THE MUSIC MAN

The theme of "Redemption" is one of the most powerful and oft used plot devices in  Western literature.   There is something innate in us that finds a sweet reward in the experience of a character transformed by some redemptive power.   Is it related to our shared Christian ethos?   Is there a spiritual element, aside from that Christian ethos that is innate in all mankind?  

The story of the prodigal son provokes such strong reactions in people, even in non-believers because they can identify with their own children's loss and return.  And we root for the ex-criminal who is trying to live his life on the straight and narrow.  It is everywhere in films, in opera, in literature.   There is nothing so satisfying, so fulfilling of drama, and so final it its import.  

And so, we stumble upon "The Music Man," which is delightful enough without any thought of the redemptive power of drama.    But here, there is the redemptive power of music, and it is this aspect of the musical I would like to focus on as it plays out in the hands of Meredith Wilson's text.  

Harold Hill, or, "Professor Harold Hill," is presented to us as a charlatan, a mountebank, who cannot lead a band or teach anyone to play an instrument, yet sells a whole town on the idea.    There's something there.   Something profound.   Something, I think, most of us miss when we see the show, even those of us who really love the show.    How does Harold Hill sell the town on the idea of allowing him to lead a boys' band?

Is it that he convinces them that their boys are in trouble as the famous number suggests?  Yes, but that is only a partial explanation.    The threat of the pool table is simply a tool that Hill uses to introduce himself.  It is not what sells the town on him, for that is what he is truly selling:  himself.   How does he do that? 

Well, first we must ask, why a boy's band?  Of all the things he could sell the town on, he chooses a boy's band?   Seems and odd choice for a flim-flam man, a shyster, a crook.   But we are given subtle but powerful hints to his choice and thus to his success along the way.  

His friend, Marcellus, refers to a past incident when "Greg" (Hill's real name, apparently) would "imitate that Italian band leader," in Joplin.  At the mention of this Hill reproduces his conducting and drifts away for a moment.   It was a telling moment for us.   It showed us that Hill had some kind of great love of music and a desire to lead a band.    Inside him, he was a band leader, that was his truth, and we are shown just how badly he wanted to think of himself as such.   

In another scene, he is waiting at the footbridge and sees a big brass band in his mind reflected in the water.   He takes a stick and, again, momentarily loses himself in an imaginary conducting moment.  

Lastly, during the "Trouble" number he recalls an "electric thrill that he once had," when Gilroy, Conway, Creatore, W.C. Handy, and (with great reverence) John Philip Sousa, all came to town on the very same historic day.    This was no fiction no "sales tool," or gimmick.    This even HAPPENED, and it happened to him and it burned a hole in his heart and mind.    This is why he is able to sell it so well, and that is why the town's people bought it.   It was truth.    They were buying the truth of his experience, the electric thrill, the joy of music, and they wished their children to have it.    In fact, they not only "bought it," they envisioned it, seeing a marching band where there was none: "The man's a by-God spell-binder."   Yes, in this sense, he is in the tradition of the shaman of history or of more remote cultures.    He can see into other realms and make you see it, if he chooses to, or relates it to you.   The you are transformed along with him.  

But Hill, poor man, is not a real teacher and is, in fact a criminal, about to face his accusers at the end of the film.   He has a chance to escape.  He chooses not to, and in that choice is his redemption.    He is redeemed by love, that same theme we find in Wagner's Ring, in Bogart's "Casablanca,"  and in Cagney's, "Roaring Twenties."   But it is not just his love for Marion, nor is it Marion's love for him, both of which play a significant part.  

Hill's redemption comes directly from his  love for music and the power latent in music to transform, which he recognizes, and has always sought, although without knowing it.    He has finally found a place where he is accepted as a "Professor" of Music, not in the conventional sense but in a more important one; he is accepted for what he had to give of himself, out of the TRUTH of himself, his knowledge of the redemptive power of music.  This he gave freely and someone, finally,  took and understood and loved him for it. 

He only then does he truly become, "The Music Man," and we seem him as the town does, as he has  seen himself, marching, triumphantly through the streets of the town, followed by that ever elusive marching band, now, like himself, no longer elusive, but real and full of life and power and most of all, joy.  

It was all around, all along, but he couldn't hear it singing.