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. |
