Aristotle may not have been a dramatist, but he was a true philosopher. In his investigations of Greek tragedy, he noted that the best players wielded six tools to work on the passions to bring about a “catharsis.” ‘Much ink has been spilled on what “catharsis” means exactly, and I won’t go into that here. But, at the very least, Aristotle is saying that theatre changes you by engaging your passions.
There’s no such thing as “just” telling a story. Thomas Aquinas tells us the storyteller’s task is “to guide us towards what is virtuous by representing it as attractive” (De Post. An.. Forward).
Without even trying, Christendom’s favorite Aristotelian has reduced the Poetrics to a rich Demi-glacé. A lecture may train the intellect and a sermon might guide the will, but—for good or ill—the poet woos the affections. Scripture grips our hearts with a love for young David as he puts his confidence in God to slay Goliath; Han shot first because we long to see a scoundrel reformed; and it isn’t until the Judge slips out from beneath Sweeney Todd’s vengeful razor that we realize we may have chosen the wrong side.
But how do they do that? Helpful as ever, Aristotle has given us his definitive six elements of drama in the following order of importance: plot, character, thought (or theme), diction, music and spectacle. He may have drawn these elements from Greek tragedy, but the attentive person will quickly notice that tragedy and the theatre do not have the corner on this market. While things like a book or a play may contain some of these elements only metaphorically, all the narrative arts possess them. Nevertheless, the more elements a story literally employs, the greater the effect on the passions.
As embodied creatures, we experience the world through sense perception. The more senses involved, the greater the impact. For example, the very act of note-taking improves a student’s recall, even if his notes aren’t that good. Similarly, reading a book is great; but its very pages and the primacy of the word keep the reader at an intellectual remove from the story. Film and television may add the visual and aural aspect, but the viewer is still restricted to the role of observer. Only in live theatre does the audience participate in and even shape the action, even if the actors never break the fourth wall. Throw in some show tunes and a little razzle-dazzle and you get the highest form of narrative art known to man: musical theatre.
There’s a reason Aristotle put spectacle and music at the end of his list: exciting the passions is a dangerous thing; you’d bet leave the deaths offstage. In his Confessions, Augustine wrestles with the place of music in worship for a similar reason.
“When they are sung, these sacred words stir my mind to greater religious fervor and kindle in me a more ardent flame of piety than they would if they were not sung; and I also know that there are particular modes in song and in the voice, corresponding to my various emotions and able to stimulate them because of the mysterious relationship between the two. But I ought not to allow my mind to be paralyzed by the gratification of my senses, which often leads it astray. For the senses are not content to take second place. Simply because I allow them their due, as adjuncts to reason, they attempt to take precedence and forge ahead of it, with the result that I sometimes sin in this way but am not aware of it until later.” (Confessions 10.33)
Augustine recognizes the reality that specific music gives rise to particular feelings. Those passions threaten to overstep their position as adjuncts to reason and climb into the driver’s seat. But just as Augustine allows for music that cedes primacy to the Word, we should appreciate a musical theatre score that serves plot, character, and thought.
Classically, the first song we get from the lead character in a musical is an “I want” song. In “I Just Can’t Wait to Be King,” for example, Simba not only tells us what he wants, but the songwriters make his youthful exuberance and somewhat out-sized confidence endearing. The very charm of this song keeps us on Team Simba through his foolish antics in anarchic exile until love finally brings him back to fulfill his duty as The Lion King. Congratulations, now his entire story arc is wrapped up in your enjoyment of the song.
The reprise relies on this same emotional-musical memory to work its magic. Like an unexpected layer of raspberry jam in a chocolate cake, the return of an earlier song in a new context gives new meaning to both. Alexander’s bravado in “My Shot” turns to cold reality in the Hamilton finale; South Pacific’s USO pastiche “Honey Bun” becomes a haunting reminder of the horrors of war; or, in the musical comedy tradition you get the tropes like “Guys & Dolls,” where the biggest production trumpets a cynical take on love before reprising it ironically in the double-wedding finale. In every case, the score serves as an additional enticement in the poet’s arsenal as he presents his vision of the good.
