Heartfelt Humor

http://musicalcyberspace.wordpress.com/2010/04/23/the-scottsboro-boys-recorded/

From the moment the actors stepped on stage, you could just tell that this was going to be a very upbeat, fast paced show. With the quirky music and excitement of the actors, it made you feel like they were about to put on a show about something they loved and couldn’t wait to show us. They made it seem like what they were performing was something good in history when it really wasn’t. The historical context behind “The Scottsboro Boys” is still evident throughout the musical though, but the way that it is presented to us works in a way that I feel is effective in that it never gets too serious or emotional for us to bear. They keep the context of the story easy going and add humor to the situation so that we are able to understand the significance behind it, but also strike a balance with humor to keep us entertained. I think it was very risky to do what John Kander and Fred Ebb did by making this story such a humorous, up tempo musical, being that many people might not take so lightly to such a serious topic. But personally, I appreciated the humor behind it because I think it makes everything easier for us to watch as viewers, and I also think humor is the the one thing in life that keeps us sane in life.

Obviously the story of the Scottsboro boys is not a laughing matter, but I think adding humor to the show and making it upbeat helps us to both view the historical meaning and also helps us be able to move past it. I don’t think anyone who actually see’s this show will walk out of the Lyceum Theatre and say, “Wow, segregation was funny back then.” The story is still powerful. You can still see the pain, emotion, and struggles the nine boys went through with that long ordeal. But when presented in a way where you can laugh every now and then, it eases the tension in watching it. There was one comment in the show that I thought to be especially funny. When thinking that they were getting released from prison and talking about what they were going to do once they got out, one of the boys responded by saying that he was going to buy two white girls to spend the night with to see what all this fuss was about. I don’t view that humor as taking anything away from the pain that they went through. I also don’t see that as “making fun” of the historical context. I see that as bringing humor to a serious topic which is something that we need sometimes. Sometimes we need to realize that this is a musical and not an actual re-enactment. If it were, it wouldn’t be so popular and bearable to watch. I think we need that humor to brighten a very dark situation.

One of my favorite aspects of the show itself was the use of characters. I loved how the white police officers and white girls were played by black, male actors. So much of the shows humor came from the scenes where these “white” people were shown. The over-exaggerated walking and talking was great satire in my opinion and kept me laughing with everything they did. It was a great way to poke fun at how ignorant they were. I think if the white people in the show were played by white people, it would cause more tension with everything and the whole show would be less humorous. Perhaps it would be too real and that would take away from the aim and purpose of the musical itself.

Another aspect of the show I thought was really well done was the use of chairs to put together different scenery. Just a few chairs were used for numerous settings. Different arrangements set the scene of a railroad car, a prison, a court room, a bus and probably a few other scenes that I can’t quite remember off hand. Simple props made the show what it was and it shows how effective something can be by just keeping things simple. One of my favorite scenes was the one where the boys are handcuffed on the bus and one of them attacks the driver and gets shot by the other officer. The use of lighting, music, and acting made this scene really dramatic. The stage lighting went red, the music got slower, and the actors started moving in slow motion. I thought that was a well done scene that used many different aspects of theater into making an effective show.

In conclusion, I’d like to finish off with how I started. There will probably always be people who take offense to a musical like this where humor and passion are used to tell a serious story. But in my opinion, that humor and passion is exactly what we need as viewers to understand the historical context and learn from it. I think that making a serious show that did a closer re-enactment to the history with more racism and prejudice wouldn’t serve us anything. We would just see it and be shocked. I think that would cause animosity and tension and that is not something we need. We need to be able to learn from the past and move forward…and I think humor was the right way to go in this case.