| re: Query about Shipoopi | |
| Posted by: keikekaze 06:55 pm EST 02/12/22 | |
| In reply to: re: Query about Shipoopi - Singapore/Fling 01:36 pm EST 02/12/22 | |
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| The new lyrics might not be the best answer, but the song as written is toxic, and there’s no way it could be done that way on Broadway in 2022. The question for y’all is: do you want to see The Music Man with slight changes or do you not want to see The Music Man? I want to see a revival of a show that has held up for more than 60 years because it's a good show be performed exactly the way its author wrote it and exactly as that author meant it to be. (In fact, I insist on it, and if I "can't" see it on Broadway, then screw Broadway and I'll go see it somewhere else.) That "Shipoopi" lyric that upsets you so is "toxic" because Willson damned well meant it to be what you mean by "toxic," and most people even in 1957 knew damned well that it was "toxic" (although nobody in 1957 would have used that word in that sense). They knew it was "wrong"--but the character who sings it doesn't know it, and that's the comic point. He is merely stating what he thinks--correctly or not--"the Rules" were in Iowa in 1912. And one of the many things I particularly like about that comic lyric is the rhyming juxtaposition of the very blunt "hussy" with the suddenly prissy and indirect "anything but fussy." Art is full of complications, implications, and nuances that, rather suddenly, seem to have become quite beyond the grasp of a lot of people in the 21st century. If it's really true (though I know it isn't) that The Music Man as written "can't" be done on Broadway in 2022, then there's something terminally wrong with Broadway. Namely, that it's going the way of mid-18th century English drama, when they bowdlerized all the tragedy and all the drama out of Shakespeare, along with the "toxic" words. Or, in four words, it's dying of censorship. The question for y'all is, do you want Broadway to be the crucible of a living art form (one that celebrates its best works by performing them respectfully even in revival), or do you want it to be a frozen and fossilized theme park, where nothing can ever possibly happen that would upset the smallest child? (Even though we all really know that very little ever happens that truly upsets small children.) Art is supposed to upset you. The theater is an art. If you don't ever want to be upset, go live in Disneyland. |
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