The Use of Disability Metaphor in the Musicals of Stephen Sondheim: Freak Shows and Freakish Love Heidi A
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Florida State University Libraries Electronic Theses, Treatises and Dissertations The Graduate School 2006 "Every Now and Then a Madman's Bound to Come along…" the Use of Disability Metaphor in the Musicals of Stephen Sondheim: Freak Shows and Freakish Love Heidi A. Temple Follow this and additional works at the FSU Digital Library. For more information, please contact [email protected] THE FLORIDA STATE UNIVERSITY COLLEGE OF VISUAL ARTS, THEATRE, AND DANCE “EVERY NOW AND THEN A MADMAN’S BOUND TO COME ALONG…” THE USE OF DISABILITY METAPHOR IN THE MUSICALS OF STEPHEN SONDHEIM: FREAK SHOWS AND FREAKISH LOVE By Heidi A. Temple A Thesis submitted to the School of Theatre In partial fulfillment of the Requirements for the degree of Master of Arts Degree Awarded: Spring Semester, 2006 Copyright 2006 Heidi A. Temple All Rights Reserved The members of the Committee approve the thesis of Heidi A. Temple defended on 29March 2006. _________________________ Carrie Sandahl Professor Directing Thesis _________________________ Mary Karen Dahl Committee Member _________________________ Gayle Seaton Outside Committee Member The Office of Graduate Studies has verified and approved the above named committee members. ii TABLE OF CONTENTS Abstract ..................................................................................................iv Introduction ..........................................................................................1 1. UGLY IS AS UGLY DOES – PASSION: PITIABLE, PATHETIC, AND POISONOUS .......................21 2. ASSASSINS – JUST ANOTHER “FREAK SHOW”.................................53 Conclusion .....................................................................................95 References ............................................................................................99 Biographical Sketch ........................................................................................103 iii ABSTRACT Perhaps no one has written musicals that address social, political, and personal issues so effectively and purposefully as Stephen Sondheim. He positions his audience to identify with his characters by placing them in every day situations. The audience walks away feeling that they, too, have been personally affected by whatever social travesty the characters are experiencing; however, Sondheim undermines his socially progressive commentary by presenting his characters in a manner that stereotypes other marginalized groups in the process. One of his most common choices for creating crisis is his use of disabled characters – physically disabled characters such as Fosca and, eventually, Giorgio, in Passion, or psychologically challenged characters, such as the entire ensemble of Assassins. While Sondheim’s work is rife with social commentary on issues of race, gender, economics, and relationships, he doesn’t comment critically on disability. He simply relies on his disabled characters to provide metaphors that comment on other issues. As a result, the actual disabled people become tools for social or political agendas unrelated to disability oppression. This thesis pays attention to Sondheim’s use of disability metaphor and how these metaphors allow him to critique various social issues on the one hand, while unintentionally furthering oppressive stereotypes of disability on the other. I will examine two plays in which Sondheim uses disability as metaphor: Passion (1994) and Assassins (1991). While many of Sondheim’s plays revolve around disabled characters (Anyone Can Whistle, Sweeney Todd, Pacific Overtures, Into the Woods….), I have chosen these two plays because they represent physical, psychological and emotional disability in the same ways that many of Sondheim’s other plays do, but send very clear messages through the use of disability metaphor that can be applied to the body of Sondheim’s work. iv INTRODUCTION “Someone tell the story,/ Someone sing the song./ Every now and then/ The country goes a little wrong./ Every now and then/ A madman’s/ Bound to come along./ Doesn’t stop the story –/ Story’s pretty strong./ Doesn’t change the song….” (Sondheim and Weidman. Assassins. Sc 2.) What the balladeer of Stephen Sondheim’s highly acclaimed and criticized Assassins seems to know is that every story needs a crisis to launch the ensuing narrative, make it strong, and provide the tension which leads to the resulting climax. The primary character must experience the crisis, whether it is internal or external in order to create this story. The balladeer echoes Sondheim’s own ability to choose his crises wisely, so that they may provide the most fodder for his narrative. His penchant for making use of serious social crisis