Is Musical Theatre Alive and Well and Living in London?

Amy Matthews

Open a copy of Time Out or a broadsheet entertainment listings supplement at any point of the year and it is possible to find up to six or seven off-West End musical theatre shows running concurrently. This is, of course, in addition and contrast to the large-scale blockbusters at the major theatres; here instead is a world of pub-theatre cabarets, experimental combinations of music and drama, and productions relying on the quality of the performance and the material in place of expensive spectaculars and vast choruses.

Having seen Jacques Brel is Alive and Well and Living in Paris at the Landor Theatre and Stephen Sondheim's Passion at the Bridewell on consecutive nights, it struck me that here were two defining and yet completely differing examples of London fringe musical theatre. Both also add a variety of points to any discussion of the worth and value of musical theatre as a dramatic form. Jacques Brel is in essence, a cabaret, a revue, a selection of the songs of Brel arranged, as is often the case in this type of show, around a fairly tenuous setting and plotline.

The setting: a confusing alternation between an aspiring 'Eurocafé' in England, and the real thing in Paris (complete with red and white checked tablecloths and escargots on the menu). The plotline: meetings and reminiscences of a group of friends and lovers. The main interest of the evening for me came in the form of a question: was it a successful example of portraying a set of universal ideas and themes?

This question was mainly inspired by attempts to do exactly this - the director has adapted the translations of Brel's lyrics to more contemporary standards and attempted to make the interpretations of the songs as accessible and relevant to modern living as possible. However, how much of this was due to the original input from the director and how much was innately in Brel's lyrics is the interesting debate. Brel covers a wide array of the 'grand thèmes' - love, betrayal, the class system, war - several of which lend themselves to pertinently contemporary interpretations; having said that, it would be hard to find a time when the line 'if we only have love, we can melt all the guns' could not be related to a current conflict, despite all its sickly-sweet trappings of sentimentality.

But maybe it is this innate sentimentality that makes musicals so successful. No-one can deny that the form itself, although perhaps in creative crisis at present, has never been anything but tremendously popular. The pairing of serious, thought-provoking, and sometimes profound ideas, set to entertaining music and spectacle should, in many ways, be the perfect dramatic art form - indeed, this is one of the main arguments given to the elevation of opera. And yet musical theatre is far from wielding the same cultural implications as opera, despite their shared fusion of music and dramatic stimuli.

Passion is, along with Sweeney Todd, one of Sondheim's more operatic shows, with the character of Fosca providing the tragic heroine, wracked with mysterious illness and doomed to the fate of unrequited love. The show clearly aims to deal with universal ideas about the nature of love, need and desire. The plaintive yearning and (for want of a more imaginative word) passion felt in the music mirrors Sondheim's dramatic concerns explicitly. The Bridewell production begins with the two lovers, Giorgio and Clara, in bed, but without the typical Hollywood touches of modesty such as carefully arranged sheets, extraneous underwear, or strategically placed props. Instead, both the actors are entirely naked and unabashed, immediately establishing a sense of universal humanity through the lack of temporal or geographical implications that would go with clothes or a detailed set. The metanarratives of love, relationships, loyalty and betrayal are all present in this one, ageless scenario of two lovers, exposed and open to each other as well as the audience.

The production goes on from this initial statement and add the nuances of human behaviour that make these universal concepts into a piece of drama, rather than remaining abstract. The singing is near-faultless, and the brash barracks behaviour of the male chorus is the perfect contrast to Giorgio's tortured affairs of the heart. All of which helps point to the argument for music theatre's perfect duality of drama and entertainment, as laid out above - it was an evening which managed to provoke passionate discussion about the differing natures of love as well as providing humour, emotion, and musical inspiration.

Why then is the type of music theatre exemplified by the productions at the Bridewell in such an unstable position in London's cultural milieu? Accepting the commercial success of nearly every big-time West End show running at the moment, why should institutions encouraging high-quality, low-budget alternatives such as the Bridewell and the BAC (where Jerry Springer The Opera was first conceived and developed) be constantly on the brink of financial crisis? The Bridewell recently overcame difficulties by raising £50 000 through a public fundraising campaign and receiving £30 000 each from the Arts Council and the Corporation of London. While this shows the support and enthusiasm that evidently exists for musical theatre, these funds will only solve the Bridewell's problems for one year, meaning the whole charade will begin again in twelve months. Meanwhile, BAC has had to respond to a cut in its funding with similar appeals to the public.

The pub-theatre and cabaret circuit of musicals, where Jacques Brel seems to fit in, seems much healthier, perhaps because it has a much more straightforwardly entertaining purpose. At times, Jacques Brel could be a student revue, or a good amateur effort, but this doesn't detract from the production as there is enough enthusiasm, life and energy to carry it. Despite its general lack of dramatic involvement with complex issues - apart from Brel's inherently engaging lyrics - it shows a genuine cabaret spirit, using the form of song to display a wide and convincing range of emotion.

It is very easy to argue that demand will result from the creation of something good enough to attract sufficient audiences, and that if an artform is unable to sustain itself without public funding, it should be allowed to die out Darwinian-style. Far as I am from adopting the view that we should artificially maintain culture in order to allow 'unappreciated greatness' to mature, it does seem perverse to not even allow the development of a particular genre, enabling it to get to the stage where it can be allowed to face the commercial gauntlet on its own two feet. Projects of development and new writing in similar art-forms such as straight drama are much more likely to receive funding; the natural inclination to invest in 'research' seems much more prevalent.

Lack of innovation in musical theatre leads to the real danger of lack of variety in the performance and production of this genre as a whole, and that includes opera as well. Raymond Gubbay's Savoy Opera initiative will probably provide an excellent venue and opportunity for many people who might be wary of the traditions and connotations (false as they may be) of the Royal Opera House, thus creating a valuable new potential audience for opera and music theatre. However, as Gubbay's intention is to stage works mainly from the canon of already known, respected and loved operas (Puccini, Verdi etc), it still does not address the lack of emerging variety.

To further address this worry, an operatic setting of Roald Dahl's Charlie and The Chocolate Factory, has been rejected by every major opera company in England, despite support from Trevor Nunn and Sir Simon Rattle among others. As a production which could not only successfully cross the art/popular divide but appeal to such a varied age-group, it seems odd that it is facing such difficulty in finding a willing producer. It is just one more example among many of the reluctance of theatres and production companies to stick their necks out and let artistic risk and experimentation outweigh commercial consideration.

While Time Out may continue to proclaim a wealth of musical theatre and opera may be on stage every night in London in a range of venues and on a range of budgets, a range of material is not so simple to find. If opera and musical theatre are dying artforms, it is only because audiences will inevitably grow bored of being served the same shows in the same format time and again. Innovation and development are indeed the hard and stony path, but one which must be followed for the sake of giving opera and musical theatre a viable place in the cultural and artistic future.

Jacques Brel is Alive and Well and Living in Paris was at the Landor Theatre
and Passion was at the Bridewell Theatre.

Thanks to Tim Sawers, executive director of the Bridewell Theatre