West Side Story
-- Maria, |
In the usual course of events, a song that is sung on the Broadway stage is not "really" a song within the imaginary world of the story in which it resides. Instead it is a musical expression of an idea, a philosophy, an argument or question, and, at least once in just about every show, a romantic declaration, delivered through the emotionally heightened medium of song. Most often, only the actor is singing, and not the character. To take a well-known example, the two teen-age sweethearts in The Sound of Music are not understood to be singing when they declare their puppy love in "Sixteen Going on Seventeen." It is the actors who are expressing the sentiments in music. However the same Rodgers and Hammerstein score contains several songs that are "really" songs, famously taught by the governess Maria to her charges and performed at family outings and parties, and for the climactic Music Festival competition. In such cases the characters are indeed singing, and not just externalizing an idea in song. One term used to identify such songs is "diegetic."
"Diegesis" is a term used in art and literature to describe what is told, i.e. narrative, as opposed to what is shown ("mimesis"). Filmmakers have appropriated the word to define the time/space continuum of a fictional world (such as that of the Star Trek franchise) that must be accepted and understood by the audience in order to appreciate the narrative. In his much-praised critical volume Sondheim's Broadway Musicals, Stephen Banfield—Professor of Music at the University of Bristol—uses a character in Stephen Sondheim's Follies to define the diegetic song and to illustrate two important characteristics: that the character is singing within the diegesis of the fictional story, and that the other characters know that she is singing. Thus the song"…is a diegetic song; that is, as music, lyric, and gesture it is not just engaged as an artificial means of conveying a point to the theatre audience or highlighting it for their benefit, though of course it does this. It is an item in the narrative plot—the song is actually happening on stage as part of the real-life story. To put it another way, it is sung by a character who knows that she is singing, and it implies that the other characters onstage know it too, unless they happen to be portrayed as being out of earshot." (#E1.1)
As with "Sixteen Going on Seventeen," the songs of a Broadway score ordinarily are not diegetic. The same show contains a scene in which the nuns are worriedly reviewing the behavior of their young postulant ("How Do You Solve a Problem Like Maria?"). They are not meant to be seen as actually singing in the scenario of an Austrian abbey, although the actresses are of course conveying their thoughts and opinions in song from the reality of a theater stage. While most of the songs in The King and I are not diegetic, the second-act Ballet is a musical performance for the King's guests and most certainly is to be viewed as a presentation actually being sung and danced for this royal reception. "Getting to Know You" is also a candidate for this category, as the kind of light-hearted song that an enthusiastic teacher might sing (or teach) to her young class. The Cabaret stage score carries songs both diegetic and non-diegetic, though for the film version director Bob Fosse and screenwriter Jay Allen engineered the proceedings so that all of the songs were sung by performers in the Kit Kat Klub and thus all were diegetic. Flower Drum Song contains several nightclub presentations in addition to the eponymous "A Hundred Million Miracles," and two nightclub numbers are featured in Guys and Dolls. Bye Bye Birdie's "One Last Kiss" is a "real" tune sung by the rock 'n' roll idol to his fans, and when Nellie Forbush performs "Honey Bun" in South Pacific it is for a Navy show within the Broadway show. Any musical about a musical (Me and Juliet, Kiss Me, Kate) or about any other performing venue (Show Boat, Dreamgirls) invariably will include songs from the internal piece. The big mama of show business musicals, Gypsy, practically overflows with diegetic and non-diegetic gems. And the classic "One" from A Chorus Line enjoys a dual identity as a diegetic audition piece for the internal story as well as the famous non-diegetic finale of the musical.
With the exception of Cabaret as noted, all these examples apply to both the stage and screen versions of each work. And at least one more musical contains songs that became diegetic on their trip from Broadway to Hollywood.
