| And of all the problematic musicals that aren't quite classics (despite having wonderful scores), I've always thought On a Clear Day would be the easiest to fix. All you have to do is get rid of the doctor's wife, who doesn't even appear in the show in the first place, and is only mentioned to make an obstacle to Daisy and the doctor getting together. But who wants an obstacle? The problem is really that for a long time the doctor thinks he's in love with Melinda only, and not Daisy. This should persist until about the time in the second act when Daisy grows up a little and finds the gumption to stand up for herself and give her hopeless boyfriend the heave-ho. At about that same time, the doctor grasps that Daisy ***is*** Melinda, and Melinda ***is*** Daisy, and that he loves "both" of them for all the same reasons. They're the same soul, after all--that's how reincarnation works. Daisy and doctor get together and live happily ever after, in this lifetime. Most of this is in the show already, so it wouldn't really take a whole lot of rewriting. |
