This dissertation aims to observe critical awareness of reality and vision suggested by the contemporary American musical theatre through ‘the subversive fantastic’ focusing on the musicals of John Kander, Fred Ebb and Stephen Sondheim that have b... This dissertation aims to observe critical awareness of reality and vision suggested by the contemporary American musical theatre through ‘the subversive fantastic’ focusing on the musicals of John Kander, Fred Ebb and Stephen Sondheim that have been gradually acclaimed for the quality since 1960s by showing the socially critical consciousness of their themes. A musical is a genre whose fantastic elements are emphasized by the aspect that a story is unfolded through music and dance. In musicals, songs and dances make exaggeration and ellipsis through logical progression. I classified the fantastic of the musicals into ‘the wish-fulfilling fantastic’ and ‘the subversive fantastic.’ While the former highlights ‘the problems and the solutions’ by removing the Other, the latter stands out the Other’s desire and exposes the hidden side of reality. I approached how ‘the subversive fantastic’ incarnates repressed desire in musicals by using a psychoanalytical method and studied awareness of reality revealed by works in the view of a critical theory. In addition, I focused on the extent to which ‘the subversive fantastic’ shows through non-verbal rhetoric such as fragmented plots, liminal space and time, demystification of music, aesthetic of ugliness, etc. Among these, the demystification of music is made through musical irony, montage of leitmotifs, polyphony, dissonance, Gestus in music, pastiches, etc. Cabaret by Kander and Ebb critically describes Nazism while Chicago depicts the corrupt judiciary and yellow journalism. In the works, a form of meta-musical shows how social irregularities become internalized through ‘the wish-fulfilling fantastic’. At the time, the shows on a stage are allegories about the unethical society. While being entangled by attractive but unethical shows on the stage uncritically, audiences come to find themselves to become accomplices. Such self-reflection form warns that escapist fantastic in the cultural industry may cover up structural contradiction of the society. The combi- nation of pleasant and catchy music and sarcastic lyrics irony adds to ironic effects. Sondheim’s musicals reveal the structural contradiction of the society through the desire of the Other. Company shows the hidden side of marriages through a single man Robert’s viewpoint. The motif symbolizing phone ring sounds and the pastiche music express the empty human relationships in the big city. Sweeney Todd depicts the revenge of a barber whose life is destroyed by a lascivious judge. Convergence of genres, the mode of gothic romance, cannibalism, dissonance, the motif of fear, and so forth make a stage of madness. The angry appearance of Todd who walks off the stage after rising from the dead at the end of the play brings to remembrance that social irregularities and anger of the weak in the reality has lasted. In Into the Woods, which reorganizes western fairy tales, the fulfillment of selfish wishes performed by humans causes a man-made disaster which is a giant. Figures realize the relationship between the individual and the community and the play puts an end to unrepressive Utopia. Reflecting the polyphonic voices of the characters, the montage of leitmotifs and the polyphony lead the plot. Assassins demonstrates the ideological fantasy which is called the American dream through the warped desire of those who attempt to assassinate the presidents of the United States. This musical is a black comedy that shows the solidarity of the Others who do not belong in history. Parody, pastiche, polyphony weave a variety of spatio-temporal backgrounds and characters of figures polyphonically and the repeated leitmotifs recall the social fantasy. In Passion, Fosca who looks ugly, sickly, and hysterical is an ‘abjection’ cast off from the patriarchal society. A painful process of Giorgio accepting Fosca as the Other is associated with jouissance, which suggests real love overcoming the alienation of the industrial society just as told by Fromm. The state of mental hysteria of Fosca appears as scream, playing piano, Gestus in music, dissonance and so forth. the metonymic combination of the motif (from the meaning by Lacan) makes the unstableness of relationships felt. ‘The subversive fantastic’ reveals the dystopian vision of the inhuman industrial society to make people long for and imagine the better world. At the time, the better world is the society of non-identity embracing the Others. It is the traversing of the fantastic and ‘unrepressive Utopia’ or Utopia as ‘the principle of hope.’ Furthermore, subversive fantastic demands social change as well as longing for the better world. The aesthetic of ugliness causes strong psychological reactance and the stage of demystification and the open conclusion give a feeling that the structural contradiction of the society has been made in the reality out of the theater and could be historically repeated.
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