The stage version of West Side Story does not contain any diegetic songs. (Technically it does contain a diegetic dance: The Dance at the Gym is a "real" dance attended and performed by the gang members and their girls. The level of professional talent exhibited by these teen-agers is dubious but not entirely implausible.) The lighter vocal offerings in this eclectic score, namely "America," "Gee, Officer Krupke" and "I Feel Pretty" have a diversionary quality that suggests the makings of a diegetic offering. But none of these really fits the general definition. A diegetic song is basically a presentational musical number detached from the story line to indicate an internal musical offering. Light though they may be, each of these three is a natural—and, needless to say, seamless—extension of the conversation that has preceded it. "America" is a continuation of a teasing argument between Anita and Rosalia. On both stage and film, "Krupke" is an escalation of the discourse on juvenile delinquents versus the world. Also like its film counterpart, the stage presentation of "I Feel Pretty" is the carefree outpouring to her friends of Maria's new romantic discovery. On stage, every one of these numbers is a musical expression of the ideas that supports the dialogue to which it is attached. The exuberant dance that accompanies "America" expertly intensifies this expression, although we really are not meant to believe that these young women are actually kicking up their heels in a New York City alley at midnight, any more than we are meant to be confused (or amused) by the notion of poor parent-cautious Maria shushing her new boyfriend on the fire escape after they have both been singing at the top of their lungs. In none of these examples are the characters actually singing, even though the performers are.
Most of the songs made it to Hollywood without losing their non-diegetic status. It is easy to understand, for example, that Ice is not "really" singing to the Jets, nor are they meant to be perceived as "really" dancing. Here again, the entire number "Cool" is a musical interpretation of the idea established in the dialogue attached to it, i.e. the need to calm down, play it cool and not get caught; the dance demonstrates the venting process. The general idea is no different than it was in the play, although the inspired decision to transfer the piece to a point following the rumble only serves to heighten the dramatic effect of this song. Nor are we meant to believe that Tony is "actually" singing "Something's Coming;" he is only externalizing (for the audience) his private thoughts and expectations. While the vaudevillian "Gee, Officer Krupke" can be viewed as jovial and boisterous, the Jets are only horsing around as young men do, and not "really" singing. "Quintet," "One Hand, One Heart" and almost all the rest can be checked off in the same way, although one earnest school of thought states that as he walks away from the dance Tony is "really" singing a popular romantic ballad of the day, presumably as performed by Perry Como.
However, thanks to some major re-working of one scene and some minor physical business in another, the status of two songs was unmistakably changed. If there were no diegetic songs on stage, there were suddenly two of them on screen.
While the transposition of the song "I Feel Pretty" to an earlier point in the proceedings preserved the merry mood of Maria and her three cohorts, other elements were introduced in order to support the move. The film tacks on a new character, the shop owner Madame Lucia, whose main dramatic assignment is to warn the girls against singing during working hours. So now a character within the piece has positively specified that other characters are singing. Thus, like it or not, "I Feel Pretty" is now a "real" song.
A more subtle graduation (or demotion, depending on your point of view) into diegetic status occurs with "America," indicated by a very incidental piece of staging. One needs to observe Jay Norman as Pepe, seated in profile and beating out a tempo with an improvised percussion instrument, to agree that the characters (and not just the actors) are about to undertake a musical number and they know they are doing so. This fresh possibility is not far-fetched. That the jolly give-and-take of the newly-genial Sharks might spill over into song and then into the lively dance is perfectly consistent with the party-like spirits of the moment (unlike "Quintet" or "Cool," which in a million years could not be classified as diegetic).
