The Yellow Wallpaper is a book-to-stage adaptation of the story The Yellow Wallpaper. The music was written by Mateo Chavez Lewis, with lyrics by him and Brooke Di Spirito.
It's a Psychological Horror Sung-Through Musical following a woman, Charlotte, being ordered into bedrest by her husband, John, to treat her "hysteria". Trapped in bed all day, she begins to linger on the yellow wallpaper decorating the room.
The piece was submitted to a 10-minute theater festival in New York City, and as of January 12th, 2024, there haven't been any updates on the status.
The Yellow Wallpaper contains examples of:
- Adaptation Distillation: The adaptation reduces the time scope of the musical and John's role quite a bit. Justified because the musical is only 10 minutes long.
- Adaptational Alternate Ending: While the ending was more ambiguous in the book,
Word of God says the ending of the musical is supposed to be interpreted as Charlotte committing suicide. - Adaptational Heroism: Downplayed: John was more cold in the book, in a way that might make it seem as though he's controlling Charlotte rather than helping her get better. This was largely cut.
- Alien Geometries: Charlotte thinks this of the wallpaper. She sings about how it commits artistic sin and debates whether you can even describe the yellow shade as a color.
- All Musicals Are Adaptations: Naturally, it's an adaptation of The Yellow Wallpaper.
- Audience Monologue: The framing device of the story being told through journal entries is removed in favor of Charlotte singing her thoughts to the audience.
- Avant-Garde Music: The show liberally uses dissonance, weak resolutions, and odd time signatures to depict Charlotte's unravelling.
- Babies Make Everything Better: Subverted. Charlotte suffers from post-partum depression, which causes John to order her to bedrest in the first place.
- Dark Reprise:
- Charlotte reprises The Wallpaper Song when she's losing her sanity and, in her mind, accusing the maid of disrupting the pattern.
- Charlotte reprises several songs in Seven Days, during which she is in full Freak Out mode.
- Dissonant Serenity: After the dissonant blur of notes that ended Seven Days, one of the most tense numbers of the show, Finale starts, and everything is eerily calm. There's soft piano accompaniment as Charlotte stands, beaming, in the center of the room, which is now covered in yellow wallpaper.
- Double Meaning: In "A Long Yellow Night", Charlotte wonders if she can call the pattern of the wallpaper a pattern at all. This doubles as both a Call-Back to "The Wallpaper Song" and her thinking the pattern is created of a woman in the wallpaper.
- Driven to Madness: Charlotte's fate at the end, after being locked in a room and bedridden for who knows how long.
- The Four Chords of Pop: Unusual for such a dissonant soundtrack, but they show up in "A Long Yellow Night", though moved around a bit. It's shifted to IV, I, V, vinote as opposed to I, V, vi, IV.
- Hysterical Woman: Deconstructed, John says her condition is hysteria when she starts off sane, but as she gets worse and worse, John claims she's getting better.
- "I Want" Song: John Knows Best briefly transitions into this for a little bit, when Charlotte sings about how she longs to be in the garden.
- Leitmotif:
- The yellow wallpaper motif, a series of descending, dissonant notes that clash with each other, and usually the key they're in.
- The garden motif, an inverse of the yellow wallpaper motif and representative of her longing for the garden.
- John's chord, first played in "John Knows Best", plays whenever John talks.
- Lost in Imitation: The framing device of Charlotte's journal is largely removed for the idea of Charlotte voicing her thoughts to the audience.
- Charlotte singing represents her thoughts, and the story is still mostly told from her perspective as nobody else sings.
- Madness Mantra: At the end of "The Wallpaper Song", Charlotte repeats, over and over, "
what is the paper hiding?" - Named by the Adaptation: Technically Charlotte, the main character, even though the name originates from a different adaptation
. - Now That's Using Your Teeth!: Played for Horror: At the end, with only one day remaining before she leaves, Charlotte is so desperate to free the woman in the wallpaper that she starts ripping the wallpaper off with her teeth.
- Patter Song: "A Long Yellow Night" is definitely this, with its fast (almost 300 beats per minute) tempo and quick and dense wording.
- Punctuated! For! Emphasis!: On the last day of "Seven Days", Charlotte, instead of belting "___ day!!", she just says "One. Day."
- Reprise Medley: "Seven Days" reprises "John Knows Best", "The Wallpaper Song", and "A Long Yellow Night".
- Rhymes on a Dime: Largely averted. Charlotte almost never rhymes, and when she does, it's broken up between multiple lyrics.
- Sanity Slippage Song: "A Long Yellow Night" and "Seven Days" depict her downward spiral in her time trapped in the room.
- The Something Song: "The Wallpaper Song".
- Sung-Through Musical: Most of the musical is sung-through. There's a few quick dialogue scenes, but they're few and far between.
- Uncommon Time: "A Long Yellow Night" is in 5/8 time.
- Wallpaper Camouflage: Charlotte believes there's a woman in the wallpaper and rips off all of the wallpaper before her time in the house is out.
- Wham Line:Charlotte: Don't those look like eyes?
- This shows the beginning of her seeing the woman in the wallpaper, a sign of her Sanity Slippage.
What is the paper hiding?
