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Johnny Johnson As Gestic Theatre Michael Patrick Nolan Florida State University Libraries Electronic Theses, Treatises and Dissertations The Graduate School 2004 Brechtian Philosophy without Brecht: Johnny Johnson as Gestic Theatre Michael Patrick Nolan Follow this and additional works at the FSU Digital Library. For more information, please contact [email protected] THE FLORIDA STATE UNIVERSITY SCHOOL OF THEATRE BRECHTIAN PHILOSOPHY WITHOUT BRECHT: JOHNNY JOHNSON AS GESTIC THEATRE By MICHAEL PATRICK NOLAN 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, 2004 The members of the Committee approve the thesis of Michael Patrick Nolan defended on March 29, 2004. Anita Gonzalez Professor Directing Thesis Carrie Sandahl Committee Member Gayle Seaton Committee Member The Office of Graduate Studies has verified and approved the above named committee members. ii ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS The author would like to thank the helpful and friendly staff of the Wilson Library at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill for their assistance in accessing the Paul Green Papers without which this project could not have been possible. The author would also like to acknowledge the tireless work of his thesis committee, Anita Gonzalez, Carrie Sandahl, and Gayle Seaton, as well as Joe Karioth and Mary- Karen Dahl for their support, encouragement, and assistance during a difficult time. The author would also like to thank Hollie Marie Corbitt for invaluable editorial and research assistance, as well as transportation. Finally, the author would like to thank the late John Degen for introducing me to a wonderful play called Johnny Johnson, for his encyclopedia-like knowledge of American musical theatre, and his tireless efforts as a member of my committee. iii TABLE OF CONTENTS LIST OF FIGURES ……………………………………………………………………. v ABSTRACT …………………………………………………………………………… iv INTRODUCTION …………………………………………………….……………... 1 Texts and Methodology………………………………………………………… 3 1. THE CREATION OF GESTUS AND JOHNNY JOHNSON ………………..…….. 7 Johnny Johnson, an American Everyman ……………………………….….… 7 Weill, Green, and the Group: Unlikely Prophets of Peace …….……………… 10 Evolving Theories of Gestus: Musical, Lyrical, and Social ………………….. 21 2. THE MUSIC OF JOHNNY JOHNSON: DETERMINING GESTUS ……………… 31 Songs of War and Peace ………………………………………..………..……. 31 The Traditional Waltz in Johnny Johnson ……………….…………………… 34 Gestus through the Tango in “Captain Valentine’s Song”……………….…... 35 The Missing Scenes and Song …………………………..………………….... 37 The Goddess’ Song—Gestus Through Icons …………………………………. 43 A Sea Song For Tea …………………………………..…………………….… 45 Kraber’s Cowboy Song …………………………….……………………….…. 48 Mysterious Melodies and Musical Munitions ….…..…………………….……. 50 The Use of “La Marseille” …………………………..………………………... 52 The Repeating Foxtrot ………………………….…………….…………….…. 53 War and Tumults ………………………………………………………………. 56 The Lunatics Running the Asylum …………………………………………… 57 Gestus and Satire …………………….……………………………………….... 60 Johnny’s Song …………………..……………………………………………... 63 3. CONCLUSION …………………..…………………………………………………. 67 APPENDIX ……………………...…………………………………………………..… 80 REFERENCES ……………...………………………………………………………… 94 BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH ………..………………………………………………… 99 iv LIST OF FIGURES FIGURE 1. “Democracy’s Call”………………………………………………………... 80 FIGURE 2. “Democracy’s Call”………………………………………………………... 80 FIGURE 3. “Democracy’s Call” ……………………………………………………….. 81 FIGURE 4. “Democracy’s Call” ……………………………………………………….. 81 FIGURE 5. “Democracy’s Call” (reprise) ……………………………………………... 82 FIGURE 6. “Captain Valentine’s Song”……………………………………………….. 82 FIGURE 7. “Captain Valentine’s Song” ………………………………………………. 83 FIGURE 8. “The West Pointer” ………………………………………………………... 84 FIGURE 9. “The West Pointer” ………………………………………………………... 84 FIGURE 10. “The Sea Song” ………………………………………………………….. 85 FIGURE 11. “Oh the Rio Grande” …………………………………………………….. 85 FIGURE 12. “Oh Heart of Love” ……………………………………………………… 86 FIGURE 13. “Johnny’s Dream” ……………………………………………………….. 86 FIGURE 14. “The Allied High Command” ……………………………………………. 87 FIGURE 15. “The Laughing Generals” ………………………………………………... 88 FIGURE 16. “The Battle” ……………………………………………………………… 88 FIGURE 17. “The Battle” ……………………………………………………………… 88 FIGURE 18. “In Times of War and Tumults” …………………………………………. 89 FIGURE 19. “The Psychiatry Song” …………………………………………………... 90 FIGURE 20. “The Psychiatry Song ……………………………………………………. 90 FIGURE 21. “The Psychiatry Song ……………………………………………………. 91 FIGURE 22. “Asylum Chorus” ………………………………………………………... 92 FIGURE 23. “Blest Be the Tie That Binds” …………………………………………… 92 FIGURE 24. “Johnny’s Song” …………………………………………………………. 93 FIGURE 25. “Johnny’s Song …………………………………………………………... 