RENT
On stage, RENT was a rock opera. It’s unquestionable that it is one: the story is told primarily through a series of episodic and eclectic musical numbers that are grounded in the idiom of popular music. On film, RENT looks like a shaky adaptation of a very mediocre musical play. Anyone who knows me will be able to tell you that I am very frank about what flaws I feel RENT has, but it the potential to be better that that.
Because of the shift in form, several numbers have been cut and a few have been shifted. That is par for the course when it comes to movie musicals. Perhaps what is worse is the attempt to pass off certain sections of the score as dialogue. In these sections, the lyrics are simply spoken – and it sounds weird. This is not merely a case in which familiarity with the source material spoils an appreciation of the adaptation. Ever an ear unfamiliar with RENT can pick out spoken moments in the film that are jarring when they are heard.
Lyrics and spoken dialogue are two completely different things. Lyrics are more specifically constructed that spoken language in musicals. They are often more economical in terms of word usage than dialogue and, because they are poetic rather than prosaic, have a specific cadence when spoken aloud. That is why these lyrics sound so strange when they are spoken as dialogue without any alteration whatsoever. The flaw also makes itself apparent, I suppose, because people tend to forget that although lyrics are specifically crafted in musical theatre, the creation of spoken dialogue is also a skill in its own right. The combination of these two miscalculations is what makes this appropriated dialogue sound forced.
It’s such a pity that nobody working on this film trusted the material with which they were working. There’s a big difference between refining something, or streamlining it to function optimally within the conventions of a different medium, and butchering it completely.
Mixed Race Musical Theatre Casts
Audra McDonald (bottom left) in ANNIE
One of the hot topics in musical theatre at the moment seems to be the validity of mixed race casting. The trend seems to have been pushed into the spotlight by the television remakes of Cinderella (which featured a completely mixed race company), Annie (in which Audra McDonald was cast in the traditionally “white” role of Grace Farrel, while the orphans and chorus was composed of multiple races) and The Music Man (in which the chorus was multi-racial) and the film adaptation of Chicago (which featured Queen Latifah as as prison warden Mama Morton). Debates rage across the Internet with ardent support from those who support casting decisions like these and others who do not.
My view? I don’t have a problem with mixed race musical theatre casts – with one proviso: it is definitely not a viable choice in shows where racial issues are thematic. Then, to make the point of the show some characters have to be cast according to what race they are meant to represent. Other than that, I think it is just great, particularly in a case such as the casting of McDonald in Annie where the choice made the role far more resonant that it has even been on stage or film and the film is all the better for it.