To say that "America" and "I Feel Pretty" are now diegetic is to introduce a fresh set of questions and quibbles. In other scores mentioned here, all the nightclub turns and Trapp-family renditions are understood to be legitimate and plausible Tin-Pan-Alley numbers or traditional folk songs which were learned and memorized by their singers, with or without a connection to the story. Though the club songs of Guys and Dolls are patently generic, the repertory of Miss Adelaide's vocal act is purposely congruent to the various swings of her love life; so she "coincidentally" is singing the perky "I love you, a bushel and a peck" at a time when the romance happens to be optimal, but we hear a "get lost" song when the love affair goes on the rocks. Thus are the ups and downs of her rocky romance reflected in the songs she offers to her internal and external audiences, even though she is not singing specifically of her own joys and troubles (as she clearly does, conversely, in "Adelaide's Lament"). But both "America" and "I Feel Pretty" are solid components of the scenarios in which they exist, not merely generic musical reflections of them. One might posit that the light-hearted Maria (like Tony, in the Perry Como theory) selected a random, unrelated tune that was currently popular on the radio or existed in her memory as apropos to the occasion ("I'm in Love with a Wonderful Guy"?). But such an argument really doesn't bear scrutiny: "I Feel Pretty" mentions both Maria and Chino by name; if the three seamstresses are really singing, they are not only capable vocalists but they are also quite adept as spontaneous improvisational lyricists. Similarly, if the Sharks and their girls are the ones singing and dancing on the rooftop—rather than the performers who portray them—the filmgoer must accept the anomaly that accompanies that determination. "America"—especially in its screen incarnation, rife with mild but clear anti-American sentiment—does not come off as something one might hear on Your Hit Parade or the Top 40. Not only can they sing and dance, but they can extemporaneously spout rhyming nationalistic dialectics. As is the case with most musicals, a little stretch of the imagination can be healthy and is highly recommended.
Among fans of the film, "America" is often named as the favorite, and "I Feel Pretty" is more than occasionally listed as the least-favorite. These assessments have everything to do with the changes that were wrought for the movie version. "I Feel Pretty" is stunning in its stage incarnation: It opens the second act with brilliantly unexpected flourishes of joy and adolescent good cheer, it is the first time Maria performs a song without Tony (and is thus very much in the spotlight), and it is inarguably more dramatic coming as it does after the rumble, an event unknown to the merry singers. In the film the song suffers somewhat as a result of its transposition to the calmer earlier slot, but it does provide something of a showcase for Natalie Wood, seen but not heard. The suggestion of the proprietress that her employees' singing is causing them to neglect their work seems to be nothing more than a device to help emphasize the frivolity of the moment, even while ending it. The reprimand about "singing" would have been just as effective as "carrying on," "wasting time," or any synonym for "goofing off."
The perception that "America" only got better in its re-working for the film is the exclusive, subjective opinion of the viewer. Directors, theater aficionados and self-appointed experts will argue to Armageddon the pros and cons of bringing Bernardo and the Sharks out from the shadows to match wits with Anita and the girls. While there is much to admire in both versions, comparisons are inevitable: It's not exactly "apples and oranges." The bias leans toward the film version. If nothing else, Bernardo's screen persona undeniably possesses a softer, warmer, and marginally lighter side that stage Bernardos do not normally enjoy. Adding the memorable song and dance to his credentials creates a new layer of humanity and serves to make his untimely death even more tragic. Not everyone views these changes as an improvement. Some pundits, and some actors called upon to play him, prefer the steely uncompromising toughness of the stage character. Shining the spotlight on Anita rather than Anita and Bernardo has its own valid dramaturgic appeal. Nevertheless, the collaborators clearly had their reasons for taking advantage of a second chance at the number, and the result is indisputably brilliant.
Even in their diegetic state, neither of these songs has lost any of its more solid qualifications in the score and in the work as a whole. While just about any character in the cast of The Sound of Music can sing "Edelweiss" or the title song (as seemingly they do, endlessly), the songs of West Side Story are effectively sung only by the characters for whom they were written. Diegetic or not, these two share that distinction. "I Feel Pretty," "America" and all the rest are precise pieces of the whole that form the brilliant final product that is called West Side Story. The incidental changes made for the film do not harm or even risk harming the much-admired marriage of song and story.
"Diegesis" defined by Purdue U.
"Diegesis" defined by Okanagan University College.
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