Antonia Honeywell laments the current state of musical theatre and identifies a new hope on the horizon.
The West End musical is the destination of tourists rather than seekers of high quality, innovative drama. Thin stories are dressed in striking costumes, set against stunning scenery and the gaps plugged with a few tunes, sometimes catchy but usually forgettable. Recent ventures in the arena have played it safe – both Mamma Mia and We Will Rock You are constructed upon music with a proven track record, and not even the most ardent fan of either will defend it on any dramatic grounds. Chitty Chitty Bang Bang and Mary Poppins, the West End’s latest successes, are modelled upon widely-known and popular films. The Woman in White relies upon Andrew Lloyd Webber’s crowd-pulling properties. These so-called ‘new’ musicals pull in the punters, but in doing so, at best they crowd out the available space for new writing and at worst, damage the reputation of the musical as an art form.
There are two possibilities here – either there are no new and original musicals worthy of a West End debut, or potential investors are playing it so safe they'll stultify the form rather than take a risk. Musicals such as Les Miserables and Rent prove that there has been support for innovation in the past. Les Mis started life as a risk project for the RSC, and was conceived and directed with a dramatically experienced, sophisticated audience in mind. Its subsequent success dwarfs that of all the fast food musicals and should have been a lesson for impresarios. Les Mis, though, is the Torvill and Dean of musical theatre, in that all it does now is show how long it is since audiences have had anything to celebrate in the field. Rent stands out as an exception - a glorious piece of new writing, exuberant, brilliant and relevant to a whole new generation of theatre goers. Before the theatre world took sufficient courage from his work to invest in new writing, Jonathan Larsen died. He was thirty six.
Mainstream theatre subscribes to the Peter Pan school of marketing musicals, which teaches that something – a car, a nanny – has to fly if the musical is to make it. Consequently, genuine lovers of the musical as an art form have to look to the past. The best musicals of recent years have not been West End productions but National Theatre revivals - Guys and Dolls, A Little Night Music, Oklahoma, South Pacific – all reinterpreted with the dramatically demanding National Theatre audience in mind. The reception of these shows proved that there is a demand for musicals in the serious theatre, but only old, old shows from a long-gone Golden Age have been provided. Even the risk-hungry Donmar Warehouse has stayed safe with Sondheim, giving audiences great experiences but no new writing. The future has been given over to the ersatz and the tourist dollar. The West End has become a Goliath which slaughters any thought of a new, artistically sincere musical.
Musical theatre needs a new Les Miserables. It needs an original show in which the quality of the music and the integrity of the plot are so good that the big-budget trappings are just that – trappings – not a mask for shallowness. Such a show would expose the vapidity of many of the current offerings and wake audiences up to what can be achieved in the musical form. Such a show would sling a very necessary pebble at Goliath, and anyone who has written such a show would need the tenacity and faith of a David to get a hearing.
Fortunately for musical theatre, David has come along. Even more fortunately, its writer, David Salmon, and director, Rose Mary McIntyre, are courageous and determined. In its workshop stage, the quality of David has attracted an extremely skilled cast. In its second outing, this August, this embryonic spectacular gave its audience the kind of experience the West End can only dream of. The unity of purpose, faith in the music and sheer talent of all those involved came together with the story and the music to transport those who saw it, not to the Biblical times in which the story is set, but to the highs and lows, beauties and fears of their own lives. The ending brought the audience to its feet, stamping and cheering and clamouring to add its voice to the noise that David will make when it makes its break.
For David is a great show. It needs to be seen by people with influence in the theatre and by people with the money to capitalise on its potential. It’s a new show, not a show reinterpreted or cobbled together with two eyes fixed on profits. It’s got great songs and characters which live and breathe. It contains a pebble, not to topple the West End Goliath, but to make it think. David demonstrates what can be achieved when talent, dedication, vision and determination are all exercised to their utmost. It shows that integrity is not a necessary sacrifice to popularity. It shows that the musical has a future. It demands a bigger stage and a wider audience. It would revel in great sets and costumes and stunning scenery. But the real reason why David is the hope of the West End musical is that, however much spectacle investors have the wisdom to throw at it, David Salmon and Rose Mary McIntyre know that it’s only the music that can really make the audience soar. And when it’s the audience that’s doing the flying, the show, for its investors, is safe ground.
Antonia Honeywell, September 2005