| re: Daily Beast: Is Broadway Brain-Dead? | |
| Posted by: | owk 09:04 pm EDT 03/17/14 |
| In reply to: | Daily Beast: Is Broadway Brain-Dead? - ryhog 08:16 pm EDT 03/17/14 |
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| Well, let's at least take the Daily Beast to task for this sentence: "Remember the old days when it was the other way around? When Broadway shows were inventive, regularly breaking new ground, and then ultimately, became movies? West Side Story, Carousel, Oklahoma!, My Fair Lady, Chicago, Mame, Gypsy, How to Succeed In Business, and Cabaret all started on stage." Actually, not a single one of these projects "started on stage". They were all adapted from other media. They could hardly have picked a worse list in an argument for "original" musicals. It's true that Hollywood has begun to dominate the adaptation market, for the very reasons Margo Lion states in the piece. But let's not pretend there was ever a time, after Oklahoma!, when the street produced a lot of musicals that had no underlying source. It has happened, but it was never typical. | |
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| re: Daily Beast: Is Broadway Brain-Dead? | |
| Posted by: | AlanScott 05:24 am EDT 03/18/14 |
| In reply to: | re: Daily Beast: Is Broadway Brain-Dead? - owk 09:04 pm EDT 03/17/14 |
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| Maybe I'm misunderstanding. If I am, forgive me. But if West Side Story, Carousel, Oklahoma! and My Fair Lady were not based on projects that started on stage, where did the projects they were based on originate? Admittedly, My Fair Lady borrows a great deal from the 1938 film version of Pygmalion, to such a degree that it may fairly be said that the musical was adapted from the movie, but still the movie came from the play (and much of the expansion that the musical borrowed came from Shaw's screenplay). But the other three all came from plays exclusively (yes, Lilliom had been filmed twice, but I think the films had little influence on the musical), and even Cabaret came in part from I Am a Camera. In fact, I suspect that without the play, we would not have had the musical. Again, perhaps I'm misunderstanding. | |
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| re: Daily Beast: Is Broadway Brain-Dead? | |
| Posted by: | Kimmelhisway 02:00 am EDT 03/18/14 |
| In reply to: | re: Daily Beast: Is Broadway Brain-Dead? - owk 09:04 pm EDT 03/17/14 |
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| While they may not have started on the stage, you don't see one of the titles listed, with the exception of How to Succeed, that has its source title. Now it's all about branding and using the film title so people think they're getting the film on stage. In the old days that was never the case, which is why you have Promises, Promises instead of The Apartment, The Musical or Cabaret rather than I Am a Camera, The Musical and on and on. The new movie to musicals don't want there to be any mistaking that they ARE the movie onstage. | |
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| re: Daily Beast: Is Broadway Brain-Dead? | |
| Posted by: | ryhog 10:33 am EDT 03/18/14 |
| In reply to: | re: Daily Beast: Is Broadway Brain-Dead? - Kimmelhisway 02:00 am EDT 03/18/14 |
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| I think it is fair to say that the branding is the fulcrum of these enterprises. That's not all that surprising in the extreme cases where the film folks are actively engaged in the stage show (Disney obviously being the ne plus ultra) but it seems to be standard even in the cases where the studio wasn't really active in the process (e.g., Bridges). And it is also fair, I think, to say that had it been thus when My Fair Lady was written, it would be Pygmalion the Musical. | |
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| re: Daily Beast: Is Broadway Brain-Dead? | |
| Posted by: | Alcindoro 03:33 pm EDT 03/18/14 |
| In reply to: | re: Daily Beast: Is Broadway Brain-Dead? - ryhog 10:33 am EDT 03/18/14 |
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| I wonder if as many people would have known how to pronounce "Pygmalion" correctly. | |
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| re: Daily Beast: Is Broadway Brain-Dead? | |
| Posted by: | ryhog 03:57 pm EDT 03/18/14 |
| In reply to: | re: Daily Beast: Is Broadway Brain-Dead? - Alcindoro 03:33 pm EDT 03/18/14 |
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| isn't that what the show is about? | |
