House Music Blues (Philip Glass? Why are you EVERYWHERE?!)

Today, let us discuss House Music....

Sorry, that is a picture.
You can't hear that.
Let me try something else...
This is House Music:

Nope.
Nope.
Although...it isn't far from the truth.
This is usually what plays in theatres:



Philip Glass.
You get something offbeat, something a little atonal or dissonant or whatever catches the theme of the show (atonal and dissonant).
I think the tradition of House Music comes from Musicals
See, at musicals there are certain rituals.

• the actors/singers practice their scales
• the dancers limber up
• the musicians prepare their instruments and work on specific, tricky sections of music

This creates an auditory experience that the audience can enjoy prior to the actual show (its very nature makes it part of the experience and drives the performance)

It is part of what makes a musical a musical.

But, what is the necessity of house music for a theatrical piece?

...
It doesn't drive the show (usually).
It isn't produced by the performers (usually)
It isn't part of the story (usually)
(There are of course exceptions, but why must I listen to Ode to Joy every time I see a Shakespearean comedy?)

So when I go to the theatre and I see a straight play and there is house music that is never incorporated into the story I get creative.
(As a game, try this:)
(Pretend that everything that you see and hear is meant to be a part of the performance and try to figure out a reason for it)
(e.g. If you hear a fire truck in Renaissance Verona and no one bats an eye what is the reason?)

As a director, I always have the same questions when it comes to lighting and sound design.

I always ask:

• Is it necessary?
• Does it work?
• Does it help?

To give examples:

Our production of 4.48 Psychosis

Involved no house music.

It was a bare bones kind of play

• 90 minutes
• no characters
• no descriptors
• no stage directions
• no intermission

Mind you, we used many props, some lights, most of which the actors brought in including:

• their clothes
• cups
• textbooks
• a working coffee machine
• aerial silks
• bandages
• et al

We spoke at length about the staging, the space, the script, the costumes, the props, even how the light would affect everything at different times of day.

But, the silence we almost never talked about.

It didn't need to be broken.

Now, there are productions that could have underscored the whole show and done it remarkably well, but it wasn't necessary for the story we were telling.

Contrast this to something like Anais Miller's Hadestown:

This is a concept album that is designed around the Eurydice/Orpheus myth.
The whole show kicks off with the wedding with Eurydice singing a folk wedding song.
Orpheus (the greatest musician in the world mind you) responds with three male voices singing harmony.
...
His voice was so magical it couldn't be conveyed in a single human voice.
That is the most amazing thing ever.
The soundscape tells the story.
It is necessary for the story they are telling!
Brilliant.

Now, there is some subjectivity to the nature of "necessity" and my term is fairly loose.
Often, we can only figure that out in the playing.
What do I mean?

Ever had a task that you needed to accomplish?
Say you had an important test.
What do you do?

• You put on your lucky trousers
• You grab your sweatbands to cut down on friction
• You wear your watch calculator
• You loosen your tie

Everything is in order

You are ready
You are prepared

You forgot a pencil.

The point is that often house music is the fancy watch calculator.

It is nice to have and can add to the experience, but if you don't have the major tools to do what you need in performance, no amount of fancy tech is going to help.

Genre (It Feels Pretty Useless, unless we are talking about Style)

Today let us discuss genre.
Genre is a way of organizing art into categories.
That is literally it.

Now, we can talk about the different classes of theatre, but the essential idea of genre comes down to just that:
Classification.
Therefore genre is the classification of theatre (or other art forms) into more manageable parts.

SO let us start with the biggies:

Tragedy and Comedy!
You know these masks.
Everybody knows these masks.
I hate these masks.
But, they are perhaps the two biggest and broadest categories of theatre:

• Comedy where everything ends for the best for the protagonist: They get the girl, they get the job, they get money, their parents weren't really dead the whole time, and "Everybody lived happily ever after"
• Tragedy where everything ends for the worst for the protagonist: They do not get the girl, they end up a pauper and alone, their parents were poisoned, and everybody DIES. THE END.

Now, you may have noticed something about what constrains these two genres:

Everything comes down to how they end!

Does it end happily or unhappily?

Why so much emphasis on the end?

Because until the end, comedy and tragedy are identical.

