Scott McMillin,
The Musical as Drama.
Princeton and Oxford: Princeton University Press, 2006.
ISBN: 0 691 12730 1
US$24.95 (hb)
248pp
(Review copy supplied by Princeton University Press)

Scott McMillin’s The Musical as Drama, his last completed book before his death at 71, is a labor of love. Staunchly defending a much-maligned genre, McMillin sets his sights high, writing, “The musical is arguably the major form of drama produced so far in America” (25). McMillin’s book is not properly an account of the genre’s American roots, nor is it a history of the musical more generally (although it touches on both these things); rather, it is an attempt at a sort of genre poetics. McMillin seeks to address in this way a deficiency he finds in the field of theatre study: “I am not aware of a book that brings together the musical before us as an aesthetic entity, a genre of drama with definable conventions around which one can think of the musical as a form of art” (ix-x).

Although an extremely clear writer, McMillin never explicitly defines the set of conventions to which he alludes in his introduction. The central argument of his book, however, is that these conventions add up to an aesthetic of disunity or disjunction. All too often, according to McMillin, commentators on the musical have stressed ‘integration’ when they ought to have emphasized ‘difference’. McMillin explains, “When a musical is working well, I feel the crackle of difference, not the smoothness of unity, even when the numbers dovetail with the book” (2). McMillin traces the idea of integration to the writings and compositions of Wagner and cites Kierkegaard and Brecht as theoretical touchstones for his own approach. But the book is not precisely a theoretical work, either.

Instead, McMillin constructs the meat of his work with careful stylistic analysis – and here he ought to be lauded – of a handful of musicals. In his introduction, McMillin admits – and here he might well be reproached – “I keep coming back to Show Boat, Lady in the Dark, Oklahoma!, Carousel, Guys and Dolls, My Fair Lady, West Side Story, Cabaret, A Chorus Line, Phantom of the Opera, Follies, Pacific Overtures, and Sweeney Todd” (xii). Earlier musicals are only mentioned as historical touchstones for what would follow, and while he wants to celebrate the ‘illegitimate’ heritage of the American film musical, McMillin often slips into denigrating the topicality and variety of the Operetta and revue forms which he identifies as the parents of the musical. Nonetheless, McMillin does strike upon an interesting historical argument, suggesting that Rodgers and Hammerstein, rather than developing the integrated musical, “greatly enlarged the kinds of books that could be used for musicals” (25). Perhaps, in spite of himself, McMillin seems far more interested in the musicals that came after this enlargement.

Among these ‘canonical’ musicals, McMillin elucidates several generic traits. First, and most importantly, the musical is characterized by two separate registers of time: ‘progressive time’ and ‘repetition’. The former refers, of course, to the plot “in the sense that the ending is different than the beginning” (6) while the latter corresponds to the repetition structures of popular song. Second, the musical has an “ensemble tendency”, a “challenge to the codes of ‘rugged individualism’ to which a great deal of nonmusical American literature and drama seems to be devoted” (77). Third, musical performance is especially “vulnerable” performance: “The foot can slip, the voice can crack, the memory can fail. The performers are visible in the success of their performances, which means that the danger of failure is visible too” (149). Lastly, McMillin points to the ‘omniscience’ of the orchestra, which he believes highlights the vulnerability of the performers.

Part of McMillin’s work is prescriptive, and it resembles, in many ways, the works that have been labeled ‘classical film theory’. For McMillin, only the orchestra ought to be granted omniscience – he finds fault with plays that include omniscient characters in the book, and scorns ‘technological’ musicals (Disney and Andrew Lloyd Weber productions, in the main) for their ‘omniscient sets’. Interestingly, he ties the technological musical to the film musical, emphasizing ontological divergence, rather than continuity, between the stage and theater musical. McMillin believes film to be the domain of integration, and argues, (somewhat strangely, considering the comparative dearth of musical production) “the film musical is now gaining an aesthetic form of its own” (174).

McMillin ends his book with a political appeal, reclaiming the ‘illegitimate’ status of the musical. Asking “What kind of drama is this?” he concludes, “It is popular and illegitimate, originating in vaudeville and revue as well as in operetta, and retaining links to the tradition of low culture despite its high prices” (179). In total, he finds the musical to be a particularly obvious genre, one especially ill-suited to subtexts. Aesthetically, McMillin argues, the musical is a radical form, one that reflects the motley nature of its high-low cultural hybrid. As such, it is an intrinsically political form.

Ultimately, it is this radical potential of the musical which McMillin most loves. The reason Brecht never became the theoretical pillar of the musical is perhaps the very reason McMillin is able to capture such infectious enthusiasm for the genre – its radical nature is one that entertains. Herein lies the major success of McMillin’s work. Even if one disagrees with some of his tastes and arguments, his defense of the musicals of the last half-century is a convincing and, appropriately, an entertaining one.

Heather Heckman,
University of Wisconsin, Madison, USA.

Created on: Tuesday, 5 June 2007