Posted: 9/16/15 at 4:35pm
Does the unrealistic aspect of musicals attract you to them, or sometimes put you off? How do you feel about ensembles singing in unison and dancing to the same choreography? Does the lack of reality prevent you from forming an emotional connection with the characters, or is the connection heightened? Interested to hear the views of everyone here. :)
Posted: 9/16/15 at 4:39pm
No more so than the unreality of a play where every conversation is directed towards the invisible wall.
Posted: 9/16/15 at 4:41pm
In theatre as in anything else, realism is a choice, and both it and its opposite can be wonderful. What's not so wonderful is singing and dancing that is not organic to the intention of the piece, and when that's what you get it can certainly take out out of the play.
Posted: 9/16/15 at 5:19pm
A play can be entirely realistic. A prime example would be God Of Carnage and its purely realistic staging was one of its greatest strengths. A musical, of course, can never be "real" and its rewards for an audience can only depend on the quality of the book and score and in some cases staging and choreography.
Posted: 9/16/15 at 5:26pm
Realism is one method of drawing an audience in emotionally. Musicalizing is another. Music has a profound power to influence our emotional state and our impressions of characters and plot points.
Posted: 9/16/15 at 6:29pm
It depends on the show and what you mean by "realism". What I tend to lean more towards is subtlety of performance - cartoonishness puts me off. I can only take so many shows where it feels like I'm being harassed by the actors to laugh uproariously. Even in my nosebleed seat at Matilda I felt this, particularly with the Wormwoods, which made them seem unthreatening. I think what it comes down to is more the management of what the action on stage is meant to represent to the audience, and directing the audience's participation. I always think of Richard III, where at the beginning he's a wicked, sly joker, and as the play goes on he becomes more and more embroiled in his own drama, and our collective participation as voyeurs shifts.
I'm probably not making myself totally clear but to put a long story short, I love being able to sense a character behind the performance.
Posted: 9/16/15 at 7:54pm
You're supposed to feel that way about the Wormwoods- they're not meant to be completely crowd-pleasing characters. They're supposed to start funny and quirky, but get increasingly monstrous and absurd as the show goes on. I get the impression that when Mr. Wormwood does his audience harangue and then goads us into singing "Telly," it's almost like they're saying "the joke is on you. You are this dumb guy, and you shouldn't be enjoying this. Is it still funny?"
