| The Genius of R&H: A Taste | |
| Posted by: peter3053 08:08 pm EST 12/22/24 | |
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| It so happened that youtube threw up a clip from the NBC "The Sound of Music", "So Long, Farewell". I was struck by the dramatic economy of the song. First, at the simplest level, in a musical about an essential conflict between innocence and evil, it is a demonstration, without needing to say so, of innocence. Sweet children singing a simple song. But second, although simple in thought, it's rich in structure, so it involves you in the innocence, it captures you, you feel it, you don't feel insulted by its apparent simplicity. It even manages to integrate itself into the context of the party by having that conversational moment when Leisl asks if she might have her first champagne and her father says no - so it doesn't feel detached from the present moment. It's part of the scene. It's playfully dramatic, sustaining the tone of most of the first act as a whole. But then there's the dimension of Elsa having encouraged Georg to let the kids sing it, inadvertently sabotaging her own desires by showcasing Maria's achievement of emotional and idealistic liberation. This sort of "accidental" development of plot is brilliant dramatic irony on the part of the writers. But at the same time, it is the moment when Max witnesses the children singing together and is overcome by the possibilities for himself (Christian Borle is especially attuned to this process of discovery in the clip shown). And this discovery by Max sets up, not only the escape plot, but the very song that enables them to escape in the second act. (The whole of the escape plot is brilliantly woven with reprises so that it feels texturally unified to the romantic plot of the first four fifths of the show.) Very seldom in any show does a single song play so many critical functions all at the same time. Lindsay, Crouse, Rodgers, Hammerstein - you geniuses! Can anyone think of another song from any show that achieves so much so deftly, and without the audience quite realizing what's being set up? |
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