93 v ABSTRACT This thesis explores Weill and Green’s Johnny Johnson, produced by the Group Theatre in 1936. The play is an example of gestic theatre, first seen in the works of Brecht and Weill and continued by Weill after his arrival in the United States. The purpose is to determine the gestic quality of the play by first exploring the many theories and identifying a clear definition of gestus, and then by highlighting moments in the texts that exhibit qualities of that definition. By using both published material and archival documents from the Wilson Library at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, a detailed reading was performed to determine moments within the play that meet the criteria established in the paper. The material reviewed included the text of the play as well as Weill’s musical score. The research determined four variations of gestus either created by Brecht and Weill or adapted by Weill and Green: musical, lyrical, visual and social. Johnny Johnson contains several examples of these variations. Johnny Johnson is a clear example of Brecht and Weill’s legacy, the next step in their theories, which has its influence in current musical theatre. vi INTRODUCTION In 1936 the Group Theatre produced its first and only musical, Johnny Johnson, an anti-war morality tale set during the First World War. Paul Green wrote the lyrics and the book, and Kurt Weill composed the music. Green was a Southern playwright and social activist from North Carolina, who had won a Pulitzer Prize a decade prior to writing Johnny Johnson. Weill was a composer of opera and popular musical theatre in his native Germany before emigrating to the United States when the Nazis came to power. The Group Theatre, a company of actors and directors that attempted to promote the theories of Constantine Stanislavski and to produce meaningful plays with a social impact, brought these unlikely collaborators together. The resulting endeavor, Johnny Johnson, is a curious play. At its heart it is a modern-day morality play with an American “Everyman” as its central character. He encounters the horrors of war, and the authors express their own war-related social and political opinions through his experiences. Green and Weill assert that the public was being led through blind patriotism, that their leaders’ tactics and motives were questionable, and that society had a negative reaction to peace-seeking individuals. The moral of the story is that war ruins lives, yet if the individual is sound, he may survive the experience with his soul intact. The play is an amalgam of styles; scenes shift freely from realism to expressionism to surrealism. In addition to having the distinction of being Kurt Weill’s first attempt at creating a musical after leaving his native Germany in 1933, it is also the only musical that either the Group Theatre or Paul Green would ever create, although Green would later incorporate music in many of his symphonic dramas, such as Lost Colony. It is also significant in that it is the first appearance of gestic theatre in the American musical, used in this instance to protest the horrors of war. Gestic music is music that is specifically designed to foster an emotional and intellectual relationship between the audience and the play, drawing on the 1 inherent assumptions and preconceived notions that an audience would invariably possess towards an identifiable style of music. The audience would react to the musical styles familiarity and transfer whatever feelings or thought they embody to the actor and situation, essentially communicating to the audience a specific attitude or gest. The use of gestus in Johnny Johnson can largely be credited to Weill’s theories on music, which he formulated while creating musical theatre in Germany. Weill’s theories sprang from his mostly successful partnership with noted playwright, director, and theorist Bertolt Brecht, who had significant ideas about how theatre should be performed. Brecht combined narrative and dramatic elements to tell his stories, employing what he called the Verfremdungseffekt (roughly, “estrangement effect”) to stimulate his audience intellectually, and he paid particular attention to the gestic qualities of his productions. Brecht and Weill gained international fame with their productions of The Threepenny Opera (1927) and The Rise and Fall of the City of Mahagonny (1930), in which they developed their ideas of gestus. The German collaborators parted over creative differences and soon found themselves fleeing Germany in 1933. Their paths led them to radically different destinies. Brecht lived in exile, writing his most famous plays and scholarly works, while Weill became a Broadway composer. Brecht continued to write about gestus, refining his theories, but what happened to Weill’s own theories on gestic music? Did he abandon them in favor of a Broadway
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