Musical Theatre Analysis | Report
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Added on 2021-04-21
Musical Theatre Analysis | Report
Added on 2021-04-21
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Running head: MUSICAL THEATRE ANALYSISMusical Theatre AnalysisName of the Student:Name of the University:Author’s Note:
1MUSICAL THEATRE ANALYSIS“Music expresses that which cannot be put into words and that which cannot remain silent.”The above quoted line clearly indicates the importance attached to music as themedium to articulate the inarticulate. Music has been primarily seen as a form ofentertainment for the people and also a way to pass their leisure time. Music has been animportant part of our society since the ancient times however in the recent times the form hasundergone some rapid transformations (Taylor 2012). The end result of this is the rise of thevarious kinds of musical theatres which use the medium of music to depict a performance.The present day musical theatres along with the medium of music use various other deviceslike the use of pathos, ethos, logos and various instrumental forms of music (Taylor 2012). Itis to be noted that the various musical theatres consists of song, dialogue, dance, acting andothers (Taylor 2012). P.B. Shelley very aptly defined the meaning of the present day songswhen he said in his famous ode “To a Skylark”,“We look before and after,And pine for what is not:Our sincerest laughterWith some pain is fraught;Our sweetest songs are those that tell of saddest thought.”The concept has been used by the various musical theatres to captivate the audiencesas well as to attract them with their musical works. According to Friedrich Nietzsche, in hisbook,“Twilight of the Idols”, “Without music, life would be a mistake”. This essay intends tocompare and contrast two pieces of musical works, namely, “Les Misérables” (1985) and“My Fair Lady” (1956).
2MUSICAL THEATRE ANALYSIS“My Fair Lady” produced in the year 1956 was based on the famous play“Pygmalion” of George Bernard Shaw (McHugh 2012). Alan Jay Lerner wrote the lyrics forthis Broadway play and Frederick Loewe did the music composition for this piece (Garebian1998). It is to be noted that in 1956 this musical set the record for the longest running musicalon Broadway (Garebian 1998). The original play “Pygmalion” on which this musical wasbased, was itself based on the ancient myth of Pygmalion (Lerner, Shaw and Loewe 1959).The musical narrates the transformation of a girl named Eliza Doolittle with the help of thephonetics specialist Prof. Henry Higgins. However, under this mesh of transformational talethis musical consists of a range of themes like the emancipation of women, the façade of thesocial class and system and various others (Lerner, Shaw and Loewe 1959).“Les Misérables”, produced in the year 1985, was based on the novel of the samename of Victor Hugo (Grossman and Stephens 2016). Alain Boublil composed the originalFrench lyrics of the musical whereas the music was composed by Claude-Michel Schönberg(Grossman and Stephens 2016). It is to be noted that the London production ever since itslaunch in the year 1985, thereby making it “the longest running play of the West End and thesecond longest-running musical in the world after the original Off-Broadway run of TheFantasticks” (Grossman and Stephens 2016). The musical narrates the story of Jean Valjean,a 19th century peasant of France who gets arrested for stealing a loaf of bread and had to servenineteen years in the prison (Boublil and Kretzmer 2013). After getting out of the prison hedecides to follow a path of redemption by following a righteous path (Boublil and Kretzmer2013). The original novel as well as the musical production of it still remains one of themasterpieces of modern Literature and Theatre.It is to be noted that both the works “My Fair Lady” and “Les Misérables” belong tothe genre of musical theatres. Both the works make use of dialogues, songs, action and
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