| re: the last 10-15 min | |
| Posted by: AlanScott 09:54 am EDT 06/28/17 | |
| In reply to: the last 10-15 min - Chazwaza 10:45 am EDT 06/27/17 | |
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| The show is supposed to be showing us how America did not treat many World War II veterans with the gratitude they deserved. It's supposed to be showing us the dark side of what happened after World War II, including the refusal to acknowledge that many veterans were suffering from what we now call post-traumatic stress disorder. It's supposed to be realistic in that sense, or at least I got the feeling that was the intention, yet at the end we get this "You can eat your cake and have it, too" ending. As for the believability factor, the band had never heard or even read the poem-lyric that Julia sings at the end. The arrangement is completely different, the tempo is much faster, the whole thing is more discordant. Maybe I just don't understand enough about what musicians can do, but it was not believable to me that even the best improvisers could do what they did without even a rehearsal. That they can do it seems to me very MGM, but this is in a show where the actors play their own instruments, which suggests a degree of verisimilitude in such matters. And speaking of MGM, if the band had really done that, NBC, MGM and Bayer would probably have done everything possible to have the band blackballed. Julia does bring up the possibility that they will be blacklisted. I think that's what would have happened. And, speaking just for myself, I don't think that the song is very good, and I don't think it woud be very effective heard on the radio with no setup. It would be coming at people listening at home completely out of the blue. We know what she's singing about, we know these names, but the audience hearing it on the radio wouldn't. They might realize that the Donny she sings about is the bandleader, but wouldn't that have just seemed weird to people? I don't think the lyric sets up the points that the song wants to make in a way that would be very clear to people listening at home. I think it would have been mystifying. In fact, NBC, MGM and Bayer might have not needed to do much of anything. The band's performance would have killed its own chance to become a popular commercial band. And this comes after Donny sings this lyric: "This is no naive Hollywood dream, It's a gutsy risk we'll be taking. Times like this you hold on to what's real, It's an honest statement we're making. I'll march back into battle once more, If I'm fighting it for What's true." To me, this is not good lyric writing, and the overblown music makes it worse. And it's so self-congratulatory. It's a huge turnoff to hear characters praise their own integrity. And then after he sings this, the end does turn into a phony Hollywood dream, right out of MGM. Again, you can eat your cake and have it, too. And isn't it odd that the song that the band uses to win the premilinary competition is about the widow of a fallen soldier hoping to find a new love? This is what they're going to sing to honor veterans? I also don't find it a very effective song, but that's not really the issue here. It just seems a very odd choice of subject matter given the circumstances. Having said all this, Bandstand is a better show than a bunch of other musicals I've seen on Broadway in the last few years. |
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| Previous: | the last 10-15 min - Chazwaza 10:45 am EDT 06/27/17 |
| Next: | re: And then the "Bandstand" recording. Wow, just wow. - NewtonUK 07:41 am EDT 06/27/17 |
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