Musical Theatre: "You already know you're going to love it." Right?

By JBR

"Have you booked for In the Heights yet?"

"Oh, I don't go and see musicals, I don't like them"

Luckily at that moment the lights dimmed in Southwark Playhouse and for the next two and a half hours I was lost in Russell Bolam's vividly realised production of Anya Reiss' version of Three Sisters. Rich, detailed, lovingly directed and beautifully acted, Three Sisters was one of two plays I saw last week, in a week filled with musical riches.

If the lights hadn't dimmed at that precise moment, I may well have whipped around in my seat and asked the woman who didn't like musicals precisely what she thought a musical was. It's a discussion I've been having a lot this week. Mostly with Adam Lenson, the brilliant director and polymath with whom I've been exchanging texts and phone calls all week on this very subject. Adam speaks about this more eloquently and with more knowledge than I could hope to, here. What is a musical? Why do we think we know what a musical is? We don't. And we urgently need to address the fact that 'musical' has become a loaded word. When you mix Katy Lipson's particular brand of Jewish chutzpah with Bronagh Lagan's Gaelic sense of adventure, the result can be, as evidenced last Monday at the Duke of Yorks, spectacular.

Rags in Concert was an absolute triumph, surprising and moving. Rather than a concert version, Lipson and Lagan took the adventurous decision to present an almost fully staged version of this neglected score. Costumes, choreography and a superb cast combined to make Rags an absolute treat for the eyes and ears. Yes, there were flaws; having to dispense with the script and provide a between-songs narration didn't quite land. Bizarrely I read a review that criticised the lack of drama in the scenes, which made me wonder, just who is reviewing musical theatre? It was glaringly obvious to anyone who had bothered to do their homework that Aria Entertainment weren't using the scenes - that a critic could seriously believe this was the book of the musical is simply beyond my comprehension. That aside, the richness of the music, with its recurring Klezmer motifs and layered, complex score were beautifully brought to life in a performance that moved many, including myself to tears. If Caroline Sheen never gets to realise her role as Rebecca in a fully staged version, then musical theatre will be by far the poorer.

Rags is a score in the tradition of great musicals, its structure, its content and its form follow on, in a direct linear trajectory, from the Golden Age of musicals. But that line connects not just back to the Golden Age of musicals, but to drama, to Shakespeare, to Euripides. A musical is a part of that theatrical lineage, not removed from it.

I had the joy this week of discovering The Theory of Relativity, a chamber musical by Bartram & Hill, performed at the Actors Church. An intelligent, witty piece, The Theory of Relativity is nonetheless an experiment in form, part song cycle, part revue, mainly sung-through, The Theory of Relativity surprised me musically and dramatically. A musical about the random connections in life, exploring how patterns stretch out, change the world, and how we barely notice the links we form as we make our way, it pushed at the boundaries of content as well as form. But this isn't new. Musicals have for a long time pushed at the boundaries of content and form, in exactly the same way as theatre does. Musicals illuminate the human experience. They tell a story, in precisely the same way as straight theatre does, but with an added layer of emotional resonance. Musicals make a direct appeal to the emotion, whereas a play makes its first appeal to the intellect. But to dismiss either a play for not appealing to the emotions, or a musical for not being intellectual is to misunderstand both.

Look to the USA, look to Natasha, Pierre and the Great Comet of 1812 (someone please bring this over!), to Next to Normal, to Here Lies Love (coming to the National this year), to Burt Bacharach Reimagined. We are breaking down the barriers of content and form, we are dismantling the baggage of 'musicals'. We do not know what a musical is. Its form can be anything, its content is not dictated. We can smash apart an audiences preconceptions of what a musical is, or ought to be. When we go to theatre to see a 'play' we have no such preconceptions of form, or content. We aim to be surprised, to see things in a different way. Why do we not expect, nay demand, the same from musicals?

As I wandered through the West End on Saturday I passed Mamma Mia, and the excited crowds thronging outside. Above the entrance are the words "You already know you're going to love it". Is this how we think of musical theatre? Are we too scared to take a risk on it, to try something new? No wonder musicals are closing at a rate of knots; we have set the bar too low. I don't want to see something I already know I'll love. I want to see something that will challenge me, frighten me, scare me. In short, I want my musical theatre to be more like a play.

Why don't we encourage our best writers to write musicals? Why aren't Nick Payne, and Polly Stenham linking up with composers? Why aren't we breaking down the barriers between plays and musicals? Musicals deserve better.

I finished up my week in Soho, at the Soho Theatre, watching an incredible transsexual cabaret legend, Our Lady J. Her joy and passion for her work infected me. That's the power of music; I was uplifted, I was moved, I was thrilled. It's time we stepped away from our idea that we know what a musical is, and it is time to take the leap into discovering new forms, writing new content. Only then will we all realise that a musical, like a play, is simply the human experience on stage, in all its wild, unpredictable, exciting glory. And maybe then that woman at Three Sisters who obviously knows more about musical theatre, never going to one, than I do, might realise that a musical doesn't have a form, or a dictated content. It can, should, and does surprise.

The boot must be on the other foot too, though. There are too many of us in the musicals world who will not go and see a play, who mistrust 'straight' theatre. We too have much to learn. It is only if we work together as a creative industry that we will see the fruits of that labour on stage. Content doesn't dictate form, form doesn't dictate content, the theatrical experience cannot be defined in that way. Musical theatre has much to learn from straight theatre, but straight theatre has as much to learn from musicals. Let's step forward together. Theatre will be richer for it.

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