I found the Ragtime performance in the Macy’s Thanksgiving Parade underwhelming. The setting is lovely, but the lip synchronization is very out at the beginning and I found the performer’s bodies lacking in energy, which is fine when the camera is on their faces but as soon as it pulled out to show their whole bodies… well, it was just dead. It kicks into a higher gear when the camera pans to the ensemble for a chorus or two of the opening number, but even this doesn’t look like a fully energised or committed performance, particularly from the folks in white and the African Americans.
I realise it’s difficult and early for the performers and all that, but… I just didn’t find it as thrilling as I think it should be.
CAPTION: Daniel Day Lewis tries to explain to Rob Marshall how Nine works dramatically and how so much of what seems to be happening to turn it into another Marshall-fest seems to work against that.
Marshall knows that many viewers loved Dreamgirls‘ staged musical numbers but had a problem with its more organically rendered tunes (like the one Jamie Foxx sang while strutting down an alley). ”The big question always is, why do people sing?” he says. ”One of the reasons I looked to Nine was that its songs are fantasy. So they can take place in an alternate reality.’
Personally, I’m getting very tired of that excuse and the technique of including musical numbers as a part of alternate realities is becoming old hat. People can be comfortable with characters singing on screen if it is set up and handled well, which is something that wasn’t successfully done in Dreamgirls. I also don’t believe that that was the sole reason that Dreamgirls didn’t grab a Best Picture nomination; the film had other fundamental flaws, which I’ve briefly discussed on Musical Cyberspace already.
Back to Nine – I guess what I’m wondering is how the transitions between reality and alternate reality will be handled. The contrivance of presenting the musical numbers as performance worked in Chicago because it had the concept of the performance being the ideas the Roxie turned into performances in her mind’s eye, which were then recorded in her journal. But what’s the justification for the concept here? Will the scenes be shot in a realistic location and the songs have the characters transfer into the big fantasy stage set, with all the flashy lights and glamorous costumes? Is this is meant to be how Guido, the director, sees the woman in his life? Are the numbers what Guido sees in his mind as ideas for his film? Is that too obvious a concept? Will it all end up being a film that has more style that it has depth? How Marshall handles these transitions could be the difference between a film that is entertaining and stylish and a film that is truly great.
Meanwhile, here’s another interesting quote by Rob Marshall in The Daily Mail:
In a way, it’s a new musical because we took the wonderful bones of what Nine was and re-shaped it as a film…. There will be no dubbing. Everyone can carry a tune and they’re all having singing lessons. They’re in pretty good shape, and we’ll have a 60-piece orchestra in the studio when we record the songs. It’s all going to be very sexy.
Marshall seems to love selling his musicals as “sexy”, doesn’t he? Focusing on the first point, however, I think this is a huge challenge. While I’m all for adapting stage musicals to suit the medium of film and think that, as an adaptation, Chicago was super, I hope Marshall manages to find that same mix as he did there and doesn’t make the same mistakes that, say, Dreamgirls, Hairspray and even Sweeney Todd did in their transition from stage to screen. I mention those three rather than examples like Phantom of the Opera or The Producers because I feel that they are all great film musicals that have a few fundamental flaws that simply prevent them from being completely brilliant, whereas the latter two are so bogged down by incompetence that they’re barely worth mentioning.
Another interview with Marshall:
Not much said there that’s controversial, but its nice to hear him talk about the cast and the cinematography.
So – to sum up – my doubts are primarily in regard to whether Marshall’s concept will end up justifying all of the choices he’s made in the making of Nine. If, in the final analysis, it works, then it works and the cuts (and interpolations) won’t matter. Whether it does (and whether they do) is what we’re waiting to see. Even with these huge concerns regarding the concept of the film and the way Marshall seems to be handling it from the statements he’s released, I’ll probably get swept away by it. I hope I do.
