Michael John LaChiusa’s music is like other great works of literature; the more you read the lyrics and consider what is happening in the story, the more greatness you see in it. You may not laugh much, but you do think and feel. “People Like Us” from Michael John LaChiusa’s The Wild Party is a great example of a LaChiusa song, one highlight in a show filled with riches.
The Wild Party is a musical about people searching, craving, needing abundance and decadence to hide and medicate their emotional emptiness. Honestly, the show sadly always reminded me of many students I met during my first teaching position, which was in a small outer-ring suburb where the kids felt like there was nothing to occupy their free time other than drinking, smoking, and drugs. There was the fair share of happy-go-stupid partygoers who went, no doubt, for a good time, but it was also a school filled with brokenness, so many kids who struggled with paternal abandonment, divorce, and emotional distance from parents, kids who did drugs and inhaled alcohol because there was no one there who cared enough to stop them.
“People Like Us” is an intriguing song for a number of reasons. First off, it plays like a passion-filled love song, and at its heart, it is a song not all that different from “If I Loved You” or “Make Believe” because it is a song in which two characters fall in love. The subtext is bonding and emotional attachment through like circumstances; however, the actual words reveal the why.
Queenie begins with a melancholy remembrance of what brought her to the city, a verse which young Nadine will later sing with glee—“Always wanted to see the lights of Broadway / I always wanted to hear the traffic roar . . .” But before she can finish it, she breaks down, and opens up, telling Black, “I was that girl. I’m all of them. Trapped in a room full of shadows and not enough light.”
The title could refer to Queenie and Black themselves, but what they say—“People like us. We take lovers like pills. / Just hoping to cure what we know we can’t fix.”—actually applies to everyone at the party—Kate’s constant conquest of younger men, Madeline’s instantaneous love for Sally, Jackie’s flippant desire for both Oscar and Nadine. What unites Queenie and Black is the mutual realization of what they’ve become, the fact that of all the people in the room, they alone realize that they are “people like us.”
That is not to say the song is all about honesty. Queenie sings, “People like us: We sure get our kicks: / And we heal awful fast and we don’t even scar,” which shows her own delusions. The fact that she’s with a man like Burrs illuminates how scarred she’s become.
Because of “People Like Us,” we can actually have hope for Queenie and Black, because her attachment to Black isn’t out of pure emotional need or sexual desire. The light that bathes her at the end (perhaps the enlightenment about her own self) signifies her entrance into the real world, the real world which she’s struggled to know throughout the show (as indicated in Black’s lyric, “It feels like a dream / But it’s too hard to tell / Where the dream begins / And the real world ends”). This isn’t another case of “Because we’re attracted to each other, we’re in love” type of love; these are two characters who are able to and willing to confront their own inner demons in order to live a life different from the one they’ve known.
So, not many laughs, but one heck of a score.
the Broadway Mouth
July 11, 2008
Showing posts with label Michael John LaChiusa. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Michael John LaChiusa. Show all posts
Friday, July 11, 2008
Monday, June 30, 2008
20 Great Broadway Songs of the Past 10 Years: “Way Back to Paradise”
It’s a challenge to contemplate selecting only one song from Marie Christine to single out as great. Not only is it a moving, passionate score of the kind we don’t see often enough these days, but the songs weave in and out of the story with such dexterity that entire sections of the score play better than just one cut.
“Way Back to Paradise,” like the rest of Michael John LaChiusa’s work, is more complex than the surface of its lyrics and music. A catchy melody beautifully performed by Audra McDonald on the Original Broadway Cast Recording, it at first appears to be a traditional feminist anthem, proclaiming the struggles of women living in a world dominated by men, with lyrics such as:
In it, Marie Christine proclaims that women were thrown of out Eden (the Paradise of the title) because of the jealousy of Heaven (the angels who came to call), who put the garden into men’s hands. Her solution is to:
And a short time later she further instructs:
All this well-intended cautioning, however, dissipates when Marie meets Dante Samuel Keyes because, as one prisoner knows before Marie says anything, she gets seduced. And not only does she get seduced, she gets thrown out of Eden after she has fallen for Keyes’ elegant lies. Indeed, she does later sweeten and stroke before she attacks and puts up a front and slips through the back to murder his fiancée, but it is out of the weakness of defense, in response to falling for his own front, that of undying love and devotion.
What is interesting about LaChiusa’s work that I’ve heard on recording (particularly Marie Christine and Bernarda Alba) is that he writes about female characters who are seemingly strong and in control—the violent Marie Christine, the dominant Bernarda Alba, the strong-willed Adela—but these are actually complex creations with insecurities and foibles that create within them passionate, strong-willed external responses that belie their core weaknesses. In comparing these seemingly strong women with strong female characters from classic literature—Jane Eyre, Elizabeth Bennett, Miss Alice Henderson, for example—the truth of LaChiusa’s characters (and their depth) becomes apparent.
the Broadway Mouth
June 30, 2008
“Way Back to Paradise,” like the rest of Michael John LaChiusa’s work, is more complex than the surface of its lyrics and music. A catchy melody beautifully performed by Audra McDonald on the Original Broadway Cast Recording, it at first appears to be a traditional feminist anthem, proclaiming the struggles of women living in a world dominated by men, with lyrics such as:
We are rules by our brothers.
