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David Kramer

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Some thoughts on writing (South African) musicals

David Kramer* presents a musicals master class

More than 20 years ago, in the early 1980s, I had a hit record with a song called "Royal Hotel". The song described some characters one would expect to find in the bar of almost any platteland hotel. They were easily recognisable types and the hotel, catering for travelling salesmen that moved from dorp to dorp, is a well-known South African institution.

At that time I thought of myself as a singer/songwriter, a social commentator. My songs were personal; they were about me and the world in which I had grown up: a small town in the Boland that bordered on the Klein Karoo. I performed my own songs, never thinking they'd be suitable for anyone else to sing. But then I met Barney Simon, the artistic director of the Market Theatre, and he said I should think of myself as a storyteller. He suggested I let other performers sing my songs.

This idea took me by surprise. I took a closer look at my work and saw that most of my songs described character or place and I slowly began to understand the possibility of shifting the point of view and allowing the characters to sing the songs. I began to understand how the songs could work in a theatrical environment. Up until that point I'd had very little interest in musical theatre. I'd seen Hair in London in 1971, but that had impressed me more as an event than as a musical.

So in the early 1980s I visited London and went to see as many musicals as I could - the hits and the flops - in an attempt to educate myself in this aspect of the theatre. The Rice/Webber musicals were extremely popular at that time and had rejuvenated the West End and Broadway. It fascinated me that they would release an album of the songs and ensure that they had a hit before embarking on the risky business of staging the show.

In my naïveté I imagined that because I had hits with "Royal Hotel" and "Blokkies Joubert" it wouldn't be too difficult to write a musical using this material. I spent a few weeks attempting to do this and showed my efforts to Barney, who wisely told me that my approach was back to front and if I was serious about the idea I should throw away what I had written and begin again. I had not grasped how important it was to know and understand characters and explore their needs and motivations.

Barney expected his actors to create from observing life. He asked me to leave the safety of the studio and to go out onto the streets, saying that I shouldn't imagine how the world looks, but look at the world. It was excellent advice, but I wasn't able to assimilate his technique and tackle the daunting task of writing a full-blown musical at that point, and so my first efforts were put into the bottom drawer.

In 1986 a small article appeared in the newspaper noting the fact that District Six had been declared as a white group area 20 years earlier. This started me thinking about the place, the people and the devastating role that politics had played in its history, and it struck me that District Six and its subsequent destruction could be the subject of an emotional musical story. I approached a fellow musician, Taliep Petersen, who had grown up in the District, and we spent the next six months grappling with the daunting task of writing our first musical.

Writing a musical with a collaborator seems to be a common approach. Having someone else to sound out your ideas or to make new suggestions helps a lot. You also have an appointment each day to tackle the task at hand, whereas on your own it is much easier to procrastinate. It is also a matter of combining strengths. Although Taliep and I are both musicians, I tend to focus on the book and the lyrics, while he concentrates on the music.

We spent many weeks getting to know each other. Apartheid had ensured that we grew up separately and our experiences were worlds apart. So we had a lot to learn, both about ourselves and about the arena we were now entering. In the process I came to understand that a musical is not a play, although the two forms are often confused.

A similar confusion occurs when a lyric is compared with a poem. They are not the same thing. A lyric can often be poetic, but it is rare that a poem works as a lyric. This is mainly because of the demands of a live audience versus those of a passive reader. A lyric needs to be understood by the listener as it is performed, whereas a poem can be read and reread, hopefully revealing the depth of meaning that the poem might contain.

The musical form is very much a marriage of variety show and story, and to succeed it has to achieve a delicate balance between its various components. The story, the music, the spectacle, the humour and the pathos all need to be combined in a way that holds and entertains the audience.

