Strange Syntax: the Use of Foreign Languages in American Musicals
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Strange Syntax: The Use of Foreign Languages in American Musicals An honors thesis for the Department of Drama and Dance Kyle Matthew Sircus Advisors: Professor Barbara W. Grossman, Department of Drama and Dance Assistant Professor Stephan Pennington, Department of Music Tufts University, 2011 “My job is to write 'em, your job is to place 'em in a socio-historical context.” – Lin-Manuel Miranda, composer of In the Heights ACKNOWLEDGMENTS: First and foremost, I must extend unending thanks to my academic advisor, Professor Barbara Wallace Grossman. Barbara has been a constant in my time at Tufts and has encouraged me in all my endeavors across my four years here. I owe her much gratitude for looking past her skepticism about this topic and encouraging me to find the “there” there. This thesis is the end result of many discussions during which she provided her support, encouragement, and ideas for further investigation, unwavering support and reminders that my writing and ideas matter. Without her, I would not have found my second reader, Stephan Pennington of the Tufts Music department, whose guidance about narrowing my discussion, as well as alternative intellectual avenues to pursue were invaluable (and nothing but rewarding due to their considerable challenge). Thanks also to Sol Gittleman, my ILVS advisor, whose objective counseling and sunny demeanor proved an excellently calming resource. My research was based on mostly primary source material, as very little has been written about either of the shows included in my thesis. I could not have pursued this work in such an in- depth manner without the generous financial support of the Tufts Summer Scholars program, overseen by Dean Glaser of Undergraduate Education. Laura Doane, Director of Advising and Scholarships, who manages the program alongside him was a constant source of support and guidance not only on my thesis, but pursuits after graduation as well. Joanne Barnett and Rita Ortolino-Dioguardi endured my moments of confusion and venting, for which I am thankful. Throughout my research, the staffs at the Billy Rose Theatre Collection and Theatre on Film Archive at Lincoln Center were extraordinarily helpful. I am also forever indebted to Lin- Manuel Miranda, Quiara Alegría Hudes, Craig Lucas and John Bush Jones for graciously agreeing to be interviewed and providing a great wealth of source material and insight. Much of the thrill of writing this thesis came from my meaningful engagement with theatre artists working today; their willingness to speak to me provided more encouragement than they will ever know. Thanks to Yvonne Wakeford, Tufts’ IRB administrator, for her clarifications. I would not have secured my contact with these artists without the help of doctoral candidate Megan Stahl. Not only were her professional connections extremely advantageous, but her support as a friend and scholar went above and beyond. She, along with Helen Deborah Lewis and Ginny Anderson, her fellow graduate students at Tufts, were invaluable sources of friendship and advice, both scholarly and personal, during my time at Tufts. I thank them for treating me as an equal, both intellectually and socially. Allie Jameson deserves the credit for helping to plant the seeds of this idea by playing the soundtrack to Le Roi Lion during one of our many summer drives to New York. Jeewon Kim graciously provided the Spanish translation for the selections from In the Heights; he and my fellow housemates proved a pleasant distraction after long days of writing. I owe my gratitude to Brendan Johannsen for remaining a supportive friend while near and far, and for being both a role model and friend. Finally, I would have been lost without Emily Rosen’s friendship, hospitality, interest in and encouragement of my progress and willingness to discuss my ideas. Finally, I need to thank my family for their unending and unwavering support, not only in this capstone academic endeavor, but throughout my entire life. I dedicate this paper to all of them: to Grandpa Harold for his amazement and pride; Grandma Roz, who would have loved to read it; Grandma Toby for being a willing theatre companion and giving me the opportunity to write in sunshine. To Joel for keeping me in check with good humor and rock solid advice. Last, but certainly not least, to my parents, Mindy and Gary Sircus for their constant support, love, guidance and, most importantly, my roots and wings. TABLE OF CONTENTS: “SAY IT SOMEHOW I WILL UNDERSTAND”: AN INTRODUCTION ............................................................ 1 “TAMATI SO EHELELE MA…DO YOU UNDERSTAND?”: THE LION KING ............................................ 