We are rules by our husbands.
We jump at the voices of our masters
And do as they say.
We are bartered and traded,
Along with cattle and cotton.
In it, Marie Christine proclaims that women were thrown of out Eden (the Paradise of the title) because of the jealousy of Heaven (the angels who came to call), who put the garden into men’s hands. Her solution is to:
Study all men.
Learn what they lack.
Sweeten and stroke
Before you attack:
Put up a front
And then slip through the back
Be on your way back
to paradise
And a short time later she further instructs:
But there is a way back to paradise,
There is a way:
Bide your time.
Be clever and wise.
When you look at a man,
Look him dead in the eyes.
Do not be seduced,
Tell him elegant lies.
All this well-intended cautioning, however, dissipates when Marie meets Dante Samuel Keyes because, as one prisoner knows before Marie says anything, she gets seduced. And not only does she get seduced, she gets thrown out of Eden after she has fallen for Keyes’ elegant lies. Indeed, she does later sweeten and stroke before she attacks and puts up a front and slips through the back to murder his fiancée, but it is out of the weakness of defense, in response to falling for his own front, that of undying love and devotion.
What is interesting about LaChiusa’s work that I’ve heard on recording (particularly Marie Christine and Bernarda Alba) is that he writes about female characters who are seemingly strong and in control—the violent Marie Christine, the dominant Bernarda Alba, the strong-willed Adela—but these are actually complex creations with insecurities and foibles that create within them passionate, strong-willed external responses that belie their core weaknesses. In comparing these seemingly strong women with strong female characters from classic literature—Jane Eyre, Elizabeth Bennett, Miss Alice Henderson, for example—the truth of LaChiusa’s characters (and their depth) becomes apparent.
the Broadway Mouth
June 30, 2008
Wednesday, February 27, 2008
You Don’t Really Know This Man (or That One or That One): The Musical as an Entry to the Writers’/Writer’s Psyche
There’s something very personal about The Glass Menagerie. It’s as if Tennessee Williams opened up his soul and gently laid it on the stage. The Great Gatsby is also a very personal work. When you study the life of F. Scott Fitzgerald, you can almost see him hiding behind both Gatsby and Nick Carraway, one foot in Nick’s arm-length distance and another in Gatsby’s parties, trying not to want the life that’s there. Most pieces of great literature seem to be that way—Charlotte Bronte’s hopes and ideals in her Jane Eyre, John Steinbeck’s social concerns and love of nature in The Pearl, or August Strindberg’s meditations on truth in The Father.
Compare that intense personal expression with most musicals that have been successful on Broadway. It’s hard to see that kind of personal expression conveyed in, say, Guys and Dolls or Hairspray or even Meredith Willson’s solo opus The Music Man. Perhaps one or two of the Sondheim shows feel that personal and Rent. Rent is unique, however, in that Jonathan Larson had the chops to write the book, the music, and the lyrics, so Rent is largely his own creative expression.
The problem is that musicals are, by nature, a collaborative art form. One hundred percent of Sweet Bird of Youth is Tennessee Williams; there is no lyricist to take over for part of Chance Wayne’s dialogue or a composer needed to help convey Heavenly’s psyche.
It’s also important to remember that musicals are typically adapted from another source, so Flower Drum Song is a derivation of C.Y. Lee’s vision and The Secret Garden brings to life Frances Hodgson Burnett’s unique worldview. Sometimes those works might be filtered through creators’ lenses (such as the fairy tales in Into the Woods) or re-imagined/refocused to become a personal reflection of a creative team (like Annie), but the art form is still largely a group effort.
It’s such a rare occurrence that, when it does occur, you can’t help but sit up and take notice. In listening to Bernarda Alba recently, I was reminded of the singular nature of Michael John LaChiusa’s work, for which he typically writes the book, music, and lyrics. After having CD exposure to four of his works—Hello Again, Marie Christine, The Wild Party (librettist duties shared with George C. Wolfe), and Bernarda Alba—it’s fascinating to study the unique voice that emerges from his work despite their adaptive nature. You could never watch How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying and feel like you are getting an entry into Frank Loesser or Abe Burrows’ minds, but in LaChiusa’s work, you begin to see patterns, thoughts, and ideas that give entry to his soul.
If we can ever get to the place where musicals don’t have to be like The Producers or Spring Awakening to hit the cash cow, where audiences and critics welcome personal shows without requiring laughs every three minutes or broad comic caricatures, it would be interesting to see how else music can be used to express emotions.
I find Lin-Manuel Miranda’s creation of In the Heights interesting. In a recent Gothamist interview with John Del Signore, Miranda discusses the origin of his show:
In an original work, those revelations belong to the creator. In an adaptation, those revelations belong to the creator of the original work, sometimes losing something in the process of interpretation (and sometimes gaining something else). In The Scarlet Pimpernel, for example, Frank Wildhorn and Nan Knighton reinterpreted and refocused Baroness Orczy’s original tale. Whatever motivated Orczy to create the character is reinterpreted for the musical. Sometimes what gets adapted is pop in nature. For example, Elle’s journey in Legally Blonde is an interesting one, but it lacks the level of insight that it might have had had the characters been created by someone on the creative team. Similarly, Arthur’s final dilemma in Camelot is a fascinating one, but it is not one that seems to be a fervent concern of Alan Jay Lerner’s. It’s one that fits the story well.
This is not in any way a negative perspective of these works; it is an observation for the sake of discussion. In my musical comedy, which I would call intensely personal despite its physical humor and fun caricatures, the journey of the main character is strictly at the musical comedy level.
I loved the Alice Ripley interview with Andrew Gans on Playbill.com in which she discusses her off-Broadway musical Next to Normal. In it, he writes:
That sort of depth of character is something the musical hasn’t seen much of; it is something that can’t be nurtured in an adaptation or in an atmosphere where only comedy is welcome.
But it’d be awfully interesting to watch.
Broadway Mouth
February 27, 2008
Compare that intense personal expression with most musicals that have been successful on Broadway. It’s hard to see that kind of personal expression conveyed in, say, Guys and Dolls or Hairspray or even Meredith Willson’s solo opus The Music Man. Perhaps one or two of the Sondheim shows feel that personal and Rent. Rent is unique, however, in that Jonathan Larson had the chops to write the book, the music, and the lyrics, so Rent is largely his own creative expression.
The problem is that musicals are, by nature, a collaborative art form. One hundred percent of Sweet Bird of Youth is Tennessee Williams; there is no lyricist to take over for part of Chance Wayne’s dialogue or a composer needed to help convey Heavenly’s psyche.
It’s also important to remember that musicals are typically adapted from another source, so Flower Drum Song is a derivation of C.Y. Lee’s vision and The Secret Garden brings to life Frances Hodgson Burnett’s unique worldview. Sometimes those works might be filtered through creators’ lenses (such as the fairy tales in Into the Woods) or re-imagined/refocused to become a personal reflection of a creative team (like Annie), but the art form is still largely a group effort.
It’s such a rare occurrence that, when it does occur, you can’t help but sit up and take notice. In listening to Bernarda Alba recently, I was reminded of the singular nature of Michael John LaChiusa’s work, for which he typically writes the book, music, and lyrics. After having CD exposure to four of his works—Hello Again, Marie Christine, The Wild Party (librettist duties shared with George C. Wolfe), and Bernarda Alba—it’s fascinating to study the unique voice that emerges from his work despite their adaptive nature. You could never watch How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying and feel like you are getting an entry into Frank Loesser or Abe Burrows’ minds, but in LaChiusa’s work, you begin to see patterns, thoughts, and ideas that give entry to his soul.
If we can ever get to the place where musicals don’t have to be like The Producers or Spring Awakening to hit the cash cow, where audiences and critics welcome personal shows without requiring laughs every three minutes or broad comic caricatures, it would be interesting to see how else music can be used to express emotions.
I find Lin-Manuel Miranda’s creation of In the Heights interesting. In a recent Gothamist interview with John Del Signore, Miranda discusses the origin of his show:
The first song I wrote is called “Never Give Your Heart Away.” It came out of a conversation with a Latino friend of mine. At the time I was in a long term relationship and my friend was sort of your classic player. And he was telling me what his mom told him as a kid: "Never let a woman play you; play them first!" And I remember thinking about what a f--- up life lesson that is. I wrote that song on the subway from West 4th Street, riding back to my home on 200th Street, imagining a mother imparting that lesson to her son. That character ended up becoming Benny.
In an original work, those revelations belong to the creator. In an adaptation, those revelations belong to the creator of the original work, sometimes losing something in the process of interpretation (and sometimes gaining something else). In The Scarlet Pimpernel, for example, Frank Wildhorn and Nan Knighton reinterpreted and refocused Baroness Orczy’s original tale. Whatever motivated Orczy to create the character is reinterpreted for the musical. Sometimes what gets adapted is pop in nature. For example, Elle’s journey in Legally Blonde is an interesting one, but it lacks the level of insight that it might have had had the characters been created by someone on the creative team. Similarly, Arthur’s final dilemma in Camelot is a fascinating one, but it is not one that seems to be a fervent concern of Alan Jay Lerner’s. It’s one that fits the story well.
This is not in any way a negative perspective of these works; it is an observation for the sake of discussion. In my musical comedy, which I would call intensely personal despite its physical humor and fun caricatures, the journey of the main character is strictly at the musical comedy level.
I loved the Alice Ripley interview with Andrew Gans on Playbill.com in which she discusses her off-Broadway musical Next to Normal. In it, he writes:
Ripley plays the mammoth role of Diana, the manic-depressive wife of Dan (Brian d'Arcy James) and mother to Natalie (Jennifer Damiano) and Gabe (Aaron Tveit). After years of a drug-induced existence, where she experiences neither life's highs nor lows, Diana tries to find happiness, at first without the aid of medication and later through more drastic methods. While researching the role, Ripley says, “I did everything that I could. I definitely did a lot of homework, reading up on the subject matter of the show — books and online research. Also, I'm drawing from my mother's side of the family. Diana's story is in me personally. Even though I don't have the same story . . . the bloodline of what she goes through is definitely in my family.”
