1985 musical
The Mystery of Edwin Drood is a musical written by Rupert Holmes based on the unfinished Charles Dickens novel of the same name. The show was the first Broadway musical with multiple endings (determined by audience vote). The musical won five Tony Awards, including Best Musical; from among eleven nominations. Holmes received Tony awards for Best Book of a Musical and Best Original Score.
The musical debuted at the New York Shakespeare Festival in August 1985. After being revised, it transferred to Broadway and ran until May 1987, sometimes billed simply as Drood, followed by two national tours and a London West End production. The Roundabout Theatre Company revived the musical in 2012.
History.
Sources.
The musical is a staging of Charles Dickens' final and unfinished novel "The Mystery of Edwin Drood" in a style hearkening to British pantomime and music hall genres that had reached a height of popularity around the time of Dickens' death.
As with most of his other novels, Dickens wrote "The Mystery of Edwin Drood" in episodic installments. It began publication in 1870, but Dickens died suddenly that year from a stroke. He left no notes about how he intended to finish the story. Almost immediately, various authors and playwrights, including Dickens's son, wrote endings. Since then, there have been several "collaborations" between the late Dickens and other novelists, numerous theatrical extrapolations, and three film adaptations of the story.
At the time Dickens died, British pantomime styles, distinguished by the importance of audience participation and conventions like the principal boy, reached their height of popularity, and music hall performances with raucous, risqué comedy and a distinct musical style rose to prominence.
Rupert Holmes, the major creative contributor to the musical "Drood", spent his early childhood in England. At age three, he was taken to the theater for the first time: a modern "panto" with a cross-dressing lead boy and audience sing-alongs. By age eleven, he was fascinated by mystery books and first discovered the unfinished Dickens novel. Holmes drew on these experiences when impresario Joseph Papp, the creator and head of the New York Shakespeare Festival, approached him to write a new musical.
Concept.
Holmes, a singer-songwriter who recorded the Billboard No. 1 Hit, "Escape (The Piña Colada Song)" and wrote songs for the Platters, the Drifters, Wayne Newton, Dolly Parton, Barry Manilow, and Barbra Streisand, first became interested in writing a musical in 1983. After a nightclub appearance where he performed "story songs" and shared humorous anecdotes, Holmes received a note from Gail Merrifield, director of play development at the New York Shakespeare Festival and Joseph Papp's wife. She had seen Holmes' performance and suggested he write a full-length musical.
Holmes conceived the show’s central premises by drawing on his recollections of Dickens' novel and pantomime as a youth, and his later experiences with Victorian-style music hall performances. From Dickens work, Holmes took the central plot and most of the featured characters. From pantomime, he retained the concept of the "Lead Boy,” always portrayed by a young female in male drag, which permitted him to write a love song sung by two sopranos. Pantomime also inspired the most ground-breaking aspect of "Drood": audience participation. From music hall traditions, he created the lead character of "The Chairman,” a sort of Master of Ceremonies instigating stage action.
Holmes wrote the book, the music, the lyrics, and the full orchestrations for "Drood", an unusual accomplishment. While Holmes believed no Broadway creator had done this before, and the feat was frequently mentioned in reviews and press about the show, it was more common in the early days of musical theatre. Although songwriters, including Adolf Philipp, had been credited for the books of their musicals, none had also written their orchestrations.
In writing the book, Holmes deliberately chose not to imitate Dickens's writing style, as he felt it would be too bleak for the show he envisioned. Instead, he employed the device of a "show-within-a-show." The cast members of "Drood" do not specifically play Dickens's characters; rather, they are music hall players performing as Dickens's characters. This device allowed for the incorporation of light comedy, which was not present in the original novel, and several musical numbers unrelated to the original story. Holmes explained his decision, stating, "This is not Nicholas Nickleby set to music – it's not a Dickensian work. It's light fun and entertaining. But I hope – I think – that Dickens would have enjoyed it." Holmes also noted that the show “has the same relationship to Dickens that "Kiss Me, Kate" does to "The Taming of the Shrew"."
Most inventively, Holmes used a novel method to determine the play’s outcome: audience voting. At a break in the show, the audience votes on who killed Drood, the identity of the mysterious Dick Datchery, and which two characters will become romantically involved, creating a happy ending. Since every audience differs in temperament, the outcome is theoretically unpredictable, even to the actors, who must quickly tally the votes and perform the chosen ending (although some smaller companies will "fix" the results to limit the number of possible endings). This device required Holmes to write numerous short endings to cover every possible voting outcome.
Deviations from the novel.
There are several differences between the musical and the Dickens novel. The most obvious is tone. The original episodes, consistent with Dickens’s style, were bleak. Holmes made the show more lighthearted and comedic. There are also differences in characters. The most notable is Jasper, who Dickens undoubtedly repressed and troubled. Holmes made him a full-fledged split personality, omitting several of the novel's clues that Jasper is the killer, fabricating new clues implicating other suspects, and explaining that there would be no mystery if Jasper were the obvious killer. Holmes also omitted several minor characters and expanded the roles of others. For example, Bazzard is employed by Rosa's guardian, Mr. Grewgious, in the novel, but he is Crisparkle's assistant in the musical.
Synopsis.
Act I.
