A Critical Guide to Code-Meshing, Multilingualism, and Musicals

Abstract

This chapter examines multilingual regional theatre productions of Fame, The Musical En Español & English (2019) and The Hunchback of Notre Dame (2018) as important examples of code-switching and code-meshing in musical theatre genres. Intrasentential and intersentential code-switching is common in musicals like Cabaret (1966) and Fiorello! (1959), which are performed in one primary language. This chapter uses the evolution of code-switching in musicals to argue contemporary multilingual productions instead use code-meshing, enabling characters a rhetorical power rooted in their physical and linguistic identity. By foregrounding new linguistic options that resolve dramaturgical issues in monolingual scripts, these productions refuse linguistic hierarchies that obscure how English codes and prioritizes whiteness and ability. Understanding the powerful ends to which musical productions use code-meshing allows us to think about language in musical theatre as a negotiation of discourses on ability, race, and socioeconomic status, as well as a complex relationship between the stage languages of song, dance, and speech that constitutes all musical theatre production.