Znacie „Hamiltona”, jeden z najbardziej popularnych musicali w historii show-biznesu? Przed oficjalną premierą musicalu na Broadwayu w teatrze Richard Rodgers Theatre spektakl cieszył się już ogromnym zainteresowaniem – w przedsprzedaży sprzedano około 200 000 biletów. Już dzień po premierze odnotowano kolejne 1 milion dolarów ze sprzedaży biletów, co tylko potwierdziło jego gigantyczny sukces i rosnącą popularność. Te liczby są niesamowite i dobitnie pokazują, jaką popularnością cieszy się ta forma sztuki. Ale co jest najważniejsze? Ten tłum miłośników teatru muzycznego spędził ponad 2 godziny chłonąć historię początków Stanów Zjednoczonych! O tym, jakie wspaniałe historie roztaczają przed nami twórcy musicali, w tym te zaczerpnięte z kart podręczników, opowie nam Natalia Nowosielska z klasy 4a, której tekst ukaże się już za tydzień we wiosennym numerze AimHigh Magazine. Zapraszamy do przeczytania artykułu!
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Why Musicals Are A Great Way Of Storytelling
There are a lot of tales that are told through books or films. Thanks to that you can either see the story on screen or read about it and use your imagination to picture certain elements. But what if the story was told to us by the art of music?
Many people portray musicals as childish, annoying and sometimes even cringe-worthy thanks to companies like Disney which puts musical numbers in movies for younger audiences or straight up where music doesn’t belong. But musicals are more than that. Thanks to music we can express and experience emotions that normal scenes wouldn’t capture. For example, in the musical “Tick, tick… BOOM!” starring Andre Garfield there is a scene where the main characters are fighting and could show both of them yelling at each other or calling each other names, but because it is a musical we get a very well perform song by two actors describing what the character they are playing has in mind, and as the fight starts they are singing quite slowly with little to no music behind their vocals, but as the song progresses they start to sing faster and faster and singing at the same time with music getting louder and louder. This song shows how most of the fights go, from rational, quiet talk to full of emotion, screaming at each other not bothering to hear what the other person is talking about. Because of the musical entourage we as viewers are feeling the same way as the characters, tired, of all this fighting and for us the loud music. Without this scene being a musical number we as the audience wouldn’t feel the impact of this scene on us.
Another musical that left an impact on many people is “Hamilton”. It’s one of the most famous musicals in the world, but if we think about it it may seem weird, why the musical about a founding father would be interesting to anyone? Before “Hamilton” was played on Broadway some breath stories about Alexander were told in history classes in the USA. He was to interesting to anyone because no one told his story like Lin-Manuel Miranda. The musical “Hamilton” was the first ever musical about a historical figure told entirely through rap songs and people frisked out about this. If anyone back then made a movie about any founding father probably the only ones that would show up in theatres would be history lovers. No one else would be interested in a movie about a historical figure. But a rap musical? That’s something new that no one has ever done before, it might bring some attention. And as it turns out it was right on the money idea. Thanks to the musical genius of Lin-Manuel Miranda the songs are very well written and have creative lyrics. Even without seeing the musical live you can feel the emotion through the music and lyrics that are often a play of words or refer to something someone has already said. “Hamilton” is one of a kind masterpiece that without it being a musical wouldn’t be so popular.
All in all, I think that musicals are a great way to tell a story as they can show emotions that aren’t accessible without music playing behind. They are able to change your worldview and open it to new possibilities like getting you excited about the life story of a seemingly boring historical figure.
Natalia Nowosielska (4a)
