Before reading too much further, try this quick quiz on musicals. As you've probably seen a few in your time it shouldn’t be too difficult. It's most likely you've been to at least one imported extravaganza… My Fair Lady, Buddy, Cats or perhaps Hair? You may even have seen an Australian-written show… the 1960s classic, The Sentimental Bloke, for example. How about Ned Kelly, Sister's or Mickey's Moomba from the '70s. The 1980s gave us shows like Songs My Mother Didn't Teach Me and Dinkum Assorted, and since then we've had works ranging from The Journey Girl to The Boy From Oz and Shout. Even if you haven't seen a musical at the theatre, you must have seen a cinematic version. Grease, Singing In The Rain, Chicago or even own… Starstruck, Billy's Holiday and Moulin Rouge? So you know what a musical is, don't you?

Now to the quiz: it comes in two parts. First, what is a musical? Try to list the key elements or principles that define it as a genre. The second part… how then does the musical differ from other forms of music theatre -- a play with music, for example. So off you go. Read on when you've finished.

[Any possibility of inserting some "thinking music" here, Editor?]

Oh, by the way. STOP! There are one or two things you should take in to consideration. If you're beginning to think in terms of huge spectacle, large casts and high production values, there's a problem. Few Australian musicals ever attempt to match that approach. Sisters (O'Connell et al), for example, has a cast of only four; Songs My Mother Didn't Teach Me (Batey) even less with three -- one character also doubles as the show's musician; while The Journey Girl (Crowley) gets away with just one character and solo piano accompaniment.

Regarding the music, you should perhaps determine how much or how little is required. Are sung-through musicals like Les Miserables, for example, actually musicals or a type of opera? A musical like Dinkum Assorted (Aronson), on the other hand, doesn't introduce its first number until Scene 5 (page 31) and consists of only seven songs in all. On the other hand there's History Of Australia (Watson et al): heaps of music and spectacle but no storyline. As little more than a parade of Australia's leading historical figures, is it a musical or a pageant?

And don't forget the bio-concert: is this a musical in the traditional sense? Academic Peter Fitzpatrick describes the bio-concert as "a curious off-shoot of the musical theatre genre" (17) and points to such works as Buddy, The Boy From Oz and Shout. An analysis of the dramatic organisation in the original Boy From Oz provides enough evidence to argue that it falls well short of the bar set by the classic Broadway musical canon. Mark Woods, the Variety theatre critic, certainly noticed the show's problems at its 1998 premiere, and particularly the opening fifteen minutes - a period when we would expect the "root idea" (e.g. the "tradition" theme in Fiddler On The Roof) to be established (qtd. in Taylor 3). Twenty years earlier Mickey's Moomba similarly blurred the lines of concert and musical. Although described by its creator as a musical (Romeril 284), Age critic, Neil Jillett, argued that the show was more like "a pleasant rock concert that is regularly interrupted by a badly written and clumsily acted play" (2).

Even our supposed music theatre experts have some trouble in understanding the musical. Robyn Archer, writing in 1983, proposes that the label "musical" is quite precise and that despite "hybrid titles and forms such as 'music theatre,' 'musical theatre,' a 'play with music' or 'rock musical,' we have a very distinct reaction to just plain 'the musical'" (33). Sounds great! However, nowhere in that article does Archer even attempt to articulate a definition. Instead she presents a Brechtian-diatribe on the musical as "pomp of the Fascists," describing it as "socially dangerous" and the "self-indulgent artistic activity of those whose social conscience is still not guilty enough" (45).

Almost twenty years later, in a Sounds Australia's 2000 music theatre feature, Archer again approaches the genre question, this time actually asking, "how would we define the musical?" Her response: "[a]ll the most successful musicals actually have social comment at their core". Okay? Archer then back-peddles on her earlier observations, suggesting that, "one can't entirely write off the musical as something that's simply saccharine" (6-7). As to her definition of the musical: "[i]t is about intention. It's about what the artists, the producers, the company, in particular the creative team of director/designer want; what's the effect they want to have on an audience?” (7)

Not much help there, I'm afraid. And that's the problem. No one in the Australian industry (academics and critics included) seems to think the musical is anything other than a story with a bunch of songs and dances chucked in. Peter Fitzpatrick has a valid point when he argues that the Australian musical exists in a vacuum (27). While our actors, singers and dancers get possibly the best training in the world, our librettists and composers are left to fend for themselves. The "she'll be right attitude" constantly over-rides the need for rigour in terms of formal structure. It's little wonder we can't export our musicals. No amount of production fanfare can hide the fact that almost all our musicals falter at the very beginning of the creative process.

So have you managed to put your list together yet? Check your response with the answer below.

Quiz Answer: How does the musical differ from other forms of music theatre? In a word… integration. And why is integration the key factor in the creative development of the American musical -- the one thing that binds it as a genre and differentiates it from other forms of music theatre? Unfortunately the editors' word limit approaches. To find out more, get hold of some research and analysis readily available on the subject. I'd suggest starting off with James Spurrier, Richard Helldobler and Joseph Swain. Not only will you quickly become a leading Australian expert on the musical, but if you're so inclined you might turn you hand to writing the first "dramatically organised and fully integrated" Australian libretto…. ever!

Works Cited

Archer, Robyn. "The Politics of the Musical." Australasian Drama Studies 1.2 (1983): 33-45.
--- "A Nice Night Out." Sounds Australian 56 (2000): 6-7, 35.
Aronson, Linda. Dinkum Assorted. Sydney: Currency, 1989.
Batey, Peter, and John Mulder. Songs My Mother Didn't Teach Me. Perf. Liz Harris, Karen Johnson and John Mulder. Bondi Pavilion (Syd); 22 Jan. 1980.
Crowley, Anthony. The Journey Girl. Perf. Amanda Harrison, Anthony Crowley. Athenaeum Theatre (Melb); 3 June 1998.
Fitzpatrick, Peter. "Whose Turn to Shout" The Crisis in Australian Musical Theatre." Australasian Drama Studies 38 (2001): 17.
Helldobler, Richard J. "An Analysis of the Dramatic Structure of Traditional and Concept Musicals Based on the Theories of John Howard Lawson." Ph D. Diss. Bowling Green State University, 1991.
Jillett, Neil. "Good Rock, Bad Roles in Mickey's Moomba." Age 27 Feb. 1979: 2.
O'Connell, Terry et al. Sisters. Perf. Lucy Charles, Jill Floyd, Kim Hardwick and Meryl Petein. Seymour Centre (Syd); 14 Nov. 1979.
Romeril, John. "Two Pieces From Mickey's Moomba." Meanjin Quarterly 37.3 (1978): 284-99.
Spurrier, James Joseph. "The Integration of Music and Lyrics with the Book in the American Musical." Ph D Diss. Southern Illinois University, 1979.
Swain, Joseph P. The Broadway Musical: A Critical and Musical Survey. New York: Oxford UP, 1990.
Taylor, Catherine. "Opening Night Crowd Mad About The Boy." Australian 6 Mar. 1998: 3.
Watson, Don et al. History Of Australia. Dir. John Bell. Princess Theatre (Melb); 16 Jan. 1988.

Clay Djubal is a Ph.D. candidate at the University of Queensland. His thesis examines the rise of the post-WWI Australian-written musical revue. He also lectures and tutors in rock music history and music subcultures and the media.


Bookmark this article: