Post for July 14

Since a ballad-opera contains many of the same elements of an opera, I feel as though the Ballad-opera genre has a connection with melodrama. I see a similarity between the melodramatic opera, Ruddigore and The Beggar’s Opera, although it not considered a melodrama. Music, whether sung or in the background, plays an important role in drawing the audience’s attention to the characters’ emotions. It interesting that a person can tell or understand how a character is feeling with music alone. Although in the case of Beggar’s opera, the popular tune would have made the audience think the characters were feeling something else. However, this contradiction also allowed Gay to explore the characters feelings more. Melodrama is all about over the top emotions and music really helps convey those emotions. Speaking of exaggerated emotional speeches, I began to think about The London Merchant. Melodramas and sentimental tragedies have overly emotional dialogue in terms of how they express those feelings. I began to wonder how The London Merchant would have been different if it was accompanied by music or even turned into a melodramatic opera. I can just image the music picking up in tempo as Millwood is giving her speech ending with “future Millwoods prove, to plague mankind (IV.xviii. 78) or if the music would become melancholic and slow when Barnwell was giving his final speech right before his death. I wondered how music would effect the audience’s reaction to the play.


Works cited:
Lillo, George. The London Merchant. Ed. William H. McBurney. Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1965. Print.

The immense celebrity of the actors of melodrama, most notably Sir Henry Irving, reflects our earlier study of plays and operas. As we discussed, Lavinia Fenton’s performance in The Beggar’s Opera attracted great attention and admiration. The discussion of Irving’s portrayal of Mathias in The Bells bespeaks even greater fascination on the part of the audience, Indeed, in this instance it seems the actor became inextricably enmeshed with the character, inspiring both comparison and nostalgia once the role passed to another. While our sense of Irving’s portrayal of Mathias is inevitably colored by Eric Jones-Evans’ obsession with the play, David Mayer observes in his introduction to the text that audiences during the Victorian Era identified powerfully with Mathias’ guilt. His conflict touched a chord in the audience, forcing them to wrestle with “their own unconscious fears” in a way that allowed them to “[gain] a temporary but pleasurable respite from these fears” (5).
The audience’s identification with Irving highlights another aspect of the play that demands discussion. The play departs from many of those on which we have focused in two important ways. First, it employs spectacle to a far greater degree than anything we have so far seen. One need look no further than the elaborate and detailed stage directions embedded within the play to see how The Bells uses the expanse of the theater liberally. The play’s directions indicate meticulous attention to detail; Irving’s copy of the play indicates prior to Act III, “See instructions on silence and lighting in text. They are very important” (62). The sets, the lighting, the layering of scenery therefore illustrate a concern for the play’s exterior.
At the same time, this emphasis on exteriority leads to an interesting tension between the play’s theatrical elements and the text itself. The audience’s identification with Irving’s character reflects a concern for morality that Mayer highlights in the introduction, specifically the way in which “virtue in public masked vice in private” (4). Literature of the Victorian Age reflected this contradiction, most notably in Stevenson’s Jekyll and Hyde and Stoker’s Dracula. These works, as The Bells does, explore the duality of humankind, and Mathias deserves a place among these “villains”. Yet, as Mayer points out, audiences could not help but “[sympathize] with a man guilty of a vicious murder” (Lewis 2). Like Count Dracula and Dr. Jekyll, Mathias wrestles with his inability to come to terms with his interior self—manifested here as his guilt. Thus, the play’s focus becomes both interior in its emphasis on morality and exterior in its use of theatrical spectacle.

Source:
Lewis, Leopold. The Bells. Ed. David Mayer. Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1980.

After reading “The Bells” I can’t help but wonder about how criminals are so differently portrayed in a melodrama. In The Beggar’s Opera (obviously not a melodrama) we laugh and smile along with the criminals. They have charisma and charm. For instance, Macheath is hysterical in that he womanizes and does everything he can to wiggle out from underneath the consequences of his crimes. He uses Lucy and promise her his love in order to get her to help him escape jail (II, scene xv) but by the end of the scene he’s already scheming about how he can ditch her once he’s free (II, xv, lines 7-9). He’s almost like Johnny Depp’s portrayal of Captain Jack Sparrow in the Pirates of the Caribbean films; he’ll use his charms to get what he wants from whom he needs it, then plan his escape and move on to the next adventure. The best part is that we love and applaud him for it! Once we get to the melodrama, like “The Bells”, everything about the criminal changes. Mathias is calculated, unforgiving, and evil. He kills for his own gain, and rather than show remorse for it, he basks in the glory of being undetected. His arrogance shows when he tells Christian about the cleverness of such a criminal (The Bells, II). Suddenly, he becomes so sinister and frightening, that the audience no longer laughs with him. The criminal becomes someone with whom the audience would prefer not to associate. But as the audience’s personal distance from him grows, the curiosity about him grows too. I’m wondering which criminal an audience would prefer? Do they want to laugh with him, enjoy the spectacle that the brings, and see a bit of themselves within him, or do they want to completely separate themselves from his cold-heartedness and study him like a scientific specimen?

Sources:

Gay, John. The Beggar’s Opera. Ed. Vivien Jones and David Lindley. London: New Mermaids, 2010. Print.

Lewis, Leopold. The Bells. Ed. David Mayer. Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1980.

I’ve never been a fan of musicals. The singing and the dancing has always been a distraction for me, when I’m eager to merely watch the drama unfold. But I am a music head. Music is playing constantly around me; I feel bad for the people who live close to me for they have to ensue the constant “noise” of both the song and of me singing along at the top of my lungs. Music in itself is an expression of life, and of its creativity. So why do I think that I hate musicals?
Gay’s The Beggar’s Opera uses its musicality to expose the ironies of what is written. But I have to admit, as I read it, I only skimmed the lyrics of the songs and what they could potentially mean. While this is noted I would also like to state that after reading Thomas Holcroft’s A Tale of Mystery, I was completely enthralled. Albeit it is much shorter, which my attention span that has shortened considerably as I’ve gotten older (I of course shamelessly blame TV and its assimilated commercial breaks) I’m sure appreciated. But as I was reading, it was the use of pantomime that really captured my attention.
Francisco’s mutism serves more as visual entertainment that audible. The lacking of words, and only the use of action, for me, countered the musical’s insistent attempt to use its lyric to further implement its message.
It was Francisco’s inability to speak that emphasized his literal actions i.e. when he sees Romaldi for the first time. Bonamo’s servant Piero announces Count Romaldi. It is after Francisco hears this that he starts up with alarm. They see each other and it is Francisco’s response that serves as an effect. Through use of his body we are able to interpret his reaction- that of horror and agony. Because we are unable to hear his reaction, it acts as an amplifier; because words can only be spoken so many times. Diction can be separated, dependent of culture, education, etc. We use words to express what we mean but its meaning can be lost on someone who does not express themselves with a similar vocabulary. But to witness someone else’s pain, someone else’s terror, to watch the emotion paint itself across someone’s face, that’s something that will always break my heart. Emotions, not words, are universal. And while we can hear what others are saying, how often do we really hear what we are being told?

One of the points Simon Shepherd and Peter Womack make in the final section of the packet entitled “The Living Dead” focuses on their assertion that “the logic of melodrama insists that true strength is only constituted through seeking out the abyss” (245). The abyss they are referring to stems from a Dickens’ quote they also recount: “The mystery of evil is as interesting to us now as it was in the time of Shakespeare; and it is downright affection or effeminacy to say that we are never to glance into that abyss” (245). These comments rung true when I read them; I enjoy a good tale where someone is tested for his goodness . . . and fails. Through these characters, I get to experience the thrill of doing those things you know you should never do, yet sometimes wish you could. We see this in The Bells character Mathias. While we openly cringe and are horrified at his murderous act, there is something admirable in his way to “get away” with the crime for over a decade. Does that make me twisted to admit that? Possibly . . . but this tale of “getting away with murder” only to be trapped by your own admission has echoed in literature, especially gothic literature, for hundreds of years. This melodrama made me think of the narrator in Poe’s “The Fall of the House of Usher” and also his piece “The Imp of the Perverse” (one of my personal favorites). Additionally, we see it in The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde (as Nate mentioned). In all of these, as in The Bells, characters enact their own downfalls. The fact that the audience is “in” on the perversion of how one should act, begs the audience to examine their own consciences. It is a moment where we both repel and embrace the characters’ decisions. I’m not saying we all secretly hope to murder someone, but haven’t we all at some time or another wanted to blurt out that awful thing that pops into your head. . or worse? I believe this is what Shepherd and Womack are getting at: we get to “experience” this abyss by riding the scene along with the character who has let us in on his thoughts (looking into the abyss), and yet escape in the end because ultimately we haven’t committed the act of the character’s downfall, and thus have escaped the abyss. The experience is heightened through the music we hear in melodrama that aids in a quickened pulse, sweaty hands, and lumped throat. The impact is allows for a peek into the abyss and yet the lovely ability to also escape without consequence.

After reading The Bells, I can’t help thinking about The London Merchant. In comparison to the earlier play, one of the The Bells’ strengths is its non-linearity. Lewis contrived by flashback/dream sequence/hypnosis to move his murder scene to the end of the play, which works very well (and obviously made the play very popular). The result of the move is that suspense builds over the course of the play, as small details are revealed about the murder and Mathias’ role in it. When the scene finally arrives, the audience is primed for the emotional dam to break, and it does. If this story had been told in chronological order (murder in the first scene, Mathias’ death from guilt and discovery in the last scene), it would have none of the same excitement.
Lillo probably wasn’t interested in building suspense or excitement when he wrote his play, but the lack thereof is one of the things that makes The London Merchant such a snoozer for an audience today. His murder scene features a soliloquy by Barnwell (3.5.1-36) that is very similar to Mathias’ dream-reenactment in its language and plot. I wonder how this play might be different if it were reconstructed using Lewis’ structural non-linearities. Barnwell could begin by telling his story to a cellmate in prison. The audience could see his early meeting with Millwood without knowing of her ulterior motives, and then the play could slowly build towards Barnwell’s tortured decision to kill his uncle. All of a sudden, this sounds like a show I would want to watch – an 18th century noir.

"The Mystery of evil is as interesting to us now as it was in the time of Shakespeare; and it is downright affectation or effeminacy to say that we are never to glance in the abyss” (Shepherd and Womack, quoting Dickens 245). Dickens is illuminating a truth of our nature--we are attracted to evil, to darkness, to the “other.” In The Bells the audience is drawn to a face of evil that is, as it often is, disguised beneath the outward persona of a man that holds a public office, is wealthy, respected, and genuinely loved by his family and friends. Through the course of the play this civil mask is removed in stages, ultimately when, in a dream sequence, we learn (what we have known) the particulars of the murder that he, Mathais, committed fifteen-years prior. By way of an imagined mesmerist, he recounts the specific details of this murder- the source of his unrest. As a reader, I was mesmerized. I expected the moment--predicted the outcome--that Christian would be his foil--and roughly knew that the body had been burned in an oven..but even so, I was thrilled to read the truth, and get a glimpse of what this man’s mind was made of. David Mayer succinctly describes my motivations: “The Bells offered to theatre audiences the opportunity to share vicariously the experience of criminal action, guilt, fear of discovery, and eventual retribution...In sharing emotions which touched on their own unconscious fears, first activating and then assuaging them, the audience gained a temporary but pleasurable respite from these fears. “ (Irving Introduction 5). In my mind this is a direct and clear link to the vicarious experience that the audience, and I (after some prodding) experienced while reading Gay’s The Beggars Opera. The tone of the two plays is distinctly different, there is no doubt. But in this way, offering the audience a permitted, even encouraged, entrée into the lives and living spaces of devious minds, the minds of people who do dark things and who admit them to “us” is clearly a parallel. Based on the reading, I would venture also to say that it is more than this. It seems that this thirst for darkness (the abyss) is a cornerstone of melodrama--thus making, in this way, The Beggars Opera a clear influence on our modern stage and screen.

~D. Jester


Simon Shepherd and Peter Womack, English Drama: A Cultural History. Oxford: Blackwell, 1996