That sort of depth of character is something the musical hasn’t seen much of; it is something that can’t be nurtured in an adaptation or in an atmosphere where only comedy is welcome.
But it’d be awfully interesting to watch.
Broadway Mouth
February 27, 2008
Wednesday, January 23, 2008
The Strange Case of Dr. Brooks and Mr. LaChiusa: Seriously? Make 'em Laugh!
There are so few laughs in Death of a Salesman, The Crucible, The Glass Menagerie, Cat on a Hot Tin Roof, A Raisin in the Sun, A Doll House, and Fences. They’re so bleak, so joyless. To quote from one of my favorite theatre writers (about another work), some of them have “a bunch of characters so unappetizingly drawn that you wouldn’t especially want to go to dinner with them.”
Take Cat on a Hot Tin Roof, a play that fills the stage with so many obnoxious and unappetizing figures, you even hate the kids. Is there anyone in the play you’d ever want to talk to on the phone, let alone go to dinner with them? What about Death of a Salesman? I guess Happy isn’t so bad, but he’d still not be my choice dinner companion.
But naturally, these are plays. You like what the playwrights say or how the playwrights say it, not necessarily the characters with which they express it. It’s a given (and forgiven). They are entertaining via their ability to enlighten and communicate. You enjoy Death of a Salesman even though you aren’t necessarily entertained in the traditional definition of the word.
Okay, so I really do “get” why straight plays don’t have characters with whom you’d want to sup. What I actually don’t understand is the dual standard. If a serious play, movie, or novel lacks broad comic characters or witty banter, that is acceptable. No one questions it. But let a musical do that, and it’s blasphemy, a dour and dull night at the theatre, devoid of any redeemable qualities.
It’s a curious situation.
Many of the great contemporary musical theatre pieces were ones I first experienced on CD. When I first heard Marie Christine, for example, I was a young twenty-three or so, enraptured by the story it told. I couldn’t imagine anyone not finding themselves fascinated by LaChiusa’s updating of the Medea story. It was quite the shock when I read some of the critics’ responses to the show several years later.
One of those beautiful “serious” shows I have experienced in the theatre was Parade, which I was able to catch on tour. I don’t recall laughing much during the show, but I do remember it riveting me, drawing me in with the power of its story and what it had to say. The fact that I wasn’t laughing every five minutes didn’t even occur to me.
I’ve read similar critiques of other shows whose scores I’ve loved—LaChiusa’s The Wild Party and Bernarda Alba, Frank Wildhorn’s Jekyll and Hyde, Bill Russell and Henry Kreiger’s Side Show, and Paul Gordon’s Jane Eyre. A few of these I’ve seen on Broadway, a few I’ve seen regionally, some I’ve only heard the score. I was never bothered by the almost solely dramatic nature of the pieces.
The problem is that the Broadway musical has developed so that, as Arthur Laurents says, it’s now okay to die or be raped in a musical and even to have a sad ending. We still haven’t gotten to the place, however, where the musical can completely sever ties with its comedic past and still be a success. Critics still enter shows with certain expectations—that musicals should entertain through comedy, that only straight plays can settle for being thought-provoking (or moving or gothic or exciting).
I love musical comedy. There’s nothing like a laugh and a song. However, if we truly believe in the power of music, and the emotional expression that can be accomplished uniquely through song and dance, then there’s no reason why a musical can’t be the equivalent of Death of a Salesman in the musical form. Some musical ideas are better suited to humor, but just because others may not be doesn’t mean that they aren’t riveting and intriguing stories worth being told filled with themes needing to be heard.
The final vote always goes to the paying audience. The problem is that to a great extent the critics act as an entryway to the more unusual or unknown shows. It is possible that the masses simply aren’t ready for Parade and won’t be for some time. Yet, it seems like shows with great critical appreciation—which non-humorous shows seem to rarely receive—can still overcome audience trepidation to achieve a level of success.
Look at the score of Parade; “The Old Red Hills of Home,” “My Child Will Forgive Me,” and “This Is Not Over Yet” are amazing songs, songs that are fitting for the show’s tone and perspective. The story of Leo Frank is one that deserves to be told even if it doesn’t allow for subplot hilarity. Willy Loman didn’t need any, so why does Leo Frank?
the Broadway Mouth
January 23, 2008
Take Cat on a Hot Tin Roof, a play that fills the stage with so many obnoxious and unappetizing figures, you even hate the kids. Is there anyone in the play you’d ever want to talk to on the phone, let alone go to dinner with them? What about Death of a Salesman? I guess Happy isn’t so bad, but he’d still not be my choice dinner companion.
But naturally, these are plays. You like what the playwrights say or how the playwrights say it, not necessarily the characters with which they express it. It’s a given (and forgiven). They are entertaining via their ability to enlighten and communicate. You enjoy Death of a Salesman even though you aren’t necessarily entertained in the traditional definition of the word.
Okay, so I really do “get” why straight plays don’t have characters with whom you’d want to sup. What I actually don’t understand is the dual standard. If a serious play, movie, or novel lacks broad comic characters or witty banter, that is acceptable. No one questions it. But let a musical do that, and it’s blasphemy, a dour and dull night at the theatre, devoid of any redeemable qualities.
