Can you say 'shoehorned alliteration'? I can!
I thought 'Musical Monday' would be a little vague, so here we are — Musical Theatre Monday. Don't assume this will be some kind of regular, recurring feature because it probably won't be. I've touched on my love of musicals in the past (it's actually one of the most popular entries on my blog — go figure!) but now I want to talk a little bit more about musicals, their past, their future, and their place in contemporary society.
I'm just going to focus on the golden oldies in this entry, because the history of musical theatre is rather vast. Perhaps I can do a couple more entries in following weeks!
That's one of my photos, from Little Me. Obviously I'm going to take advantage of my blog and do some shameless self-promotion, but getting back to the plot: let's start by going way back, right to the beginning, to the 'golden age' (you can pretty much ignore anything before 1943, it's mostly operetta rather than musicals — but there are a few highlights from that era such as Gershwin's Porgy & Bess, or Cole Porter's Anything Goes). In 1943, Oklahoma was released. I'm not going to pretend that it's a very good musical — because it's not — but it had a couple of nice songs, a rousing chorus and a fun story. Then came Carousel and South Pacific – the former containing some really beautiful songs, and the latter being one of the most boring musicals of all time.
Which brings me neatly onto this cute little story about South Pacific. The credit for this story goes to my lovely cousin who is a sound engineer (with very nice, large, aurally-exemplar ears, I might add) that's currently touring with Seven Brides for Seven Brothers. Apparently South Pacific is so boring that… people die while watching it. During the last tour of the show, something like ten (10) people died while watching the show! I wish I was making this sad story up, but I'm not. Apparently the average age of the theatre-goers was simply too high. Their hearts were failing left, right and center.
Of course, they joked that the sound was too loud and it was frightening these poor biddies to death. Perhaps there's a grain of truth there.
Some of the recently-decreased were actually lifted up and carried out of the theatre in the middle of a musical number. How delightfully morbid. Let's face it, it was probably a whole more interesting for the audience to watch their corpses being dragged around than to actually watch South Pacific though.
Thinking about it, those that grew up with musicals from the 40s will soon be an extinct species — it'll be like those World War Veteran marches, where there's just 1 or 2 old guys in wheelchairs left — soon South Pacific tours will open to an audience of just 3 wrinkled, senile geriatrics who are 'just there for one last jolly'. I'm sure Sondheim or Porter could've had a field day with a story like that!
Anyway, the 60s were a fairly dark, boring period, with the only important event being the appearance of Stephen Sondheim with A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum. He wouldn't write his best stuff until the 70s and 80s though, and that's a topic for next Monday! Sondheim's heyday, and the advent of the rock musical.
Musical Theatre Monday: The birth of rock and pop musicals Musical Theatre Monday: jukebox musicals and film-to-stage adaptations A dramatic build-up for Monday What am I listening to now?
Sunday's usually slow, but today I lift a trophy up high!
Ah, I see we have a scroller in the house…!
It's kind of pink, eh?
I love musicals, the first one I ever saw was Seven Brides for Seven Brothers and that was it. I was a goner.
You saw Seven Brides on stage? That's a fantastic production… I love the additional songs they put in that weren't in the film!
I'm worried about going to the theatre now….
Guys and Dolls is great, I don't know how many times I've listened to that soundtrack. I was considering going to New York to see the new Broadway production, but sadly the reviews haven't been too good.
I love Seven Brides for Seven Brothers, the movie. I would LOVE to see it on stage. I've seen small productions of Bye Bye Birdie and Footloose. Mamma Mia, Hairspray, CATS, Annie (on March 15th) are all the large scale broadway productions I've seen.
Well the rest of it just skimmed right over the top of my head I'm afraid!
I just love how it builds up to 'Sue Me'… it's one of my favourite climaxes!
Seven Brides is great on stage! All the big dancing/chorus numbers are obviously fantastic. And they added a few lovely songs. If you've seen Mamma Mia, Hairspray and Cats, you've seen a few of the 'largest' musicals certainly — and some of the most wild stage productions! But you should certainly watch more!
Musical theatre is my passion. I have just returned from New York where I managed to catch Shrek the Musical and Mary Poppins on Broadway…awesome is all I can say. I also love the more understated contenders such as Spring Awakening (brilliant rocky soundtrack) and A little night music.