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| Could Sweet Charity be done as a gay version? | |
| Posted by: dramedy 03:55 pm EST 02/25/19 | |
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| I found this big spender number played by guys and it works. I wonder if the rest of the show could be done as a gay musical? I doubt the licensing agency would allow it. | |
| Link | https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8e6pDJJFO98 |
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| re: Could Sweet Charity be done as a gay version? | |
| Posted by: JereNYC (JereNYC@aol.com) 04:08 pm EST 02/25/19 | |
| In reply to: Could Sweet Charity be done as a gay version? - dramedy 03:55 pm EST 02/25/19 | |
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| I don't think it could, considering that the main thrust of the plot is the limited life choices available for undereducated/poor women in the 1960's. A man in Charity's position (did male taxi dancers even exist?) would likely have many more choices when he decided he wanted to get out of the dance hall and would not be so focused on finding a man (or a woman) to marry in order to make that happen. | |
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| re: Could Sweet Charity be done as a gay version? | |
| Last Edit: lordofspeech 07:28 pm EST 02/25/19 | |
| Posted by: lordofspeech 07:27 pm EST 02/25/19 | |
| In reply to: re: Could Sweet Charity be done as a gay version? - JereNYC 04:08 pm EST 02/25/19 | |
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| I saw an excellent shortened version at the Yale Cabaret in 1989 or so. The conceit was that Oscar, squaresville as he is in the original, wasn’t on to the fact that Sweet Charity and her chums were drag queens. Charity had to confess to being a man. It must’ve been seriously shortened, but the stakes were very high, and it worked. Charity was diminutive and oh-so-sweet (believably), and Malcolm Gets was thrilling in the Helen Gallagher role. (Chita played it in the movie). | |
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| re: Could Sweet Charity be done as a gay version? | |
| Posted by: JereNYC (JereNYC@aol.com) 09:38 am EST 02/26/19 | |
| In reply to: re: Could Sweet Charity be done as a gay version? - lordofspeech 07:27 pm EST 02/25/19 | |
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| So, in this version, was Charity aware that Oscar didn't know that she was a drag queen? If so, that really changes the character in the sense that she's now lying to him throughout. If she was not, that's an interesting thing to try to play and I wonder how such a thing would never have come up in conversation between them...is their relationship just THAT superficial? And it also begs the question about whether Charity and Oscar are having sex or not. I've always just kind of assumed that they were (in more traditional productions), because Charity is clearly not a virgin and the stakes for her in having sex are pretty non-existent, unlike for a "good" girl of the period. (And I use that word "good" purely as shorthand, not a value judgement...I'm sure that by the mid-to-late 60's, lots of "good" girls were also having sex outside of marriage.) And, for Oscar, even if he's a completely socially deficient nerd, there's not really any stakes at all regarding sex...the difference between being a man and being a woman. But that idea puts an entirely different spin on the ending and one that would seem to justify Oscar's complete 180 degree turn around, that, in a traditional production, comes out of nowhere. We haven't seen anything in the writing, from the scene in which Charity and Oscar meet to the scene in which he abruptly leaves her, that indicates that he has any issues with her at all and they seem to have a rather sweet, traditional relationship where each one's baggage complements the other's. If it suddenly hits Oscar that his fiancée is actually a man in drag, that's a pretty good justification for his departure. And, if all that can be played by the actors without actually rewriting the script, that would be a really interesting thing to see. |
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| re: Could Sweet Charity be done as a gay version? | |
| Posted by: Michael_Portantiere 04:55 pm EST 02/26/19 | |
| In reply to: re: Could Sweet Charity be done as a gay version? - JereNYC 09:38 am EST 02/26/19 | |
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| "But that idea puts an entirely different spin on the ending and one that would seem to justify Oscar's complete 180 degree turn around, that, in a traditional production, comes out of nowhere. We haven't seen anything in the writing, from the scene in which Charity and Oscar meet to the scene in which he abruptly leaves her, that indicates that he has any issues with her at all and they seem to have a rather sweet, traditional relationship where each one's baggage complements the other's." With all due respect, I don't think you're remembering the original clearly. In the show as originally written, Oscar doesn't find out until VERY late in the proceedings that Charity is actually a dance hall girl -- with all that implies. She had told him she worked in a bank, and we learn that he found out the truth when he followed her to work one day. (Creepy, I know -- but then he seems to be a guy with a lot of "issues.") Yes, when Oscar finds out the truth, he at first tells her he has no problem with it. But I think it's meant to be clear that he's just TELLING himself he has no problem with it, when in fact he has a HUGE problem with it. Which is why he freaks out and abruptly leaves her in the last scene. |
