| Young Frankenstein? | |
| Last Edit: Chromolume 10:13 pm EDT 07/24/22 | |
| Posted by: Chromolume 09:56 pm EDT 07/24/22 | |
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| A random topic perhaps, but perhaps linked into the general idea of which source materials NEED to be turned into musicals, and which really don't. I never really knew YF (the musical) very well, save for a few songs. But I just subbed in on keyboard for a (quite good) youth production, so I had to spend the last week or so really learning the score. And I'm left with the question - did this show really need to be written? Nothing against the quite dedicated and skilled work by Glen Kelly (who took Mel Brooks' humming and developed/crafted the songs out of it) and Doug Besterman (who truly does wonderful things with the orchestration), but ultimately the very obvious, all-too-broad pastiche songs are rather empty, even a bit tedious. They don't add anything to the show except for an obvious camp factor - something the film already did much better and much much stronger on its own. Much like a show such as Spamalot, all the iconic film lines are there to enjoy and laugh at, but the songs themselves - the true focus of a musical after all - just don't improve upon the film. In fact, they almost seem to be there to merely comment on the basic level of the writing - "there are the kinds of songs that would be in a first draft of a show based on YF, if there were ever a musical of YF." It leaves me wondering what a much more skilled composer and lyricist would have done to make the songs themselves a lot more compelling, instead of just "there." I'm also not sure it's aged well in its relatively short time on earth - things like the "tits tits tits" section of "Please Don't Touch Me" really feel lame to me now, if they ever really worked. (Singing that word was refreshing and shocking and truly adult in A Chorus Line - in YF, is Brooks just hitting us over the head with something rather salaciously "adolescent boy" in its humor?) Filmmaker Brooks is a comic genius IMO, but you wouldn't really know it from the de facto nature of so many of these lyrics. (Whereas other very very pastiche shows in recent times, such as Thoroughly Modern Millie and Drowsy Chaperone, really do have a fresh, clever, and not-so-obvious take in their writing. At least in my opinion.) And when, still, the best song in the score was first heard in 1930 as written by Irving Berlin, and whose iconic nature from the film relies on a character who can't actually sing the title lyric (still a classic film moment), it makes me wonder what the reason for the rest of the Broadway score really was. Sorry for the rant. And maybe someone here can defend the show other than to say "I loved it, it was funny, it was entertaining, and it didn't need to be more than that," but I really do wonder. It kinda makes me want to go back and watch the film again and get the show out of my head. (Oh - and I have ABSOLUTELY NOTHING against films being made into musicals. Let's not start that generalized argument. But, IMO, they do have to have some craft in them that gives them a life beyond simply being compared to the film.) |
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