146 CHAPTER SIX
only to use this convention most of the time but also to deflate
it on special occasions. Let us look at some of these.
Consider what happens when some of the instrumentalists,
or even the entire group, are placed onstage. This may happen
as a matter of necessity, when musicals are performed in the-
atres without orchestra pits (as at the Olivier in the Royal Na-
tional Theatre of Great Britain, where outstanding productions
of Guys and Dollsand A Little Night Musicput the orchestras in
full view of the audience), but that is the material condition,
and we are pursuing the aesthetic effect. To test the aesthetic
effect that can come from a material condition, consider an or-
chestra placed onstage because there is no pit, and consider
further that one of the instrumentalists does not realize that he
is in a different aesthetic situation now that he can be seen. He
takes up a magazine between numbers, as orchestra members
often do in the unseen pit. (I saw this happen in one of the on-
stage orchestras at the Olivier—the culprit was a reed player.)
The effect is disturbing onstage—the instrumentalist does not
realize he is now a visible part of the show. He does not know
the basic condition of being onstage, that one is seen there.
“Theatre” is literally a place for seeing and being seen, a twin
condition of visibility, and one indication of the omniscience of
the pit orchestra is that it remains invisible, where a clarinetist
can read a magazine when he isn’t playing.
It is also possible for orchestra players to be placed onstage by
the diegetic convention. When there is an onstage band, the au-
dience is invited to wonder if these onstage performers are re-
ally playing their instruments or are miming to accompaniment
from the pit orchestra. The question itself is the significant
thing, for the audience is being teased a little over what level of
representation is involved. Normally the onstage orchestra con-
sists of actors who are miming, and the diegetic device is a pre-
tense. When onstage musicians really do play their instruments
(as happened when the Matty Malneck orchestra appeared on-
stage in the Kern/Hammerstein Very Warm for May, 1939), they
are taking an extra risk. They are playing in front of an audi-
ence, where a mistake can be seen and heard at its source, and
we tacitly give them extra credit for taking this risk (unless they