[One of the best
parts of being an AmericanStudier in 2015 is the abundance of impressive
cultural works with which we’re surrounded. So for this year’s Thanksgiving
series, I wanted to give thanks for five great works and artists about which I
haven’t had the chance to write in this space. Share your own cultural thanks
in comments, please!]
On what links and
what differentiates two important new musicals.
I haven’t
written a lot about American musicals and musical theater in this space, but when
I have they’ve been socially progressive and significant ones: Zitkala-Sa
and William Hanson’s Sun Dance Opera
(1913); DuBose Heyward and George Gershwin’s Porgy
and Bess (1935); and Jonathan
Larsen’s Rent (1996). Each of those works is complex and in need of more
extended analysis, but all three, it’s fair to say, broke from their genres’
conventions and traditions to portray American identities and communities in
groundbreaking and important ways. And what that would mean, to make the
complementary point overtly, is that the conventions and traditions of American
musical theater tend to be socially conservative (perhaps more so than many of
our cultural forms), to feature on the stage identities and communities in ways
that flatter our mainstream ideals rather than challenge, complicate, or
broaden those narratives. Which is to say, what the Tom Shows did with Uncle Tom’s Cabin, turning a divisive
and clearly activist work into a safe and stereotyping mainstream popular
entertainment, could be read as a symptom of a much larger trend in American musical
theater.
Whether or not that’s
really been the case overall (and I welcome comments on other ways to read our
musical theater histories!), the last few months have witnessed a couple very
prominent steps in the more progressive direction. Jay Kuo and Lorenzo Thione’s Japanese Internment
musical Allegiance, which debuted
in San Diego in 2012, opened on Broadway in October, featuring George Takei (on
whose experiences
in an internment camp the musical is partly based) among its acclaimed
cast. And in August, Lin-Manuel
Miranda’s Revolutionary War and Founding era musical Hamilton moved from its award-winning Off-Broadway run to
Broadway, where it has continued and extended its popular
and critical successes. Along with their shared attempts to bring American history
to the stage, these two musicals also utilize casting to advance their
progressive goals: Allegiance
features a richly diverse group of Asian American actors (including the three
leads from the San Diego debut) amidst its impressively
multi-ethnic cast; while Hamilton
has famously gone even further in the direction of diversity, casting all Hispanic
and African American actors as its European American characters (including
Miranda himself in the title role) and reserving the role of King George for
its only white actor, Brian D’Arcy James. In who as well as what’s on the
stage, both these new musicals are unquestionably changing the genre.
Yet in another
way, the two musicals offer two quite distinct illustrations of the nature and
politics of the musical as a cultural form. (To be clear, I haven’t had a
chance to see either live yet, but have heard many of their songs and am also
responding to numerous reviews of each. Again, I welcome further comments
below!) The songs and
musical numbers in Allegiance are
consistently upbeat, and seem (both to this listener and to
many reviewers) jarring alongside the much darker moments and settings
through which the musical moves its characters. The rap
and hip hop songs and numbers in Hamilton,
on the other hand, align (counter-intuitively
yet pitch-perfectly) with both the musical’s innovative casting and its
portrayals of the Revolutionary and Founding figures and histories. That is,
the music in Allegiance feels tied
more to the musical genre’s conservative conventions, and thus at odds with the
play’s progressive goals in ways that create a sense of dissonance; while Hamilton’s more radical musical choices
parallel its progressiveness and create a sense of artistic as well as
political coherence. I’m thankful that both these musicals are on the stage in
2015, but am especially thankful for the thoroughly innovative brilliance that
is Hamilton.
November Recap
this weekend,
Ben
PS. What do you
think? Cultural thanks-givings you’d share?
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