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| re: Daily Beast: Is Broadway Brain-Dead? | |
| Posted by: | Alcindoro 09:53 am EDT 03/19/14 |
| In reply to: | re: Daily Beast: Is Broadway Brain-Dead? - ryhog 03:57 pm EDT 03/18/14 |
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| Twoo, vewwy two. | |
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| re: Daily Beast: Is Broadway Brain-Dead? | |
| Posted by: | ryhog 09:38 pm EDT 03/17/14 |
| In reply to: | re: Daily Beast: Is Broadway Brain-Dead? - owk 09:04 pm EDT 03/17/14 |
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| I think focusing on underlying source obscures the issue. I don't think sourceless originality is the objective; the "problem" is the vapid, lazy exploitation of the source material. That's not a description anyone would apply to West Side Story, et al. | |
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| re: Daily Beast: Is Broadway Brain-Dead? | |
| Posted by: | Zelgo 10:17 pm EDT 03/17/14 |
| In reply to: | re: Daily Beast: Is Broadway Brain-Dead? - ryhog 09:38 pm EDT 03/17/14 |
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| It's very lazy to present a film as a stage musical when the songs and most of the script are basically the same. So many of the screen-to-stage adaptations do just that. | |
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| re: Daily Beast: Is Broadway Brain-Dead? | |
| Posted by: | Ann 09:14 pm EDT 03/17/14 |
| In reply to: | re: Daily Beast: Is Broadway Brain-Dead? - owk 09:04 pm EDT 03/17/14 |
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| I know this is brought up a lot, but I think there's a big difference between coming from a movie and coming from a book or novel. It's how it's brought to life. Neither may be original, but having an existing text or plot is not like having seen it on film, then putting it on stage. | |
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| re: Daily Beast: Is Broadway Brain-Dead? | |
| Posted by: | garyd 09:48 pm EDT 03/17/14 |
| In reply to: | re: Daily Beast: Is Broadway Brain-Dead? - Ann 09:14 pm EDT 03/17/14 |
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| There are examples on both sides of this argument. Decent, even great, iconic, musical theatre has some basic, if not total, basis in film. "Purlie", "Promises, Promises', " A Little Night Music", "Sweet Charity", "Nine" and many others. And, as has been noted, there also exists an extensive list of dreck. As for spectacle, it has also been around forever. (think Ziegfield) While it seldom appeals to me, there is a place for it to exist. "Sweeney Todd", "Follies", and certainly POTO, all have elements of spectacle. I make the argument that in these three examples the spectacle elements serve the story and are not incorporated for simple entertainment value but maybe I am rationalizing. Though I find real pleasure in some productions I have witnessed of both Todd and Follies minus the original spectacle elements. | |
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| Golden musicals from movies | |
| Posted by: | peter3053 01:19 am EDT 03/18/14 |
| In reply to: | re: Daily Beast: Is Broadway Brain-Dead? - garyd 09:48 pm EDT 03/17/14 |
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| I think the difference is that the great movie-to-musical adaptations have been done by people who understood that the theatre is a more intensive word-, as well as imagination-, experience than visual one. Consider the literacy of A Little Night Music, and Nine, and even, arguably, Phantom of the Opera - there is a coherent theatrical dramaturgy grounded in language, a poetic heightening of the words. Musicals which take from the visual medium of film and then simply try to revisualise them on stage often come off as smaller in dimension and more simplistic. (Consider how the magic carpet ride in Aladdin the movie seemed larger than life but on stage seems trite). Somehow theatre shows up vacuousness of language, perhaps because it is staged on a platform, and whatever is on a platform, from earliest cultures, audiences attend to listen to more than to see. This does not mean that, once the fundamental difference in medium is acknowledged, a great designer and director and lighting and costume designer can't further enrich the experience visually. But the essential force at work will always be different, and straight movie-to-stage transfers will always wind up, erm, rocky. | |
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