Search And Destroy: Musicals

COMPLETELY TANGENTIALLY, does anyone else remember the movie Mary Mother of God or something to that effect? It was about the Virgin Mary and it was on CBS or NBC a few years ago. The reason I bring this up is because it starred Christian Bale as Jesus, just prior to it being announced he'd play Patrick Bateman. For the longest time no one would believe me that this was true, so I'm just curious if I'm the only one who actually remembers it. I mean, I looked it up online one day just to prove myself right, and sure 'nuff, there was Christian Bale, smiling in a beatific way from the poster. It rocked. If the Catholic church would use Christian Bale as their propaganda instead of the Jesus they usually use, I'd so be in church right now. "Oooh, Jesus, save meeeee"

Ahem. Sorry. Anyhow, Jesus Christ Superstar is a terrible musical and should be destroyed with the rest of Sir Webber's collection, but that PBS version was fantastic and I think me and Ethan saw the same one because I also saw this version just before Easter.

My Musical obsession is pretty much reserved for Rogers & Hammerstein. C'Mon South Pacific anyone. Happy Talk, Wash That Man Right out Of My Hair. Sound OF Music - especially Goatherd (never gets a reprise unlike the rest of the tracks, which makes the film a bit too long). The appearance of Singalong-A-Sound Of Music in London has been a rejuvenating thing for the whole idea of musicals. It reintroduces the idea of them actually being a whole shedload of fun.

Oaklahoma is top mad skills too, not to mention Pal Joey (not R&H but Sinatra's finest Musical moment). And I'm off to see Kiss Me Kate tonight at the NFT in the origianl 3-D. Unfortunately I don't have stereoscopic vision, but the gaudy nonsensical idea of a musical filmed in 3-D will keep me going.

Oh, and Candide is a very funny piece of musical theatre. "All's for the best" is in my top ten tracks of all time.

Destroy: Les Mis, without compunction. Especially since it has managed to destroy the book in popular culture terms. Oh and Notre Dame de Paris, especially "I've Got A Hunch About You". It might as well have been the Planet Of The Apes musical on The Simpsons (worth inclusion for "You'll Never Make A Monkey Out Of Me").

Destroy: "Godspell". And yeah, the rest of Andrew Lloyd Webber's stuff has got to go. I do remember dancing wildly to the Disco Evita version of "High Flying Adored", though, when I was a dizzy madcap teen. I didn't know where the song came from, I just thought it had a cool, queeny chorus.

If you have even the vaguest interest in the art of writing songs that use the English language to its fullest, you have to investigate Sondheim, the lyricist's lyricist. Simple as that.

DESTROY: Ticket prices. Thirty quid plus for a decent seat? Not exactly music for the masses, is it? Cheaper to get the original cast CD to pore over repeatedly in the comfort of your own cave.

SEARCH: Sunday In The Park With George (truly beautiful), Assassins (truly tap dancing Lee Harvey Oswald plus love song to Charles Manson), Follies (includes "Losing My Mind" as covered by Pet Shop Boys/Liza Minnelli, Company, A Little Night Music (includes "Send In The Clowns"), West Side Story (Sondheim & Bernstein). Also any Sondheim revue CDs that mop up his best songs, eg Side By Side By Sondheim.

AVOID (until you've developed a taste for him): Sweeney Todd, Into The Woods, Pacific Overtures, Merrily We Roll Along.

NON-SONDHEIM:

SEARCH: Cabaret - wonderful film, peerless tunes, essential soundtrack. Barbra Striesand's "Broadway Album". Man Of La Mancha. Pirates Of Penzance & The Mikado... light operas being the forerunners of the musical. That 80s pop film of "Pirates" with Angela Lansbury, Kevin Kline, and Linda Rondstadt is a riot. Also: any musical by Cole Porter, especially High Society, and anything by Rogers and Hart, especially Pal Joey.

DESTROY: "Billy the Kid and the Green Baize Vampire" - early 80s film musical featuring a singing Phil Daniels, Dracula, and, um, snooker. I'm sure it looked good at the planning stage.

Have you heard Liza Minnelli's 70s version of "Dancing In The Moonlight"? As in the Toploader song. You should.

Regarding a musical of The Breakfast Club, I would like to point out that I have Molly Ringwald's dance moves down to a "t", and am available at very short notice for understudy duties.

I have to go, I'm late for the "half"...

Phew, Dickon. This is quite a concept to swallow. But intriguing.

The Terror of Tiny Town is quite possibly the best musical of all time. Click on the link and you can watch the film - ALL OF IT. Including the Marlene Dietrich whore midget. Apparently, this is the film she is watching right now on television; Arizona, you know?

DESTROY: HOW TO SUCCEED IN BUSINESS WITHOUT REALLY TRYING - I just finished an excruitiatingly long month run of that show and I now despise it with everything that I have. If I had to sing "A Secretary is Not a Toy", cha-cha to "Coffee Break", or listen to the ever-so-annoying song "Old Ivy" again I think I would have died.

Me and my mum were there - we watched the first half, and then at the interval when we came out for drinks I decided I couldn't bring myself to go back in, and just walked out of the theatre. My mum ran after me, and then when she was outside she seemed to realise it was best if we slip away. So we walked out of the place, back to the car park, into our car, and drove all the way back home without saying a word to each other.

I'll say it again just to stir up controversy and encourage youths to fight in playgrounds.

Destroy: Please gey rid of Cats, Les Mis. and Miss Saigon! In college in London all my friends would sing those deppressing songs - I wanted to slit my wrists!

so yeah, search that: it's classic!

But how does it match up against Holiday Inn?

You people hate Sondheim?

EEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEYEROOOOOOOOLLLLLLLLLLLLLL

http://youtube.com/watch?v=2qNJupQTW8I
http://youtube.com/watch?v=0kHYzt9UbB0&feature=related

I recently saw "Spamalot" in London and that one is to be searched for certain. If not necessarily mainly for the music, that is.....

What, a non-musical post?

Yeah, I saw Spamalot in January. It was alright I suppose.

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0055572/

Thank you for posting that Elaine Stritch thing, poortheatre! That's incredible!

I will comment only on Broadway musicals, not movie musicals.

Search: Sweeney Todd--Demon Barber of Fleet Street, Assassins, Company, Spring Awakening, A Chorus Line, Into the Woods (sorry I'm throwing so much Sondheim in here), Jesus Christ Superstar, Evita, Ragtime, Kiss Me Kate, Chicago....too many to list

Destroy: Wedding Singer (one of the worst musicals I ever saw--broadway, not movie), Pajama Game, Babes in Arms, ehh...

People are too serious when commenting on musicals. Why does everyone hate Andrew Lloyd Webber so much? By the way, I despise "Grease".

I love "Jesus Christ Superstar" and that is Andrew Lloyd Webber! But I think the hatred probably comes from getting "Phantom of the Opera" songs stuck in your head all the time as a teenager because it was the only musical anyone knew and people liked singing it WAY too much. He really writes earworms.

Just saw the London production of 'Hair' (with the Broadway cast) - http://hairthemusical.co.uk.

Really liked it - especially the good singing voices - and the real surprise was that the plot kind of made sense this time. I saw the Old Vic production back in 1993 and they made a bit of a mess of it.

Also thanks England team - cheapest seats upgraded to really good ones at no extra charge last night.

Will probably go again before this production ends.

Generally I'm not into musicals but there are a couple that I love to death.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZmR6ozpksGY&feature=related

oh man I just teared watching this one - ilu Jerry!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GEW1F9kZ-UE&feature=related

saw Bernadette & Elaine in A Little Night Music tonight, worth at least $50 of the $70 I paid.

Search: Cabaret
Destroy: Any musicals involving children, especially orphans/urchins.

love this thread, as my daughter needs to watch a half-dozen musicals for forth-grade (dvd's count). she's devoured some children's fare, and now actually wants to watch les miserables (we'll see how that goes; it's a dark, intense work for a near 10-year old).

are there any "musicals" centered around really weird abstract non-anthemic non-singsong music?

The Off-Broadway stage production itself sounds horrible, but I'm really, really, really loving the soundtrack to "Revolution in the Elbow of Ragnar Agnarsson Furniture Painter." Straddles the line between indie-rock and musical very nicely, and a lot of the songs are very strong. Some power-pop, some glam-rock. Took me very much by surprise. Opening track (less rock than some)...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iy13Oj8rHRQ

It's on Spotify. Check "I'll Save The Day" for more perspective.

Adding one more, more along the lines of New Pornographers. The actual show has dire reviews, but kind of surprised the soundtrack hasn't made at least a teeny bit more noise.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VsHYXK3btjw

seeing Chicago tomorrow as it happens

http://www.nytimes.com/2015/02/18/theater/review-in-hamilton-lin-manuel-miranda-forges-democracy-through-rap.html?hpw&rref=arts&action=click&pgtype=Homepage&module=well-region®ion=bottom-well&WT.nav=bottom-well&_r=0

I'd like to see this

excerpt:

During the first half of the 20th century, the American songbook was often dictated by Broadway tunesmiths. But by the late 1950s, songs from musicals had become a quaint breed apart from the songs that America danced to and sang in the shower. And though many major talents have tried to close that gap (including Mr. Miranda in his amiable but less thoroughly realized Broadway hit “In the Heights”), Spotify-friendly tunes have tended to show up only in those cumbersome recycling centers known as jukebox musicals.

But, lo and behold, there are songs throughout “Hamilton” that could be performed more or less as they are by Drake or Beyoncé or Kanye. And there’s none of the distancing archness found in those recent (and excellent) history musicals at the Public, “Bloody Bloody Andrew Jackson” and “Here Lies Love.” “Hamilton” isn’t cool; it’s utterly sincere, but without being judgmental or pious. And its numbers come across as natural and inevitable expressions of people living in late-18th-century America.

Acknowledging no disconnect between its sound and its setting, “Hamilton” bypasses the self-consciousness of anachronism. What’s more, it convinces us that hip-hop and its generic cousins embody the cocky, restless spirit of self-determination that birthed the American independence movement. Like the early gangsta rap stars, the founding fathers forge rhyme, reason and a sovereign identity out of tumultuous lives.

It also feels appropriate that the ultimate dead white men of American history should be portrayed here by men who are not white. The United States was created, exclusively and of necessity, by people who came from other places or their immediate descendants.

Washington Post theatre reviewer goes to NY and loves it too. His contemporary musical reference: Tupac...

http://www.washingtonpost.com/entertainment/theater_dance/history-as-youve-never-heard-it-before/2015/02/17/e803502e-b6e4-11e4-bc30-a4e75503948a_story.html

The handiwork here is also proof positive of the reassuring resilience of the American musical and how marvelously adaptable, in capable hands, the form remains. Drawing on such varied influences as rap, pop, jazz and Broadway standards — and the vocabularies of ­Tupac Shakur, the Beatles and Gilbert and Sullivan — “Hamilton” is as smart about music as it is about the American Revolution. Along with “Wicked,” the all-time tweener sensation, and the perfectly irreverent “The Book of Mormon,” “Hamilton” will be talked about in years to come as a benchmark experience, one that opened the eyes of other theater-makers to new possibilities.

all tix been gone for current run for awhile, I assume it moving uptown is assured.