The Musical as Drama

character plays, but how many one-character musicals? Ham-
let is not an ensemble performer. Romeo and Juliet build their
characters through one another, but their tragedy is that they
cannot survive in a context larger than two. The ending of
West Side Storyrefuses Shakespeare’s device of having a single
authority figure, the Prince, summarize the moral lesson of the
play and bring about reconciliation between Montague and
Capulet. Instead, West Side Storyends with a procession of the
two gangs, which repeats the earlier procession from the ballet
number “Somewhere.” The ensembles participate in this num-
ber, with Maria joining the procession and with Tony being
carried away, and we are meant to remember the “Somewhere”
ballet. Authority is left standing on the stage with nothing to
say. The ending is a far cry from Shakespeare, but it is an epit-
ome of musical theatre performance.
This difference between legitimate drama and the musical
can be seen clearly by setting Shaw’s Pygmalionagainst the mu-
sical it gave rise to, My Fair Lady, as we did earlier when
we noted that the musical supplies the turning-point “Rain
in Spain” scene not in the play. The musical also adds two
“working-class” numbers in the early scenes. “Wouldn’t It Be
Loverly” is inserted at end of scene 1, to take the place of Eliza’s
routine with the taxi in Shaw’s play (in the play, she uses some
of the money Higgins has flung at her to ride home in a cab; in
the musical, the new money gives her thoughts of spending it
to live in a comfortable room somewhere). And new scenes are
added in a tenement section of Tottenham Court Road, to give
Eliza’s tipsy father, Alfred P. Doolittle, a chance to sing “With
A Little Bit of Luck” (Shaw’s play never moves to this setting).
Both numbers are meant to provide early solos for major char-
acters, but both also involve ensemble performance. A male
quartet behind Eliza helps her act out a fantasy about the
“loverly” comfortable life. Doolittle’s “Little Bit of Luck”
number grows from solo to trio to chorus, an expanding song-
and-dance carrying over two scenes. The whole neighborhood
swings around to Alfred’s view on drink and laziness. Thus
poverty is sentimentalized into song-and-dance routines for
happy tappers, but both numbers are intended to create a

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