As the main component of spectacle that sets musicals apart from straight plays, dance has its own way of deepening our attention to plot, character, and thought. While you’ll find clumsy use of this idea in the now-passé use of the “dream ballet” in Golden Age musicals like Oklahoma!, integrated dance doesn’t come into its own until West Side Story. Jerome Robbins’s muscular choreography exploded from the action, into action (and often by Action). From the now-iconic snapping leaps of the opening sequence to Tony and Maria’s dreamy, meet-cute pas de deux, for the first time, plot and character fueled choreography and dance drove the thought of the story into our souls.
The creative team plays this masterfully in the original production as they introduce and develop the Jets. “Jet Song” pulls us into the buddy-boy bravado of these 1950s street youths. Sure, they’re a gang but at least they have each other’s backs. Then the cracks begin to show in “Cool.” With small explosions of unsettled dance and sound, our Jets try to outdo one another in anxious repression ahead of the rumble. The kids are not alright. And once the bodies drop, reality comes rushing in and they try to shake out their guilt with “Gee, Officer, Krupke.” In this darkly comic song, the boys dance on the knife edge of madness as they take turns crassly mimicking the failed authority figures in their lives. The “officer” shoves Action in front of the “judge,” the “judge” literally tosses him onto the “shrinks couch” and so on, exposing how these boys were left to wallow in their own depravity. How’s that for a little song and dance?
Music and dance can do more than express and excite the passions. In his delightful essay for First Things, Roberto de La Noval lights on the ways the serial comedy Arrested Development teaches us how to read Scripture. As with Arrested Development and Scripture, musical theatre “compels and rewards” those who return again and again. What the former do through hyper-textuality—repeated self-quotation and typological storytelling—musical theatre does through motival storytelling.
More subtle than the reprise, the musical motif is the connective tissue of a musical like Into the Woods. In this fairytale mashup about wishing and wanting and getting and regretting, composer and lyricist Stephen Sondheim tames potential chaos with two primary motifs: the “wish” theme and the “bean” theme. From the first two notes of the musical—the Wish Theme—these motifs suffuse the score. Though initially attached to a certain plot point, the 5-note bean theme soon wends its way through our characters as they confront a desire fulfilled. Each theme returns again and again—sometimes upside-down, backwards, or rhythmically jostled—until “No One Is Alone” brings about a new synthesis, Dream and reality come to a head and the result is wisdom.
Will you get all this on the first pass? Probably not. Nor will you notice that, after their tryst, the Baker’s Wife can only express herself using the Prince’s fanfare motif, until her moment of clarity returns her to her own theme. For that matter, you probably won’t recognize Hamilton choreographer Andy Blankenbueler’s visual motifs either. But when the Baker’s Wife returns in the finale or an ensemble member becomes The Bullet that will kill Alexander Hamilton, both are surprises made inevitable, the fulfillment of every motival moment.
But we don’t experience these things in a vacuum. To paraphrase de La Noval, the world shapes how we hear these motifs and the motifs begin to shape how we see the world. When we’re facing a monumental choice, we hear Cinderella singing, “How can you know what you want / ‘til you get what you want / and you see if you like it?” And I need not remind you of the recent overuse of Hamiltonian riffs on the refusal to throw away one’s shot.
As Jordan Peterson has often put it, storytelling allows us all the benefits of new experience without the risk. Each time reality stumbles over the tripwire in our brains, one of these little melodies switches on to light the path forward. Music and spectacle not only express and intensify plot, character, and theme, they ready us for action.
And nothing readies you for action like being a part of the action yourself. From almost the moment you walk in to take your seat, musical theatre has already begun to work its magic. Over the buzz of the crowd snatches of some high and insistent melody trumpet above the din of the orchestral warm-ups. You don’t know it yet, but it’s the hint of a motif you will hear throughout the night. The red velvet curtain makes big promises or its absence invites speculation. The energy shifts as the house lights dim and, with a flick of the conductor’s wrist, the overture begins and hundreds of people enter in to a communal act of storytelling.
