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puppetmakerRecently there has been a hue and cry about the lack of original musicals on Broadway. They are now based on movies or books that are well known in some circles. There are very few surprises because the viewer has seen or read it before. Where are the original works? Where is the Broadway that surprises and entertains without the audience knowing the whole story before they enter?
I can tell you that it is currently in the St. James Theater and it is brilliant to behold.
Honestly the first time I heard about this play was when it showed up in my facebook feed. I liked it and saw all kinds of things they were posting. A lot of these things made me smile or laugh. But I still didn’t really have any idea what the play was about really except it was billed as a new musical of the first musical.
Peter and I decided on a whim to go see it during previews and got really nice seats for a really good price. We sat down and looked at the Playbill.
“What’s this play about?” Peter asked.
“I honestly have very little idea but they don't like Shakespeare,” I replied.
“How do you know that?”
I pointed to the song title ‘I hate Shakespeare’.
The curtain went up, the show began, and I haven’t laughed that hard in an age.
Imagine Shakespeare as a rock god, imagine how the other playwrights felt about Mr. Rock god. Imagine a struggled theater company trying to come up with the next big thing before Shakespeare does. Add Nostradamus (kind of) to the mix and you get Something Rotten. Oh and there are Puritans threating the theater for good measure and a rather nice subplot.
It is a slick production that both makes fun of the musical form and expands upon it. It starts one way and then turns another and then another turn.
The songs are great. There is a show stopper in act one that had everyone on their feet after it was done.
Directing is solid.
And the actors do know all their lines as promised in the promotional material. Side note that three of the four male leads were all in the TV series Smash.
I really don’t want to give more of the plot away than what little bits I have because I want the audience to go in as clueless as I was and walk out with a smile as big as mine was mulling over what I just saw.
So put it on your list of Broadway shows to see for it is the first MUST SEE in my book in quite a long time.
I am grateful that we just happened into Something Rotten.
I can tell you that it is currently in the St. James Theater and it is brilliant to behold.
Honestly the first time I heard about this play was when it showed up in my facebook feed. I liked it and saw all kinds of things they were posting. A lot of these things made me smile or laugh. But I still didn’t really have any idea what the play was about really except it was billed as a new musical of the first musical.
Peter and I decided on a whim to go see it during previews and got really nice seats for a really good price. We sat down and looked at the Playbill.
“What’s this play about?” Peter asked.
“I honestly have very little idea but they don't like Shakespeare,” I replied.
“How do you know that?”
I pointed to the song title ‘I hate Shakespeare’.
The curtain went up, the show began, and I haven’t laughed that hard in an age.
Imagine Shakespeare as a rock god, imagine how the other playwrights felt about Mr. Rock god. Imagine a struggled theater company trying to come up with the next big thing before Shakespeare does. Add Nostradamus (kind of) to the mix and you get Something Rotten. Oh and there are Puritans threating the theater for good measure and a rather nice subplot.
It is a slick production that both makes fun of the musical form and expands upon it. It starts one way and then turns another and then another turn.
The songs are great. There is a show stopper in act one that had everyone on their feet after it was done.
Directing is solid.
And the actors do know all their lines as promised in the promotional material. Side note that three of the four male leads were all in the TV series Smash.
I really don’t want to give more of the plot away than what little bits I have because I want the audience to go in as clueless as I was and walk out with a smile as big as mine was mulling over what I just saw.
So put it on your list of Broadway shows to see for it is the first MUST SEE in my book in quite a long time.
I am grateful that we just happened into Something Rotten.
Interesting comments!
Date: 2015-04-06 01:41 pm (UTC)You say:
I was interested before in seeing this show and now you've increased my interest. I would like, however, to respond to your comment about original works of musical theater.
Most musicals have been based on pre-existing sources: straight plays (My Fair Lady is based on G.B. Shaw's Pygmalion, for example), movies (A Little Night Music is based on Smiles of a Summer Night), stories/novels (Guys and Dolls, A Fiddler on the Roof, Les Miserables), even poetry (Cats, G*d help me). Other shows are based on history (Fiorello!, Assassins [to a large extent anyway]). So-called "jukebox" (or "cover") musicals, using pre-existing pop songs with a story written around them almost always fail. (Exceptions: Mamma Mia and Jersey Boys.)
Creating a show "from scratch" is far more difficult. An author of novels and other stories can create a whole universe within the confines of the story, taking as much time (words, number of pages) as necessary to get the points across. A writer of films or straight plays has to be much more succinct, allowing us to see things a novelist has to explain. Writers of musical theater, however, don't just write a stage play or screenplay with songs. We as audience not only have to suspend disbelief that the characters in a straight play are "real," but that in a musical they're going to burst out into song at any moment (with an often unseen orchestra accompanying them!). So the story has to hang together, the characters have to be believable even in an absurd context, and their songs have to sound as naturally occurring as possible.
There are, statistically speaking, more "original" and "concept" shows in the last ten or so years than ever in the "Golden Age" of musical theater (from Show Boat to Fiddler, basically). Just three off the top of my head, Avenue Q, In the Heights, and of course A Chorus Line, stand a real chance of being considered "classic" shows down the road. (All right, Chorus Line is already considered as such but I'm talking 50 years from now.)
So, what does this all have to do with your (quoted) comment? What has been happening for the last 10-15 years is that producers/creators of musical theater have been choosing sources simply because of those sources' popularity, with little attention to how they could work not only as a stage play but as a true musical. (Carrie, anyone?) And many times a show will be produced solely because of the names of the folks involved, no matter how well they might be suited to the task or if the task is worth doing in the first place. (Spiderman...)
I'm glad that Something Rotten works for you and I look forward to seeing it myself. But please don't think that Broadway is lacking in "original" shows, but that understand that finding the right source, or the best ideas for a truly original show, are the hardest things with which creators of musical theater have to contend.
The rant is ended. (grin)
Re: Interesting comments!
Date: 2015-04-06 01:48 pm (UTC)You are right about the origins of many musicals being from plays and books. As a stage manager I have more of the work that musicals are based on than the musicals themselves.That and I have stage managed my way through almost all of the War of the Roses.
I also want to be clear that I am not looking down my nose at what Broadway has to offer. I enjoyed Aladdin and Matilda along with Spiderman and Spamalot.
I really just enjoyed going in and not knowing what I was going to see.