newlinetheatre.blogspot.com: Sometimes there are things about a show I don't discover until we put it in front of an audience.
When we did Hair the first time, none of us truly understood it, me included, until the audience provided the final missing piece. Then it all made sense.
8 comments:
This article directly relates to one of the key things I learned this past mini; the way you tell the story should amplify the story. This idea relates to broader concepts (i.e. form vs. content) but for the purposes of this article I'm only going to comment on this specific idea.
Bloody Bloody Andrew Jackson is interesting because it tells a story in a way that mimics the story. In other words, since the story is about Andrew Jackson maturing from an angst teenager to a darker adult, the show is structured to mature from a rowdy, funny show with a emo-rock score to a more serious musical.
I believe that this is where musical theatre is going. Now that the genre has socially-recognized pre-established conventions (I'm thinking along the lines of Oklahoma! era musicals) artists can ignore those conventions and to push the boundaries of musical theatre to tell stories in the more innovative and engaging ways possible within the genre. I think this process happens with all genres of media (books, poems, graphic novels, theatre, horror movies, romantic comedies, etc.), but I can't exactly pinpoint the milestones in the process of each genre off the top of my head.
First of all, I'm excited to see a Scott Miller article make its way onto the Green Page - I've been a fan of his dramaturgical analyses of modern musicals for a while now. He's incredibly spot-on about a bunch of modern musicals that haven't had enough life to garner story-focused critique.
Going along with Pia's discussion above about how Bloody Bloody Andrew Jackson storytelling method develops with the character, Bloody is uniquely capable of capturing criticism of both time periods really artfully. In the early songs, we get the vapidness of the emo-rock music and lyrics ("We'll take the land back from the French and Spanish, and other people in other European countries, and other countries too, and also other places... I'm pretty sure it's our land anyway.") juxtaposed with the baseness of Jackson's campaign promises (I'm sexypants and "populism, yea yea", a phrase never defined or really understood by the characters). By the end, Jackson actually has something to say about the state of the country (in the Black Fox scene), but is written loosely enough for you to insert your choice of oppressed population. I'm a big fan of Bloody for these reasons. And uh, other reasons too. Really just for the tight jeans. (This review went the other way).
I very much agree wit the article's opening statement. You never know exactly what a show has to offer until you've put it in front of an audience. Sometimes the show gets the most unexpected reactions in places you never guessed they would be. And that is the beauty of live theatre. There's so much energy waiting to be molded and the great thing is that the energy can change every time the show is done. I love that the music is so in sync with how the show unravels. It is hard to write good music, but even harder to write good music that also tells a story. I commend the writers for being able to work subtext into the storyline through the score. It is great to see that kind of thought being put into a show.
This article is definitely a thought-provoker. Working on a play means discovering something new about it every day, and often the biggest discovery comes on opening night when everything comes together as it never has before because the audience lends energy to the production and makes the show seem so much more real. It is made clear how what at first seemed choppy and awkward is actually smooth and polished, just because there are people sitting in the seats, watching the stage, waiting to be impressed.
The play "Bloody Bloody Andrew Jackson" reminds me immensely of a performance by Lin-Manuel Miranda for Barack Obama at the White House on May 12, 2009. His rap was based on another important figure in America's history, Alexander Hamilton, and I feel that these two really speak for how performers are bringing American history back into the spotlight with more modern theatre and catchy music. Making history into performance is a wonderful way to both educate and entertain.
I think this musical steps outside of the normal range of what you would expect from a typical musical, and the ones that non-musical theater lovers love to hate, like Pia was saying. Often times, musicals can lay fairly flat- the "progression" of a character in the plot itself, the story, not exactly how it is being expressed. I feel that when a situation changes, and speaking out of the context of everyday life, our outlook must be shifting also, our perspective- tainted. I agree that there's beauty in how the story of Andrew Jackson here is being told- as his life evolves, the once angst and "fun" of how the story evolves, shifts aswell. It is also great to hear the dynamic between what is considered an "adolescent" way to tell a story, versus the not so immature way the story evolves. Some plays/ musicals might stick to the former, funner version, and thats what makes them maybe not unsuccessfull, but atleast less powerful as they could possibly be. This article is making me take a closer look at storytelling, and what has been a large focus of this semester for us: good article for this timing!
I love the way this article is written. Bloody Bloody Andrew Jackson is definitely one of the shows I want to see before I get too old to appreciate it. Shows like this one, Spring Awakening, RENT, and American Idiot all offer a different way to tell a story as opposed to more traditional musicals. These coming of age stories are redifining theatre conventions in a way that changes the way people react to the word "musical". And it's working. It's attracting younger and bigger audiences and has proven to be an incredibly successful tactic.
i mean this article kind of points out one of the main things we have always known about theatre... that the story you're telling is more about its relationship with the audience than anything else. of course the audience is the missing piece. we have to present stories in ways that are relevant and contemporary to the audience we want to receive it. when the storyteller and the story-listener connect on the perfect wavelength --- then thats the magic of theatre.
BLOODY BLOODY ANDREW JACKSON is one of the greatest, under appreciated, under-awarded musicals of the past decade. In an age of revivals, adaptations, and general staleness, this one musical showed up that was smart, witty, relevant, super self-aware, and dare I say, groundbreaking. I absolutely loved it when I saw it and it was one of the main things that restored my faith in the 21st century musical. BLOODY was all about the story and the fun ways you can tell it while connecting to a modern audience. Perhaps it didn't belong on Broadway and perhaps that was the reason it ultimately failed. But I think it's wonderful and hope it will have a life regionally.
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