Adam Shankman has revealed a possible outline for Hairspray 2, the proposed sequel to the recent hit film musical based on the Broadway show Hairspray. With the view of a July 2010 release, the John Waters penned outline takes Tracy Turnblad (played by Nikki Blonsky in the first film) and company through the super-political period of the late 1960s, with the music of that time period focusing their journey. The aim would be to track history in a comedic way and to incorporate the the British music invasion in a storyline for Link (who was played Zac Efron in the recent film).
More news as it comes, folks – but that’s it for now…
To purchase the Original Broadway Cast Recording of LA CAGE AUX FOLLES, click on the image above.
We all know by now that the London production of Harvey Fierstein and Jerry Herman’s La Cage aux Folles is Broadway bound and now the first casting rumours are out. The New York Post says that Kelsey Grammar will play Georges opposite Douglas Hodge’s Albin. (Riedel also says it was almost Mandy Patinkin who opted for Paradise Found instead – thank goodness, I guess.)
BroadwayWorld has an interview with Douglas Hodge. He says the deal with the Georges is still to be done, but he knows who it is and he’s thrilled.
There’s a sneak peek of Fela! at BroadwayWorld, with some footage from the show. The show’s unique feel is clear even here, visibly drawing on pan-African performance traditions that meet head-on with conventions of the Broadway musical over at the Eugene O’Neill Theatre. More and more, it seems as though Fela! might be a major contender for the Best Musical Tony, with possibly only The Addams Family offering any decent competition – unless things get all nostalgic and Million Dollar Quartet sideswipes them both. Go see it for yourself if you can!
The cast of Laurence O’Keefe, Nell Benjamin and Heather Hach’s Legally Blonde performed on Children in Need last night. Here’s the footage:
Unfortunately, the performance is terrible. It’s under-rehearsed and very clear that the cast is not ready for a performance like this yet. Made up this way, Sheridan Smith looks too old for the role and she sounds awful. So much so that she and co-star Duncan James seem less talented than almost anyone in the chorus. Incredibly disappointing.
Smith sounds much better in this promotional video for the production, which has been out for ages:
Problem is she still looks like she’s been for a few too many rounds on the tanning bed and like she’s using a truckload of makeup to cover it up. The look will matter less on stage though, and I hope she has less of an issue with pitch in the theatre than she does in the live performance at Children in Need.
Anyways, the actual content of the article deals with the possibility of The Public Theater reviving The Capeman:
Michael Riedel wrote:
(Oskar) Eustis… wants to do a concert version of the show. The book – by Nobel Prize-winning poet Derek Walcott – will pretty much be eliminated, which is a good thing because it’s dreadful. But Walcott’s lyrics – and Simon’s tunes – are haunting.
Why does everyone suddenly want to produce concert versions of flop musicals lately? Give me a reading, like Carrie is doing, any day. At least it shows that the creators genuinely want to work on the material, not just make a quick buck off of what they can salvage in a form that hardly ever does justice to the “theatre” part of musical theatre.
A Christmas Story: The Musical opens tonight in Kansas and is hoping to make a Broadway bow in 2010. From Playbill:
Scott Davenport Richards penned the score to the musical based on the Jean Shepherd stories and the 1983 MGM film. The libretto is by Joseph Robinette…. Based on the stories of radio humorist Jean Shepherd, the classic holiday story follows Ralphie Parker, whose holiday wish is a Red Ryder 200 Shot Carbine Action Air Rifle. The 1940s-set comedy follows Ralphie through his holiday campaign for the gift of his dreams, complete with a visit to Santa at Higbee’s Department Store, a racy lamp, the family’s exploding furnace, an experiment with a wet tongue on a cold lamppost and more. Songs in the production include “Getting Ready for Christmas,” “Take That!,” “I Won (A Major Award),” “You’ll Shoot Your Eye Out!,” “Ho, Ho, Ho!,” “I’m Awake,” “On Christmas, We Go Eat Chinese” and “There Must Be Something We’ve Forgotten.”
Apparently there was a New York reading of this last year. So… are we eventually going to end up in a world where regular shows on Broadway shut down for the Christmas productions?
Musical Cyberspace 