Abstract
The new approach to the musical canon discussed in chapter seven has wrought a significant change in how we think about the classics. In this chapter, I look specifically at the way in which five British-directed productions have helped to redefine our relationship with classic musicals: Nicholas Hytner’s Carousel, Trevor Nunn’s Oklahoma!, Sam Mendes’s Cabaret, Matthew Warchus’s Follies, and David Leveaux’s Nine. All five productions originated in London or New York and they all played on Broadway between 1993 and 2004. It is not my contention that these were the first or the only attempts to look at classic musicals through fresh eyes. But the high profile of these productions and the critical interest that they have stimulated has helped to normalize a more interpretive approach to the musical canon. Most importantly in terms of this book, they have intensified the connections between mainstream musical theatre and drama by emphasizing new dramaturgical and thematic approaches to the material and, crucially, physical staging inspired by the text rather than the original production.
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Notes
Frank Rich, “You’ll Always Walk Alone,” New York Tmes, March 31, 1994.
David Richards, “A ‘Carousel’ for the 90’s, Full of Grit and Passion,” New York Times, March 25, 1994.
Ismene Brown, “Dancing with Joy,” The Daily Telegraph, July 10, 1998.
Frank Rich, “You’ll Always Walk Alone,” New York Times, March 31, 1994.
Jane Edwardes, Time Out, February 16, 1992.
Frank Rich, “You’ll Always Walk Alone,” New York Times, March 31, 1994.
David Gritten, “The New Pioneer Spirit,” The Daily Telegraph, July 10, 1998.
Ismene Brown, “Dancing with Joy,” The Daily Telegraph, July 10, 1998.
David Gritten, “The New Pioneer Spirit,” The Daily Telegraph, July 10, 1998.
Michael Billington, “Oklahoma!” The Guardian, July 16, 1998.
Sam Mendes quoted in Matt Wolf, “A London Maverick Arrives for First (and Second) Time,” New York Times, February 1, 1998.
Walter Kerr, review of Cabaret, New York Times, November, 15, 1987.
Ben Brantley, “Desperate Dance at Oblivion’s Brink,” New York Times, March 20, 1998.
James E. Young, The Texture of Memory: Holocaust Memorials and Meaning, quoted in Mervyn Rothstein, “In Three Revivals, the Goose Stepping Is Louder,” New York Times, March 8, 1998.
Mervyn Rothstein, “In Three Revivals, the Goose Stepping Is Louder,” New York Times, March 8, 1998.
Michiko Kakutani, “Culture Zone; Window on the World,” The New York Times Magazine, April 26, 1998.
Mark Steyn, review of Follies, The Independent, July 23, 1987.
Clive Barnes, “Revival’s a Bit of a Folly,” New York Post, April 6, 2001.
Ben Brantley, “Desperate Dance at Oblivion’s Brink,” New York Times, April 6, 2000.
Frank Rich, “Nine, a Musical Based on Fellini’s 8½,” New York Times, May 10, 1982.
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© 2008 Miranda Lundskaer-Nielsen
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Lundskaer-Nielsen, M. (2008). Staging the Canon: British Directors and Classic American Musicals. In: Directors and the New Musical Drama. Palgrave Studies in Theatre and Performance History. Palgrave Macmillan, New York. https://doi.org/10.1057/9780230611245_9
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1057/9780230611245_9
Publisher Name: Palgrave Macmillan, New York
Print ISBN: 978-1-349-37068-9
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