Egan, K., Pinchbeck, M., 2026.

Underscoring the text: musicality as live dramaturgical frame in performance

Egan & Pinchbeck present an analysis of three performances that utilise musicality as a dramaturgical and scenographic framing device to underscore text. ThickSkin's Peak Stuff (2024) is a postdramatic play which uses live drumming as both soundtrack and punctuation of the playtext, introducing syncopation and rhythm into delivery. The RSC's Hamlet Hail to the Thief (2025) takes Radiohead's 2004 album and reconfigures it as a counter-text to Shakespeare's own, where lyrics replace theatrical dialogue. Finally, Matchstalks Remastered (2023) demonstrates the authors' own original approach to devising theatre from musical stimuli by translating the 1978 hit, 'Matchstalk Men and Matchstalk Cats and Dogs'. The music, inspired by the paintings of LS Lowry, became the performance score, whilst jazz musicians on stage played Lowry's paintings like a music score. All three case studies explore Roesner's claim that musicality is a 'catalyst' that enables the 'interaction and interplay' between theatre and music (2014: 235). The article pinpoints these interactions and reactions, championing an intertextual approach to music-theatre creation. Composer for Hamlet Hail to the Thief, Thom Yorke, told The Observer he was 'interested in the idea of two levels of performance going on, one theatrical and one musical' (Sawyer 2025).

Our analysis proceeds with reference to rehearsal notes, documentation, script/score, interviews and reviews. We have identified commonalities across case studies that include: Live music underscoring scripted text; Live musicians as performers; Music composed or rearranged to respond to narrative, atmosphere and image; Music as punctuation and syncopation of scenic material; Rehearsal as integrated ensemble process with musicians/writers; Musicians matching the rhythm of the text. As Fisher states about Peak Stuff '[Billie] Collins writes beautifully in rhythms picked up, underscored and amplified by drummer Matthew Churcher, centre stage and bringing tremendous dynamic range' (2024).

The authors' creative methodology is used as a blueprint for '(de)composing scores'. Focussing on a feedback loop between performance and music score, they examine the transformative effect of 'musicalising' performance and 'theatricalising' composition. Taking Etchells' understanding of the interplay between 're-enacting and reactivating' the score (2015), alongside Roesner's sense of sampling as 'the transformation of a citation into composable material' (2014), the article stages a dialogue between music, text, score and performance. Curator, Neil Mackenzie, wrote: 'Matchstalks Remastered was a masterly interweaving of the stories of LS Lowry and the 70's folk/pop classic. A wild piece with crazy energy, that threatened to consume itself and overwhelmed its audience, it ultimately offered an extraordinary reinvention of what a score is [...] and how it can organise not just music, but action, images, historical documents, and a whole creative process.' (2023)

Combining 'postdramatic theatre' (Lehmann, 2006), 'composed theatre' (Rebstock and Roesner, 2012) and 'score theatre' (Spagnolo, 2017), we expose how musicality is integral to the devising process of each case study, through their aesthetics, language, behaviours, organisational structures and narratives. We argue that 'thinking musically' in the theatre environment, by underscoring text, serves to strengthen the interconnectedness of musicality and performance.