I hear people all the time criticizing musicals by saying “why can’t they just say what they mean instead of singing and dancing about it?” and for years the only answer I’ve had was a smile and a shrug, but I finally just figured it out.
It’s because the words by themselves aren’t enough.
Outside the song, there would be almost no moving passion in Javert’s words “This I swear by the stars.” How would He Had It Comin’ be anywhere near as dangerous and vengeful without the lighting and the dance routine? The reprise of Wouldn’t It Be Luvverly is essential to underlining just how much Henry Higgins has changed and damaged Eliza Doolittle. The Mary Poppins chimney sweeps would just be weird guys off the roof if they didn’t have their whole zany song and choreography to make them a funny and interesting group. And there aren’t any words in any language to describe the complete change in Leslie Odom Jr.’s voice as the music cuts off and he solos “I…wanna be in the room where it happens, the room where it happens.”
The reason we have musicals–and the reason we have music in general–is because words aren’t enough.
THIS!!!!!!!!
One piece of wisdom I learned years ago is that musical numbers and fight scenes in stage plays both happen when emotions have reached a peak and dialogue has finally become insufficient.
I mean that’s just how art works. We know people don’t really burst into choreographed song numbers in the middle of a conversation. People in Shakespeare’s time knew that no one actually spoke in iambic pentameter. Heck, even “realistic” prose novels don’t reflect how people speak, with stutters and false starts and mixed up words that aren’t plot relevant. We use the convention of form in order to get a point across.
(and if anyone says musicals are trash, I will fight you)
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