Encounters with ‘the same’ (but different): London Road and the politics of territories and repetitions in verbatim musical theatre

Abstract

Using Deleuze and Guattari’s notion of the ‘refrain’, the article investigates London Road as an example of a ‘minor’ practice in musical theatre, which engages with a tracing and play with ‘territories’ as well as several acts of deterritorialization and reterritorialization. These processes are examined both at the level of content (and the thematic considerations of ‘inclusion’ and ‘exclusion’ in the building of a community) and form. The performance introduces new relationships and functions between the components/means at the musical’s disposal and invites a different type of audience engagement (or ‘encounter’) by destabilizing fixed forms and categories like song/speech, lyric/book, diegetic/non-diegetic, audience/actors, auditorium/stage and ultimately reality/representation. This case study exemplifies how the hybrid form of the ‘verbatim musical’ has the potential to mutually deterritorialize both of the genres it brings in dialogue and allows for a new type of engagement with the politics of the musical in the twenty-first century.