A Literary Study Of Broadway Musical

Broadway musical comedy(in short “musical” or drama) has a long history. It prospers with the cultural evolution of New York City. During more than one hundred years, it has also developed to be a new form of play with themes, ideas and creativity that reflects people’s psychological structure from the play that chooses dancing and signing as the main manifestation form merely for the purpose of entertainment. From the initial performance on Broadway Street in New York, it has transformed to be an outstanding form of play that the world is emulating now. At present, Broadway musical is featured with novel themes, profound ideas and powerful expression.Compared with other types of drama, the quick changes of the creation thoughts are also rarely seen.The development of Broadway musical can provide many references for the refinement of musical in other countries. From the details of the musical scripts, on the one hand, we can seek the internal motivation that drives the alternation of aesthetical perception, and find the external reasons for the changes of the forms of the musical. Thus, besides figuring out the entertainment meaning of the drama, we can also find how the musical focuses on the life and fate of American people and even the whole mankind. In the micro researches on Broadway musical, the academic field discovers the relationship between Broadway culture and American culture.From the comparison of drama stages in different countries, we can further know the cultural background of American musical. From the comparison between the musical in America and that in China, we can find their respective cultural root and artistic characteristics as well as a feasible path for the development of China’s musical.In terms of the study on Broadway musical, we can adopt different approaches from the micro to macro perspective so as to find out the basic pattern of the development of scripts of American musical and discover the connections between the development of American musical and American culture and literature from the evolution of scripts.From the micro perspective, by making a holistic and in-depth investigation into and analysis of the text creation of Broadway musical, we can summarize the features of drama script writing and drama poem composition, ideological tendency and development of writing approaches. Furthermore, we can draw the conclusion that theinternal motivation of Broadway musical demands on cultural marketing and foreign culture exert huge effects on its development. On the basis, the special and charming musical is thus formed in the world.The study of the cultural root of Broadway musical, especially its effects on British stage drama, European opera and Broadway musical can help explore into the unique development mode of Broadway musical with the effects of foreign dramatic traditions. The study of Broadway musical by adopting the longitudinal and horizontal methodology we can disclose the internal and external generation mechanism. In this way, it can help us understand better the Broadway musical’s selection of foreign culture and the significant effects of the selection on its formation in the process of absorbing and transforming the two kinds of European mother culture as well as abandoning the old-fashioned ideas.Since the 20 th century, Broadway musical attaches more and more importance to adding elements of serious literature. Hence, the impacts of serious literature on Broadway musical are also an important driving force of its development. From the study on the effects of literature on singing and dancing drama, we can conclude the process of aesthetical perception in Broadway musical from the alternation of aesthetical orientation. From the features of adaptation of the drama, we can find its changes under the effects of aesthetical orientation in serious literature, i.e., Broadway musical focuses on the masses’ life and predicament. The delving and exploration into the development is also an inspection of correlation between creation of musical scripts and serious literature.In terms of the study on the relationship between the culture of Broadway musical and American cultural industry that generates critical facilitating effects, it reveals the close interactions between Broadway musical and its social demands since its birth. As a dramatic type, musical has its own development pattern as well as follows the basic mode of dramatic development. The entire Broadway musical not only includes the main elements of Broadway musical, but also includes the components of off-Broadway and non-Broadway musical. It is also the ideological trend of dramatic literature. Specifically speaking, as the trend in the whole literature field, the affecting factors are related to the national culture. Hence, cultural innovation is an important component of Broadway musical as well as a significant source of mainstream consciousness and artistic updating of Broadway musicalinnovation. The analysis of the changes of development of Broadway musical,off-Broadway musical and non-Broadway musical, it can be found that the maturity and development of musical industry and advancement of cultural industry affect Broadway musical and American culture. The interwoven impacts furthermore affect the evolution of social culture that exerts counter-effects on musical. In this way, the mutual effects are caused. The original motivation of musical innovation also comes into being.The development of Broadway musical is also characterized with distinctive regional features, cultural specialties and obvious characteristic at the specific age.Through figuring out the typical scripts at different periods, the detailed analysis of the ideology, value orientation, innovation ability and artistic level can help form a clear pattern for elaborating on the literary values of Broadway musical. In the process of the scripts’ development, the previous scripts are incomparable to the current ones. Now, they have demonstrated high literary and artistic aesthetical values.The changes are full of the repetitive evolution of innovation, compromise and re-innovation. Besides, they also show the conflicts and compromise between elegance and gentleness of Broadway musical and massive culture.Compared with Broadway musical, the development of China’s drama is not only backward, but also slow. In the introduction of the dramatic type, due to the lack of creativity and mere emulation, it is incompatible in China. In the comparative study on China’s musical and Broadway musical, the focus on the cultural difference in stage art under different cultural backgrounds can help identify the cultural variations,difference in ideological forms and gap of artistic level. Under the principle of “seek difference in similarity”, we can absorb the strengths, avoid from the deficiencies,give play to the advantages, and promote the long-term development of China’s drama. Although China’s stage drama has a long history and there are sufficient cultural nutrients in China, in the global context, how to transform and make use of the outstanding cultural logic in the US is a new issue that China’s musical is now confronting.In terms of the cultural connotation of American musical and the national culture in the US, they are inclusive to each other. American culture is indeed the soil where Broadway culture was born. Moreover, Broadway musical is also advancing forward with its aesthetical orientation. The development of American drama is not linear, butfull of ups and downs. Sometimes, it may conform to the commercial culture and masses’ preference. What is the most precious is that it can break the old conventions and make innovation from time to time. It is owing to the innovative spirit that it can bear more abundant themes, break through the constraints of existing artistic expression methods, and create new artistic values, ideological values and commercial values constantly.In the innovation, the holistic thinking pattern in traditional researches is not enough to explain this. From the above research results, it can be seen that with commercialization of Broadway musical and masses’ preferences as the external force,the new expression forms can be of course adopted in the musical. However, the new expression forms are closer to the ontological forms of drama. Besides showing the entertainment significance of musical, the transformation also aims to better highlight the educational capability of injecting fun into teaching in the scripts. In addition,from cultural development that serves as the internal force that drives the development of Broadway musical, the scripts’ expression approaches also take great places. The script creation also shifts from the simple expressionism to realism. The newer the script is, the more it is likely to exceed the shell of expression forms and reach the essence of realism. However, it is also ignored in the modern development of China’s musical. When introducing Broadway musical, China’s drama merely learns from the formation but fails to capture the essence. As a result, the current China’s musical has no high appreciation values despite the plot, scene and music.Now, China is at the stage of development of socialist culture, it is an important direction to prosper the nation with culture. Thereby, it can enlighten China’s contemporary musical by referring to the successful experience of American Broadway musical.