Ask someone to tell you a joke and it will go something like this: "Three men are trapped on an island - an Englishman, an Irishman and a Jew …" Or: "A man walks into a bar and says …" The point I'm trying to make is that the joke needs to be set up very quickly. What we need is the essential information in order to get the "set-up" so that we can be surprised by the punch-line. This is the form of a joke. Jokes don't work if we spend a lot of time explaining the background to the character and the place. It is not necessary to know about the character's unfortunate childhood and everything that motivated him to walk into the bar that day. We also don't need a detailed description of the bar - the smoky atmosphere, the smell of the urinal or the sticky carpets. In a novel this could be two or three chapters and probably be fascinating because the novel engages our imagination in this way. We don't need any of this, because this is a joke we are telling and we need to get to the punch-line quickly. Otherwise, by the time you eventually reach it, the punch-line won't be funny. Or no one is listening any more - because you have smothered the form with unnecessary information. It cannot breathe, it cannot speak, it can't say what it has to say in the time that it has to say it.

That musicals rely on easily recognisable types is one of the demands of the form and probably presents the biggest challenge for anyone attempting to write the book of a musical. Characters in musicals often border on the stereotypical as there's very little opportunity to flesh them out and explore their nuances. Characters need to be easily recognisable, yet at the same time stand out; they have to grab the audience's attention in the shortest space of time and remain interesting throughout the evening. I imagine that the reason many successful musicals are based on well-known stories is that the audience is already familiar with the characters and the story line and are looking to be entertained somewhat differently, with a larger than life, more emotionally condensed version of a story they already know. Dig a little deeper and you might find that stories that have worked best for musicals are based on fairy tales and myths.

With District Six we didn't have the advantage of adapting from a well-known novel or successful play and therefore had to invent our own characters and story which fitted the historical facts. Thousands of people once lived in that area and so there are thousands of stories that could be told, but with this musical the characters had to be identifiable to a broad spectrum of audiences and not just to those who knew the place intimately. In trying to capture the essence of the District in limited stage time, an enormous amount of compression has to occur. Songs are the ideal vehicle for this. In a song it's possible to tell a story or describe what a character wants and needs in the space of a few minutes, whereas with dialogue, information that needs to be imparted has to be spread over a much longer period if it is to remain subtle.

After completing our first draft we recorded an album of the songs, which we released in September of that year, and the Baxter Theatre presented our musical in the autumn of 1987.

I've subsequently written a number of musicals with Taliep Petersen which have been performed locally and internationally with much success. I love seeing and hearing the songs we have written come to life in the mouths of the characters on the stage. To hear an actor sing a song within the context of the show I find particularly thrilling, because if it works, the emotional effect is greater than the sum of its parts.

South Africa has the potential to produce exciting indigenous musical theatre. There have been successes in the past, but our musicals generally tend to rely on spectacle and the singing and dancing talents of the companies involved. The energy of the performers and the exotic quality of the themes often cover the weaknesses in the stories, the characterisation and the structure of the shows. In some ways we are like our film industry - we have the equipment, we have the talent, we have interesting stories to tell, we have the locations and the technicians, but for some reason we are not achieving our potential.

A film starts with a screenplay. If you want to make a great film you have to have a great screenplay. Many people write them, but not many get it right. The same with musicals, except that with musicals it might even be a little more complicated, as not only do you need a great script with an interesting plot and larger than life characters, you also need hit songs and a cast that can act, sing and dance.

To any aspirant creators of a musical, I would suggest that you bear the following in mind: the songs are the most essential component of the project. But just being able to write songs is not enough in itself. The writer needs to be able to produce a variety of songs that fit the needs of the form. Each leading character needs to sing at least one song. There need to be solos, duets, and songs for the company. Also romantic ballads and comic songs, the eleven o' clock song, and more. It's very important to understand that the different kinds of songs are the components of the musical form.

I know of a songwriter with a number of hits to his name who was unable to make the transition from recording studio to the stage. The songs he wrote for his musical are beautiful and as good as much of his other work, but each song was self-contained - a story on its own. Collectively they lacked the variety that a musical needs.

If you want to write a musical you need to understand what those differences are and have the talent and ability to create the songs as required by your story. You must at least be able to write a romantic ballad, a comedy number and a song for the chorus or the whole company. Your songs will need different rhythms and tempos. The work as a whole needs variety, it needs to breathe, it needs to be loud and soft, fast and slow, funny and sad, it needs to have its own rhythm. Too much of the same thing too often and you will lose your audience.

