Results and Analysis
Percentage of War and Peace References per Song
In order to answer our research question of how much of Great Comet draws from War and Peace, we calculated the percentage of lines of stanzas of each song that have a strong correlation with a passage from the novel, which you can observe for yourself more thoroughly in our text browse function.
Immediately, there is a glaring outlier: 0% of the “Prologue” comes from the novel. This is actually very correct, as “Prologue” isn’t really part of the musical’s storyline. As any good prologue should do, it sets up the storyline by introducing the setting and characters, starting with the oft-repeated line “There’s a war going on out there somewhere / and Andrey isn’t here”. This is particularly necessary in Great Comet because it takes place in the middle of War and Peace, so the audience needs a crash course of the many characters that they would have already known had they read the novel thus far.
There are two 100%s in this graph: “Pierre and Anatole” and “Natasha Very Ill”. Despite this large number, “Natasha Very Ill” isn’t actually all that significant, as it is a very short song with only a handful of lines. In a more advanced graph, we would have added an element of being able to see how lines a song actually had to put that into perspective.
Even if there are such outliers, we are still able to draw some conclusions. Songs with a lot of dialogue (“Natasha and Anatole”, “Sonya and Natasha”, “Pierre and Anatole”) all have very high percentages. These songs are almost completely comprised of dialogue taken directly out of War and Peace, with little to no alteration. This makes sense, as textual dialogue transfers easily into an operatic musical format wherein the characters sing all of their lines instead of speaking them. Because of this, songs with lots of conflict between two people are more likely to have higher percentages (“Pierre and Anatole”, “Sonya and Natasha”, “In My House”). It makes sense that this would be the case, as highly charged emotion is better expressed through back and forth dialogue rather than flowery musical prose that a lyricist could take more artistic liberties with (see “Dust and Ashes”).
“Dust and Ashes” is somewhat of an outlier, coming in at a low 11%. This is a unique case because this solo, sung by Pierre, is more of an expression of the themes of his character arc throughout the entire novel (being unhappy with life, etc) rather than a song that follows a specific part of the storyline. Because of this, there is a very small percentage of lines that come straight out of War and Peace, as the way this specific song draws from the novel is more thematic than directly lyrical. This allowed for a lot more artistic liberty in the lyrics, and they sure did; it’s a six minute or so song. The composer has been noted as saying something like “When you have Josh Groban, you gotta make him sing!”, and sing he did. As an aside, the lyric that comes from the novel is “They say we are asleep until we fall in love / we are children of dust and ashes”. This quote isn’t even said by Pierre, nor is it even part of the book of the novel that Great Comet takes from. It’s spoken by a minor character in one of the very first scenes of the novel, writing to his wife from the front lines of the war. The more you know!
Instances of Spoken Action per Character
This graph analyzes spoken action. Spoken action is when a character describes what they or another character are doing. This is a characteristic unique to Great Comet - other musicals don’t usually do that. Some examples include “Natasha’s whole body shook / with noiseless, convulsive sobs” (Sonya, “In My House”) and “I seize you by the collar with my big big hands” (Pierre, “Pierre and Anatole”).
This graph analyzes two main things: when a character describes themselves (in the left column, divided into 1st (red) and 3rd (blue) person), and then when they describes another character (in the rightmost column; scroll over a color to see who it describes! Hooray for interactivity!).
Many hypotheses that we had originally were proved to be true. Since Anatole is a very self-centered character, we thought that he would have very little instances of describing others if at all. This is correct, with him talking about another character only once as opposed to many instances of him talking about his favorite subject: himself.
We guessed that Natasha and Pierre, being the titular characters of the musical, would be high in scale of spoken action given the fact that they talk a lot. This was generally true, with them being some of the highest contenders on this graph. Natasha scores particularly high on the describing herself scale, which could perhaps be attributed to her childishness: she has to explain everything, or else she won’t understand it. She describes Anatole’s action the most out of anyone, which makes sense, as her interactions with him are confusing to her, leading to a lot of spoken action as she tries to make sense of what is happening to her.
