| MOULIN ROUGE, JAGGED LITTLE PILL and the future of Jukebox Musicals | |
| Last Edit: toros 04:12 pm EDT 07/12/18 | |
| Posted by: toros 04:08 pm EDT 07/12/18 | |
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| “Moulin Rouge” is one of the most sumptuous physical productions ever, outside of an opera house. Derek McLane's design is ravishing, almost overpowering. The show follows the plot line of the movie fairly closely, and music is used in the same way, although there are plenty of cuts and replacements. As with the film, some of the numbers are performed in their entirety, but most are sliced and diced and sometimes, chopped into medleys and montage-like sequences. There are literally hundreds of songs sampled or quoted. There’s no song list in the program - instead, two pages of small print Music Credits. It’s a wildly ambitious score. The production is over-the-top, and consistently surprising. Sonya Tayeh’s choreography is assaultively entertaining. The ensemble are not your typical chorus boys and girls, to put it mildly. Again and again, the stage explodes. But as with the film, the style often subsumes substance, and the love story at the musical’s center is not involving, despite the many vocal declarations of love throughout. Alex Timbers has done an outstanding job bringing such challenging “auteur” material to the stage. In some ways, the show improves on the film –John Logan’s book avoids the unfunny “sex farce” scenes that held the film back for me. If the creative team can get the love story to ignite and touch audiences’ hearts, they will have spun gold. I saw the first preview, so I won’t comment specifically on any of the performances except to say that the show is perfectly cast, and everyone has a way to go toward finding their characters. “Jagged Little Pill” is so stuffed with social/political/psychological issues it would seem easy to resist its dogged effort to be topical. Every time a new character appears, I wondered what their problem would be– is this guy going to be a rapist, or will we find out that he cuts himself? But amazingly, the show works beautifully, due in no small part to book writer Diablo Cody, who skews the earnestness with sly humor and satire. An ensemble of angry, snarling youth prowls the stage, contorting themselves in Sidi Larbi Cherkaoui’s impassioned choreography. While the characters all wear their wounds on their sleeves, and the confessional nature of the songs drives the dialogue, the characters are richly developed, and Diane Paulus’s production is honest, direct, and deeply moving. My experience was almost the opposite of “Moulin Rouge.” “Jagged Little Pill” is not a handsome show. The set pieces and projections are unsatisfactory. The production looks best when the stage is cleared to make room for the rampaging kids. But despite its conspicuous attempts to capture the zeitgeist, and a musical comedy tendency to wrap everything up tidily, the show is genuinely involving, Alanis Morissette’s soaring music and tart lyrics are outrageously theatrical and the entire cast is first-rate. The set-up for and performance of “You Oughta Know” result in one of the all-time great musical numbers in musical theatre. That’s saying a lot, I know. There’s a lot more to be said about both shows. The conversation has barely begun. But what “Moulin Rouge” and “Jagged Little Pill” prove, once and for all, is that the derisive dismissal of the so-called “jukebox musical” has no weight. It is a valid, exciting sub-genre, and in the hands of creative artists like those involved with these two shows, a form that can result in first-rate new musicals. In Boston, right now, there are two outstanding examples. |
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