Taking all this into consideration, the musical also has to satisfy the needs of the story and the characters. The elements of song, dialogue and dance need to be seamless. And there needs to be change. The form usually requires that more than one story be told in juxtaposition. There is a plot and a subplot. The main characters are involved in the plot and are usually the romantic leads, whereas the subplot is a counterpoint, providing relief and variety to the evening. Most of the comedy and spectacle is provided by the subplot and its attendant characters. It needs variety in order to breathe. The characters must be interesting, but not complex - not enough time. And no matter how serious the show, there has to be entertainment. The challenge, therefore, is to tell a story with characters that the audience identifies with, and sing 15 or more songs in the space of plus-minus two hours, and combine all these elements in such a way that it does not seem ridiculous that the characters sing their thoughts and emotions.

To my mind this determines the success of a musical, which is measured by the audience's response. How it affects the audience is what really matters at the end of the evening. What impact has the evening had on them? Did it exceed their expectations? Will they talk about it? Will they urge others to see it? Will they come back again?

As a performer you live or die in front of the audience. They are the reason we are on the stage. The performer's job is to deliver the musical that the author, the director and the creative team have produced in rehearsal. The critics are there to appraise the execution and the standard of the work presented. The best we as creators of a musical can hope for that it is an informed opinion and that it doesn't confuse the musical form with other work that is presented in theatre. The audience - the people who are there to receive what is being presented - are the only arbiters who matter. Have we moved them, entertained them, made them think and feel, applaud and leave the theatre with a feeling of being totally satisfied? The audience is always ahead of us. They know. They ultimately decide whether it's a hit or a flop.

Part of my life's work is an attempt to create South African musicals and I have spent much time analysing and deconstructing this genre. It has been an interesting and rewarding journey so far, and what I have learnt I endeavour to use as a guide and benchmark for creating and evaluating original work in a local idiom. I have had the good fortune to have been involved in all aspects of musical theatre - from the writing of the book and the songs, the auditioning of actors, directing of the rehearsals, and the technical preparations, right through to opening night. Musicals require collaboration. A huge range of talent and skills is needed to mount a musical. I believe that the challenge for those of us who want to write for the stage is to create vivid characters and stories that resonate with audiences both here and abroad without compromising the work's local identity; to create musicals that are uniquely South African, incorporating all the elements that the form requires.







*David Kramer is a South African songwriter and director whose ground-breaking work in South African musical theatre has focused primarily on the disadvantaged communities of the Cape. The thrust of the five musicals he has written with Taliep Petersen and of the one he has written on his own, is in the retelling of a suppressed history of the so-called coloured people.

He began his musical career as a singer/songwriter, performing at folk clubs and campus concerts across South Africa in the early 1980s, singing satirical songs in English and Afrikaans. He portrayed himself as a rural everyman who travelled the dusty roads of small-town South Africa with an old bicycle and a cheap guitar. When he released his first album in 1980 it was banned in its entirety by the SABC as it was considered too political and vulgar for the South African ear. Despite initial setbacks, he went on to be awarded ten gold and one platinum record for sales of his albums.

In 1985 he worked under the direction of the late Barney Simon, creative director of the Market Theatre in Johannesburg. As a result of this watershed experience he started letting other actors interpret his songs, which led to his writing a musical. Three of these musical collaborations with Taliep Petersen have toured internationally. Since Kat and the Kings made its international debut at the Tricycle Theatre in London in 1999, it has gone on to be performed in the West End and on Broadway, winning the Olivier Award for Best New Musical in London in 1999.

In 2001 David presented a concert showcasing eccentric musicians discovered in small towns in the semi-desert area of South Africa called the Karoo. Karoo Kitaar Blues has made an enormous impact on South African audiences, and has played to capacity houses all over South Africa. A live CD was recorded and the show was awarded two FNB Vita Awards. A 90-minute documentary film, directed by Liza Key, about these musicians and David's work with them was shown on South African television this year and has also been seen at film festivals in London, Cambridge, Amsterdam and New York.



5 October 2004

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