Woyzeck

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Lyrics

I sought to write lyrics consistent with the style of the dialog in the adaptation, while allowing characters a higher degree of eloquence still within the bounds of their fundamental natures. Songs that are diagetic seek to fit consistently with the reality of each character's expressive abilities and the constraints of the scene. Non-diagetic songs allow for a window into the character's innermost self. Musical underscoring throughout combined with occasional sung lines are meant to integrate the experiences of dialog and music smoothly for the audience. Sung lines in dialog scenes always refer to larger pieces of sung music, inviting the audience to draw connections between the more intimate sung-through character information they have been privy to and the external action of the dialog scenes.

The process of lyric writing came after completing the direct translation and adaptation. This order was significant because it meant that by the time I came to creating lyrics I was fully immersed in the language and characters of the play. A detailed understanding of each character is necessary for the lyricist to select words for each character that sound natural and believable. Sondheim has compared this process to improvisatory acting, noting, "Writing the song is acting it. [...] I take off from what the book writer has written, sometimes using a line of his as a springboard, and ad lib, and improvise as that character" (12). My process was similar. Sometimes I used a specific word or line from the adaptation script to begin to create a lyric. Other times I knew I wanted a song for a character in a certain situation in the story and started to write by improvising the character's words based on the particular circumstances required.

The process of writing lyrics was highly collaborative with the process of music composition. Because the words must fit correctly in the musical phrases, in terms of stress, emphasis, and syllable elongation, there was a great deal of collaborative revision between Padgett and myself, working over video iChat, telephone, and in person. Sometimes we would begin a song for which I had written a complete first draft of lyrics, and some songs were begun with musical phrases alone. The collaboration between Padgett and myself is very hard to untangle, as we both worked with each other to fit music and lyrics together in what is ultimately very like a complex puzzle.