The release of the demon in the time of dance catches one’s
eye. (The “musical comedy” episode of the television series
Buffy the Vampire Slayeralso has the demons being released
through song and dance.) The plot is not being advanced when
a number takes over the show; it is being suspended while
repetition in song and dance releases its demons. Constantin
Constantius does not talk about plots at the Königstädter. The
farce is Nestroy’s Talisman, but that is all he says about the story.
The story suspended for the number is the important thing, the
drama of release into multiplicity, where Beckmann is beside
himself. The onlooker senses “every possible variation of him-
self,” as does the performer, yet “in such a way that every varia-
tion is still himself.”^2 This is a mirroring effect. The repetitive
time of song and dance lets characters and audiences see them-
selves in a new way. Marriage was that new way when all musi-
cals seemed to be romantic comedies ending in the embrace of
heroes and heroines, but marriage is only one kind of new way,
and it is the mirroring effect that runs throughout the genre.
Mirrors: A Chorus Line,Phantom
of the Opera,Gypsy
That is to say, if principles of difference and incongruity are the
basis of the form, a mirroring effect will necessarily be promi-
nent. Elements different from one another will merely be in-
coherent unless they reflect one another in ways that can be
grasped. “A Little Priest” in Sweeney Toddreflects on Sweeney’s
“Epiphany” by bringing manly revenge into the broader per-
spective of Mrs. Lovett’s meat pie business. The spirit of trav-
esty takes hold in the reflection—either element could be hor-
rible by itself, but not in reflection on the other, not when the
reflection is made through the rhyming contest that occurs in
182 CHAPTER EIGHT
(^2) The non-Hegelian theatricality of Kierkegaardian repetition is a theme of
Deleuze, Difference and Repetitionand is further elaborated in Foucault’s review
of Deleuze, “Theatrum Philosophicum.” See also Kawin, Telling It Again and
Again, pp. 165–85. Abbate’s definition of narrative in operatic music takes rep-
etition seriously. See Unsung Voices, chapter 2.