Act One opens as the members of the Music Hall Royale circulate among the audience, introducing themselves to the patrons. More and more members of the company add to the growing noise until the music begins, and the Chairman of the proceedings bursts forth with the show's opening number, "There You Are". They then introduce John Jasper, the 'Jekyll and Hyde' choirmaster who greets his young nephew Edwin Drood in the song "Two Kinsmen", where they express their strong friendship. Drood is engaged to the fair Miss Rosa Bud, who is Jasper's music pupil and the object of his mad obsession. Rosa's suspicion of his obsession is confirmed when at her next lesson, he asks her to sing a song he has written – "Moonfall" – an innuendo-heavy love song from Jasper to her. The kindly Reverend Crisparkle and two exotic emigrants from Ceylon, Helena and Neville Landless, arrive. Neville is immediately attracted to Rosa, which makes him a rival to both Edwin and the secretive Jasper.
Next, the chairman brings the audience to London and the sinister opium den of Princess Puffer who talks with the audience, and explains her life in "Wages of Sin". A sinewy ballet dance follows. We discover that one of Puffer's regular clients is none other than Jasper himself, who cries out the name 'Rosa Bud' during a hallucination. Puffer shows great interest in this fact and stores it away in her memory. Back in Cloisterham, Neville and Drood meet and come to odds with each other almost immediately.
Next, The Chairman is called in to play another character as that actor is unable to come, but it turns out that the scenes of his character and the scenes of Mayor Sapsea coincide – and the characters have to disagree with each other. This results in major confusion for poor Mayor Sapsea/The Chairman and laughs for the audience. He and Jasper sing of their conflicting minds – Jasper, of course, meaning it literally – in the patter song "Both Sides Of The Coin". We are then introduced to the drunken stonemason Durdles, and his assistant Deputy. In the graveyard, they tell us that Edwin and Rosa, who have been promised to each other since they were children and so cannot tell if they truly love each other, have called off their engagement ("Perfect Strangers"). As a parting gift, Rosa gives Drood her hair clasp, which once belonged to her mother.
It is Christmas Eve and Jasper has arranged a ‘reconciliation’ dinner for the Landless twins, Crisparkle, Rosa, and Drood. In the resulting song "No Good Can Come from Bad", Neville and Drood's antagonism is reinstated, Helena's and Crisparkle's worry about Neville's reputation is shown, and it is revealed that Crisparkle used to be in love with Rosa's mother, who died after Rosa's birth. Soon the party disbands, and the guests depart into a violent storm. There is a short halt here, where the actor playing Bazzard soliloquizes about how he never seems to be able to get a major part in a show, in the song "Never The Luck".
The next day Drood has vanished. Crisparkle's assistant discovers Edwin's torn coat by the river. Drood was last seen walking there with Neville the night before. Neville is almost lynched by the townsfolk before being rescued by Crisparkle. Jasper publicly swears to track down his nephew's killer; later he visits Rosa and confesses his love for her. She is horrified and angry, and they sing "The Name Of Love And Moonfall", ending with Jasper's pursuing Rosa off-stage as the act concludes.
Act II.
Act Two begins six months later, and still, there is no sign of Drood. There is much speculation as to his fate. Meanwhile, it is revealed that Puffer has been investigating Drood's disappearance but has also noticed a rather seedy-looking figure who seems to be doing the same. It turns out that this man (played by the same actor who plays Drood, normally), Dick Datchery, is a private investigator. They sing "Settling Up The Score". The cast appears and summarizes the situation, warning the audience, "Don't fall back on your assumptions, hasty presumptions might do you in!", telling them to think carefully of whom they will vote for as the murderer, in the song "Don't Quit While You're Ahead". As the song climbs to a climax, the actors trail off, and the Chairman announces to the audience that it was at this place that Charles Dickens laid down his pen forever. However, they, with the audience's help, will resolve the story and the public voting begins as to who Datchery and The Murderer are; unfortunately, the actress playing Drood and, up to that point, Datchery is "not" chosen as Datchery exits the theater in a huff. Once the votes have been tabulated, the cast comes out and sings "Don't Quit While You're Ahead" to welcome the audience back into the story and to remind them that the mystery has not been solved.
Puffer finds Rosa, reveals that years before she had been Rosa's nanny, and tells her backstory in the song "Garden Path To Hell"; she tells of a man she loved who made her become a prostitute to please his friends and then left her. Once she lost her looks, she found a way to earn money – selling opium. She then continues with "Puffer's Revelation" and reveals the identity of Datchery (previously chosen by the audience.) The evening's Datchery (either Bazzard, Reverend Crisparkle, Helena, Neville, or Rosa) explains in their version of the revelation song "Out On A Limerick" why they donned the costume and tracked down the killer; the girls did it mainly to disguise their gender, Neville to prove his innocence, Crisparkle to help both Neville and Helena and Bazzard to give himself both a dramatic reveal and an important character to play. The gist of each song is that the character follows Jasper to his house and finds the clasp that Rosa gave Drood, which Jasper would have had only if he had taken it from Drood. Jasper's double nature reveals itself, and he admits that he strangled his nephew while under the influence of the laudanum that he revealed he poured into the wine the night of the dinner party ("Jasper's Confession").
Durdles the gravedigger, however, disagrees; he witnessed the crime and knows who truly killed Edwin Drood. Depending on the audience's vote, the finger is pointed at Bazzard, Crisparkle, Helena, Neville, Puffer, Rosa, or Durdles.