Posted 01 August 2008 - 12:47 PM
I have to speak out!
It is so frustrating to hear the back-lash against actor-musicianship. I notice in other threads on this board the use of the word 'gimmick' or the idea that the style has 'lost its novelty'; I feel these comments are completely missing the point.
Actor-Musician shows are a valid genre in their own right - no one suggests that the 'gimmick' of telling a story with songs has lost its novelty, because it is understood that musical theatre is a valid genre and each new production utilises the genre in a different way to tell a different story. So it is for actor-musicianship. It is not a new style - travelling story-teller and performers used musical instruments all the time, and the likes of John Doyle, Bob Carlton et al have been exploring this in musical theatre for many years before Sweeney brought it so clearly into the public eye.
Furthermore, and I speak from a position of knowing some of the actors who have appeared in these types of shows, the idea that the performer is 'splitting their attention' and therefore short-changing one or other side of their performance (be that either music or acting) is also a fallacy. Again, one would not argue that one actor should deliver lines but another actor handle props so that no one individual has to multi-task. For these multi-skilled actors, the instruments come to illuminate aspects of character and performance, and in the majority of cases this is also how the audience receives it. That is to say, rather than seeing Joanna in Sweeney 'distracted' by playing the cello, they perceive her fear all the more vividly by 'seeing' her play the tremolos on the cello in the orchestration - the music enhances the performance providing a window on character for the audience, and essentially a very powerful personal prop for the actor. The instrument does not detract from their ability to give a performance, it charges it. The majority of actor-musicians are very well trained actors who perform in straight plays/non actor-muso musical theatre too, so they are more than capable of carrying off the acting demands of the piece.
I would just like to add that the amazingly skilled arrangers who work on these shows have managed to win over even the most sceptical of die-hard anti-actormusos, (see recent praise for Sarah Travis' arrangements of Sunset Boulevard at the Watermill) so surely the argument about impaired instrumental performances has to be dropped? In which case the argument of this thread is 'would you rather hear a piano reduction or 12 instrumentalists'... Keeping in mind that the average West End pit band is now shrinking to approximately this kind of size anyway, surely it's time to let go the prejudice that in an actor-muso production you are getting an 'impaired' version of a musical, and instead embrace it for what it is - a valid genre with longevity and much to offer.
Posted 31 July 2008 - 10:20 AM
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