A Stage Within a Stage

Meta-theatricality is wonderful on stage... when it works.

In Leonid Andreyev's short play Requiem, for instance, the set is described as "The replica of a small theatre." On one side is a stage, and on the other are puppets set up like an audience. The acton takes place on the stage within a stage, and at the end of the play the character of "Theatre Manager" has a long monologue, seen only by the puppets in the audience, and of course by the real audience watching the whole thing.

Requiem is a symbolist drama from 1916, very earnest and very dark. Yet a similar set-up is used by a play of a very different sort: Broadway's A Gentleman's Guide to Love and Murder. Set designer Alexander Dodge placed upon the stage at the Walter Kerr Theatre another stage, an elaborate Victorian proscenium stage in fact, complete with footlights and a lush, velvet curtain. Since all musicals are highly theatrical, and since the play's imaginative Edwardian setting has its own sense of heightened realism, the meta-theatricality works wonderfully.

Robert L. Freedman and Steven Lutvak's A Gentleman's Guide to Love and Murder is based on Roy Horniman's 1907 novel Israel Rank, about a young man who murders a number of people in line to inherit a title, finally inheriting it himself. That novel was also the subject of a film with Alec Guinness called Kind Hearts and Coronets. The play was in development for years, and eventually made it to Broadway, no thanks to the holding company that owns the rights to the 1949 film. In spite of the fact the story is in the public domain, the company filed a baseless copyright suit against the show's creators. Thankfully, a judge threw out the frivolous suit, paving the way for countless audiences to enjoy the show.

Though I've been wanting to see the play for a while, it was only this afternoon that I finally got to watch it. I was certainly not disappointed. Freedman and Lutvak's songs are delightful, especially the opening number, "A Warning to the Audience," as well as "I Don't Know What I'd Do," a song sung by one of the protagonist's two love interests. That role, Sibella, was taken by Scarlett Strallen, an actor who impressed me greatly last year as Lady MacDuff in Kenneth Branagh's production of Macbeth.

What really struck me about this production, however, was Dodge's beautiful set. By lowering and raising the curtain on the stage within a stage, the crew can seamlessly perform set changes while the play continues in front of the false proscenium. Plus, while tables and chairs to the sides of the stage are basically realistic, the set pieces on the stage within a stage can look like painted flats. The more stylized set pieces fit right in, and they add immensely to the humor of the play.

Upon occasion the proscenium itself is used, as arms and faces pop out of openings, or the protagonist is forced to climb up its side. Even the show's finale manages to make use of the proscenium arch.

Broadway might be worlds away from Andreyev's symbolist drama, but it certainly has learned a thing or two about how to make meta-theatricality work.

A Gentleman's Guide to Love and Copyright

Many thanks to magnificent musical theater writer James Harris for pointing out the topic for today's blog post. It's a story of art, greed, and the legal system finally doing the right thing.

So you've seen those ads for A Gentleman's Guide to Love and Murder, and you watched that wonderful number on the Tony's. You might also have seen an old Alec Guinness film called Kind Hearts and Coronets that looked kind of similar. Hey, is the musical based on that movie?

The answer, after much litigation, is no. If you want the full opinion of District Judge Richard J. Holwell, you can read it here:

OPINION

However, I'll spare you the legalese, and summarize the judge's findings.

It all started in 1907 when Roy Horniman wrote the novel Israel Rank about a vengeful young man who murders a number of people in line for a noble title so he can inherit it himself. In 1949 Ealing Studios made a film, Kind Hearts and Coronets, which turned the story into a comedy and had Guinness play all of the murder victims, male and female.

Songwriters Steven Lutvak and Robert L. Freedman thought the story would make a great musical. (Opinion of the Tony Awards voters: They were right.) They entered into an agreement with the copyright owners of the film, a company called Canal+ Image UK Ltd., allowing Lutvak and Freedman to develop the piece and then pitch it to Canal+ for a possible production.

The dynamic duo did their thing, showed the show to Canal+, and the company passed. Why? Well, clearly these guys were a couple of hacks. Their show was never going to go anywhere. These yahoos couldn't write their way out of a paper bag. (Here the Tony Award voters, and legions of ecstatic Broadway audiences, respectfully dissent.) What were Lutvak and Freedman to do? They had a great show on their hands, which anyone but a bunch of corporate suits at Canal+ could see, but they didn't have the rights to the film.

Not a problem! What Canal+ seems to have forgotten was that they didn't have the rights to the story, just to the film. Horniman's novel is in the public domain, and anyone in the world had the right to adapt that. They just couldn't adapt the film. The team went about making changes to the show. According to the court's findings, when the film made minor adjustments, such as switching a character's name from Phoebe to Edith, the musical went back to the original version in the novel. In some cases, such as the ending of the story, which is different in the film, the musical came up with something entirely different, in that case providing a third ending to the story (and probably the best one, anyway).

Once the musical was poised for a pre-Broadway run, however, Canal+ got sour grapes. They had passed on a great property, and now lots of investors were about to make lots of money, and Canal+ wasn't one of them! They sued. Though the musical had not used the changes that the film had made to the novel, the play did have two things in common with the movie. The first was that they were both comedic, and gruesome murders had been turned into comic romps. The second was that the multiple roles of the different murder victims were all played by the same actor. Those are copyrightable changes, right?

Well, um, no. At least not according to the United States District Court for the Southern District of New York. Basically, Canal+ was arguing that you can copyright tone and theatrical devices. You simply can't copyright the idea that something's a comedy, otherwise, once someone, say, spoofed Hamlet, no one else would ever be able to spoof it again. Furthermore, as Judge Holwell pointed out, Kind Hearts and Coronets is a dark comedy/drama, getting quite serious in some places, while A Gentleman's Guide to Love and Murder is a slapstick farce. The tones are similar, but certainly not the same.

The one area where Canal+ might have had some hope was in the device of having one actor play multiple roles. However, Judge Holwell ruled that this was a common dramatic device and not something that can be copyrighted. He compared an actor playing multiple roles to such common devices as a character talking directly to the audience or men disguising themselves as women. Sorry, Canal+, but you can't copyright an idea that goes back to the Greeks. Case dismissed.

Lutvak and Freeman won, but more importantly, Broadway audiences won, as now they get to see a great show that otherwise would never have seen the light of day. As for Canal+, they could be sitting on top of a Tony Award-winning Broadway hit. Instead, they're just sitting on a pile of legal fees.