music and theatre

[ckaratnytsky at nypl.org]

     You know, all this talk about Fripped-out GR and retro songs has got 
     me thinking about these songs here in Mason and Dixon.  They are 
     really wonderful and fun, and there are an awful lot more of them, 
     don't you think, than in the other works?  I like the way they 
     function--sometimes advancing the action, other times simply 
     interrupting it, enlivening character, you know, all that. 
      (The Martha and George number, which I read again the other night was 
     a charming interlude.)  
     
     And here's another thing:  You know, here I am, a theatre librarian, 
     with all the attendant awe and love of live performance, so, 
     naturally, one of the things in Pynchon that resonates for me with 
     other works of literature is how *theatrical* he is.  We've often played 
     that "who would star in the Gravity's Rainbow movie" game, and we've 
     talked about how filmic he is--but I don't recall any discussion here 
     of dramatic aspects and influences.  
     
     Now, I am known, I think, or should be, to have a certain 
     recalcitrance these days regarding the reading of literary criticism.  
     I admit only to dipping in here and there.  Anyway, in spite of the 
     attendant ignorance associated therein, I would make bold to say that 
     for "strangeness" alone, to appropriate (steady, all) Harold Bloom's 
     usage, among Pynchon's literary influences one might count Shaw, no 
     less a sardonic moralist, and Williams, no less a high gothic 
     moralist.  My favorite Shaw play, the visionary Man and Superman, 
     leaps immediately to mind as an influence, in particular, the Don Juan 
     in Hell portion.  (And maybe even Heartbreak House and Major Barbara.) 
      As for Williams' I would mention some of the more perverse 
     works--Orpheus Descending, Sweet Bird of Youth (complete with 
     off-stage castration), and the really weird phantasmagoria of Camino 
     Real.  This is just sort of flying out as I think of it, so forgive 
     me, there are likely other important playwrights I'm forgetting, and I 
     might be zeroing in on Gravity's Rainbow for the moment.  I would tend 
     *not* to include the likeliest suspects among Beckett's plays, and 
     lean more towards the very late plays.  The talking lips of Not I, for 
     example, find their natural receptor in Jenkin's Ear.  At any rate...  
     
     What think ye, my betters, about the theatre of Pynchon--musical and 
     non-musical?  Is this silliness?  Has it been written about?
     
     Chris, who will add to Monte's to-read list Harold Bloom's Omens of   
     Millennium--The Gnosis of Angels, Dreams and Resurrection, finished 
     just a few days ago, and no throwing things, anti-Bloomies!