paying huge ticket prices.
Again, I think this is a leap of logic, a summary finding without evidence or merit. What on earth was the theme, message or moral of the CHARLIE AND THE CHOCOLATE FACTORY musical? I can tell you, it was obvious the authors didn’t know and didn’t care. I saw a lot of happy spending people in the West End seats raving about it. Of course, Wonka’s flying Tartus contraption floating over the first few rows was gonna sell tickets. In musical and opera, spectacle trumps substance. (Said tongue in cheek.)
I will clarify that I think there are two things going on here. More musicals are being made that are closed texts and also the more open a musical is, the more it leaves itself open to being criticised by audiences and critics who feel much more comfortable with musicals as closed texts.
I would love to see some concrete evidence of this. I do not, have not denied that musical plays tend to be “closed text” by your definition. But, it does not logically follow, evidence is not presented, that many new musical failures are the result of critics (or audiences?) not accepting ambiguous, complex “open text” efforts.
I would better guess, from 50 years of writing for this genre, that ignorance, not intention, were the cause of most show failures. The audience does not arrive and deduce the project to be “open text” and therefore unacceptable. In fact, over 40 years of workshopping material in front of countless audiences, I can state resolutely, the vast majority of audience hasn’t a clue what they are thinking and feeling – merely a vague sense of satisfaction or not. It takes a few days of persistent consideration for some more enlightened folk, to begin to target what were the distractions that caused them to have a poor experience. And even then, by my professional experience, half of them don’t get the damn cause correct, they merely uncover the symptom. I can tell you dozens of examples of this. But, here’s a very short one. After a reading, a majority of audience thought the act break should occur half way through the existing first act, collectively they felt like the dramatic hook to be resolved in the 2nd act occurred there. Shaking off 12 hours of panic, I realized that this was because we completely failed to inform them of two unspoken and unresolved wants of the protagonist, which are crucial to informing the act break. Oh, yeah, we thought it was there. But, it wasn’t. We made sure they were inserted and now no audience feels this way. Their solution was worthless, but from the problem a telling hint was found and corrections made.
As for audiences selectively eschewing “open text” musicals, I really don’t think the average audience member pays today’s ticket prices hoping to dislike a show, happy to malign it because it consciously attempted to be “open text.”
Indeed I often notice musicals that are somewhat open being forced to market themselves as closed or find themselves discussed as closed by those who wish them so.
Interesting - a probable marketing choice that was found to work for them and the show. This suggests, but without any evidence, that the show ambiguities might not (or were found to not) relate to the majority of audiences critical to selling tickets. Again, this makes me think that the philosophical argument mostly at play here is whether works should be written to please critics or audiences. Because it is certainly clear each have their own differing tastes.
Perhaps I can illustrate this with SHUCKED - the musical. From the reviews I read, critics did not want to like this show, it was everything corny and predictable that the title and premise suggests. (It’s a show that adds to their fatigue, as critics.) They wanted to hate it, but ultimately admitted that it was an audience favorite, it provided music audiences wanted to hear and rapid fire jokes flying every 20 seconds creating a laugh riot experience for the majority.
Yeah, nothing about this felt like art, it was not written to advance the genre by any degree, it was a pastiche homage to past musicals and 70s TV. It was written for the lowest common taste held entertaining by the much wanted slapstick humor riddled throughout. It likely also hit the market at the right post-pandemic time. More than ten years in the making, with one first draft completely discarded and a new draft shepherded by a new director, its success was probably more timing than anything. It might still be playing if the theater owner hadn’t their own investment project to get on the boards. It will do very well on the road and in regional release in the years to come. Audiences will love it and critics will have to tolerate it.
As Sontag says later in ‘Against Interpretation’ “Real art has the capacity to make us nervous…By reducing the work of art to its content and then interpreting that, one tames the work of art. Interpretation makes art manageable, conformable.”
Because something can make us uncomfortable does not follow that it should be used to do so. That needs to be the choice of the author, a form of writing with that intended purpose for reasons that serve the work.
