The Mystery of Edwin Drood is a mystery musical comedy written by Rupert Holmes based on the unfinished Charles Dickens novel of the same name. The show was the first Broadway musical with multiple endings (determined by audience vote). The show won five Tony Awards, including Best Musical, with Holmes awarded for Best Book of a Musical and Best Original Score.
The musical debuted at the New York Shakespeare Festival in August 1985 before transferring to Broadway, where it ran until May 1987, sometimes billed as Drood: The Music Hall Musical, followed by two national tours and a West End production. The Roundabout Theatre Company revived the musical in 2012.
History
Sources The musical is a staging of Charles Dickens' final and unfinished novel The Mystery of Edwin Drood in a style hearkening to British pantomime and music hall genres that had reached a height of popularity around the time of Dickens' death.
As with most of his other novels, Dickens wrote The Mystery of Edwin Drood in episodic installments. It began publication in 1870, but Dickens died suddenly that year from a stroke. He left no notes about how he intended to finish the story. Almost immediately, various authors and playwrights, including Dickens's son, wrote endings. Since then, there have been several "collaborations" between the late Dickens and other novelists, numerous theatrical extrapolations, and three film adaptations of the story.
At the time Dickens died, British pantomime styles, distinguished by the importance of audience participation and conventions like the principal boy, reached their height of popularity, and music hall performances with raucous, risqué comedy and a distinct musical style rose to prominence.
Rupert Holmes, the major creative contributor to the musical Drood, spent his early childhood in England. At age three, he was taken to the theater for the first time: a modern "panto" with a cross-dressing lead boy and audience sing-alongs. By age eleven, he was fascinated by mystery books and first discovered the unfinished Dickens novel. Holmes drew on these experiences when impresario Joseph Papp, the creator and head of the New York Shakespeare Festival, approached him to write a new musical.
Concept Holmes, a singer-songwriter who recorded the Billboard No. 1 Hit, "Escape (The Piña Colada Song)" and wrote songs for the Platters, the Drifters, Wayne Newton, Dolly Parton, Barry Manilow, and Barbra Streisand, first became interested in writing a musical in 1983. After a nightclub appearance where he performed "story songs" and shared humorous anecdotes, Holmes received a note from Gail Merrifield, director of play development at the New York Shakespeare Festival and Joseph Papp's wife. She had seen Holmes' performance and suggested he write a full-length musical.
Holmes conceived the show’s central premises by drawing on his recollections of Dickens' novel and pantomime as a youth, and his later experiences with Victorian-style music hall performances. From Dickens work, Holmes took the central plot and most of the featured characters. From pantomime, he retained the concept of the "Lead Boy,” always portrayed by a young female in male drag, which permitted him to write a love song sung by two sopranos. Pantomime also inspired the most ground-breaking aspect of Drood: audience participation. From music hall traditions, he created the lead character of "The Chairman,” a sort of Master of Ceremonies instigating stage action.
Holmes wrote the book, the music, the lyrics, and the full orchestrations for Drood, an unusual accomplishment. While Holmes believed no Broadway creator had done this before, and the feat was frequently mentioned in reviews and press about the show, it was more common in the early days of musical theatre. Although songwriters, including Adolf Philipp, had been credited for the books of their musicals,Adolf Philipp's IBDB entry none had also written their orchestrations.
In writing the book, Holmes deliberately chose not to imitate Dickens's writing style, as he felt it would be too bleak for the show he envisioned. Instead, he employed the device of a "show-within-a-show." The cast members of Drood do not specifically play Dickens's characters; rather, they are music hall players performing as Dickens's characters. This device allowed for the incorporation of light comedy, which was not present in the original novel, and several musical numbers unrelated to the original story. Holmes explained his decision, stating, "This is not Nicholas Nickleby set to music – it's not a Dickensian work. It's light fun and entertaining. But I hope – I think – that Dickens would have enjoyed it." Holmes also noted that the show “has the same relationship to Dickens that Kiss Me, Kate does to The Taming of the Shrew."
Most inventively, Holmes used a novel method to determine the play’s outcome: audience voting. At a break in the show, the audience votes on who killed Drood, the identity of the mysterious Dick Datchery, and which two characters will become romantically involved, creating a happy ending. Since every audience differs in temperament, the outcome is theoretically unpredictable, even to the actors, who must quickly tally the votes and perform the chosen ending (although some smaller companies will "fix" the results to limit the number of possible endings). This device required Holmes to write numerous short endings to cover every possible voting outcome.
Deviations from the novel There are several differences between the musical and the Dickens novel. The most obvious is tone. The original episodes, consistent with Dickens’s style, were bleak. Holmes made the show more lighthearted and comedic. There are also differences in characters. The most notable is Jasper, who Dickens portrayed as undoubtedly repressed and troubled. Holmes made him a full-fledged split personality, omitting several of the novel's clues that Jasper is the killer, fabricating new clues implicating other suspects, and explaining that there would be no mystery if Jasper were the obvious killer. Holmes also omitted several minor characters and expanded the roles of others. For example, Bazzard is employed by Rosa's guardian, Mr. Grewgious, in the novel, but he is Crisparkle's assistant in the musical.