It’s a curious situation.
Many of the great contemporary musical theatre pieces were ones I first experienced on CD. When I first heard Marie Christine, for example, I was a young twenty-three or so, enraptured by the story it told. I couldn’t imagine anyone not finding themselves fascinated by LaChiusa’s updating of the Medea story. It was quite the shock when I read some of the critics’ responses to the show several years later.
One of those beautiful “serious” shows I have experienced in the theatre was Parade, which I was able to catch on tour. I don’t recall laughing much during the show, but I do remember it riveting me, drawing me in with the power of its story and what it had to say. The fact that I wasn’t laughing every five minutes didn’t even occur to me.
I’ve read similar critiques of other shows whose scores I’ve loved—LaChiusa’s The Wild Party and Bernarda Alba, Frank Wildhorn’s Jekyll and Hyde, Bill Russell and Henry Kreiger’s Side Show, and Paul Gordon’s Jane Eyre. A few of these I’ve seen on Broadway, a few I’ve seen regionally, some I’ve only heard the score. I was never bothered by the almost solely dramatic nature of the pieces.
The problem is that the Broadway musical has developed so that, as Arthur Laurents says, it’s now okay to die or be raped in a musical and even to have a sad ending. We still haven’t gotten to the place, however, where the musical can completely sever ties with its comedic past and still be a success. Critics still enter shows with certain expectations—that musicals should entertain through comedy, that only straight plays can settle for being thought-provoking (or moving or gothic or exciting).
I love musical comedy. There’s nothing like a laugh and a song. However, if we truly believe in the power of music, and the emotional expression that can be accomplished uniquely through song and dance, then there’s no reason why a musical can’t be the equivalent of Death of a Salesman in the musical form. Some musical ideas are better suited to humor, but just because others may not be doesn’t mean that they aren’t riveting and intriguing stories worth being told filled with themes needing to be heard.
The final vote always goes to the paying audience. The problem is that to a great extent the critics act as an entryway to the more unusual or unknown shows. It is possible that the masses simply aren’t ready for Parade and won’t be for some time. Yet, it seems like shows with great critical appreciation—which non-humorous shows seem to rarely receive—can still overcome audience trepidation to achieve a level of success.
Look at the score of Parade; “The Old Red Hills of Home,” “My Child Will Forgive Me,” and “This Is Not Over Yet” are amazing songs, songs that are fitting for the show’s tone and perspective. The story of Leo Frank is one that deserves to be told even if it doesn’t allow for subplot hilarity. Willy Loman didn’t need any, so why does Leo Frank?
the Broadway Mouth
January 23, 2008
Saturday, June 2, 2007
Hello and Faux
Unwittingly, I once told an entire class of my high school students that we were going to play an improv game called Pass the Clap. I kid you not. Pass the Clap. I was so naïve. Immediately, the kids started snickering.
“What? What’s wrong?”
“Nothing. Nothing,” said several of the kids, looking around at each other, “Go on.”
“So,” I continued undaunted, “the object is that you want to pass the clap to other people in the circle until everyone in the circle has gotten it.” That’s not really one of the rules of this particular game—the include everybody part—but I added that in because, well, I didn’t want anyone accidentally left out. Yes, I wanted everyone to get the clap.
After class, one of my brave students educated me in the ways of venereal diseases. I hadn’t learned that much about the ways of life since 7th grade health class!
By the way, the next hour, the game was promptly renamed Pass the Applause.
Like the entendres of improve games (and Shakespeare’s plays, come to think of it), I guess I’m a little naïve about this blog thing as well. God knows I know how to write and that I love talking and sharing thoughts on Broadway and theatre in general, so I’m hoping that’s interesting enough for other people to want to read. I’m actually nervous about posting this first entry.
As an aspiring librettist (make that aspiring-to-be-produced librettist), I am often thinking about Broadway. Even though I don’t live in NYC (though not for lack of trying!), I read quite a bit about Broadway shows and current thoughts/trends, all of which goes into the food processor of my mind and, hopefully, comes out into some good material.
So my goal is to make this blog an interesting exchange of ideas. Since there’s really not an opportunity to exchange ideas with my (potential) readers, I’ll consider this an exchange with works I read/have read and ideas expressed about Broadway/theatre elsewhere on the Net. If there’s a place on the blog to share your thoughts (again, I told you this was all new to me), please do! Sincerely, I really want to learn and grow. Hearing the thoughts of people smarter than I is key in that!
On Friday I finally bought a CD I’d wanted to get for some time, Michael John LaChiusa’s Bernarda Alba. Because of sacrifices I’ve made to follow my dreams, I haven’t been able to buy as many Broadway CDs as I have traditionally been able to, so it just took me awhile to both be able to get it and to find it in a store near my home.
I fell in love with LaChiusa’s work the moment I bought the Marie Christine CD way back when. Instantly I was pulled into the character of Marie Christine and loved the interpretation of the classic story of Medea. It required two listenings, on the other hand, to fall in love with The Wild Party when I first bought that CD. At first the music seemed disjointed and often lacking melody, but—like some of Sondheim’s best scores—the second listening brought it all together and illuminated LaChiusa’s brilliance.
