Notes on the Sound of New Music(als)

Harvard’s behind the times again. This comes as no surprise, to be honest. We’re an old school; we like old things. Harvard’s founding predates many popular forms of entertainment—musical theater, for example, a comparatively modern genre that came of age with the 1927 production of Oscar Hammerstein II and Jerome Kern’s “Show Boat.”

In a sense, musical theater has never left adolescence. Essential questions remain: is it a play with music? Is it merely verbose opera? Is it a revue with plot? The “modern” musical remains, somewhat, an enigma.

Maybe that’s why Harvard’s theater community will produce several standbys—rather than modern musicals—this fall, which is almost certainly indicative of directorial preference and not risk aversion. This semester, the Harvard-Radcliffe Dramatic Club (HRDC) will present three musical productions in the Agassiz Theater (including the revolutionary classic “A Chorus Line”) and one musical in the Loeb Experimental Theater this semester. The show in the Ex, called “Company,” features music and lyrics by the venerable Stephen Sondheim of “West Side Story” fame.

“Company” is a well-written show. Since Sondheim and his collaborator George Furth intentionally constructed an emotionally unavailable principal character, performing it can be a little risky. But regardless of the chances the directors may be taking with this complex, enigmatic musical—which is going up in the Ex during reading period—they have chosen what many Broadway lovers view as an antiquated, stylized piece.

A poor choice? Hardly. Furth’s foundational book is replete with ’70s slang and cultural references, which manifest themselves subtly in Sondheim’s retro-pop tonal touches. Critics harped on the inclusion of these cultural artifacts in the ’80s, but 36 years after the first Broadway run, all the “retro” aspects of “Company” will probably come off as fun flashbacks instead of yesterday’s news. Updating a show often leads to a schizophrenic production of an otherwise masterfully crafted work. Why mess with success?

Well, partially to make money. New York producers have no qualms about infusing vintage shows with contemporary vigor, so long as the weekly box office figures creep inexorably towards seven-digit territory. A Broadway-bound revival of “Company,” which features an updated book, represents one such hybridization of the mothballed and the modern. Directed by John Doyle—whose recently transformation of Sondheim’s “Sweeney Todd” from operatic orgasm to claustrophobic chamber piece met with critical acclaim—the show’s 14 performers also double as cast and orchestra, a truly modern touch.

Doyle is a dramatic craftsman par excellence—his revival of “Sweeney” was one of the most thrilling nights of theater I’ve ever experienced—but his production of another intimate Sondheim revival begs the question: when will his minimalist style cease to be aesthetically legitimate and become, instead, a gimmick?

The same question could be asked generally of the entire genre of musical theater. Is it a legitimate artistic form with its own set of composition rules, or merely the bastard child of tragedy and opera?

The 1975 musical “A Chorus Line” offers a convincing argument for both sides. On the one hand, it captures do-or-die Broadway dance auditions through intimate portraits of individual dancers’ stories without losing sight of the show’s larger social implications. On the other, “A Chorus Line” is determinedly and uncomfortably self-referential—a musical about itself.

A revival of this show has also arrived on Broadway, having opened at the beginning of October. Yet unlike the “Company” revival, “A Chorus Line” has preserved its retro sensibility. Director Bob Avian has banked on the show’s inherent gravitas—the poignancy of the meat-market image of dancers lined up for directorial scrutiny—to transcend time and place.

Closer to home, the upcoming HRDC production of “A Chorus Line” is slated to open in a week on the Agassiz stage. The theater community will judge for itself whether director Peter C. Shields Jr. ’09 can make the dancers’ story resonate with Harvard students, much as New Yorkers will judge whether Avian’s version lives up to Michael Bennett’s original.

This constant self-reflection—reviving theater about theater—preoccupies many modern Broadway productions. It is particularly telling that three of these currently-running meta-musicals—“A Chorus Line,” “Spamalot,” and “The Producers”—each received Tony Awards for Best Musical.

Yet even the writers of old standbys like “A Chorus Line” might not be able to articulate what merits “Best Musical” classification. Is it the brooding exploration of humanity through song à la “Company”? Is it the perseverant self-examination of “A Chorus Line”? Or is it the Doylian reinvention of a classic production?

There’s no way to know. The only constant in musical theater is the form’s confident unpredictability. It’s no wonder—and no shame—that the staffs of “Company” and “A Chorus Line” were drawn to such venerated material.

—Columnist Kyle L. K. McAuley can be reached at kmcauley@fas.harvard.edu.