Current Musicals

LINK TO CURRENT MUSICALS PODCAST

The Stage and Musical Show

Current Musicals are an interesting section to deal with. For instance, a good portion of the musicals that we discussed in our broadcasts over the last few weeks could be considered a current musical. Musicals such as South Pacific, West Side Story, The Phantom of the Opera and Mary Poppins are currently running on the Broadway stage. Yet these plays had already been discussed previously, so it would be unfair to add them into this weeks playlist.

Instead, I decided to focus on the musicals that were unable to fit into the other categories. For the most part, a good portion of the current musicals are either film based musicals, jukebox musicals or revivals. Only a few are original shows.

Wicked

In the broadcast, I played two songs from the musical of Wicked. If I had my way, I’d probably play the entire cast album. It was one of the first cast albums I purchased and my love for Idina Menzel really opened a lot of doors for me when it came to the world of musical theater. I truly wish I had the opportunity to see her shine as Elphaba on stage. Perhaps she will return to the part at some point in her career, but I do hope if she does take on the role of Elphaba again, she takes better care of her voice. Her performances were raw and sent shivers straight up your back, partially because of the scream she manages to do several times throughout the show. But that scream did horrible things to her tones and it was very evident during the Rent film. Her voice was not as strong and it seemed, as a viewer, that she may have damaged it from the volume she hit with her screams during her turn as Elphaba.

Kristin Chenowith is also a performer that I’d really like to see in Wicked as well. I’m not sure how likely it’ll be for her to return to the production, but it’d be a wonderful treat. Kristin Chenowith is simply adorable in her whole physique and her voice is darling. I never get sick of hearing her sing and I do miss being able to hear her perform rather often on the brilliant but canceled television series (of which I am still mourning) Pushing Daisies.

I miss this show so terribly.

And last but not least, Norbert Leo Butz. He is about to debut in Enron on Broadway, a musical I had no interest in until I discovered he was part of the ensemble. He is another one of my favorite vocalists. Just as I do with Patrick Wilson, I’m willing to try anything that Norbert Leo Butz is a part of. While he was great on the cast album for Wicked, in my opinion, his best work will always be The Last Five Years.

Here he is with Sherie Renee Scott, singing “The Next Ten Minutes,” which we played during the introductory playlist.

Hair

I talked a good portion about Hair in a earlier blog posting, so I won’t hit on it again for this blog. But it was featured highly during the on air broadcast, actually finishing out the playlist. The Flesh Failures may indeed be the last song we play on the actual radio show for The Stage and Musical Show. Who knows, really.

Jersey Boys

Jersey Boys became my favorite to win the Tony a few days before it actually won at the ceremony. I remember being blown away by the casts performance on the awards show and it became an almost mission for me to see the play. By a stir of luck, I managed to while visiting my roommate’s family in San Francisco.

Our seats were just a few rows back from the stage, possibly the closest I have ever been to the front row, and I had to sink back some in my seat in order to really see the entire stage set up. But it didn’t matter as I was completely brought into the world of Frankie Valli and the Four Seasons. As I have always been a sucker for biopics in the film genre, it was no surprise that I loved the biopic in the theater setting.

Next to Normal

My sister is the one who introduced me to Next to Normal. While I had seen the performance by the cast on the Tony awards, and enjoyed it, I didn’t put much research into the production. Several days after that broadcast, my sister began to talk of nothing but Aaron Tveit, the performer who plays Gabriel. We are both pretty rabid about musicals in general but rarely was she the one to bring a musical to my attention. The only other time in memory where this occurred was with the Cats film.

While I have not hit a level obsession with Next to Normal, I am quite intrigued by the entire thing. I enjoy the cast album intensely and every performance clip I have seen has been hard to look away from. But what has really caught my attention with Next to Normal was the fact it won the Pulitzer Prize for drama. The last musical to win this award was Rent, over ten years ago. Clearly musicals rarely are honored with this award and when they are, it is for good reason. So my curiosity is now officially a strong desire to see just what about this play is that good. I am hoping to see the production in the near future.

Favorite Clips

I used to watch this video on a constant loop. I truly loved the whole world of the Wizard of Oz and Wicked. I love just how well this performance seems to capture the spirit of the show and the amount of energy that Idina Menzel and Kristin Chenoweth have. Plus, Joel Grey is so excited to announce them and the crowds reaction is just brilliant.

The clip that really solidified my interest in Jersey Boys. John Lloyd Young is quite charming in his portrayal of Frankie Valli.

The Tony performance of Next to Normal.

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Spring Break Trip – Hair

The Beginning of  My Obsession with Hair

I have a long standing history with the musical Hair. It was one of the first film musicals I remember viewing as a pre teen and one of the first I remember obsessing over. I viewed it for the first time somewhere around the age of ten years old, after my mother decided I was finally old enough to watch the film. I later came to realize it was one of her favorite films and since my viewing of the film, it has become a film we watch on mother/daughter days (other films  that we’d do this too were Moulin Rouge, Little Shop of Horrors, Across the Universe and the non musical film Hook. Clearly, we like musicals). Of course, my mother did her best to try and censor the film for my young eyes. The song “Sodomy”did not exist in my version of Hair. She fast forwarded through the controversial track and well into my adult hood, I did the same. I’ve broken the habit but to this day it still feels like a taboo if I view or listen to the “Sodomy” segment.