Nothing can replace the in-person experience. Though we’ve come to vanishingly few points of consensus during our worldwide adventures in pandemic living, I’ve never heard an argument against that one. “How’s the house?” the actors ask. It’s not about audience size or demographics, but: are they ready to be a part of the show?
The late Terry Teachout’s distinctive laugh made every actor funnier. As Orpheus turns around at the last moment in Hadestown, the loud gasps that ripple across the audience and Hermes enters, channeling our need for a Greater Orpheus. To steal from T.S. Eliot, live musical theatre is “music heard so deeply / that it is not heard at all, but you are the music / While the music lasts.”
If the electricity of live theatre sears into our souls the passions stirred in us by music and dance, why did God give us a book instead? Well, He gave us the book of a musical. What did the Israelites do when God delivered them from the Pharoah’s army through the Red Sea? They sang and danced for joy. What did Mary do upon learning she would bear the Christ child? Like Hannah before her, she burst into song. So did Zacharias and Simeon. And any creative team worth their Dramatist Guild dues could easily craft a musical using nothing but the contents of ! Samuel and the Psalms—dancing included.
If Revelation is to be believed (and it is), all of eternity will be one big musical. And every seventh day we get a dress rehearsal. In this musical, God begins the action with his call to worship and we respond in character with no other thought than His glory. We sing because words alone cannot contain his majesty. Even the choreography reveals who we are as God’s people: a penitent people who kneel before Him, a redeemed people who can stand in His holy presence, a joyful people who lift up their hands in praise to His holy name.
Like it or not, your life is a musical and endless variations on the Psalms comprise its libretto. You’ve only got one life to get off-book, so you’d better be practicing. If you happen to be one of those people who can’t stand musical theatre, I can do no better than paraphrase Shakespeare, “Thou art sad; get thee into the Psalms!”
I’ll see you at rehearsal.
Brittany Petruzzi is a former theater professional and the host of Canticlear.
Aristotle may not have been a dramatist, but he was a true philosopher. In his investigations of Greek tragedy, he noted that the best players wielded six tools to work on the passions to bring about a “catharsis.” ‘Much ink has been spilled on what “catharsis” means exactly, and I won’t go into that here. But, at the very least, Aristotle is saying that theatre changes you by engaging your passions.
There’s no such thing as “just” telling a story. Thomas Aquinas tells us the storyteller’s task is “to guide us towards what is virtuous by representing it as attractive” (De Post. An.. Forward).
Without even trying, Christendom’s favorite Aristotelian has reduced the Poetrics to a rich Demi-glacé. A lecture may train the intellect and a sermon might guide the will, but—for good or ill—the poet woos the affections. Scripture grips our hearts with a love for young David as he puts his confidence in God to slay Goliath; Han shot first because we long to see a scoundrel reformed; and it isn’t until the Judge slips out from beneath Sweeney Todd’s vengeful razor that we realize we may have chosen the wrong side.
But how do they do that? Helpful as ever, Aristotle has given us his definitive six elements of drama in the following order of importance: plot, character, thought (or theme), diction, music and spectacle. He may have drawn these elements from Greek tragedy, but the attentive person will quickly notice that tragedy and the theatre do not have the corner on this market. While things like a book or a play may contain some of these elements only metaphorically, all the narrative arts possess them. Nevertheless, the more elements a story literally employs, the greater the effect on the passions.
As embodied creatures, we experience the world through sense perception. The more senses involved, the greater the impact. For example, the very act of note-taking improves a student’s recall, even if his notes aren’t that good. Similarly, reading a book is great; but its very pages and the primacy of the word keep the reader at an intellectual remove from the story. Film and television may add the visual and aural aspect, but the viewer is still restricted to the role of observer. Only in live theatre does the audience participate in and even shape the action, even if the actors never break the fourth wall. Throw in some show tunes and a little razzle-dazzle and you get the highest form of narrative art known to man: musical theatre.
