Let's Talk About Musicals

Sort of inspired by the Singin' in the Rain discussion here. For the purposes of this thread, we are discussing both stage and film musicals.

In general, I don't like them. I especially don't like the musicals most numbers bring the plot to a screeching halt in order to squeeze in a song or dance number. I don't really care about dancing and while I like singing ok, I don't care to waste 5 minutes watching a song and dance number that is just there to show off the talents of the actor / songwriter / choreographer. But a few of my favorite movies are musicals and they are always the ones that use the numbers to either forward the plot or for character development.

Bad Musical: Singin' in the Rain. You just woke up and you are standing in the kitchen and you just want to sing about what a pretty day it is? Fuck you.

Good Musical: 1776. Every song (except the one where Blythe Danner Jefferson sings about what a good lay Mr Jefferson is, and that is the weakest number in the whole show) forwards the plot. Who will write the Declaration? Let's decide with a song! How are the Northern colonies equally guilty in the slave trade as the Southern colonies? What does Mr. Adams, the protagonist, want? The songs are there to answer these pertinent questions. And there are long strecthes of the movie that are dialogue only.

What about you guys? Do you like musicals in general? What do you like and dislike, and what do you think are some good and bad examples of the genre?

Well I love both of your examples. Also what do you think of West Side Story? I think the musical number are the plot in this classic and extremely well done.

Specifically to Singin' in the Rain I fully acknowledge the songs are not really the plot, it is a simpler musical. But I love it. I also generally love "That's Entertainment" so I guess I am OK with musicals without plot overall.

Quote:

---

Originally posted by What Exit?

Well I love both of your examples. Also what do you think of West Side Story? I think the musical number are the plot in this classic and extremely well done.

---

Unfortunately, I haven't seen it since high school and really all I remember about it is that Natalie Wood is pretty and that my best friend used to wrap a scarf around his head and recite the "How many bullets, Chino?!" speech for funzies.

Here's another example - I just saw the movie version of The Sound of Music for the first time and I was not really moved by it. I just....I don't care about the lonely goatherd, like at all.

Well oddly or not I am not a fan of The Sound of Music but I do love Mary Poppins.

I pretty much hate all musicals and hated West Side Story more than anything. I loathe Gene Kelly. Why did he always wear flood pants? Did his tailor run out of cloth?

I do not regard Fred Astaire/Ginger Rogers movies as musicals. I don't know why I don't. Because they are old, silly, and utterly brilliant? Could that be it?

Fred Astair (e or no e?) was probably funnier looking than Gene Kelly, but he was elegant. Gene Kelly tried to make us think that regular guys could dance. Um. They can't. Not like that.

I don't like musicals in general. Ones I do like seem to be because of nostalgia, or subject-matter reasons.

I like Sound of Music and Mary Poppins because I watched them a lot as a kid. (I knew I was becoming a grown-up the first time I watched SoM and realized that Captain Von Trapp was pretty hot.)

1776 rocks because it is historical and I <3 both John Adams and Mr. Feeney.

I like Sweeney Todd because - well, cannibal-meat pies.

There are some musicals I liked as a child, and don't like anymore: Phantom of the Opera (although the movie version is HILARIOUS), Cats, Rent (I knew I was becoming a grown-up the first time I listened to this and thought "why don't any of these whiny twerps get a REAL JOB??").

Most of the time I just think musicals are silly, though.

Despite the fact that I often wish real life would pause and turn into choreographed dance numbers, I'm generally uninterested in musicals. When I was a kid I liked Phantom of the Opera, mostly because I liked the original story.

I have had a life long affair with West Side Story, though. Which I have always found odd, because I always truly hated Romeo and Juliet, and they're basically the same idea. That's a whole other thread, though.

I enjoy musicals. But for me it's sometimes a love/hate relationship.

The musicals I love best are the ones where, like Myrna says, they incorporate the plot into the song and dance numbers. Some musicals do that wonderfully through the whole show: 1776 is one; Titanic is another. Oddly enough that's another Peter Stone show. <3 Other shows can do that good for a single number or an arc of them: The Runyonland music and sequence is a perfect introduction to the world that the audience is entering for the show.

The musicals I loathe most are the ones where the song numbers are, at best, only thematically related to the plot. So, I've never really gotten into Singing in the Rain.

I also like a number of musical-like events and productions: Gilbert & Sullivan is one of my touchstones for fun. "The flowers that bloom in the spring have nothing to do with the case! I've got to take under my wing, a most unattractable case." I'm also fond of the run of musicals for kids that Disney produced with Menken and Ashman.