With my recent reading of Ethan Mordden’s The Happiest Corpse I’ve Ever Seen, I remembered LaChiusa’s reference to the text (and also to Barry Singer’s excellent Ever After) in his controversial Opera News article from August 2005. Yes, I found it interesting that LaChiusa praises Mordden’s book (who highly praises LaChiusa’s work, particularly The Wild Party) and dismisses Singer’s book (who didn’t highly praise LaChiusa’s work, particularly Marie Christine), but re-reading the article in full about a year after I first was able to find the article (surprise! a local library did have Opera News) helped me to better understand what LaChiusa was saying.
Now, I know it seems odd for someone to be addressing this article two years after the fact, but I’m ready to share some insights, some of which weren’t apparent the first couple times I read it.
Last summer, I made it to New York City for the first time since 2001, a long, long awaited trip. The first show I saw there was The Wedding Singer, of which I adored almost every minute even though I had never seen the movie. When I arrived back home, I ended up buying a used VHS copy of the movie for $2 to see what the source material had been like.
I was shocked to see how closely the musical followed the movie. Almost all the best jokes came from the movie, the character development came directly from the movie, and the plot closely followed the movie. The biggest difference is that the (for me) unwatchable Adam Sandler was replaced with Mr. Stage Presence, Stephen Lynch.
So, it’s a faux musical. Unlike South Pacific, which synthesized two short stories to create something new, it didn’t “transcend its source material,” as LaChiusa writes. (Thought, for the record, I would say that the stage version is far superior to the screen version.)
I haven’t seen Hairspray the movie, but I did see Hairspray the musical. The second act was a little stuffed, but how much fun I had seeing it on tour with Carly Jibson and on Broadway with Shannon Durig. Did I maybe have a faux good time?
While LaChiusa didn’t care for Hairspray (and neither did Kander and Ebb, as expressed in their book Colored Lights) I thought it was interesting that LaChiusa praised the operetta The Light in the Piazza, which I recently saw on tour starring (sigh) Christine Andreas. It was an admirable show, but for all the unfaux 42nd-street cred in its lyrics, the book to me seemed very cheap, telling us directly far too much that we’d rather see happen. It was the equivalent of having Sid Sorokin turn to the audience and say, “I’m new in this town, but boy am I gonna show them what I can do! Not like the last time, when they under-estimated me.”
I’ve listened to my Hairspray CD tons of times, along with my CDs of The Wedding Singer, Wicked, and even Mama Mia (even though I didn’t care for the show, you gotta love ABBA), but I haven’t popped in The Light in the Piazza often. It’s got beautiful music, but it is essentially an operetta, a form I don’t care much for, and I don’t find great pleasure re-visiting its thin plot in the way that I like revisiting the plot for other shows, including LaChiusa’s own Marie Christine and The Wild Party.
So does that mean I prefer faux musicals?
Last year I watched the DVD of the Rosalind Russell movie Auntie Mame, assumingly closesly based on the Lawrence and Lee play. I was somewhat surprised to see how much like the movie/play Jerry Herman’s Mame was. Agnes Gooch lost her husband, but other than that, it hit upon all the major plot points and used much of the same dialogue.
Wait? Could this mean faux musicals have been lurking in our beloved canon of classic, perfect shows for several decades?
Yes, there is a big difference between Mame and The Wedding Singer. Mame is a far better show, but that doesn’t mean The Wedding Singer wasn’t tremendously entertaining and worthy of a year-long run. The Wedding Singer should have done something with the movie’s soapy second act, improving upon the film’s teeny-bopperish dilemmas (Oh no, she thinks he’s slept with Linda!) and by restoring a sense of class to the Broadway stage, but I thought it was the most enjoyable show from that season which I saw (though I never did see Jersey Boys).
Please don’t get me wrong. I think LaChiusa’s article is an important one. I learned and will continue to learn a heck of a lot from it. But I don’t think a musical has to be Company or The Wild Party to be a great or very enjoyable show. Oklahoma!, Guys and Dolls, Bells are Ringing, Hello, Dolly!, and Annie are all spectacular shows. And yes, they are all better than most of the stuff that’s making millions on Broadway now, but I don’t think we should lose sight that these classic are basically fluffy, energy-filled shows that entertain and make people happy about living. Yes, they have a strong spine, but they are essentially shows out to make people feel happy, much like Hairspray, The Wedding Singer, and Dirty Rotten Scoundrels.
There is more to LaChiusa’s definition of faux musicals, and I’m really interested in fully understanding it all because, like I said, I want to write great musicals . . . not faux. I admire his inclusion of great lyric-writing (and yes, there are some dud rhymes in Dirty Rotten Scoundrels and Brooklyn and even a few classics), which I think is essential, along with strong books. But I don’t think certain categories of musicals are inherently more theatrical than others. According to Edie Adams on Rich McKay’s Broadway: The Golden Age, the small ensemble shows are probably her faux. But just because Company isn’t Li'l Abner doesn’t mean it’s not a valid and genuine Broadway show. Just because Les Miserables isn’t Follies doesn’t mean it’s not a valid and genuine Broadway show. Just because Hello, Dolly! tells a linear story doesn’t mean it’s not a valid and genuine Broadway show.
