Word: songfulness
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Cecil Sharp House in London's leafy Regent's Park is nobody's idea of a fashionable venue. The Spartan headquarters of the English Folk Dance and Song Society is home to such curiosities as tabor-drum workshops and Morris-dancing classes...
...Bread's truly horrible AM-radio hit If from years of accumulated treacle by tinkling out the barest hint of melody, confidently letting each note float around until it resolves itself in your head. He's equally adept at spelling his minimalism with funk on the original Ellen's Song, and closes with a solo version of Lord, I Give Myself to You, in which he harmonizes with himself in glorious fashion...
...preparation for a typical musical has its familiar anxieties: cutting a favorite song, replacing a dialogue scene, finding some extra business for the star. That's nothing compared with the three-year ordeal of bringing Middle-earth to life. The mostly British creative team, beginning with playwright Shaun McKenna, had to figure out how to choreograph the complex battles Tolkien described; how to visualize the dozen realms in the saga and the dozens of characters of many species; how to blend narrative, drama and music in a three-act production--and do it all without retakes or post-production computer...
...what of the music? The first hour suggests an ambitious but conventional musical, with a rousing drinking song and some lovely Elvish ballads that, as one hobbit in the show says, are "like wine for the ears." But as the tale darkens and deepens, LOTR turns into musical drama, with songs replaced by underscoring of the battles. The last real song, and it's a beaut, comes at the end of Act II: Frodo and his friend Sam Gamgee sing in reminiscence of the Shire they love, "Now and for always...
...Given such barriers, the question of why Harvard audiences should even care about the musical requires an answer that speaks to something the show itself. The most obvious one is that “Spamalot”—while containing subversive numbers like “The Song Goes Like This,” a parody of the cliché-riddled spectacles discussed above—has also become the standard for musical theater right now. The show has certainly garnered more commercial success—and possibly more critical success—than any since...