Mired in obscurity and met with derision for far too long, monodrama is a genre ripe for reevaluation.  From its origins in the eighteenth century to contemporary works bearing the moniker, monodrama has been beset by confusions stemming from nomenclature, origin, and interpretation.  This essay will examine the genre of monodrama, historically and conceptually, as it is manifested in musical and spoken drama.  Specifically, it will trace the links that bind the eighteenth century form initiated by Rousseau to the form that reemerges in the twentieth century, represented in this piece by Peter Maxwell Davies’s 1969 Eight Songs for a Mad King.

A Very Brief History of Monodrama

The story of monodrama is generally acknowledged to begin with Jean-Jacques Rousseau’s 1766 Pygmalion.  The one-character piece consisted of an alternation of spoken monologue with musical interludes, and was not called monodrama by Rousseau, but rather melodrame or, at other times a scène lyrique.  By 1775, Pygmalion had achieved modest success in several different musical settings (the first by Horace Coignet), and had made its way to Germany.  The Germans received the piece enthusiastically and thus began a string of imitations of the form.  The best-known composer of these works in Germany was Georg Benda, who wrote his own Pygmalion, based entirely on Rousseau’s, as well as a Medea and a duodrama (consisting of two speaking characters), Ariadne auf Naxos.  Benda and other German composers of the genre referred to their works as monodramas and the term was applied to Rousseau’s Pygmalion in hindsight.  According to both of the major studies of the genre, Kirsten Gram Hölmstrom’s 1967 Monodrama, Attitudes, and Tableaux-Vivants, and J. Van der Veen’s 1955 Le Melodrame Musical de Rousseau et Romantisme, the genre fell into obscurity as of around 1815. [1] 

Though the term retained currency in literary circles through the nineteenth century, particularly in poetry, as seen in Tennyson’s 1855 Maud: A Monodrama, and in drama as early as 1870, the musical form seems to reappear only after the turn of the twentieth century in the work of Arnold Schoenberg.  Schoenberg’s 1909 Erwartung, called a monodrama by the composer, recalls the eighteenth century form insofar as there is a single character onstage, but strays from the formally “melodramatic” characteristic of spoken portions interspersed with music to instead have the libretto sung along with the music.  Is Erwartung monodrama in the tradition of Rousseau and Benda?  Schoenberg says little on his use of the term, and there is no preponderance of evidence to suggest a strong affinity with the musical structures of the earlier works.  However, it is my assertion that Erwartung, and much of Schoenberg’s work, does indeed follow in the path of the eighteenth century monodrama, but in a conceptual, rather than formal manner. 

In the same year that Schoenberg wrote Erwartung, Russian director Nikolai Evreinov presented a lecture at the Moscow Academy of Arts and Letters entitled “Introduction to Monodrama.”[2]  Evreinov’s lecture envisioned a form of drama in which everything we see onstage is a representation of the immediate, subjective experience of a strong central protagonist:

Now by ‘monodrama’ I mean to denote the kind of dramatic presentation which, while attempting to communicate to the spectator as fully as it can the active participant’s state of mind, displays the world around him on stage just as the active participant perceives the world at any given moment of his existence on stage.[3]

Evreinov’s concept had in fact been previously stated in France by Saint-Pol-Roux in 1900, but Evreinov is generally credited with popularizing the term.  Both Evreinov and Saint-Pol-Roux are specifically referring to multi-character performances seen from the protagonist’s mental perspective, but I suggest that the use of the term “monodrama” to refer to a drama characterized by intense subjectivity is worth further investigation.

In their studies of the eighteenth century genre, both Hölmstrom and Van der Veen focus on the formal characteristic of monodrama: Hölmstrom on the single-character aspect, and Van der Veen on the musical structure.  However, both studies acknowledge, with little fanfare, an element of subjectivity and interiority that run through these works.  Hölmstrom suggests that behind Rousseau’s initiation of the concept was the idea that “when passion has reached such an intensity that the words no longer suffice, the declamation must be broken off and the violent emotion expressed pantomimically to the accompaniment of expressive music.”[4]  Van der Veen, in terms even more reminiscent of those used to discuss twentieth century monodrama, suggests, “La musique doit peindre quelque chose, soit le monde extérieur, soit la vie intérieure.”[5]  In these remarks, we see both authors suggesting that the music of early monodrama may have played the role of representing the internal emotions of the character, and even, perhaps, of the world outside as seen through the protagonist’s eyes. 