But I’ve gotten off track. I had a point and the point is very simple. I love Hair. During my brief years of entertaining the prospect of becoming a director, of both film and stage, I always dreamed of bringing Hair back to Broadway for my generation. Once America entered the war on Terror, my desire for a Hair revival became greater. Hair seemed necessary in my eyes in our political climate. I wasn’t the only one to have this view and in 2007, Hair began to play in Central Park.

The Central Park Performances

The Central Park performances became my dreams. I wanted to visit New York and watch one of the performances. I had every thing in preparation as well until my lodgings fell through, this being before I realized I was capable of making day trips to the city. I was briefly sullen at my missed opportunity, having been under the impression it was a very limited engagement, and did my best to not sulk too much about the incident. The Central Park performances proved to be so popular that the revival was commissioned, first beginning at the Public Theater then moving to the Al Hirschfeld Theatre, where I was lucky enough to view the show two days ago.

My Viewing of Hair on Broadway

Hair became the third show I’ve seen in New York City. I ventured to New York City as a Spring Break trip with my roommate. Hair was a Christmas present from my parents to her and I, while her parents got us tickets to see Phantom of the Opera later that evening. As I saw the musical on the 17th of March, the original revival cast (which included most of the cast members from the Central Park and Public Theater performances) had just left the musical. The original cast is now working on originating a revival on the West End stage. While it certainly would have been nice to see the original participants of the revival, it didn’t matter much to me as a viewer. It was a revival no matter how you looked at it and all that mattered to me was energy. Energy was something that my cast certainly did not lack. Every cast member seemed to be full of exuberance, loving the performance they were a part of, and seemingly having a great time.

I admit that prior to my viewing of the stage show, I had never put any effort into researching the production. I assumed that the film was a close adaptation of the source material and that perhaps the stage show had a few extra songs. I was of course wrong and I am glad of it. While I will continue to love and cherish the film, it fails in comparison to the stage show. The stage show’s plot is vastly different from that of the film. The differences are so great that one wonders just how a director could take so much creative liberty with the material. When placed together in an effort to find a comparison, one only finds that the songs are identical and characters share the same names. Nothing else is identical.

Differences between Stage and Screen

In the stage show, Claude is a member of the tribe of hippies. The tribe is larger then the four members the film portrays, in fact it comprises of most of the cast. Claude is not the only member in the tribe that obtains a draft card, but is the only one who does not burn his during the Be-In. This makes it so that Claude’s focus in the second act is on what to do. Being drafted into the Vietnam war goes against all of Claude’s beliefs and values. Berger suggests that Claude immigrate up to Canada but Claude never makes it. Claude dies before he is able to escape his fate, appearing on stage in a uniform with a military hair cut, stating how “They got me.”

Claude is where all of the major changes in the film version start. They rip Claude from his family, that of the tribe, and present him as an outsider in the film. By doing this, Claude is not a loved member of the cast but a mechanism for the plot. He is who meets the hippies and does not how to interact with them. He is the one who leaves an impression upon George Berger, even though they only knew each other for the span of several days. He is the one who desperately falls for Sheila, a bastardized version of her stage counter part. Berger knows of Claude’s feelings and wants to see his friend once again, so sparks the road trip to the boot camp that Claude goes to several months after his visit to New York City. Berger gets Claude to sneak from Boot Camp, staying in his stead, and accidentally gets shipped off to Vietnam with no training. The film ends with Claude living and Berger dying.

Two Separate Entities

While the film is a wonderful story, it should be separated completely from the musical. It is important that a viewer thinks of them as two separate entities, as both are good in their own right, but once compared, one wonders why the producers felt the need to change nearly everything. The source material, that of the stage show, was already drastically popular and thus had a guaranteed audience. The most logical explanation would be that they wanted a more concrete plot line. But one does wonder if the producers of the film also wanted a watered down version of the source material. The film is not as explicit as that of the stage show. The audience does not get the impression that Claude, Berger and Sheila are one entity. They appear to be a romantic trio in the stage show, with Jeannie even making a comment to the audience how “Berger is hung up on Everything and Claude is hung up on a cross between Berger and Sheila.” Woof’s apparent sexuality is watered down for the film as well, with Woof making the comment he’d not kick Mick Jagger out of his bed as an apparent in joke. In the stage show, Woof means this statement and appears to have not come to full grasp with his sexual interests, as he is at the very least bisexual. Nudity also does not appear on as large a scale in the film as it does in the stage show. The first act ends with every stage member undressing during the Be-In, after burning the draft cards. All of these elements come together and can be viewed, from at least some perspective, as a watering down of the stage show for the film audiences of the 1970s. Which is a true shame and makes me really yearn for an actual remake of Hair on film. I normally do not support remakes but I feel as if the stage show deserves a chance to be portrayed as it truly is and that it’d be well received in our modern age.

Additional Materials

I discovered the song ‘Going Down’ while I was at the show. Of course there were other songs that I hadn’t heard before but this was the one I particularly enjoyed. I liked it so much I might include it in the final show, where I finally get the chance to play music from Hair.

One really cool thing that Hair does as a stage show is the cast invites the audience on stage to dance with the cast. While dancing, everyone on stage sings a rendition of ‘Let the Sunshine In.’ Not willing to pass up that chance, my roommate and I rushed for the stage once the show was over to participate. What I was not expecting was to find myself in a video online the next day. The video is located here.

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