Musicals Finally Get Some Respect

Musicals get no respect. Patrons of "legitimate" theater often consider them kitsch and opera purists dismiss them as inferior entertainment. But even a cursory list of composers and lyricists associated with musicals in recent years reveals amazing masters of music and stage: Stephen Sondheim, Leonard Bernstein, Rodgers and Hammerstein, Jerome Kern, Lerner and Loewe, Kurt Weill, Frank Loesser. Now at least one scholar, Scott McMillin, is giving musicals the respect they deserve.

If you want to know how a car is constructed, you might consult a Chilton's vehicle manual. If you want to know how a pie is constructed, you might consult the Fanny Farmer Cookbook. If you want to know how a musical is constructed, you might consult The Musical as Drama by Scott McMillin.

This adoring yet studious book dissects familiar musicals as if they were biology frogs and academically discusses their skeletal and muscular systems. McMillin, an English professor from Cornell University, is fascinated by the integration of the narrative timeline of a musical with the lyric timeline. In other words, why do we tolerate storytellers who burst into song?

All of the shows that are considered classics come under scrutiny: Carousel, Show Boat, Oklahoma!, Guys and Dolls, My Fair Lady, West Side Story, Cabaret, A Chorus Line, Follies, and most particularly Phantom of the Opera and Sweeney Todd. "I dwell on the Lloyd-Webber and Sondheim shows in order to illustrate the principles of the musical in one negative and one positive example," says McMillin in a rare moment of raw opinion. He is no fan of Phantom. He finds it "over-technologized, pretentious and overblown." Softening the blow, McMillin points out, "Those who love Phantom--there are many who do--might say that it fulfills the promise of Rodgers and Hammerstein." Always self-effacing, McMillin adds, "but I do not have the last word on these things."

The sheer artifice of musicals causes McMillin to grapple with the question, "What kind of theatre is this?" His scholarly flights occasionally lead him smack into plate glass windows like this: "Readers of Kierkegaard would say it is non-Hegelian. Readers of Brecht would say it is non-Aristotelian. There would be heated arguments." When he comes back to earth, McMillian writes, "It is popular and illegitimate, originating in vaudeville and revue as well as in operetta, and retaining links to the tradition of low culture despite its high prices." What he means is, we can't get our fill of them.

The Musical as Drama
By Scott McMillin
Princeton University Press, 230 pages, $24.95