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re: I really enjoyed 'Day of Our Lives' The Musical with Carrie Underwood!

Posted by: LegitOnce 02:18 am EST 12/06/13
In reply to: I really enjoyed 'Day of Our Lives' The Musical with Carrie Underwood! - DistantDrumming 01:54 am EST 12/06/13

I think this reflects a problem with theatrical realism as a style in the era of film, which is to say that no matter how naturalistically detailed a theater set is, it's still going to look artificial when compared to actual locations or an interior set built on a soundstage.

That hill Maria was discovered on was trying oh so hard to be "real," but all the detail just looked cluttered, like a bad theater set, especially since it was holding itself up to direct comparison with the location filming at the opening of the 1965 film.

Also, the recycling of the sets began to wear on me a bit. The Trapp house had only two locations, the entrance hall and the adjoining terrace, and I thought it incongruous that such a ramrod as the Captain would give a formal ball outdoors. And the abbey very obviously recycled the Mother Abbess' office as the altar of the chapel. Plus, of course, there was Maria's hill where Rolf and Liesl went to spoon, and then the exact same spot stood in for the peak of the Alps in the finale.

The reason this recycling so called attention to itself was I think the elaborate realism: the "hill" was so specifically dressed that it couldn't be understood to indicate "a place in the mountains" but rather only the one place, which of course makes the Rolf and Liesl scene nonsensical, however cute they looked rolling down the hill.


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re: I really enjoyed 'Day of Our Lives' The Musical with Carrie Underwood!

Posted by: theaterbear 07:53 am EST 12/06/13
In reply to: re: I really enjoyed 'Day of Our Lives' The Musical with Carrie Underwood! - LegitOnce 02:18 am EST 12/06/13

The Von Trapp house had 3 locations: Maria's Bedroom


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re: I really enjoyed 'Day of Our Lives' The Musical with Carrie Underwood!

Posted by: LegitOnce 08:07 am EST 12/06/13
In reply to: re: I really enjoyed 'Day of Our Lives' The Musical with Carrie Underwood! - theaterbear 07:53 am EST 12/06/13

Yes, you're right, but that was only the one scene. Otherwise the house seemed to consist of nothing but a terrace and a foyer with a secret passage to the abbey.


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re: I really enjoyed 'Day of Our Lives' The Musical with Carrie Underwood!

Posted by: mikem 09:43 am EST 12/06/13
In reply to: re: I really enjoyed 'Day of Our Lives' The Musical with Carrie Underwood! - LegitOnce 08:07 am EST 12/06/13

I think the recycling of the sets was inevitable, given the constraints of the live telecast and that the sets were much more elaborate than most stage sets and couldn't be lowered into place. Cast interviews talked about how the sets took up a huge amount of space, and it wasn't that quick to walk from some of them to others.


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re: I really enjoyed 'Day of Our Lives' The Musical with Carrie Underwood!

Posted by: LegitOnce 10:48 am EST 12/06/13
In reply to: re: I really enjoyed 'Day of Our Lives' The Musical with Carrie Underwood! - mikem 09:43 am EST 12/06/13

Well, there's more of your problem: those sets didn't have to be so massive and literal.


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