2007-05-10

Oh Christ...

Many years ago, I was on a weekend trip to New York City with my high school drama club. This was a popular outing; between the core members and the kids we sneeringly referred to as "application padders" (the ones who showed no interest in being acolytes of Thespis until senior year, when it occured to them that they didn't have enough extracurriculars) it required two large buses to haul everyone down there. That particular year I was on the same bus as my Major Crush, who spent most of the trip in the back of the vehicle, snogging his girlfriend while I sat towards the front trying to gather up the pieces of my shattered heart (sob!).

All told, though, it was a good trip. If memory serves, we saw Big River, and The Mystery of Edwin Drood (which at one point had starred Betty Buckley; she had departed by the time I saw it, much to my chagrin, but I figured she was on to bigger and better things, so I swallowed my disappointment and quite enjoyed the performance given by Donna Murphy). We took in the sights and had spectacular water-gun fights in the hotel, and I tried very hard to ignore the fact that I was heartbroken. I was an actress after all, and if I was going to be living and working in this wonderful city in just a few scant years, I had better be prepared to face heartbreak with a big, beaming smile.

By Sunday, however, I was tired of putting my best face forward and pretending not to be utterly devastated by the ceaseless tonsil-hockey sessions going on at the back of the bus. New York City was huge, cruel, dirty. Nobody here was going to care that I had wowed my peers and their parents with my spunky-yet-wistful performance as Anybodys in our fall production of West Side Story. A life of loveless drudgery surely awaited me. I pondered this as I stared glumly out the bus window, my eye catching on a huge billboard that loomed ominously over the city: "Carrie - The Musical."

I was momentarily rousted from my stupor to make the following observation: "A MUSICAL? Based on CARRIE? What the FUCK?"

If you bothered to click through to the provided Wikipedia entry, you'd know that most everyone else had the same thought, as the production was an unprecedented disaster, largely believed to be the most expensive flop in Broadway history, despite the star power of none other than Betty Buckley. Why on earth would one stage a musical-based-on-a-movie-based-on-a-book? Preposterous.

Fast-forward to the present. I have long since abandoned any dreams of stage stardom, although I do work in theatre, and consider myself fairly lucky for being able to say this. Somewhere along the line, the "bottom line" became the determining factor as to what plays made it to a full-on Broadway production. Certainly nobody wants to see something new. "New and promising" translates to empty seats. No, what will sell tickets is something already established as a well-loved property. You know, like a MOVIE. Better still if the movie has a SOUNDTRACK. My God -- everything's already written for you! Just get a good set design (something that revolves; look how many people creamed their jeans over Les Mis) and throw the whole thing up there. To wit: Footloose, Saturday Night Fever, Hairspray, Legally Blonde, and still others that I am too lazy to find websites for.

When does it end? WILL it end? By God, I don't think that it will. Because there are LOADS of movies out there, and I don't think they've scraped the bottom of the barrel as far as that's concerned. Except maybe they have.

For your consideration, chickens, I give you: Xanadu.

I'm not making this up.

Look, I am a HUGE fan of this soundtrack. It is the most sublime of my guilty pleasures. Olivia Newton John and ELO? Holy Christ, it's like they knew what should be playing in my own personal heaven. But I'll also be the first to admit that it's a shitty, shitty movie. And yet here they are, making it into a musical.

What's next? A musical based on the film version of Sgt. Pepper's? I jest, sort of, because I would be willing to bet you that it's being workshopped somewhere right now.

Hell, they might do well to consider reviving Carrie at this point. I bet it'd KILL.

lisamcc at 9:16 a.m.

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