There's been something of a gap between episodes 1 and this one, episode 2, of
What the Theory? but here we are now ready to go. And today's subject matter
comes from a suggestion from Jamie in the comments of the last video. So, today,
we're going to talk about mega musicals.
Like many people who take an academic interest in theatre, musicals aren't
something I think about an awful lot but, for many people, when you mention theatre
or going to the theatre a musical will be the first thing that they think of.
Not many people's first need to go experience is a Strindberg play. It might
be a piece of Shakespeare but that might be that they've been forced to go along with their
school. And, when you ask most people about theatre, they will even talk about
pantomimes or about musicals. In fact more people see a show in the West End
each year than attend the English Premier League. Now, there is a wealth of
academic literature about musicals that exists and some really critical, well
thought-out frameworks for analyzing and discussing such work. However, I think
it's true to say that, when we look at the field of theatre as a whole, musicals
don't get quite the prominence that we might expect for how popular they are in
comparison with our usual plays that we might talk about. This isn't something I'm
going to solve today. But what I did want to do is make sure that it was something
I talked about quite early on in this series of videos. In fact, I'm not even
going to look at musicals in their entirety today. It's an incredibly broad and
increasingly diverse form of theatre but what I'm going to look at today is the
mega musical or what Dan Rebellato, in his 2009 book Theatre &
Globalization, McTheatre. So, let's start from a point of differentiation
between a musical and what we might call a play. And no, I don't just mean
that there is singing. To speak in generalities, if I and you both go to see
a production of The Seagull or The Cherry Orchard
they might differ absolutely. Mine might be set in the present day while yours
might be a period piece yours might be full of pace, vigor and verve while
mine might be a slow, drawn-out, tension-filled affair. This is a rarity in the
mega musical. If we think of Les Miserables' famous marching forward and
backward choreography during One Day More or perhaps the boat scene in
Phantom of the Opera, we've come to expect a certain consistency from this
type of work. Rebellato's argument is that we can view the opening of a new
production of a mega musical, for example the London production of Hamilton which
opens in the new year, in the same way that we might view the opening of a new
McDonald's Restaurant. Although the location and the venue might be completely
different, great pains will be gone to to ensure that the production on this
side of the Atlantic is as close as possible to the production
on the other side. And it is worth saying that this comes from a good place. The
notion here is that the production which tours in China or South Africa or in
rural Devon, for example, should be of exactly the same quality as that which
premieres on Broadway. However, just as chain restaurants, whatever their price
point, take the artisanal act of cookery and turn it into a replicative process,
so does the mega musical turn the job of the director or the choreographer or the
costume designer and turn it into a reproductive process. When asked
to define theatre and what draws me to it, I'll often mention its ephemerality but
also its liveness. What happens on one night or in one production might be
completely different to the next. The mega musical however does whatever it
can to eradicate this. We also live in an age of great directors. Artists such
as Ivo van Hove have invited us not just to see a play again but to
completely re-evaluate it, to restage in such a different way and from such a
different angle that we see new things within the same piece of text.
It's an interpretive process not just a kneeling at the altar of the writer.
Again, it would be naive to assume that producers such as Macintosh and Lloyd
Webber don't want to, in some way, create great art, however the mega musical
really shows us theatre and its greatest and most full-on intersection with late
capitalism. We might also say that it presents to us quite an interesting insight
into the postmodern mindset. Though the theatre going experience,
part of the draw of it might be in that liveness we're also so
reluctant not to see the very best version of that production that we would
rather it be something which we know will be consistent with the performances
before and with productions across the world. I'd also like to underline that
conflict between interpretation and recreation are certainly not the
preserve of musical theatre. Conflicts between directors and the writers whose
work they want to restage persist. To mention one example, Samuel Beckett's
estate is notorious for their refusal to accept anything but a to the letter
recreation of his work. The debate on mega musicals, then, gets to the very
heart of what theatre is. It asks us whether we prefer to accept something we
know will be of great quality but has no risk to it or whether that risk and that
chance that a production might not be completely up to scratch is part of the
theatre-going experience. This is something that I don't even particularly
know where I stand on and it would be absolutely great to hear some of your
thoughts down in the comments. And if you'd like to read more on mega musicals
and McTheatre I'd certainly suggest Dan Rebellato's Theatre and Globalization
as well as the Theatre & series as a whole, it's a really great collection of
books and it gives you introductions to lots of different
angles on theatre. Thank you very much for watching this episode of What the
Theory? if you have enjoyed it and please do give it a thumbs up. If you'd like to
see the next one then please do subscribe. As always it's great to hear
suggestions of what you'd like to hear me do a little episode on or do a vlog
on. Thank you very much and have a great week!