I adore Mary Poppins, too, even though it has a fair number of "let's just have a song to have a song" songs - "Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious" comes to mind. But the cast is soooo fucking great and I love the story. So.

I love musicals and right now Glee is my favorite TV show. (Well, along with The Big Bang Theory).

I still don't understand the Cop Rock hate. I was so moved by a song a character sang to her baby. I was upset when the show was cancelled.

Beauty and the Beast had me from the opening song.

"OMG, OMG You Guys" and "This Is So Much Better" from Legally Blonde are beautifully written songs.

Dreamgirls is one of my all time favorite Broadway Shows.

West Side Story - I didn't see the play, just the movie and I think it was great.

I love South Pacific because of the song, "They've Got To Be Taught".

Miss Saigon is a heartbreakingly beautiful musical and the cast album has brought me to tears - sobbing tears.

"Corner of The Sky" is my favorite song from Pippin.

Jesus Christ Superstar is an amazing musical: "I Don't Know How To Love Him" is one of my all time favorite songs and I'm a heathen.

More to come as I think of musicals I've seen.

I love a lot of Musicals. I can add:
Godspell.
Gypsyis very good.
The Wizard of Oz of course.
On the Town (Gene Kelly and Sinatra and Vera Allen and Ann Miller and Betty Garrett and even the future Mrs. Kravitz of Bewitch, Alice Pearce)
Damn Yankees is oh so great. Love it.
Sweeney Todd
Fiddler on the Roof is nearly as great as West Side Story and also excellent for teaching. I had my kids watch this masterpiece of a movie when they were still young.
I of course love 1776. A perfect teaching tool too.

I rewatched Gigi, Camelot and South Pacific within the last year and none of these are really enjoyable to me anymore.

Quote:

---

Originally posted by jali

I love musicals and right now Glee is my favorite TV show. (Well, along with The Big Bang Theory).

I still don't understand the Cop Rock hate. I was so moved by a song a character sang to her baby. I was upset when the show was cancelled.

---

I absolutely adore musicals. My clearest and happiest memory of elementary school is going on a field trip to the Orpheum Theater in downtown Memphis to see Oliver. I can still hear "Who Will Buy" in my head.

My absolute favorite is Miss Saigon, though I don't listen to it often; it's too sad.

I'm not much on movie musicals. SWMBO, however, is in hog heaven if she finds an old 40s dance-and-sing b/w movie.

I like some stage musicals, and my top 4 are all Andrew Lloyd Webber: Starlight Express, JC Superstar, Cats and Phantom of the Opera.

Oh yeah, I love Jesus Christ Superstar. You can put everything else Andrew Lloyd Webber ever did in a tin can and kick it to the moon for all I care, but JCS is awesome.

Quote:

---

Originally posted by Myrnalene

Oh yeah, I love Jesus Christ Superstar. You can put everything else Andrew Lloyd Webber ever did in a tin can and kick it to the moon for all I care, but JCS is awesome.

---

I will third or fourth or whatever the JCS love.

So odd, I like a few songs of JCS but not the musical as a whole. I greatly prefer the more hippy-dippy Godspell. I also love the walking tour of NYC that the movie provides. When they dance on top of the Twin Towers, it was before they were actually open yet. It chokes me up a bit now when I see it.

I had the JCS album but never replaced it when I moved first to Tape and then CD.

Quote:

---

Originally posted by Myrnalene

Oh yeah, I love Jesus Christ Superstar. You can put everything else Andrew Lloyd Webber ever did in a tin can and kick it to the moon for all I care, but JCS is awesome.

---

Evita is a pretty good show.

I'm a fan of musicals in general, though there are a lot I have never made myself too familiar with (this is heresy, I know, but Stephen Sondheim has never particularly grabbed me). I'm not picky about whether or not the songs advance the plot or not. Singin in the Rain, for instance, simply has brilliant song and dance numbers that can be watched over and over again without regards to plot.

My two favorite musicals are very different from each other: Les Miserable and Guys and Dolls. I love G&D so much that I will even watch the movie version whenever I happen to see it on TV, Marlon Brando or no. I think these are both brilliant pieces of theater, but on the other hand, many of the musicals I like I don't think are even very good. Grease, for instance, is really a terrible movie in a lot of ways, but I enjoy it. That could be mainly due to nostalgia, but the musical numbers aren't bad.