There’s a reason Aristotle put spectacle and music at the end of his list: exciting the passions is a dangerous thing; you’d bet leave the deaths offstage. In his Confessions, Augustine wrestles with the place of music in worship for a similar reason.
“When they are sung, these sacred words stir my mind to greater religious fervor and kindle in me a more ardent flame of piety than they would if they were not sung; and I also know that there are particular modes in song and in the voice, corresponding to my various emotions and able to stimulate them because of the mysterious relationship between the two. But I ought not to allow my mind to be paralyzed by the gratification of my senses, which often leads it astray. For the senses are not content to take second place. Simply because I allow them their due, as adjuncts to reason, they attempt to take precedence and forge ahead of it, with the result that I sometimes sin in this way but am not aware of it until later.” (Confessions 10.33)
Augustine recognizes the reality that specific music gives rise to particular feelings. Those passions threaten to overstep their position as adjuncts to reason and climb into the driver’s seat. But just as Augustine allows for music that cedes primacy to the Word, we should appreciate a musical theatre score that serves plot, character, and thought.
Classically, the first song we get from the lead character in a musical is an “I want” song. In “I Just Can’t Wait to Be King,” for example, Simba not only tells us what he wants, but the songwriters make his youthful exuberance and somewhat out-sized confidence endearing. The very charm of this song keeps us on Team Simba through his foolish antics in anarchic exile until love finally brings him back to fulfill his duty as The Lion King. Congratulations, now his entire story arc is wrapped up in your enjoyment of the song.
The reprise relies on this same emotional-musical memory to work its magic. Like an unexpected layer of raspberry jam in a chocolate cake, the return of an earlier song in a new context gives new meaning to both. Alexander’s bravado in “My Shot” turns to cold reality in the Hamilton finale; South Pacific’s USO pastiche “Honey Bun” becomes a haunting reminder of the horrors of war; or, in the musical comedy tradition you get the tropes like “Guys & Dolls,” where the biggest production trumpets a cynical take on love before reprising it ironically in the double-wedding finale. In every case, the score serves as an additional enticement in the poet’s arsenal as he presents his vision of the good.
As the main component of spectacle that sets musicals apart from straight plays, dance has its own way of deepening our attention to plot, character, and thought. While you’ll find clumsy use of this idea in the now-passé use of the “dream ballet” in Golden Age musicals like Oklahoma!, integrated dance doesn’t come into its own until West Side Story. Jerome Robbins’s muscular choreography exploded from the action, into action (and often by Action). From the now-iconic snapping leaps of the opening sequence to Tony and Maria’s dreamy, meet-cute pas de deux, for the first time, plot and character fueled choreography and dance drove the thought of the story into our souls.
The creative team plays this masterfully in the original production as they introduce and develop the Jets. “Jet Song” pulls us into the buddy-boy bravado of these 1950s street youths. Sure, they’re a gang but at least they have each other’s backs. Then the cracks begin to show in “Cool.” With small explosions of unsettled dance and sound, our Jets try to outdo one another in anxious repression ahead of the rumble. The kids are not alright. And once the bodies drop, reality comes rushing in and they try to shake out their guilt with “Gee, Officer, Krupke.” In this darkly comic song, the boys dance on the knife edge of madness as they take turns crassly mimicking the failed authority figures in their lives. The “officer” shoves Action in front of the “judge,” the “judge” literally tosses him onto the “shrinks couch” and so on, exposing how these boys were left to wallow in their own depravity. How’s that for a little song and dance?
Music and dance can do more than express and excite the passions. In his delightful essay for First Things, Roberto de La Noval lights on the ways the serial comedy Arrested Development teaches us how to read Scripture. As with Arrested Development and Scripture, musical theatre “compels and rewards” those who return again and again. What the former do through hyper-textuality—repeated self-quotation and typological storytelling—musical theatre does through motival storytelling.
