Post-Modernism and musicals

[Inigomontoya]

Posted: 6/5/12 at 6:39pm

So, this is a weird question, but I have a class in collage about Post-Modernism, and I have an assignment to write about arts and post-modernism, and being a musical geek I wanted to write about that.
So, are there any musical that would fall to that category? or if not the whole show, can you think of certain motives in shows that can qualify as such?

Hope I explained it properly, it just got my curious and I didn't know where to look :)

Thanks,
Tal.

[Gaveston2]

Posted: 6/5/12 at 6:41pm

Pastiche is a common strategy of post-modernism. So everything from FOLLIES (actually, go back further to ANYONE CAN WHISTLE) to HAIRSPRAY could be considered examples.

[Inigomontoya]

Posted: 6/5/12 at 6:44pm

Thanks!
The thing I really like to explain it is through the(hope I got it right through google translate) Negation of meaning, is there any musical that deals with this issue?

[After Eight]

Posted: 6/5/12 at 6:53pm

I guess that you could consider the Prince/Sondheim collaborations as the first post-modern musicals, continuing down through the Sondheim/Lapine collaborations, to the musicals by Guettel, LaChiusa, Brown, and their ilk.



Updated On: 6/5/12 at 06:53 PM

[Gaveston2]

Posted: 6/5/12 at 7:49pm

Yeah, so much misery! Which is why there are literally thousands of posts here about our favorite Sondheim songs and shows.

Inigomontoya, as you surely know, there are fashions in academia as elsewhere and I haven't taken a Lit Crit course in about 17 years. So I'm not at all sure I know the current definitions of "negation of meaning" or even "post-modernism".

But Derrida and deconstruction used to be central to the movement and a quick google search shows deconstruction often mentioned along with "negation of meaning."

AfterEight is right: shows, particularly the virtually plotless COMPANY and FOLLIES were exercises in popular musical theater as post-modern deconstruction. (As I said before, they weren't born from nothing. Shows like ANYONE CAN WHISTLE and CABARET share some similarities even though they are more firmly rooted in plot.)

No doubt you will have to dress this up with whatever is the latest jargon, but I think you will find plenty to work with in the so-called "concept musicals", where the concept and its deconstruction are actually more the focus than action, plot and character.