My favorite movie musicals that weren't stage shows first are probably On the Town, Meet Me in St. Louis, Singin in the Rain, Take me Out to the Ball Game, and The Blues Brothers. (Actually, On the Town was a stage show first, but it was changed so completely that barely consider it the same show.)

My favorite stage musicals are Les Miserables, Evita, Guys and Dolls, A Chorus Line, and Jesus Christ Superstar. The relative quality of the movies that are made in some of these cases I won't comment on!

Bumping this to mentions my current two obsessions, Seth Rudetsky's show on Sirius' Broadway channel, and "Grey Gardens," possibly the most intriguing musical backstory I've ever discovered. Christine Ebersole's portrayal of Edie Beale is heart-stopping, and mind you, I say this from only knowing her from the two cast recordings (Off-Broadway and Broadway) and the clips I've seen on YouTube. I get a lump in my throat every time I hear her sing "Around the World." She's kinda weird in real life, but she's a genius on the stage. Wow.

I had to check out Christine Ebersole singing that song. Wow. That literally gave me full body goosebumps. So much is said about the relationship between mother and daughter in her voice.

Which clip did you watch, the bootleg of the Broadway performance or the one where she's accompanied by Scott Frankel as a guest on a talk show? Both are incredible, but if you saw the original documentary by the Maysles brothers, it's damn eerie that Ebersole nails the part of "Little Edie" Bouvier Beale.

I'll never have the opportunity to see the original cast on stage, and as shallow as this will sound, I very deeply regret that I missed it. (Of course, in the interest of full disclosure I gotta admit that I've never seen an actual musical performed on Broadway in my entire life, and it's nearly absolute that I never will.)

I watched the one with Scott Frankel accompanying her, though now I've just watched the bootleg. I see what you mean about how eerie it is. It's been a long time since I've seen the documentary, but her phrasing, posture, and everything is so perfect to my memory. I'll have to find some clips from it now to compare.

I don't think it's shallow to regret that at all. There's really something magical about seeing something on stage, and with that kind of talent I'd want to see the original cast, too.

I was fortunate to see the 2008 tour of "Spamalot" when it came to Detroit. Richard Chamberlain played the part of Arthur, originally created by Tim Curry on Broadway. You know what? It didn't matter. It was the touring cast, not everything was exactly the same as it was on the soundtrack, but it was NO LESS MAGICAL seeing it performed by professionals. But there's something about Ebersole's performance that I just don't think can be recreated.

Did you see the HBO movie with Drew Barrymore and Jessica Lange? I was pretty impressed by it, and it helped to fill in the answers to things I didn't quite know or understand from the documentary and then the musical. Granted, a lot of it was conjecture and dramatic license, but still absolutely fascinating.

I really, really don't like musicals and avoid them like the plague. Without exception.

A musical about the Bubonic Plague would be AWESOME!

I had to say I loved Spamalot, I saw it with the original cast and loved it. I was singing, "Always Look on the Brighter Side of Life" for days or maybe weeks after it. The only sad part is I don't think I have seen another play since for some reason.

Quote:

---

Originally posted by 5er

Did you see the HBO movie with Drew Barrymore and Jessica Lange? I was pretty impressed by it, and it helped to fill in the answers to things I didn't quite know or understand from the documentary and then the musical. Granted, a lot of it was conjecture and dramatic license, but still absolutely fascinating.

---

I haven't, though my curiosity has been sufficiently piqued enough I might check it out!

When I was younger, I really loved Rent. I and a friend saw it live in Vegas and while he found a ton of things to complain about (mainly that they didn't sound and look exactly like the cast he saw the first time he went to it), I'd really enjoyed it. At this point, I find myself sympathizing more and more with Benny and finding everyone else extremely irritating.

Another one I saw in Vegas was Les Misérables, which I saw on the weekend after September 11th. It was an incredible performance and no doubt greatly enhanced by the high emotion of everyone involved and watching. Time and cynicism hasn't lessened my love of that one at all.

I really would like to see Spamalot one of these days. I've only seen a few clips of it online, though.

I really didn't mind that it wasn't *exactly* the same as the OBC recording. It was just so neat to see it on stage (third row left, perfect view of the pit orchestra) that everything was new and wonderful.

Recently I discovered the OBC recording of "Urinetown" and have become rather enamored with it. There's just something about a song that is titled "It's A Privilege to Pee" that makes the whole musical really worthwhile.

Quote:

---

Originally posted by 5er

Did you see the HBO movie with Drew Barrymore and Jessica Lange? I was pretty impressed by it, and it helped to fill in the answers to things I didn't quite know or understand from the documentary and then the musical. Granted, a lot of it was conjecture and dramatic license, but still absolutely fascinating.

