The subject of British versus American musicals seems to have come up a lot recently. David Cote thinks the Americans win hands down when it comes to having the right cultural DNA. As a librettist and workshop facilitator myself, I often hear writers bemoan the difference between the two musical theatre worlds.
Although there’s never enough teaching of craft, there are several UK courses on musical theatre writing. There are companies who specifically support new musicals, and two new “British musicals” have recently hit London: Stephen Clark and Howard Goodall’s Love Story and the Cowen, Lipman, Stiles and Drewe show Betty Blue Eyes.
Do they fit the “British musical” tag? The Theatre Royal Stratford East are soon to stage what they’re calling a “British Chinese musical”: Takeaway, a story set in London, written by New York-based writer Robert Lee and Hong Kong-based composer Leon Ko. (This definition would make Evita an Argentinean musical. Argentinean British?)
Director Kerry Michael, a big supporter of musical theatre writers and writing, says the tag is not just about the British experience in the story, but also about the British money that’s financing the project. It is undeniably brilliant that there’s money and support for new writing, but stories don’t emerge from the money. They emerge from the writer.
This will be a story about a British experience, told by American Chinese writers. All of those things will influence the show... and more.
David Cote is correct: American writers have American Musical Theatre written into their cultural DNA. Any creative writer can only tell stories filtered through their own unique make-up. That’s not about American people, but about people who are American amongst other things.
Take me, for example. I was born in America but predominantly raised in England. I am also Danish by descent, and have had a lot of Scandinavian influence in my life.
Anything I write must filter through all of these things in order to get to the page. There is no helping that. I expect if you look closely, you’ll find both panto and Tom Lehrer in my humour. My characters certainly chase the Danish concept of hygge in their lives, but mostly try to do so in a New York Minute. None of those things would be true if it were not for everything that I am, and everything that I am is the only thing that I can be.
So the upcoming “British Chinese musical” is a British American Chinese musical, if you like, but it is so much more than that. Let’s celebrate Robert Lee and Leon Ko as writers, and Kerry Michael as director. The show, and this production of it, will emerge from the complexity of everything they are, including but not limited to their nationalities or cultural identities (which are even more complex than I have mentioned here).
Writers of new musicals need to know that there is no perfect model of ‘British’ or even ‘American’ musical theatre against which to compare our own work. Writing is hard enough as it is, without a fantastical goal of what we should be creating or, frankly, a fantastical idea of what might be inhibiting our creativity.
The most successful writers are true to themselves as people, and therefore true to the writing. It’s not easy. Writing can be terrifying, but if we are the only ones inhibiting ourselves then we have the power to change, and that is the crucial difference.
Other factors certainly open or close doors for writers in terms of productions, but once you’re in the theatre and connecting with an audience, only the truth will do. So I say to writers: ignore any notion of what British musical theatre ought to be, and just write truthfully. It will filter through some ‘Britishness’ anyway, as it emerges from you. Don’t get in its way.
