The Musical as Drama

The release of the demon in the time of dance catches one’s eye. (The “musical comedy” episode of the television series Buffy th ...

the lyric of “A Little Priest.” I am using mirroring as a meta- phor here, but the metaphor has examples of real mirrors in musi ...

moments of book dialogue. In the book, Cassie is talking with Zach about their previous relationship, but she is thinking of her ...

the show and spent the rest of the evening backstage.^3 The point is that the people on stage in the final number are un- counta ...

the one in this musical is a faux mirror, really a portal into the Phantom’s magic, which is appropriate to a musical that in- c ...

lets mirroring happen. But the recognition that can result from mirroring can be complex and disturbing.^6 Follies:Who’s That Wo ...

and a book show, a sort of experiment in the possibility of combining the two formats. The four main characters spend much of th ...

dance behind the veterans at the party, then move into line with them so that the two groups can dance together. At the end, the ...

sang in one of her numbers, “I’m Still Here”). There is a shadow of difference between the celebrated actress and her role. Ther ...

the past selves of Stella and the Weissman girls, dancing a re- flection of their every step. Another dimension is middle-aged a ...

to the ensemble quality of the musical than “who am I?” but the answer is not going to come in the form of psychological expla- ...

travesty of the private self touches us and makes us want to join it. The torch song like “The Man I Love” that gets out of its ...

the song better than Alexis Smith could.^9 Alexis Smith was then to do a mock striptease, “Ah, But Underneath,” in which Phyllis ...

also reached the end. Buddy makes a remark about what will happen “tomorrow,” and Sally, seeing the morning light in the window, ...

Discomfort The composer and lyricist Michael Friedman, writing in the London Review of Books, has recently asked why the musical ...

ing the first London production of Companyin 1972, Hobson wrote: “It is extraordinary that a musical, the most trivial of theatr ...

AABA is a trivial form—commonplace, found everywhere, the sort of thing Hobson would have been ready to write off when a musical ...

scenes I have mentioned political in design, but these instances of multiplied self that put power off balance bear on Brecht’s ...

principles of difference that we have been finding at the heart of the genre. Political Drama: Cabaretand Pacific Overtures Let ...

were both fast asleep.”^14 That is what Cliff is writing on the train. Christopher Isherwood wrote better prose than this, but t ...