More subtle than the reprise, the musical motif is the connective tissue of a musical like Into the Woods. In this fairytale mashup about wishing and wanting and getting and regretting, composer and lyricist Stephen Sondheim tames potential chaos with two primary motifs: the “wish” theme and the “bean” theme. From the first two notes of the musical—the Wish Theme—these motifs suffuse the score. Though initially attached to a certain plot point, the 5-note bean theme soon wends its way through our characters as they confront a desire fulfilled. Each theme returns again and again—sometimes upside-down, backwards, or rhythmically jostled—until “No One Is Alone” brings about a new synthesis, Dream and reality come to a head and the result is wisdom.
Will you get all this on the first pass? Probably not. Nor will you notice that, after their tryst, the Baker’s Wife can only express herself using the Prince’s fanfare motif, until her moment of clarity returns her to her own theme. For that matter, you probably won’t recognize Hamilton choreographer Andy Blankenbueler’s visual motifs either. But when the Baker’s Wife returns in the finale or an ensemble member becomes The Bullet that will kill Alexander Hamilton, both are surprises made inevitable, the fulfillment of every motival moment.
But we don’t experience these things in a vacuum. To paraphrase de La Noval, the world shapes how we hear these motifs and the motifs begin to shape how we see the world. When we’re facing a monumental choice, we hear Cinderella singing, “How can you know what you want / ‘til you get what you want / and you see if you like it?” And I need not remind you of the recent overuse of Hamiltonian riffs on the refusal to throw away one’s shot.
As Jordan Peterson has often put it, storytelling allows us all the benefits of new experience without the risk. Each time reality stumbles over the tripwire in our brains, one of these little melodies switches on to light the path forward. Music and spectacle not only express and intensify plot, character, and theme, they ready us for action.
And nothing readies you for action like being a part of the action yourself. From almost the moment you walk in to take your seat, musical theatre has already begun to work its magic. Over the buzz of the crowd snatches of some high and insistent melody trumpet above the din of the orchestral warm-ups. You don’t know it yet, but it’s the hint of a motif you will hear throughout the night. The red velvet curtain makes big promises or its absence invites speculation. The energy shifts as the house lights dim and, with a flick of the conductor’s wrist, the overture begins and hundreds of people enter in to a communal act of storytelling.
Nothing can replace the in-person experience. Though we’ve come to vanishingly few points of consensus during our worldwide adventures in pandemic living, I’ve never heard an argument against that one. “How’s the house?” the actors ask. It’s not about audience size or demographics, but: are they ready to be a part of the show?
The late Terry Teachout’s distinctive laugh made every actor funnier. As Orpheus turns around at the last moment in Hadestown, the loud gasps that ripple across the audience and Hermes enters, channeling our need for a Greater Orpheus. To steal from T.S. Eliot, live musical theatre is “music heard so deeply / that it is not heard at all, but you are the music / While the music lasts.”
If the electricity of live theatre sears into our souls the passions stirred in us by music and dance, why did God give us a book instead? Well, He gave us the book of a musical. What did the Israelites do when God delivered them from the Pharoah’s army through the Red Sea? They sang and danced for joy. What did Mary do upon learning she would bear the Christ child? Like Hannah before her, she burst into song. So did Zacharias and Simeon. And any creative team worth their Dramatist Guild dues could easily craft a musical using nothing but the contents of ! Samuel and the Psalms—dancing included.
If Revelation is to be believed (and it is), all of eternity will be one big musical. And every seventh day we get a dress rehearsal. In this musical, God begins the action with his call to worship and we respond in character with no other thought than His glory. We sing because words alone cannot contain his majesty. Even the choreography reveals who we are as God’s people: a penitent people who kneel before Him, a redeemed people who can stand in His holy presence, a joyful people who lift up their hands in praise to His holy name.
Like it or not, your life is a musical and endless variations on the Psalms comprise its libretto. You’ve only got one life to get off-book, so you’d better be practicing. If you happen to be one of those people who can’t stand musical theatre, I can do no better than paraphrase Shakespeare, “Thou art sad; get thee into the Psalms!”
I’ll see you at rehearsal.
Brittany Petruzzi is a former theater professional and the host of Canticlear.
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