The Musical as Drama

knows “Move On” in Sunday in the Park with George, as well as
the act 1 songs from which “Move On” is composed. An or-
chestra knows “Ah, Sweet Mystery of Life” and the “One” mu-
sic for the chorus line to rehearse by. Does this matter?
The orchestra knows all the songs, not just the mystery song.
And it performs the indispensable function of musical theatre,
accompaniment. The musical is a disunified form, setting out
book time as a medium ready to be interrupted by number time,
and the genre has the spirit of disputing the pieties of high cul-
ture, breaking the rules of the mighty and powerful, challenging
the settled beliefs, but it cannot do without its accompaniment. I
believe there is no a cappella musical—it would be a contradic-
tion in terms. (I am willing to be proved wrong, for the musical
likes to deflate solemn pronouncements.)
In other words, the orchestra has a certain kind of power in
musical theatre (a point Wagner made more clearly than any-
one), yet the convention by which this power operates usually
passes without comment. It holds the book and the number
next to one another, facilitates the transition from one to the
other. Usually it plays from out of the blue, but on occasion it
can be brought into the book by a special application of the
diegetic convention. The distinction we have been pursuing
about different kinds of numbers applies to the accompaniment
as well. Where the orchestra is positioned is part of the distinc-
tion. It usually plays from the pit, an unseen location of power
(Wagner was especially drawn to that feature), but in its ten-
dency to deflate pomposity and render power visible, the musi-
cal has lately taken to putting the orchestra on stage, where it
takes on a very different character. What we have observed
about diegetic numbers and out-of-the-blue numbers carries
over to the means of accompaniment, in other words, and the
means of accompaniment raises questions about the difference
between visible and invisible performance in a musical.
I devote the next chapter to the orchestra in order to give
due care to this major convention and to establish a ground-
work for the succeeding chapter, on narration. For the orches-
tra is also a narrative power in musical theatre, yet another kind
of power has come into play recently, the power of stage tech-

124 CHAPTER FIVE