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| re: Could Sweet Charity be done as a gay version? | |
| Last Edit: Chromolume 11:52 pm EST 02/25/19 | |
| Posted by: Chromolume 11:51 pm EST 02/25/19 | |
| In reply to: re: Could Sweet Charity be done as a gay version? - lordofspeech 07:27 pm EST 02/25/19 | |
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| It must’ve been seriously shortened, but the stakes were very high. I'm sure the stakes were very very high, considering this must have been an illegal production. I truly doubt Tams would have granted all those changes. |
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| i wasn't thinking of it in the 60s | |
| Posted by: dramedy 04:18 pm EST 02/25/19 | |
| In reply to: re: Could Sweet Charity be done as a gay version? - JereNYC 04:08 pm EST 02/25/19 | |
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| but a modern version where gay marriage and gay strip/sex clubs exist. Again, i doubt it could be licensed if someone was wiling to produce locally. | |
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| re: i wasn't thinking of it in the 60s | |
| Posted by: JereNYC (JereNYC@aol.com) 04:46 pm EST 02/25/19 | |
| In reply to: i wasn't thinking of it in the 60s - dramedy 04:18 pm EST 02/25/19 | |
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| Another issue, especially in a modern re-telling, is that I'm not sure that go-go dancing in a club carries the stigma in the gay community that the taxi dancing does in the original show. Once you've crossed that societal line of coming out as gay, is dancing on a bar really that much of a taboo? Now if we're saying that Charity/the male Charity character is a prostitute, as in the original Fellini film, THAT might carry that stigma. But, in the original show, the point is made that Charity doesn't do anything more than dancing, and a musical about a sweet, gay prostitute might be straying a bit far from the premise. Now, I think a musical about a contemporary gay guy approaching 30, or even 40, who's trying to figure out a way out of his life as a sex worker in the 21st Century is great idea. But I think that character's life and times would be really far removed from anything that Charity experiences. |
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| re: i wasn't thinking of it in the 60s | |
| Posted by: Chromolume 05:03 pm EST 02/25/19 | |
| In reply to: re: i wasn't thinking of it in the 60s - JereNYC 04:46 pm EST 02/25/19 | |
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| Someone could write a new show about that. Easier than trying to shoehorn an old show into a new setting that really doesn't fit all that easily. I wish we had more of the former and so much less of the latter. | |
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| re: i wasn't thinking of it in the 60s | |
| Posted by: Michael_Portantiere 11:32 pm EST 02/25/19 | |
| In reply to: re: i wasn't thinking of it in the 60s - Chromolume 05:03 pm EST 02/25/19 | |
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| "Someone could write a new show about that. Easier than trying to shoehorn an old show into a new setting that really doesn't fit all that easily. I wish we had more of the former and so much less of the latter." Agreed, 100 percent. |
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| re: i wasn't thinking of it in the 60s | |
| Posted by: JereNYC (JereNYC@aol.com) 09:52 am EST 02/26/19 | |
| In reply to: re: i wasn't thinking of it in the 60s - Michael_Portantiere 11:32 pm EST 02/25/19 | |
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| Absolutely...this has come here recently again with the latest KISS ME KATE revisal, but I think there are a lot of musicals that are of their times and have book issues that make people ask questions when those shows are revived. But there's a lot of fodder there for contemporary writers to take the bare bones of story and characters, with permission, I assume, from estates, and write something new that asks what that story or those characters might be in modern times. Another one that comes to mind is show that's actually really terrific, but also really of its time...THE PAJAMA GAME. Why isn't someone writing a contemporary musical about the machinations of a negotiation between a union and the management of a factory and how that's affected or not when one of the union negotiators falls in love with a member of management? That's a potentially really compelling idea that could bring a lot of contemporary issues about what it means to work in a factory in the 21st Century and the divide between blue and white collar workers. And you'd still have your love story, which could be between a female superintendent and a male floor worker or two men or two women or maybe one of them is non-binary or trans or something else...the point being that taking the bare bones story out of the idyllic, cartoony 1950's of the original opens up so many possibilities, without doing any harm to the original, which would, of course, still exist and still be great. |
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| re: i wasn't thinking of it in the 60s | |
| Posted by: Broadwaywannabe 10:30 pm EST 02/26/19 | |
| In reply to: re: i wasn't thinking of it in the 60s - JereNYC 09:52 am EST 02/26/19 | |
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| The gay version of If My Friends Could See Me Now at Broadway Backwards last year (or perhaps the year before) with Jay Armstrong Johnson as Charity was wonderful (I cant find it on YouTube now) and for me worked really well so I had the same question that dramedy asked. I dont know the show that well so I appreciate the discussion in this thread. | |
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