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Reprises in American musical theatre performance promise the dramatic experience of
progress by recalling entanglements of music, lyrics, and stage action. Although reprises
generically require large-scale repetition of both vocal melody and instrumental accompaniment,
they resemble other kinds of recall when the seams and layers between reprising music and new
music grow hazy. In four musicals with music and lyrics by Stephen Sondheim, opening
successively on Broadway from 1979 to 1987, musical recall radiates from virtually every song
and number through leitmotivic reminiscence: marked melodies, rhythmic patterns, and
sonorities evoke distinct characters and sensations. Yet Sondheim also draws on the tuneful
familiarity of specific songs, and their circumstances, for dramatic effect. In this dissertation I
consider “reprising” as an under-explored experiential convention of musical theatre. I offer that
comparing reprising passages to one another within each of Sondheim’s leitmotivic musicals
stretches, broadens, and challenges apparent musical oppositions at the surface, intensifying and
unsettling theatrical elements as a result. In Sweeney Todd (1979, book by Hugh Wheeler, direction by Harold Prince), I critique
claims of musical coherence and disunity to follow consequential shifts in character relationships
through song. In Merrily We Roll Along (1981, book by George Furth, direction by Prince), I
consider the roles of onstage audiences and participators in solo and ensemble numbers to trace a
forward narrative through a show that moves backwards in time. In Sunday in the Park with
George (1984, book and direction by James Lapine), I explore harmonic function at the
boundaries of musical scenes to animate the struggles of each protagonist to establish persona and agency. Finally, in Into the Woods (1987, book and direction by Lapine), I foreground
expectations of musical closure during moments of tonal and harmonic ambiguity to present
storytelling as an active, moral, and risky choice. |
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