Background image

terug

Musicals

11     Musicals have always been in the business of show. The combination of song,
2 dance, story and spectacle both mythologizes abundance in play and creates it in profits.
3 In fact, the legend of showbusiness rests primarily in the high-risk, high-return drama of
4 the musical which has made a happy capitalist out of many a tired businessman. No
5 wonder, then, in a time of recession and severe cuts in theatre subsidy, that both repertory
6 theatres and boulevard entrepreneurs have fallen back on the musical: one eye cocked at
7 the American tourists and the other at their bank balance.
28     The climate of Mrs Thatcher's Britain is not for debate but compliance; not for
9 social justice but the confirmation of Establishment power. The society is winded,
10 demoralized and afraid. And Britain's fatigue is visible in its appetite for nostalgic
11 revivals and musical extravaganza. The mood of retreat has been forced on the fringe and
12 repertory companies by economic stringency. Cutbacks in Arts Council grants have
13 changed the shape and content of what is produced. Productions of new, experimental
14 and controversial plays have been curtailed; and adventurous theatres are being forced to
15 play safe. The infrastructure that feeds new writers into English theatre is threatened.
316     The knock-on effect is to change the nature of the dialogue that theatre has with its
17 public. Enchantment increasingly replaces debate. What the West End is registering in its
18 all-pervasive escapism is the society's defensiveness. The American musicals sing about
19 money and vindictive triumph and take their incredible energy from the sense of
20 anticipation which these twin obsessions inspire in the dreamlife of the nation. The
21 homegrown English musicals wrap the British public in its own childhood dreams:
22 bedtime stories about cats, choo-choos and chess. The most urgent issue being raised in
23 West End musicals at the moment is in Starlight Express, which asks: Can a steam engine
24 find happiness with an electric train?
425     Musicals are at once a barometer and a promoter of cultural conservatism. The
26 philosopher John Dewey understood the potency of song to shape attitudes when he
27 observed, 'If one could control the songs of a nation, one need not care who made the
28 laws'. Until the mid-Sixties, the best popular songs came out of the American musicals
29 which made them sensational. Musicals have been instrumental in moulding the myths of
30 the nation. They have given America a backbeat of promise and helped to homogenize
31 yearning in a consumer society. Musicals cajole an audience to believe in the society's
32 dream; after all, if you don't have a dream, how you gonna have a dream come true?
533     The new style of English extravaganza, like Chess and Starlight Express, looks
34 baggy and overblown compared to their streamlined American counterparts. The great
35 American musicals evoke the national rhythm: driving, noisy, ambitious, full of swagger
36 and a desire to shine. The English have never been able to master the modern musical. It
37 is not a problem so much of talent as of temperament. The musical celebrates abundance
38 and optimism; and English life is built on scarcity and irony. The American musical
39 believes in 'tomorrow' and the endless possibilities just beyond the horizon. The English,
40 on the other hand, believe in limits, and are somewhat embarrassed by the waste of
41 wealth which the American shows put on parade. The English performers can't invest the
42 musical with the same passionate conviction. They don't quite believe that everything's
43 coming up roses. For them, the light at the end of the tunnel may be an oncoming train .
 
     John Lahr in The Listener, June 5, 1986