Sonya, dear Sonya, is exactly what we expected. Sonya is a very meek, shy, and selfless character, so we hypothesized that she would describe others more than she would describe herself. We guessed that she would describe Natasha the most, as she cares very deeply for her adoptive cousin, and we were right. In fact, Sonya is the first person to ever describe spoken action in “Moscow”, describing Natasha. What’s curious is that Sonya was the one chosen to be a narrator of sorts for the opera scene in “The Opera”. It could be because Sonya is a good candidate for the role because of her observant character traits, seen in the way she describes action the most out of anyone else. A more practical (and less based in data) answer could be because the composer wanted to give the actress more lines, and since Sonya’s actress is phenomenal, none of us are complaining.
Other clusters of characters make sense in the context of the musical. The musical portrays Dolokhov and Hélène as Anatole’s cronies, which makes their describing Anatole perfectly logical. Bolkonsky is a little senile and self-obsessed, which gives credibility to the idea of him only describing himself, especially in the third person. Mary is his caretaker, so it makes sense that she would describe him often. The servant is, as indicated, a very minor character who only serves others, so it makes sense that they would only ever describe other people.
Comparing the Percentage of Character References between War and Peace and “Natasha, Pierre, and The Great Comet of 1812”
Using the completed markup of both War and Peace and "Natasha, Pierre, and the Great Comet of 1812", we were able to further our comparative research of the novel (book eight, specifically) and the musical. This graph represents the percentage of character references (excluding pronouns) in both works. As far as can be presumed by the data collected, both the novel and the musical put similar emphasis on the main characters in each story. This research assists the theory that book eight of War and Peace and "The Great Comet of 1812" follows a similar plot.
The most glaring observation made from this graph, is that the characters, Natasha, Pierre, and Anatole are the most referenced throughout the novel and the musical. Their prevalence in both works shows they follow similar character dynamics and plots. Interestingly enough, Pierre, though one of the most prevalent characters, takes a more of a backseat in the musical. He is referenced significantly less than Anatole in the musical, though they share almost the same amount of references in the novel.
Similarly to Pierre, other minor characters also take more of a backseat in the musical. These characters include: Hélène, Dolokhov, Mary, and Marya D. This is likely due to the need for simplcity for a stage production. Too many characters vying for main character slots creates a convoluted plot. While this works within a novel and each character can be given as much or little detail as the author wishes, a stage production has a rigid window of time to capture the story/adaptation. Also, if a show wants to sell, it needs to be understandable and fathomable to its audience. The literal novel as a smash hit, new musical would likely not be probable.
One more item of note on this chart is the significant incline in activity from Balaga in the musical. Unlike other minor character, Balaga was given a bigger part in the musical--likely to break tension and work as comedic relief as can be heard in the lyrics "Balaga's just for fun!". Again, because this is an adaptive piece and not simply a retelling of the novel, the stage production has more liberty with the characters and their stories.
LIMITATIONS: We do acknowledge that there are limitations to our findings. First, since we did not include pronouns in the conduction of our markup in either the book or the musical, this cannot lead to a 100% accurate display of the data. Second, this data does not display characters that might have been in a scene or spoken to directly without the mention of their name. Instances of this occur in the book and the musical, but based on the markup we conducted, we would have no way of knowing when this could take place.
Conclusions
The amount of lyrics that come directly from the text of War and Peace varies between each song, and depends on what is going on in the song. Songs with more dialogue are more likely to be more text-based, whereas more thematic songs are more likely to place lower on the spectrum of percentages. It’s very clear that War and Peace was drawn on heavily for this musical, which makes Great Comet very unique in adaptation and in the general scope of what musical theatre can be. While the instances of spoken action were more rare than we expected, who describes others and who they describe speaks volumes about the kind of character they are and the role they play in the overall story.