Similarly, I question whether a show has to have integral choreography to be a great show. Part of Oklahoma!’s brilliance is the dream ballet, which is integral to the plot. But is Bloomer Girl or Carousel or The Pajama Game faux because they copy the concept from Oklahoma!? Is Guys and Dolls faux because the “Crap Shooters Dance” is essentially spectacle? Is Dreamgirls faux because there’s only concrete story-driven dance? (Or so I’m assuming from the concert CD . . . We don’t get productions of shows like Dreamgirls much where I’m from.)
In trying to fully understand LaChiusa’s ideas, to weed out what works and what doesn’t, I do think that he presents some important ideas for those of us who want to be produced to consider and mull over. But we mustn’t get caught up in the hype either.
As an (aspiring-to-be-produced) librettist, I aspire to write completely original musicals, as evidenced by my first two efforts which have been entirely original ideas (a third is based on a long out-of-print young adult novel). However, I found Alan Jay Lerner’s foreword to a published edition of Paint Your Wagon, entitled “Advice to Young Musical Writers” and dated January 25, 1952, very relevant:
Broadway Mouth
June 2, 2007
“What? What’s wrong?”
“Nothing. Nothing,” said several of the kids, looking around at each other, “Go on.”
“So,” I continued undaunted, “the object is that you want to pass the clap to other people in the circle until everyone in the circle has gotten it.” That’s not really one of the rules of this particular game—the include everybody part—but I added that in because, well, I didn’t want anyone accidentally left out. Yes, I wanted everyone to get the clap.
After class, one of my brave students educated me in the ways of venereal diseases. I hadn’t learned that much about the ways of life since 7th grade health class!
By the way, the next hour, the game was promptly renamed Pass the Applause.
Like the entendres of improve games (and Shakespeare’s plays, come to think of it), I guess I’m a little naïve about this blog thing as well. God knows I know how to write and that I love talking and sharing thoughts on Broadway and theatre in general, so I’m hoping that’s interesting enough for other people to want to read. I’m actually nervous about posting this first entry.
As an aspiring librettist (make that aspiring-to-be-produced librettist), I am often thinking about Broadway. Even though I don’t live in NYC (though not for lack of trying!), I read quite a bit about Broadway shows and current thoughts/trends, all of which goes into the food processor of my mind and, hopefully, comes out into some good material.
So my goal is to make this blog an interesting exchange of ideas. Since there’s really not an opportunity to exchange ideas with my (potential) readers, I’ll consider this an exchange with works I read/have read and ideas expressed about Broadway/theatre elsewhere on the Net. If there’s a place on the blog to share your thoughts (again, I told you this was all new to me), please do! Sincerely, I really want to learn and grow. Hearing the thoughts of people smarter than I is key in that!
On Friday I finally bought a CD I’d wanted to get for some time, Michael John LaChiusa’s Bernarda Alba. Because of sacrifices I’ve made to follow my dreams, I haven’t been able to buy as many Broadway CDs as I have traditionally been able to, so it just took me awhile to both be able to get it and to find it in a store near my home.
I fell in love with LaChiusa’s work the moment I bought the Marie Christine CD way back when. Instantly I was pulled into the character of Marie Christine and loved the interpretation of the classic story of Medea. It required two listenings, on the other hand, to fall in love with The Wild Party when I first bought that CD. At first the music seemed disjointed and often lacking melody, but—like some of Sondheim’s best scores—the second listening brought it all together and illuminated LaChiusa’s brilliance.
With my recent reading of Ethan Mordden’s The Happiest Corpse I’ve Ever Seen, I remembered LaChiusa’s reference to the text (and also to Barry Singer’s excellent Ever After) in his controversial Opera News article from August 2005. Yes, I found it interesting that LaChiusa praises Mordden’s book (who highly praises LaChiusa’s work, particularly The Wild Party) and dismisses Singer’s book (who didn’t highly praise LaChiusa’s work, particularly Marie Christine), but re-reading the article in full about a year after I first was able to find the article (surprise! a local library did have Opera News) helped me to better understand what LaChiusa was saying.
Now, I know it seems odd for someone to be addressing this article two years after the fact, but I’m ready to share some insights, some of which weren’t apparent the first couple times I read it.
Last summer, I made it to New York City for the first time since 2001, a long, long awaited trip. The first show I saw there was The Wedding Singer, of which I adored almost every minute even though I had never seen the movie. When I arrived back home, I ended up buying a used VHS copy of the movie for $2 to see what the source material had been like.
I was shocked to see how closely the musical followed the movie. Almost all the best jokes came from the movie, the character development came directly from the movie, and the plot closely followed the movie. The biggest difference is that the (for me) unwatchable Adam Sandler was replaced with Mr. Stage Presence, Stephen Lynch.
So, it’s a faux musical. Unlike South Pacific, which synthesized two short stories to create something new, it didn’t “transcend its source material,” as LaChiusa writes. (Thought, for the record, I would say that the stage version is far superior to the screen version.)