Admittedly, I cannot immediately think of any reason why a subject of a musical play needs to instill nervousness or discomfort within the audience experiencing the unfolding plot. There may be conscious reasons to add shock value like theater macabre, I suppose. But, to add it for sensationalism or show notoriety doesn’t serve the work itself.
But, I have no right to opine whether it should or should not exist. Instead, I maintain that: 1) it had better serve a useful purpose to the story, plot, event, 2) it is used to provide an intended reaction from the audience 3) it had better provide some level of understanding with and acceptance from the audience to benefit their experience and 4) it should be handled by an experienced writer who understands the complexity of using such a device effectively.
PART 2
People often don’t seem to want musicals to challenge them or unsettle them.
Totally untrue. In fact, I would hope that they would want to be challenged or moved (unsettled) at times.
However, there is a profound difference between being challenged or unsettled and being reprimanded and taken to task. In the US, a great number of current writers, from the mix considered formerly marginalized, are writing angry diatribes and rebukes against very real societal prejudices. The prejudices are loathsome and must change. Acceptance of all must be pursued. But, is the most effective means to that goal a challenge or forced audience discomfort? Does the guilt of our forefathers really transfer to those of us no longer acting in prejudice? Are the existing haters in that theater as audience? Nope, they avoid such highbrow art knowing it’s too “woke” for them.
US audiences are growing tired of paying money to be rebuked by plays whose material is largely cathartic healing for the author. Angry protest might get headlines, but peaceful protest creates paradigm shift. So, no, I don’t accept that challenge and discomfort are necessary. (I also won’t argue against its place when that is the effect the author wants. But, you better understand what that effect will bring in the way of results. To do it for mere provocation or notoriety isn’t gonna sell many tickets. And stupidly not predicting the audience lack of acceptance, blaming the audience for failing to embrace your work, is defenseless.
They want a cozy sense of theme, meaning, philosophy, and structure.
I won’t argue this. It is what we were taught in the Lehman Engel school of musical theater. And nearly all successful American authors of musical theater are students of his by one or more generation - from places like the BMI MT workshop in NYC. I do think these subjects need to be addressed by the authors. But, I do not know that all must be categorically explained and exposed in the work itself, to the audiences. I do believe one can write allowing some incomplete explanation so that the audience may choose their own interpretation. But, that is tricky and it takes a very well-practiced author to do it. I have tried authoring at least one musical farce with mixed success. It likely wasn’t that farce is not meant to be musicalized (which is certainly claimed), but that one must see song get out of its way if the farce is to work. (That’s extremely tricky to do.) Sondheim and Co pulled this off only once in FORUM. And those three (Shevelove, Gelbart and Sondheim) were geniuses. How many authors of musical theater are geniuses at that level? Not damn many.
So if one is going to approach creating a theatrical musical with elements of “open texts” they damn well better have a pedigree of writing efforts that informs them how to work through the problems that will arise adding these more complicated elements.
Here, and I hate to repeat myself, I think of an example like AIMEE (a very poor musical based on the life and career of Aimee Semple McPherson.) I will not, have no right to, judge whether this idea for a musical had merit or not. But, anyone who knows this woman’s story can see that she is not a noble protagonist and her actions are not the least bit outwardly sympathetic. But, that didn’t stop a completely ignorant and inexperienced set of authors to attempt to glorify this in a dismal two act musical that failed in tryouts and in rewrites on Broadway.
It might have worked in the right hands. It failed in the wrong ones. And I maintain it was the complexities of the challenging material that was beyond the author’s understanding that doomed it to fail. In summary, if one wishes to go against norm (as you propose here), they need to be certain they really have the tools to find the means to deliver something that does not fail. Lehman always said, there are no rules, but there are principles and you better know and understand them when you decide to work outside of them. I would submit, from my experience, most authors haven’t a clue. For that reason, it might be best to hone their craft on the safety of accepted norms.
The musical seems to have actively resisted postmodernism. There are of course examples of postmodern musicals but mostly in America; Company, Fun Home, A Strange Loop, In The Green, Soft Power, and Natasha, Pierre & The Great Comet to name a few seem to signify an occasional acceptance for open text musicals but their rarity is notable, as is works like this near absence in the UK.
