Marilyn: An American Fable

The Smash producers are gauging interest for a full production of Bombshell. The Marilyn Monroe bio-musical has no book but some terrific power ballads. This has encouraged the theater blogs to re-examine past Marilyn Monroe musicals including the campy Marilyn: An American Fable.

Frank Rich, New York Times: "If you read all the fine print in the Playbill for ''Marilyn: An American Fable,'' you'll discover that the new musical at the Minskoff has 16 producers and 10 songwriters. If you mistakenly look up from the Playbill to watch the show itself, you may wonder whether those 26 persons were ever in the same rehearsal room - or even the same city - at the same time."

Ken Mandelbaum, Not Since Carrie: "More than ten numbers and forty-five minutes were dropped before opening night... The show seemed to be the work of eight-year-olds assigned to write a musical about Monroe, so dumb it was almost inspired."

Clips from the original production reveal some terrible songs, but the soaring ballad "You Are So Beyond" has been a breakout hit for earnest tenors.

Less footage remains of London's Marilyn! The Musical which opened the same year. Preliminary research suggests it was a sungthrough popera inspired by Evita. 

50 Shades Musicals

The people get the rom-com they deserve and before the film opened three musical parodies of 50 Shades of Grey toured the world.

Spank! The Fifty Shades Parody by Jon Blair, Ian MacIntyre, Jim Millan, Alice Moran, Colin Munch, Anne Marie Scheffler and Patrick Whalen.

Cuff Me: An Unauthroized Fifty Shades of Grey Musical Parody by Bradford McMurran, Jeremiah Albers and Sean Michael Devereux of the improv group The Pushers.

and

50 Shades! The Musical Parody by Amanda Blake-Davis, Emily Dorezas, Ashley Ward, Dan Wessels, Jody Shelton, and Albert Samuels.

There's little mention of the songs but according to reviews the first two use a mix of Gilbert and Sullivan and modern pop. The third, 50 Shades! has an original score. No one seems to want to take credit for writing it. The librettos for all three were written by committees.

Dueling Vampires

Three vampire musicals opened and closed on Broadway in quick succession. Each approached their subjects from a different angle.

In the public domain, no one can hear you scream. ~ NY Times on Dracula.

“We ended up with two shows at war with each other,” says Steinman. “One was sensual and Gothic, the other was camp ‘Rocky Horror.’ I knew the critics would kill us for that.  ~ NY Post on Dance of the Vampires

"Lestat," .... is the third vampire musical to open in the last few years, and it seems unlikely to break the solemn curse that has plagued the genre.... the show admittedly has higher aspirations and (marginally) higher production values than the kitschy "Dance of the Vampires" (2002) and the leaden "Dracula: The Musical" (2004), both major-league flops….

"Lestat" brings to mind a fancy-dress version of "The Boys in the Band," Mart Crowley's landmark play about the miseries of being gay. Here again is a set of expensively attired men who, when they aren't on the prowl for a luscious new conquest, lament the all-consuming urges that have turned them into outcasts. ~ NY Times on Lestat

Dueling Frankenstein's

While there are few horror musicals there are many musicals based on horror properties. You can change your monster to a clown or a hunk. It makes it easier to write a song for him, but doesn't guarantee a successful show.

NY Times on Young Frankenstein
No, it is not nearly as good as “The Producers,” Mr. Brooks’s previous Broadway musical. No, it is not as much fun as the 1974 Mel Brooks movie, also called “Young Frankenstein,” on which it is based….
Despite its fidelity to the film’s script, “The New Mel Brooks Musical Young Frankenstein” (to use its sprawling official title) feels less like a sustained book musical than an overblown burlesque revue, right down to its giggly smuttiness.

NY Times on Frankenstein a New Musical
For all their talk of fidelity to the original text, the show’s authors have departed radically from it in this piece of casting. … With hairless pecs and buzz cut, this Creature would probably be a man magnet on a Saturday night in Chelsea.

Village Voice on a third Frankenstein
While the first act follows the novel somewhat faithfully (excepting some scenes of haunting), the second contains some great departures, including a comic number the Creature (Timothy Warmen) sings to his unsuccessfully resurrected mate and a scene in which the Creature rapes Elizabeth (Cadden Jones) before throttling her. Perhaps rape scenes ought not be set to music at all, but if they are, they certainly should not include the repeated lyric "Forgive the intrusion."

Dueling Phantoms

Yeston and Kopit wrote their version first. Webber's was produced first. Yeston and Kopit released their rights to regional theaters first allowing it to be produced around the country.

The Phantom of the Opera was originally a horror story, though both musicals emphasize the tragic romance. When the Phantom's do begin their killing sprees the tones are inconsistent, often promoting as many giggles as gasps.

There was something unwholesome and pathetic about the 1925 Phantom, who scuttled like a rat in the undercellars of the Paris Opera and nourished a hopeless love for Christine. The modern Phantom is more like a perverse Batman with a really neat cave. ~ Roger Ebert on the 2004 Webber Film.

What transpires from this point to the end of the show is a frustrating mix of comedy, spectacle, sentimentality, revelation and suspense, with great highs and great lows. ~ L.A. Times on Yeston and Kopit's Phantom. 

I've written about Webber's sequel here.

Dueling Wild Party's

The Wild Party is more existential dread than horror themed, but it has something in common with the other horror musicals I'll be looking at this week. Public domain source material and two competing musical versions.

New York Times on Lippa:
Mr. Lippa's score, dexterously orchestrated by Michael Gibson, has a jittery, wandering quality, conscientiously shifting styles and tempos as if in search of a lost chord. ... Mr. Lippa's book and lyrics have expanded the focus of March's notoriously cool-blooded poem to depict a quest not just for novel sensation but for that funny thing called love.

New York Times on LaChiusa:
This latest version, the work of Michael John LaChiusa and George C. Wolfe, is big on letting its characters suffer, loudly and aggressively, in the spotlight. The suffering is embodied by talented stars like Mandy Patinkin, Toni Collette and the legendary Eartha Kitt.