Festival Theatre
Tuningin There’s a rockin’, poppin’, boppin’ lot of music in the theatre these days. Miles Fielder asks what inspires theatre-makers to create plays based on popular tunes
T he Fringe always arrives with a ready- made soundtrack composed of musicals, opera and gigs as well as the tuneful accompaniments to theatre shows, to say nothing of the raucous racket generated morning, noon and night by street performers. This year, however, there’s a cluster of theatre shows that take the lives of musicians as a starting point and add to that a biographical narrative to create dramas with music.
While it’s possible that the ongoing popularity of the conventional stage musical has provided an appetite for this music-themed theatre, these shows are doing something different from productions of traditional West End musicals such as Buddy, Oliver! and Sweeney Todd – also being staged at this year’s Fringe. Woody Sez, for instance, combines the music and lyrics of the politically engaged American folk legend Woody Guthrie with excerpts from the articles he wrote for a leftist newspaper to create a portrait of the man whose opinions still resonate today. Elsewhere, Almost Like a Virgin tells the life story, not of Madonna Ciccone, but of Madge mimic Evelyne Brink, while The Rex Roman Pink Floyd Show attempts to overturn the prog-rock band’s enduring uncool status. With air guitars.
Meanwhile, German pop-punk/electro-clash sensation Die Roten Punkte make their Edinburgh premiere on the UK leg of their Robot-Lion Tour, although, as this is actually a comedy show about dysfunctional siblings Otto and Astrid Rot, the music is mashed up with outrageous autobiographical asides. All of these shows feature music, but they also come cut with a good deal more than show tunes. ‘I have called our show for a long time a “concert narrative” or a “theatrical concert”,’ says David Lutken, the veteran Broadway performer who conceived and stars in Woody Sez and who brought it to Edinburgh for its world debut in 2007. ‘I’ve made my living for a long time in the US in a form that has the loose title “guitar theatre”. This became quite popular in the 1980s and 90s, because of the popularity of musicals and also their high cost. That created a lot of opportunities for fellas like me, who are actors who also play musical instruments. There are just four of us in the play and we have a total of 16 instruments on stage with us – guitar, mandolin, banjo, violin, fiddle, harmonica, auto- harp, all kinds of things that go with this style of American folk music – so we are, effectively, the orchestra.’
52 THE LIST FESTIVAL MAGAZINE 6–13 Aug 2009