Sadly, I only know about half of these. I tend to follow contemporary works less and less every year. But, I’d be very carefully to claim FUN HOME has no moral or theme. It most clearly does and there are a lot of conventions in that musical as well. COMPANY is clearly of the ilk you speak and without a genius score, by any other composer it would have died a horrible death. Even then, Hal Prince went to a lot of effort to find a theme of questioning one’s single life and quest for companionship out of the meager tripe he was given. Thank him for the story-button ending that finally addresses the quest and blame Furth for having no ending. (But, I kid. Furth is your hero, I suspect.)
Words like unclear, messy or unfocused are used to describe musicals that I often read as ambiguous, audacious, or complex.
Intriguing. I really dunno what to make of this, but I do not question what experience you had, as that is uniquely yours. But, that, by itself, may suggest it’s not a completely accurate response or viewpoint. Ultimately, I tend to side with the truth being the majority opinion or accepted norm. I respect your right to that opinion (subjective or not), but would likely lean towards assuming the truth lies in the majority interpretation.
In parsing this, I simply have to wonder whether the author’s goal was the ambiguousness or complexity you felt were intentional. (Audaciousness is in the eye of the beholder and subjective.) I can certainly believe that an author may write with the intention to provoke, shock or astound. But, I wonder just how many are aiming to be audacious?
I must go back to that word “complex.” I have dealt with the subject as a writer many times and I am a bit too sensitive to its use and meaning. So let me suggest this another way: in my experiences, my goal was not to make something complex, my intention was to provide a story narrative that logically followed a series of steps towards a resolution (yes, closed text, by your standards.) Then in first draft public reading, the audience tells me they are confused and then rooting out that source of confusion I learn that I made elements of the story-telling too complex for them to easily follow the logic (often by my stupid assumptions fueled by information in my head, but not on the paper.)
I’d love to illustrate this with a specific anecdote, but I think this is a bit too self-centered. Needless to say, I suspect what you are claiming is an attack on complexity is merely a book problem the result of lack of clarity. And, simplification often provides the clarity the audience needs. It just depends on the particulars.
PART 1
A closed text is one that chooses simplicity over ambiguity while an open text prizes the perspective of the reader and their unique idea of what the text means to them.
Wait a minute, isn’t this is a bit too slanted without evidence? How is a fully planned plot simplistic? They don’t have to be - though I would guess “closed” projects (as defined here) include some predictability.
And yes, musical books tend to avoid ambiguity, because (mind you, in my experience) the core audience needs to understand some idea of where the plot is going with expectations, right or wrong, how it might end (Greek/Western theater – comic or tragic ending.) There is a dramatic desire for the work to take a protagonist on a journey after a goal (hopefully of some noble value) that may or may not create cathartic change and which either succeeds (comedy) or fails (tragedy.) That is and has been the dramatic requirement of western audiences for a very long time and the degree one wanders away from it may likely determine the degree of failure and success with the average audience.
But, before we get too far into this complicated discussion, I define success not by professional critical praise, but by audience acceptance and appreciation (ticket sales.) It should come as no surprise that working critics desire innovative approaches to theater merely out of necessity – over enough years they suffer audience fatigue – tiring of the predictable sameness. I get it and am sympathetic. The project should bring some unexpected events, but probably not a completely unpredictable path unless it’s a “who dunnit” or intentional misdirection is warranted.
And misdirection can work very well, when handled by a master. My partner and I wrote a 30 minute musical on an old, bad joke and used misdirection to keep the audience from guessing the punchline. It worked very well, to the point that they laugh at the punch line and then, after a moment’s pause, laugh and collectively groan realizing they were also completely had (fooled into failing to see where the plot end was going.) A successful one-act by critical and audience comment.
Unlike a critic, the average audience member is lucky to see 3-6 offerings a year and they long for the comfort of some predictability so to have an empathetic experience and not merely a critical one. STRANGE LOOP was a critical darling, but could not last a year getting paid audiences in sufficient seats to keep open. Okay, the author is the darling of critics and the pariah of audiences, the Producers lost their money and the author is left with an uncertain pedigree. Fleeting fame and then what? I predict the chances of two critical hits unlikely.
But, I guess this point of view depends on who you are writing for.