Why do I say that?

Because of Murphy's Law.

Murphy's Law states: 

"Anything that can go wrong will go wrong."

-Murphy

What does this have to do with comedy/tragedy?
Everything.
Because it is an innate principle of story:
Anything that can go wrong will.

Look at Romeo & Juliet

• A Montague bites his thumb at a Capulet
• They fight and people are killed
• The families are banned from ever quarreling again
• The Capulets throw a big celebration
• The Montagues sneak in
• Romeo falls in love with Juliet (masked)
• They get married
• Romeo's best friend is killed by Juliet's cousin
• Romeo kills Juliet's cousin
• Romeo is banished
• Juliet is courted by a new suitor 
• She fakes her death to avoid another marriage
• Romeo hears of her death and goes to her tomb to die with her
• Just before he takes the poison, Juliet wakes up and they elope
• The families agree to never fight again for the sake of their children

And they all lived happily ever after!

Now, for those who don't know the play, I may have lied.

The second to last point is incorrect.

Textually Romeo takes the poison before Juliet wakes up.

She discovers him and we get a double suicide.

But, that is how easily it all could have gone right!

If Juliet were awake when Romeo got to the tomb, the whole play could have gone differently.

So Tragedy and Comedy come down to the second to last point (otherwise known as the final climax, just before the denouement)

Well...sort of.

See genre also tends toward something called style.

Style is the way in which something is presented.

I just described a comedic Romeo & Juliet.

However, Romeo & Juliet is a tragedy.

And it is: nobody ends the play happily, certainly not the main characters.

Therefore, the play is by my definition a tragedy.

So the play is often designed and acted like this:

Tragedy (classically, I won't say all of the time or even most of the time) is construed as being heavy in tone, therefore,

• darker/muted colors with dramatic flashes are used (note the red of Juliet's dress and Romeo's neutrals), 
• extreme locales or surrealistic sets with intense symbolism (note the fallen leaves and falling down the stairs as opposed to up)

However, if a play could be either comedy or tragedy until the end, it stands to reason that a valid interpretation of Romeo & Juliet might be something like:

Comedy (again tends, not as a rule) is construed as being lighter in tone, therefore:

• lighter/brighter colors (notice the pinks and yellows of Juliet and the greens/gold in Romeo)
• settings punctuated for comedic/picturesque effect (Juliet is literally sparkling right now)

It is entirely dealer's choice.
It depends on what the artists wish to accomplish with their performance.

• Are the themes of destiny/fate of the star crossed lovers to be highlighted and hinted early on, suggesting it was never going to end happily?
• Are the themes of love triumphs to be highlighted and that ultimately at any point this could have been prevented if the families had paid more attention to their children?

Thus, when talking about genre it is important to keep style in mind, but they need not be dependent on one another.

Remember genres can be as many and varied and nuanced as:

• Tragicomedy
• Burlesque
• Farce
• Light Farce
• Black Comedy
• Minstrelsy 

Or schools of thought like:

• Epic Theatre
• Theatre of Cruelty
• Theatre of the Absurd
• Holy Theatre

So what is the point of genre for artists?

I believe it is meant to be a kind of shorthand.

I have had conversations that literally went inside of rehearsal:

"Well, this is a comedy. We all know what that means. Yuck, yuck."

-Unnamed Director

One of my favorite sayings about style came from our discussions on Romeo & Juliet

"We will discover the 'style' through rehearsal."

-Blair Anderson

Because ain't that the frigging truth?
We work on style collaboratively and make it out of whatever stuff the actors/directors/designers bring to the performance.
I firmly believe Romeo & Juliet is a comedy until it isn't.
Therefore, in productions I direct or act in, I attempt to bring that energy to the performance.
I say attempt because there are absolutely those who think antithetically to me.
And that includes the audience.
Some believe R&J is a tragedy and they should be crying for five acts and are afraid when they chuckle.
I have spoken with these people.

So style is something dynamic that the performers/audience collaboratively create.
What about genres?
I don't find them a useful shorthand in my work.
In fact in trying to discuss genre, I am at a loss for what to say mostly because it is an abstract idea.
I can talk for hours about tragedy or comedy, but genre? *shrugs*