Marc Shaiman responds to Michael John La Chiusa — Page 8

...ok, now where was I?

He's established that HAIRSPRAY, PRODUCERS, DIRTY ROUNDED SCOUNDRELS, LITTLE WOMEN (Little Women?) and BROOKLYN are "faux-musicals" except that I'm not sure what he means by that, or what is the alternative is. I would have liked to have known what other shows he thinks are "faux" over the past fifty years or so. Very odd.

OK, he likes RENT, CAROLINE, MOVIN' OUT and AVENUE Q. But except for Q, (yay) all these shows have "Yes, but" qualifications - RENT is "unfinished", Larson's death preventing him from "Fine-tuning" his creation, and he thinks Kushner's words don't QUITE fit Tesori's music. Interestingly, he praises Guettel for his lyrics to PIAZZA, yet says nothing about the music.

Though he goes on about the glut of jukebox musicals,he surprisingly has good things to say about MAMMA MIA! noting that the ABBA songs are inserted into the narrative "with a modicum of sly wit" and inferring that unless one does a jukebox musical as well as MAMMA MIA! "the result can be disaterous".

Then he goes on a lot about the expensivce economics of Broadway, blah blah blah...that audiences don't want to sit through "cerebral", "emotional" or "earnest" works for the cost of a Broadway ticket, so Broadway always plays it safe, etc. etc. etc. ...bemoaning the fact that a live pit orchestra may soon be a thing of the past...but that lively theatre is being done outside of Broadway, in regiounal houses.

It's a strange and meandering piece. He makes some good points, but he needed a good editor who could prod him to explain his points more. Even so, he could said as much in half the words.

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I read it and saw his point. However, I felt that he took the creators too much to task for creating something that our culture will support. I don't think Urinetown, Hairspray, or the Producers are guilty of pandering to their audiences as much as delivering a product of our times. The self-referential style is present in every medium presently (Seinfeld is perhaps the greatest example yet, but The Simpsons isn't far behind). We live in a postmodern society that alternates between a suspension of disbelief and knowing glances at the facade of drama in any form. I don't think the above-mentioned shows are mere spoofs of previous styles; rather, they are amalgams of those styles and evolutionary advances that merge the traditions of the past and the culture of the present.

Is that forward-thinking (I hear "trend forward" is the buzzword for this) enough? Perhaps not, but even if it doesn't advance the art form, it still creates works of art. The sculptor Frederick Hart (see http://www.frederickhart.com/ )was often taken to task for sculpting in a naturalistic, Renaissance style rather than following the lead of his more "modern" contemporaries. So he didn't create a new style, but does that in any way diminish the fact that his sculptures are amazing in their composition and execution? I think not, and regardless of whether Shaiman and Whitman's work on Hairspray is pastiche or derivative, it is GOOD.

For what it's worth, I'm a big fan of LaChiusa's work. I hope he continues to write for Broadway and eventually finds success doing so. But I hope he also realizes that as a composer he needs an audience, and he isn't doing himself much of a service if he writes articles in Opera magazines disparaging musical theater, especially as he has repeatedly asserted that he writes "musicals, not operas."

bwaysinger, well put. I think I mixed together about four different arguments that had been lingering in my mind while reading this thread. I do think the real issue at hand here is how and if writers get nurtured and produced, which is a real problem in the commerical theater today.