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re: Francis Ford Coppola's bizarre, surprising 1968 FINIAN'S RAINBOW
Posted by: Michael_Portantiere 03:39 pm EDT 03/20/21
In reply to: re: Francis Ford Coppola's bizarre, surprising 1968 FINIAN'S RAINBOW - singleticket 03:23 pm EDT 03/20/21

"I do think that the politics of the book need to be engaged with in some way by the production to bring the musical into the present."

Okay, but "the politics of the book need to be engaged with in some way" sounds very amorphous to me, and since you didn't see these revivals, I really don't think you should comment that they DIDN'T do so.

I agree with you about the climax of the Coppola film. I don't remember if this is in the original show script, but in the movie, Sharon is labeled a "witch" by the villains of the piece, after her wish turns Senator Rawkins into a black man. And then, at the climax of the movie, the villains attempt to burn Sharon (and Woody) to death by setting to flames the barn they're locked into. So, in this way, the movie also references the Communist "witch hunts" of the HUAC era, which occurred between the time the original production of FINIAN'S RAINBOW played on Broadway and the movie was made 20 years later. Very, very neat.
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re: Francis Ford Coppola's bizarre, surprising 1968 FINIAN'S RAINBOW
Posted by: singleticket 03:51 pm EDT 03/20/21
In reply to: re: Francis Ford Coppola's bizarre, surprising 1968 FINIAN'S RAINBOW - Michael_Portantiere 03:39 pm EDT 03/20/21

The witch definitely felt to me like something out of HUAC, yes. The church burning, at least in Coppola's film, feels like a reminder of the white racist retaliatory church burnings in the 1960's.
Link 1963 September 15 - Four Black schoolgirls killed in Birmingham church bombing
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