Synopsis The following synopsis represents one particular version of the plot, though licensed variants of the show allow for fewer or more songs and lines, songs in a different order, and fewer or more plot points.
Act I Actors of London's Music Hall Royale circulate among, and then introduce themselves to, the audience, led by their Chairman, who acts as narrator ("There You Are"). He introduces the play's setting as the (fictional) town of Cloisterham and its cathedral's choirmaster, John Jasper, whose mundane life is splitting his mind in two ("A Man Could Go Quite Man"). Jasper greets his adoring young nephew Edwin Drood ("Two Kinsmen"), who is engaged to Rosa Bud, Jasper's music pupil and the secret object of Jasper's lustful obsession. At Rosa's next music lesson, Jasper makes her sing a song he has composed with obvious sexual innuendo ("Moonfall"). The cathedral's kindly Reverend Crisparkle arrives to announce that immigrant twins from Ceylon, Helena and Neville Landless, will be living under his care. Neville is immediately attracted to Rosa, which makes him a rival to both Drood and the sinister Jasper.
The Chairman brings the audience to the London opium den of the ageing Princess Puffer, who laments her morally corrupt livelihood ("Wages of Sin"). One of Puffer's regular clients is none other than Jasper, who cries out the name 'Rosa Bud' during a hallucination, which Puffer overhears. Back in Cloisterham, Neville and Drood meet, each quickly offending the other.
Next, the Chairman is forced to play the town's mayor as the regular actor is too drunk to appear. The Chairman and Jasper sing of their confusing double roles (Jasper, though, referring to his split personality) in a patter song ("Both Sides of the Coin"). Edwin and Rosa, who have been promised to each other since they were children, decide to call off their engagement. As a parting gift, Rosa gives Drood her hair clasp ("Perfect Strangers").
On Christmas Eve, Jasper arranges a dinner for the Landless twins, Crisparkle, Rosa, and Drood. However, Neville and Drood's antagonism only worsens, and Crisparkle reveals he once loved Rosa's now-deceased mother ("No Good Can Come from Bad"). The guests frantically depart into a violent storm. There is a short halt, where the actor playing Bazzard, an employee of the cathedral, soliloquizes about how he never lands a major part in a show ("Never The Luck").
The next day Drood has vanished. Bazzard discovers Edwin's torn coat by the river. Drood was last seen walking there with Neville the night before. Neville is almost lynched by the townsfolk, but Crisparkle and Helena persuade the mayor to release him, since no corpse has yet been discovered. Jasper confesses his deranged love to Rosa. She is horrified, and he pursues her offstage ("The Name Of Love/Moonfall").
Act II Six months later, there is still no sign of Drood. Puffer has been investigating Drood's disappearance but has also noticed a seedy-looking figure doing the same: detective "Dick Datchery", played by the same actor who plays Drood ("Settling Up The Score"). The cast summarizes the situation so far, and the Chairman announces that the audience will now take a series of votes to determine the story's end ("Don't Quit While You're Ahead"). He says that Datchery is an alias for one of the other characters in disguise. When he concludes that Drood is indeed murdered and therefore not Datchery, the actress playing Drood/Datchery storms out of the theatre. Actors then tally votes from the audience for the identity of both Datchery and Drood's murderer.
Puffer tells Rosa that she was once her nanny before her reluctant descent into a life of crime ("Garden Path To Hell"). Puffer also reveals the identity of Datchery ("Puffer's Revelation"). The evening's Datchery (either Bazzard, Reverend Crisparkle, Helena, Neville, or Rosa) then explains why they took up a disguise and tracked down the killer; the girls did it mainly to disguise their gender, Neville to prove his innocence, Crisparkle to help both Neville and Helena, and Bazzard to give himself a bigger dramatic role ("Out On A Limerick"). The commonalities of each version are that the character follows Jasper to his house and finds the clasp that Rosa gave Drood, which Jasper could only have taken from Drood. The townspeople then haul Jasper onstage, where he admits that he strangled his nephew under the influence of opium ("Jasper's Confession").
The town's gravedigger, Durdles, however, steps forward with a twist. Depending on the audience's vote, Durdles reveals that Bazzard, Crisparkle, Helena, Neville, Puffer, Rosa, or Durdles himself is the real murderer. The murder confesses ("Murderer's Confession"). The gist of each confession is that the murderer was seeking to kill Jasper for his or her purpose: Puffer to protect Rosa, Rosa to save herself, Helena to avenge Jasper for ruining her twin's reputation, Bazzard for the limelight, Neville because he wanted Rosa for himself, or Crisparkle because he wanted to protect Rosa and Neville from Jasper's evil (or in other versions because he is losing his mind). The murders tend to hinge on the fact that the killer mistook Drood for Jasper since Drood was wearing Jasper's coat, which Drood borrowed during the storm. (Durdles's confession, however, is merely that he drunkenly killed Drood when mistaking him for a ghost.)