Seven musicals on offer at Teater Utan Kayu at weekend

Seven musicals on offer at Teater Utan Kayu at weekend

JAKARTA (JP): In the past few years we have seen Woody Allen's
Everyone Says I love You, Kenneth Branagh's Love's Labor's Lost
and our own Riri Riza's phenomenal success Petualangan Sherina.
All musicals.

So what exactly is the fascination with film musicals? Is it
the form, the music, the choreography, or the unrealistic
convention of a character bursting into song at the slightest
dramatic provocation? Perhaps the primary positive quality
associated with musical performances is its spontaneous emergence
out of a joyous and responsive attitude toward life that seems
only natural to be expressed in song and dance. Realistic? No!
Entertaining? A resounding yes!

The Hollywood musical, which became a popular genre in the
50's, had reached an exquisitely high point of sophistication and
color under the auspices of the Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer (MGM)
producer Arthur Freed. A large percentage of the early musicals
took for their subjects the world of entertainment: Broadway,
vaudeville, nightclubs, and sometimes mass entertainment media in
the form of radio or Hollywood itself.

This usually involved characters getting together and putting
on a show. The musical numbers would often be in the form of
backstage rehearsals of the show that was about to be performed.
This was probably because the audience felt more comfortable
viewing musical numbers within the context of a show rather than
seeing screen characters suddenly feel a song coming on and
proceed into a dance routine.

There is no denying that the concept of entertainment is
manipulative and full of trickery -- a myth fashioned by the
creators and willingly suffered by us, the audience. To borrow
film critique Jane Feuer's theory, the myth of entertainment
comes under a few categories when it comes to musicals.

In brief, the myth of spontaneity pertains to the impulsive
self-expression through song and dance. The myth of integration
blurs the barrier between what happens on the stage (during a
musical number) and what happens in the performers' personal life
(within the film) -- usually, success on the stage is accompanied
by success off the stage.

Finally, the myth of the audience is the perception that the
performer is sensitive to the needs of the audience (stage
audience within the film, as well as the screen audience), giving
them a sense of participation in the performance.

This weekend (Sept. 22 - Sept. 24), Teater Utan Kayu (TUK) is
offering seven musicals that cover all three of Jane Feuer's myth
theories. Vincente Minnelli's endearing Gigi (Friday, Sept. 22,
at 4:30 p.m.) and George Cukor's witty My Fair Lady (Friday,
Sept. 22, 7:30 p.m.) are examples of films in which the musical
numbers are mostly spontaneous and characters burst into song
quite effortlessly.

Both were stunningly successful at the 1959 and 1964 Academy
Awards ceremonies, including Oscars for Best Picture, Best
Director, and Best Music. With similar stories about a young
woman's transformation (from a tomboy child to an elegant woman
in Gigi and from a common flower girl to a sophisticated lady in
My Fair Lady), the form of spontaneous self-expression (song)
differs in each film.

The song numbers in Gigi are mostly "thinking aloud" sequences
where we, the screen audience, are given the opportunity to peer
into the characters thoughts (Gaston's Soliloquy and She Is Not
Thinking of Me). All other characters are oblivious to these
thoughts, even though they are belting out their lungs in song.

In My Fair Lady, however, many of the sequences are either,
extensions of dialogue (I'm an Ordinary Man) or dreamy
meditations (Wouldn't it be Loverly and I Could Have Danced All
Night). In this case, all the other characters can hear the
thoughts and they sometimes participate.

Carol Reed's Oliver! (Saturday, Sept. 23, 2:00 p.m.), Stanley
Donen and Gene Kelly's Singin' In The Rain (Saturday, Sept. 23,
4:30 p.m.) and Norman Jewison's Fiddler on the Roof (Saturday,
Sept. 23, 7:30 p.m.), fall under the myth of the audience.

The elaborate choreography performed by the ensemble cast of
Oliver! (Consider Yourself, I'd Do Anything or You've Got To Pick
A Pocket Or Two) confirms its status as a successful stage play
adapted to the screen. The song and dance routines are laid out
in such a way that it is comparable to watching the performance
on a stage. Similarly, in Singin' In The Rain, the characters are
conscious that they are performing before an audience. The screen
becomes a stage, and the camera becomes the audience (Make Em'
Laugh and Good Morning).

Fiddler on the Roof, a tale of a Jewish milkman in Czarist
Russia who has private conversations with God and has five
unmarried daughters, is subtler in its approach. The only
decorative dance composition in this film is in the form of
celebrations (To Life! and during the wedding scene). Even though
they are performing for an audience, it is not us; it is the
audience within the film.

Arthur Freed, being a professional lyricist himself, believed
that musical production numbers should be integrated with the
film's dialogue and plot, rather than stand alone as intermezzos.
This idea became increasingly difficult to achieve due to the
changing times, and as a result, the musical genre had to adjust
itself in a form more appropriate to the 70's. Successful efforts
required increased realism, serious subject matter, and
segregation of musical numbers and plot.

Initially, in both, Milos Forman's Hair (Sunday, Sept. 24,
2:00 p.m.) and Bob Fosse's Cabaret (Sunday, Sept. 24, 4:30 p.m.),
the musical numbers seem to be mere interludes. The songs in
Forman's work are incorporated into the rhythm of the film as
running commentaries on political issues such as racism, war,
homosexuality, and class consciousness.

Set in 1931 Berlin, Fosse's film about life inside and outside
the KitKat Klub, manages to bridge the gap between the artifice
of the theater and the naturalism of the film by having all
musical numbers technically occurring on the stage. However, the
theory of integration is put into place by having the stage
routines provide a sharp counterpoint to the real life drama
happening in the movie. Each musical number on stage parallels
what happens outside the club.

Jane Feuer's theory of the myth of entertainment states that
entertainment is shown as having greater value than it actually
does. But who, after watching Singin' In The Rain, wouldn't love
to splash away in a puddle of rain (especially during these last
few steamy days) and explain in song to a police officer: "I'm
just singin' and dancin' in the rain". A myth? Maybe. Delightful?
Most definitely!