AUTHOR: MICHAEL McHARDY, LSE, DRAMA SOCIETY

I, unlike most people, was privileged enough to grow up with an identical twin (According to the careers advisor this doesn’t technically count as “an achievement” but I put it on my CV all the same). Owing to a desire to study separate courses, and a passing wish not become the twins from psycho I chose to study at the LSE while my brother moved to Liverpool. We each joined our universities respective drama departments.

This year my brothers show is the musical adaptation of Legally Blonde. A ditzy, harmless nostalgic romp which also happens to be the darkest, grittiest and most realistic show LMSS Artefacts has ever produced. If that sentence surprises you, you are not alone. Taken from the “Golden Age” of musical theatre, previous shows include “Crazy for You” an American twentieth century tap dance musical about putting on a musical, “42nd street” an American twentieth century tap dance musical about putting on a musical, “Singing in the Rain” an American twentieth-you get the idea. They represent the very epitome of “mainstream”. So formulaic are these musicals I can cover the essentials of all of them right now.

Set in early twentieth century USA where one cannot talk for more than sixty seconds without starting a five-minute tap number. The show tells the story of our naive protagonist Bobby who dreams of being a big star.  He sings and dances his way through the flimsiest and least threatening of antagonist’s musical theatre has to offer, gain all he ever wanted and on the way finds the girl (Polly) of his dreams. Because it’s the law. The deepest character fault Bobby ever has is being slightly clumsy and the worst thing to ever befall him is a minor misunderstanding, usually coupled with the allegation by Polly of “You lied to me!”.

In contrast the student theatre culture dominating the drama scene in London is so fringe the best way to ensure that your idea for a play is never chosen is to pitch it as mainstream.  In London student theatre circles whenever a play or musical was referenced as at all mainstream it was almost always used as an insult. It usually accompanied rolled eyes and a tut (the very worst of British condemnation.) The implication was that fringe theatre, especially if it was a piece no-one had ever heard of, must be more original, deep and intellectual than anything the general populace enjoy, uninhibited by the formulae of mainstream structure.

The irony of this was that the fringe shows favoured by London student drama have not only failed to break free of a restricting formulae, but have actively dived into one.  In contrast to the sickeningly happy and fluffy shows of the past the trend now is to applaud the needlessly dark and mindlessly nihilistic. During my undergraduate degree at the LSE at least one show every year was about, or heavily featured rape as a plot device.  The characters were all angsty and troubled and in the end as two dimensional as Polly and Bobby ever were. Why? Because that was the formulae.

 At the end of one show in particular the final tears and drawn out stares were done and the lights went down. Whilst the audience were collecting their bags I heard whispers of “Thank god it’s over” and “That was torture!” I later spotted these same people loudly congratulating the director on attempting such a “provoking” piece.  Aside from wanting to spare the feelings of some genuinely lovely people the reason for these bare faced lies was to avoid the allegation of being too stupid to understand the play.  Accusing someone of “just not getting it” is commonplace strategy executed to shut down legitimate criticism (Although trying so on your formative assessments tends not to work as well). The notion that a dark fringe play can be bad contradicts the assumption that nothing mainstream can be good. So the idea is simply rejected.

The truth is that a traditional Golden Age show can be just as valuable as art as the next one-woman fringe play about the inexorable horror of existence. When creating a performance to avoid everything arising from a popular formula you are most likely to face-plant into the opposite element of every step, which is in of itself formulaic.

The solution to this problem? Tell stories. Tell the story you want to tell without reference to how well known or alternative it is. If people love it, great, in fact that probably means it’s pretty good. And if they don’t? Who cares, it means something to you and you’ll never be forced to say “You just don’t get it” again.