Chapter Seven

NARRATION AND TECHNOLOGY

SYSTEMS OF OMNISCIENCE

The Character Who Knows Everything

I

Fthe onstage orchestra puts the instrumentalists into an

area where they can be seen, think about the real singers

and dancers. They are always in that area. Under normal

circumstances, the orchestra is in the pit but the actors are

always in the area of “being seen,” the stage. The presence of

an orchestra that knows everything emphasizes the fallibility

of everyone else, everyone who is a character in the plot or a

dancer or a singer, but it especially emphasizes the fallibility of

dancers and singers in their numbers. The orchestra also sup-

ports the singers and dancers, as everyone knows, but in the

space of vulnerability, the stage, they need support, and the or-

chestra does not. The musical performers skirt danger before

our very eyes. The foot can slip, the voice can crack, the mem-

ory can fail. The performers are visible in the success of their

performances, which means that the danger of failure is visible,

too.

All theatre thrives on this danger, but the performers in

amusical must also handle the enlargement of their charac-

ters into lyric time. They are actors who must also be singers

or dancers. The omniscient orchestra, asserting its authority

from its unseen place in the pit, is supposed to be perfect (one

reason why a bad moment in the orchestra is so devastating),

and the fallible characters, performing above this groundwork

of omniscience, are thrown into a highlight of possible fail-

ure. They do not fail, of course (hardly ever). But they are