in a musical theatre format makes him unique - topics such as gang warfare (West Side Story), overbearing mothers (Into the Woods and Pacific Overtures), war and imperialism (Pacific Overtures), presidential assassinations and the American Dream (Assassins), marital/relationship problems (Passion, Company and A Little Night Music), and cannibalism (Sweeney Todd). Along the way, his narratives comment on these crises, as well as entertain the audience. Perhaps no one has written musicals that address social, political, and personal issues so effectively and purposefully as Stephen Sondheim. He positions his audience to identify with his characters by placing them in every day situations. The audience walks away feeling that they, too, have been personally affected by whatever social travesty the characters are experiencing; however, Sondheim undermines his socially progressive commentary by presenting his characters in a manner that stereotypes other marginalized groups in the process. One of his most common choices for creating crisis is his use of disabled characters – physically disabled characters such as Fosca and, eventually, Giorgio, in Passion, psychologically challenged characters, such as the entire ensemble of Assassins or Sweeney in Sweeney Todd, and emotionally disabled characters, such as George in Sunday in the Park with George, the children in Into the Woods, or Lee Harvey Oswald in Assassins. These characters provide physical and emotional conflicts in the story because of their disabilities, and these often become the main conflict of the play. 1 Sondheim links physical disabilities with psychological or emotional disabilities, either as the root of a problem or the result of a problem. This link creates another layer of conflict within Sondheim’s story by perpetuating the idea that physical disability is often “all in the head” of the disabled person. While Sondheim’s work is rife with social commentary on issues of race, gender, economics, and relationships, he doesn’t comment critically on disability. He simply relies on his disabled characters to provide metaphors that comment on other issues. As a result, the actual disabled people become tools for social or political agendas unrelated to disability oppression. Sondheim’s musical Into the Woods provides us with an excellent example of this. In his article, “Maternity, Madness, and Art in the Theater of Stephen Sondheim,” Allen W. Menton discusses the matriarchal and domineering role of mothers throughout Sondheim’s work. Specifically, Into the Woods comments on the social problem of the “[…] domineering or repressive mother figure locked in a cycle of dependence and rivalry with her (often grown) children […]” (61). These children often experience a level of madness as a result before breaking away from the mother’s domineering forces. Sondheim does not, however, use these children to demonstrate the oppression of the psychologically disabled in their own societies; he uses them to represent the negative effects of the domineering mother by allowing the disability to serve simply as the result of and warning against this type of behavior. Menton discusses the subtlety of the matriarchal influence in creating the emotionally disabled child: One way for the mother to maintain her power and authority is to deny that her child has in fact grown up. By promulgating the fiction that her offspring is a helpless child who cannot survive without a mother to protect it, the mother makes herself indispensable, and thus all-powerful. (62) Children like Rapunzel, Little Red Riding Hood, and Jack are the result of this type of over-mothering. Each is unable to break free from the mother figure because she has made herself a necessity for functional life; they are plagued by self-doubt and incapable of making decisions for themselves, thus emotionally and psychologically disabled. The Witch’s relationship with Rapunzel is, perhaps, an example of the extreme result of this mother/child bond. Because the Witch tries to protect Rapunzel by 2 shielding her from the world, Rapunzel becomes emotionally disabled. Her incessant singing of the same phrase over and over again can be read as a manifestation of madness her mother has caused. She is also unable to be a good wife and mother once she marries her prince, and continues to rely on her mother as the “primary determining force in her life” (Menton 65). She claims that her mother has destroyed her life because “of the way you treated me, I’ll never, never be happy!” (Menton 65). It is only in her own death that Rapunzel is finally freed from the maddening, unnatural, and smothering relationship with her mother. Into the Woods reinforces the “notion that this cycle of dependency lasts unto death” not only in this relationship, but also in the characters of Little Red Riding Hood and Jack