Though there is little physical evidence to link the eighteenth century form with the theory proposed by Evreinov or the work of Schoenberg, it is my assertion that the element of subjectivity, seen by various commentators in the earlier form and so central to its twentieth century manifestation, serves as a conceptual base substantial enough to constitute monodrama as a distinct genre.  Schoenberg’s choice of the term to describe Erwartung is fortuitous in that not only does the piece itself--which the composer once described as “a representation of the most terrifying psychological stress a human being can experience compressed into a single second, with everything that happens in that second detailed in slow motion,”[6] amply demonstrate the subjective interiority is found in the earliest monodramas--but several of Schoenberg’s other pieces, particularly his Die Gluckliche Hand, seem to mirror the contemporary theory of multi-character monodrama proposed by Evreinov.  Schoenberg thus stands as a pivotal figure in the history of monodrama.

Monodrama and the Voice in Eight Songs for a Mad King

Monodrama came to Peter Maxwell Davies quite clearly through the influence of Schoenberg.  Davies’s admiration for Schoenberg can perhaps be best displayed by the fact that when Davies assembled his own performing ensemble (which would ultimately become The Fires of London, who would eventually debut Eight Songs for a Mad King), they were entitled The Pierrot Players, and consisted of the sextet required to perform Schoenberg’s Pierrot Lunaire.[7]  And though Davies may have been more directly influenced by Schoenberg’s experiments in atonality and form, he was unquestionably familiar with Schoenberg’s monodramas.  Like Schoenberg, Davies produced not only the single-character form of monodrama, but also shows the influence of the multi-character form.  The first of Davies’s forays into monodrama, and the focus of this paper, is his 1969 piece Eight Songs for a Mad King.

Eight Songs follows the pattern of early musical monodrama both in the presence of the single-character and the strongly subjective nature of the work.  Everything from the mise-en-scène to the voice of the protagonist, to the musicians themselves, who are called upon to take roles within the piece, are seen and heard through the fractured psyche of King George III. 

Eight Songs for a Mad King was presented at the City University of New York Graduate Center’s Elebash Recital Hall on May 21, 2003, with a solo vocal performance by Paul Houghtaling, in a spare setting that, though lacking the full flights of fancy that Davies describes in his text, amply evoked the subjective world of King George III.  Davies’s text, and the original presentation of the piece by Davies’s ensemble, The Fires of London, places the musicians in cages onstage, taking the role of songbirds that King George is teaching to sing the music of Handel.  Though no such cages appeared onstage in the CUNY production, Houghtaling was able to convey the status of the musicians in the role of the birds (as well as in other roles, such as guards) that they are assigned through the play in his gestures and acting.  Davies himself saw the musicians as a representation of the King’s madness:

Just as the music of the players is always a comment upon and extension of the King’s music, so the ‘bullfinch’ and ‘keeper’ aspects of the players’ roles are physical extensions of this musical process—they are projections stemming from the King’s words and music, becoming incarnations of facets of the King’s own psyche.[8]

Davies here clearly invokes the centrally subjective nature of monodrama (and even suggests the Evreinovian concept of multi-character monodrama) in his description of the musicians as projections of the King.

It is perhaps unsurprising that while the music (and the musicians) of the piece makes a tremendous contribution to the expression of the protagonist’s mindset, it is the voice of the lead that is called upon to most fully express the King’s inner turmoil.  Davies notes, “The vocal writing calls for extremes of register and a virtuoso acting ability,”[9] and further:

The sounds made by human beings under extreme duress, physical and mental, will be at least in part familiar: with Roy Hart’s [Roy Hart was the first Mad King] extended vocal range, and his capacity for producing chords with his voice, the poems presented a unique opportunity to categorize and exploit these techniques to explore certain extreme regions of experience.[10] 

Paul Houghtaling, in his notes for his performance at CUNY, noted the difficulties of the piece: “In addition to a wide range, the vocal score requires various ‘extended’ techniques, such as glissandi, screams, simultaneous pitches and vocal fries.”[11]  Clearly, Davies intends the shrieks, cries and radical changes in pitch in the voice of the King to be reflective of a madness that is manifested both internally and externally. 