I haven’t seen Hairspray the movie, but I did see Hairspray the musical. The second act was a little stuffed, but how much fun I had seeing it on tour with Carly Jibson and on Broadway with Shannon Durig. Did I maybe have a faux good time?
While LaChiusa didn’t care for Hairspray (and neither did Kander and Ebb, as expressed in their book Colored Lights) I thought it was interesting that LaChiusa praised the operetta The Light in the Piazza, which I recently saw on tour starring (sigh) Christine Andreas. It was an admirable show, but for all the unfaux 42nd-street cred in its lyrics, the book to me seemed very cheap, telling us directly far too much that we’d rather see happen. It was the equivalent of having Sid Sorokin turn to the audience and say, “I’m new in this town, but boy am I gonna show them what I can do! Not like the last time, when they under-estimated me.”
I’ve listened to my Hairspray CD tons of times, along with my CDs of The Wedding Singer, Wicked, and even Mama Mia (even though I didn’t care for the show, you gotta love ABBA), but I haven’t popped in The Light in the Piazza often. It’s got beautiful music, but it is essentially an operetta, a form I don’t care much for, and I don’t find great pleasure re-visiting its thin plot in the way that I like revisiting the plot for other shows, including LaChiusa’s own Marie Christine and The Wild Party.
So does that mean I prefer faux musicals?
Last year I watched the DVD of the Rosalind Russell movie Auntie Mame, assumingly closesly based on the Lawrence and Lee play. I was somewhat surprised to see how much like the movie/play Jerry Herman’s Mame was. Agnes Gooch lost her husband, but other than that, it hit upon all the major plot points and used much of the same dialogue.
Wait? Could this mean faux musicals have been lurking in our beloved canon of classic, perfect shows for several decades?
Yes, there is a big difference between Mame and The Wedding Singer. Mame is a far better show, but that doesn’t mean The Wedding Singer wasn’t tremendously entertaining and worthy of a year-long run. The Wedding Singer should have done something with the movie’s soapy second act, improving upon the film’s teeny-bopperish dilemmas (Oh no, she thinks he’s slept with Linda!) and by restoring a sense of class to the Broadway stage, but I thought it was the most enjoyable show from that season which I saw (though I never did see Jersey Boys).
Please don’t get me wrong. I think LaChiusa’s article is an important one. I learned and will continue to learn a heck of a lot from it. But I don’t think a musical has to be Company or The Wild Party to be a great or very enjoyable show. Oklahoma!, Guys and Dolls, Bells are Ringing, Hello, Dolly!, and Annie are all spectacular shows. And yes, they are all better than most of the stuff that’s making millions on Broadway now, but I don’t think we should lose sight that these classic are basically fluffy, energy-filled shows that entertain and make people happy about living. Yes, they have a strong spine, but they are essentially shows out to make people feel happy, much like Hairspray, The Wedding Singer, and Dirty Rotten Scoundrels.
There is more to LaChiusa’s definition of faux musicals, and I’m really interested in fully understanding it all because, like I said, I want to write great musicals . . . not faux. I admire his inclusion of great lyric-writing (and yes, there are some dud rhymes in Dirty Rotten Scoundrels and Brooklyn and even a few classics), which I think is essential, along with strong books. But I don’t think certain categories of musicals are inherently more theatrical than others. According to Edie Adams on Rich McKay’s Broadway: The Golden Age, the small ensemble shows are probably her faux. But just because Company isn’t Li'l Abner doesn’t mean it’s not a valid and genuine Broadway show. Just because Les Miserables isn’t Follies doesn’t mean it’s not a valid and genuine Broadway show. Just because Hello, Dolly! tells a linear story doesn’t mean it’s not a valid and genuine Broadway show.
Similarly, I question whether a show has to have integral choreography to be a great show. Part of Oklahoma!’s brilliance is the dream ballet, which is integral to the plot. But is Bloomer Girl or Carousel or The Pajama Game faux because they copy the concept from Oklahoma!? Is Guys and Dolls faux because the “Crap Shooters Dance” is essentially spectacle? Is Dreamgirls faux because there’s only concrete story-driven dance? (Or so I’m assuming from the concert CD . . . We don’t get productions of shows like Dreamgirls much where I’m from.)
In trying to fully understand LaChiusa’s ideas, to weed out what works and what doesn’t, I do think that he presents some important ideas for those of us who want to be produced to consider and mull over. But we mustn’t get caught up in the hype either.
As an (aspiring-to-be-produced) librettist, I aspire to write completely original musicals, as evidenced by my first two efforts which have been entirely original ideas (a third is based on a long out-of-print young adult novel). However, I found Alan Jay Lerner’s foreword to a published edition of Paint Your Wagon, entitled “Advice to Young Musical Writers” and dated January 25, 1952, very relevant:
In recent years there has been an ever-increasing number of adaptations in the theater and, by consequence, a steady decline of original works . . . This dearth has frequently been mentioned in the press, and when it has been, it has always been accompanied by a mournful cry for more fresh creation . . . No one, neither critic nor public, is clamoring for originality. The only desire is for something good. And to be good is quite original enough.
Broadway Mouth
June 2, 2007
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