David Mayer, Henry Irving and The Bells. Manchester University Press, 1980

The Many Secrets in The Beggar’s Opera Versus the One in The Bells

Gay’s Beggar’s Opera and Leopold Lewis’ The Bells have their secrets. With the exception of Jemmy Twitcher, Macheath’s band of highwaymen seems the most honorable group of individuals in the play and the only characters who do not keep secrets among their own. When Macheath’s men visit him in prison he expresses dismay: “That Jemmy Twitcher should peach me, I own surprised me! ‘Tis a plain proof that the world is all alike, and that even our gang can no more trust one another than other people” (III. Xiv. 3-6). But the honor and uprightness that Macheath grants to his men: “Is there any man who suspects…my honour and truth to the gang?” (II. ii. 12-14) is withheld from his women. Macheath is a rake. In modern slang he would even be a “baby daddy.” He secretly marries Polly Peachum, the daughter of his fence, and he secretly impregnates Lucy, the daughter of the jailer. Macheath tries to deny Polly in Lucy’s presence: “Be pacified, my dear Lucy—this is all a fetch of Polly’s.” (II. xiii. 56). Polly keeps their marriage a secret from her parents, who in turn try to keep secret their plan to peach Macheath, and both Polly and Lucy secretly help Macheath escape from different incarcerations. Polly’s father leads a secret life as a fence and informer. His wife appears to have secret affairs, and his friend Lockit suspects Peachum of trying to outwit him in getting Macheath back into custody and plots to get Lockit drunk and “get the secret from him.” (III. Ii. 1-3). Lockit’s daughter tries a similar, though more sinister ploy, when she secretly tries to get Polly to drink a poison-laced cordial.

Now we move closer to exposing the secret that haunts Mathias, the hero-villian of The Bells. Macheath is peached by a fellow gang member and by Jenny Diver, one of his favorite prostitutes. In their line of work, Macheath and his men know that the exposing of secrets is likely to lead to impeachment and execution: “We are heartily, sorry, Captain, for your misfortune—but ‘tis what we must all come to” (III. xiv. 8-9). However, if Lucy’s secret potion had succeeded in killing Polly, then the play would have taken on the haunting sense of wantonness that informs Mathias’ secret in The Bells. Mathias murders the Polish Jew for his money. The horrible secret needs only a verbal cue to throw Mathias into a fit of despair, guilt, and fear that proves too much to bear. While unpleasant, most of the secrets in The Beggar’s Opera do not carry the same sense of depravity as does the secret in The Bells. Thus, despite the Beggar’s initial resistance, the secret plots and counter-plots in The Beggar’s Opera can, with a little manipulation, lead to a happy ending: “Your objection, sir, is very just, and is easily removed,” while the secret in The Bells can lead only to what the Beggar calls “strict poetical justice” (III. xvi. 9, 4). The many secrets spread across the earlier play and the one big secret uncovered in The Bells connect the plays, but also show that The Bells was more intense (deadly) on an individual level than The Beggar’s Opera.

The most apparent connection between the Beggar’s Opera and the melodrama is the importance of music to theatrical production. Music is treated differently in the Beggar’s Opera than in a melodramatic production such as The Bells. In the Beggar’s Opera, the airs contain lyrics sung by an actor, while the music in The Bells is instrumental. However, in both instances, music is integral to the effectiveness of the piece. Music adds a layer to the action of a scene. It gives the audience emotional directives and emphasizes the tone of the scene. This is especially apparent in the Bells, where music is utilized at points in the plot where emotional revelations arrive. Human emotion is often not sufficiently expressed in spoken or written word, so by adding music to a presentation of human emotion, a playwright is making the feeling more complex and real. For example, when you read the written lyrics of melodramatic songs such as The Erl King, the story itself is effective, however, to add the piano accompaniment adds several layers to the experience of the story. We hear the horses galloping hooves, the growing fear of the child, the overall suspense and sadness of the scene. We are exhausted at the closing of the song because our senses and emotions were fully engaged by the voice of the singer and the expressiveness of the piano.

The London Merchant decorates itself with long speeches that scaffold the story like doric columns. Lighting was still general, so the audience was not separated from the players and sets had yet to become epic. Barnwell and Millwood stand around and sermonize in block text making for very little action. The sentiment itself was the draw for audiences and not theatrical spectacle. Lillo's play is all tell and very little show. This is the opposite of The Bells. Its dialogue is snappy and moves at a quick pace. The audience would now be seated in darkness, setting the world on the stage apart from everyday life, a device essential to the "courtroom" dream scene in the last act. Music is added to scenes. The sets have become artworks, elaborate and spectacular. There's action aplenty: folk dancing, visitors coming and going, Mathias dropping tongs, gasping, fainting, signing marriage certificates and charming locals loudly remembering when. The Bells is all about sensation; even the title rings. People came to this theater to see a world that stimulated their senses, not just their emotions.