In his essay, “’I’m Not Ill, I’m Nervous’: Madness in the Music of Sir Peter Maxwell Davies,” Ruud Welten suggests a familiar source for Davies’s vocal experimentation: “The vocal technique that Maxwell Davies employs in Eight Songs for a Mad King has its predecessor in the Sprechgesang of Schoenberg’s Pierrot Lunaire.  In the latter work the voice is no longer used solely for the singing of notes.  The notes are replaced by marks that indicate the pitch of speaking.”[12]  The fact that Welten cites the non-monodramatic Pierrot Lunaire rather than the monodramatic Erwartung is demonstrative on two points.  First, Welten’s assertion further amplifies the already manifold influence of Schoenberg on Davies.  Secondly, Welten could not have cited Erwartung as an influence on vocal technique for the very reason that indeed, Erwartung does not utilize such a technique.  The affinity between Erwartung and Eight Songs is conceptual rather than formal.  The significance, then, of Davies’s use of Pierrot Lunaire is a further innovation in the form of musical monodrama.  Just as Schoenberg utilizes atonality for the purpose of representing interiority in Erwartung (a work that also concerns madness), where he had previously experimented with atonality in other, less narrative settings, so Davies employs the vocal experimentation of Pierrot Lunaire (relatively untheorized in terms of narrative meaning by Schoenberg or Welten) for the purpose of representing interiority and the fractured psyche of his mad king.

I have already noted the sparse setting of Paul Houghtaling’s performance at the CUNY Graduate Center, but would like to return to this issue in order to point out what may be viewed as an alternate reading of the piece.  While earlier Mad Kings, such as Roy Hart and Julius Eastman, had played the character costumed in full royal habit, Houghtaling appeared on the Elebash stage wearing a ratty jacket and torn jeans, looking generally rather disheveled.  The choice was an interesting one, leading the audience (or at least this humble spectator) to speculate as to Houghtaling’s own mental stability.  The intentions of this choice are made clear by a comparison between Houghtaling’s performance notes and Davies’s liner notes.  The last sentence of Houghtaling’s performance notes reads, “The question remains open: is the persecuted protagonist Mad George III, or somebody who thinks he is George?”[13]  This construction strikingly mirrors the last line of Davies’s liner notes, in which Davies suggests that the purpose of his choices within the piece has been, “to leave open the question, is the persecuted protagonist Mad?”[14]  There can be little doubt that Houghtaling’s essay-ending question echoes (if not plagiarizing) Davies’s essay-ending question.  However, there is an unmistakable and productive difference between these questions.  While Davies questions, “Is the protagonist, King George III, really mad?,” Houghtaling asks, “Is the protagonist really King George III?”  Though I would posit that many of the choices made in Houghtaling’s performance had more to do with circumstances (lack of funding, a single performance rather than an extended run) than meaning, certainly the choice of a contemporary disheveled look, rather than the King’s royal garb, allows Houghtaling to explore the possibility that the protagonist is not, in fact, King George, but rather any madman in any place or time (albeit, one with a very thorough knowledge of King George III).  Not only does this idea dovetail quite well with a monodramatic reading of the piece, but it also implicates the artist (in this case, Houghtaling) in his creation, suggesting that it is in fact the artist who is mad—precisely my immediate reaction to the performance.

Eight Songs for a Mad King is at once a unique experiment in the history of music theatre and at the same time, a late representative of the long-lived, but fairly obscure genre of monodrama.  Peter Maxwell Davies’s formal experiments in vocal technique and the dramatic inclusion of musicians in the mise-en-scène and narrative of the piece point out new paths towards a more complete representation of subjectivity and interiority in the musical form of monodrama.