---

I thought that Drew Barrymore was splendid in capturing Edie. She was amazing IMO and yes it was a fascinating moie.

It really was. Like I said, it filled in the blanks that were left from the musical. At one point, I couldn't even tell that it was Jessica Lange playing the elder Edie. My only criticism of the movie? Christine Ebersole didn't sing in it. ;)

There's nothing I can think would be worse than having to sit through a Broadway Musical.

I can think of one: A high school drama club trying to put on a musical that was once on Broadway.

Doesn't it seem like the addition of musical numbers to a movie or play makes it so much more personal in terms of a person's appreciation of it?

Does that sentence even make sense? I mean, it's really going to depend on whether the music is a style you like, or if it just speaks to your heart or soul, you know? Vs., say, a comedy where there are kind of universal things that make us all laugh, or whatever.

That makes complete sense to me, Sarah. It's probably along the lines of the findings OKCupid had regarding physical attractiveness. Women who were consistently rated as cute by users were messaged fewer times than the ones who got a couple of "ugly" and a couple "hot" ratings. If someone or something is broadly appealing, it's less likely to get strong reactions. A stupid sitcom might get the most viewers, but a niche musical gets lifelong love.

Yeah, that's it, Zuul. I was even thinking about comedy as a comparison. Sure, a well-written comedy will be funny to just about everyone. But a well-written musical...well, just the fact that it's a musical will turn some people off, obviously, but even among musical lovers, some will love it and some will hate it. And the ones who love it can be quite, quite passionate about it.

I'm a total sucker for Rodgers and Hammerstein's Cinderella. In particular, the song "In My Own Little Corner." Probably my two favorite performances of that song are Julie Andrews and Brandy.

Sure, musicals with irony, intricate plots and social commentary are good, but sometimes I just want to enjoy believing in magic and happy endings. I had that song on repeat for months when I was fifteen.

I have a copy of the soundtrack of that, the one with Leslie Ann Warren and Stuart Damon before he turned into a doctor in "General Hospital." (I think it first aired in 1965.) In fact, I only found it a few months ago, and all of those memories came flooding back. ("Impossible! For a plain yellow pumpkin to become a golden carriage...")

Impossible! For a plain country bumpkin and a prince to join in marriage...

I love that one, too. I used to have that same soundtrack, 5er. And now I think I'll need to get it again as I'm itching to sing along badly with it.

My wife bought that one on DVD a few years back. I don't remember it as a kid though. I actually liked the Brandy one at least as much but neither is a favorite of mine. My wife thinks Julie Andrews was the best, but then that should not be a surprise. She is probably the best!

Quote:

---

Originally posted by Zuul

Another one I saw in Vegas was Les Misérables, which I saw on the weekend after September 11th. It was an incredible performance and no doubt greatly enhanced by the high emotion of everyone involved and watching. Time and cynicism hasn't lessened my love of that one at all.

I really would like to see Spamalot one of these days. I've only seen a few clips of it online, though.

---

I've seen Spamalot. I prefer it head and shoulders over Les Miz. Few things will chase me out of a room faster than SWMBO putting the Les Miz soundtrack on.

I guess nobody saw "Sweeny Todd" starring Johnny Depp.

Quote:

---

Originally posted by PixieBob

I guess nobody saw "Sweeny Todd" starring Johnny Depp.

---

I did and I liked it, I even mentioned it above.

Sorry....I'm a Republican And a cat...Republicans don't read and cats expect someone else to read for them.

Quote:

---

Originally posted by Clothahump

Quote:

---

Originally posted by Zuul

Another one I saw in Vegas was Les Misérables, which I saw on the weekend after September 11th. It was an incredible performance and no doubt greatly enhanced by the high emotion of everyone involved and watching. Time and cynicism hasn't lessened my love of that one at all.

I really would like to see Spamalot one of these days. I've only seen a few clips of it online, though.

---

I've seen Spamalot. I prefer it head and shoulders over Les Miz. Few things will chase me out of a room faster than SWMBO putting the Les Miz soundtrack on.

---

Ha, Les Miz is my all time favorite. Watched the whole thing on PBS today, with my 6-year-old daughter who loves it, too. And I cried a few times, as always. :)

Quote:

---

Originally posted by PixieBob

Sorry....I'm a Republican And a cat...Republicans don't read and cats expect someone else to read for them.

---

I lean Republican, and this made me laugh and laugh. ;)