This of course got me thinking about musical theatre which seems to largely function as a closed form.
A lot of major musicals have a very clear narrative, fixed meaning and a clear moral, and seem designed to make the audience feel a certain way.
No successful musical has to have a fixed meaning or clear moral (does SWEENEY TODD have a clear moral?) – but they likely do have some of this because we are attempting to take the audience on an empathetic journey – reliving the experiences of the characters, expressing character emotions via the language of music, informing character thoughts or setting dialog `in lyrics, and ….most importantly….with the intent that each musical highlight advance the plot, rather than retard the forward momentum of the story telling (well, story showing, if you permit that term.) That’s pretty hard to do when the play is going nowhere or wanders in no particular form or pattern to no particular end.
More to the point might be the philosophical question: what would be compelling about watching a person wandering nowhere with no direction or purpose? What is the audience waiting for, what do they hope to see happen? Or is the lost character merely on stage to spout anecdote or wisdom without reference to any emotional contact to their life? What is the audience supposed to find cathartic relationship with?
Ambiguousness does not provide any of that. And conversely, no evidence suggests that such goals of song in plays should fundamentally disregard this – because there is no advantage to allowing the audience to guess where things might go or not go and create an air of uncertainty. Again, this casual ambiguity doesn’t really serve the core audience’s need for emotional fulfillment a result of their cathartic journey with the characters of the play.
Even here, I may be misinterpreting your intended meaning, but I am not altogether certain METAMORPHOSES by Kafka is that open – it clearly has a linear plot with beginning, end and struggle that (depending on the viewers definition) is tragic. The audience suspends disbelief, but yearns to see what happens as he transforms. They have expectations that the story (play) ends when the temporary transformation is clearly permanent and the results cathartically change his existence in life. Those are all the elements of western theater. That’s not particularly open text.
Remember too, characters in musicals sing emotionally, revealing their emotional feelings. And they sing about concrete, very specific things. Ambiguity does not serve any of this.
Musicals often seem to actively refute any complexity of meaning or intentional ambiguity.
True. For the very reasons stated above.
In fact, complexity or ambiguity is often read as an example of an individual musical being a failure.
Super complex, to the point of losing the audience (which I have done), is correct. The mistake may not have been complexity, but the solution to repair it was to simplify. I doubt complexity is the problem.
Ambiguity, on the other hand, is a giant problem. I would be curious to hear some of your examples of such successful plays. WAITING FOR GODOT? Even that sets us up with certain expectations and we mark the end of the play by whether that expectation is met or not. (But, I also can clearly see that it is largely just one long diatribe of philosophical exercise framed by two people stuck waiting in one location. It’s situational not dramatic - a framing device to hang commentary.)
Again from my experience, the majority audience craves to have some understanding of the event unfolding, they clearly delight in knowing things not yet revealed to the characters, awaiting the moment when that occurs. When they are lost and uncertain what something means or where it is going, I see lots of watches being checked and an increase in coughing among the orange sellers.
This is so interesting. I wonder a lot (like, all the time) about how capitalistic culture has affected art, and especially musical theatre. Just for clarity, I’m coming from the American point of view. Watching the Oscars recently - which I don’t usually do - I realized how vastly different they are from the Tonys. The Oscars - assumed to be the top of cinematic achievement - celebrates cinema in all its forms; shorts, full lengths, animated, live, etc, and from all over the country and all over the world. The Tonys - assumed to be the top of theatrical achievement - only celebrates this very narrow strip of New York. And only full length plays and musicals. And even then, it focuses on the musicals. Long ago, I stopped respecting the “Best Musical” Tony Award because more than once I used my occasional trip to New York to see one of them at the Tony’s recommendation and was disappointed cause it felt like a fun enough but overly simplistic ‘night out’ as you say, not the more interesting and moving art that I would hope the “Best Musical” of the year would be. Now of course there are many musicals that have won “Best” which are quite good indeed, but that seems to happen more by chance than by any critical artistic merit of the awarders. I wonder if the “top theatrical achievement” were a more international and wide-ranging affair if it might help this whole issue a bit.
Don't do this to me Adam!! This hits home. x