9 "WHAT'S THE POINT OF SPEAKING THE LANGUAGE IF THEY STILL WON'T HEAR YOU?": IN THE HEIGHTS…………………………………………………………………………………..33 “THE WHOLE BIG, RICH STEW”: CONCLUDING THOUGHTS .............................................................. 63 APPENDIX A: INTERVIEW WITH CRAIG LUCAS ............................................................................... 72 APPENDIX B: INTERVIEW WITH LIN-MANUEL MIRANDA ............................................................... 79 APPENDIX C: INTERVIEW WITH QUIARA ALEGRÍA HUDES ............................................................. 81 APPENDIX D: DATA FROM THE BROADWAY LEAGUE'S 2008-2009 ANNUAL REPORT .................... 83 APPENDIX E: EDWARD ROTHSTEIN ARTICLE ................................................................................. 93 BIBLIOGRAPHY .............................................................................................................................. 98 “SAY IT SOMEHOW I WILL UNDERSTAND”: AN INTRODUCTION In 2005 Lincoln Center Theater staged the Broadway premiere of The Light in the Piazza, Adam Guettel and Craig Lucas’ musical adaptation of Elizabeth Spenser’s 1960 novella of the same title. The story chronicles the vacation of Margaret, a proper Southern belle from Winston- Salem, and her daughter Clara as they travel to Italy to recreate Margaret’s honeymoon. The mentally handicapped Clara falls in love with Fabrizio, a Florentine whose first language is not English. The narrative centers on Margaret and Clara’s inability to readily communicate in the same language as the Italians; a large amount of the show is staged in Italian without the use of super-titles. This linguistic disconnect parallels the audience’s relationship with the production whose conceit is to place them in a similar position to the American protagonists. In a telephone interview last year, playwright Craig Lucas explained how so much of the show came to be written in Italian: I just felt that I did not want to watch a bunch of American actors talking like a diz; dat dat would be a-stoopid. And that I would rather see subtitles. And we kind of hit on the idea that, what’s happening, that maybe there was a way to put the audience in Margaret and Clara’s shoes, and to force them to watch the culture and behavior, that they couldn’t entirely parse. Because the whole story and the way it works is predicated on believing that the Italians might not know what’s going on with Clara, that the language issue was critical to the plot.1 The show uses language in an innovative way that explicitly aims to place the audience in the same confused and unknowing position as the characters on stage. In their climactic love song, the two ingénues encourage each other to express their love, singing, “Say it somehow/ I will understand.” Although love conquers all and their linguistic misunderstandings do not prevent their being married by the end of the show, the addition of Italian to the familiar narrative of American stranger in a strange land shows a contemporary development in the American musical 1 Craig Lucas, telephone interview with author, July 8, 2010. 2 John Bush Jones, Our Musicals, Ourselves: A Social History of the American Musical Theater (Lebanon, New theater that differs from its twentieth-century predecessors. The development of this legacy is clear by examining work by Guettel’s grandfather, Richard Rodgers, whose musical The King and I deals with similar issues of outsiders in a foreign land, albeit without relying on language. Richard Rodgers and Oscar Hammerstein II’s collaboration ushered in a new kind of musical theater, perpetuating what scholars would later call the “Rodgers and Hammerstein revolution.”2 Beginning with Oklahoma! in 1943, their work transformed the structure of the traditional book musical, particularly with their fluid integration of book, songs and Agnes DeMille’s choreography to streamline their storytelling. The team’s 1951 show The King and I was just one of those subsequent successes. The story of an English school-teacher venturing to Siam (now Thailand) and her subsequent encounters with the King and his royal family brought the audience on a journey to a distant land, but did not resort to a broad caricature of a foreign culture. John Bush Jones notes that “Hammerstein…[continued] to promote tolerance and respect among peoples of different cultures… In no other musical did Hammerstein so skillfully embed his advocacy of tolerance in the plot and characters.”3 Jones is right, to a certain extent. However, this tolerance only existed ideologically; the inner workings of the musical itself show that this tolerance falls short, especially from a contemporary perspective. The conversations between the Siamese royalty and British Anna ignore the significant language barrier, instead relying on exaggerated accents, poor syntax, and mispronounced