Thoughts on Jesus Christ Superstar

Jesus Christ Superstar has always straddled a line between sincerity and camp. Last night's NBC production leaned toward earnest. That was the right move for a family audience but did make things a little dull. The rock stars lacked acting chops and the Broadway babies lacked the money notes. The show has always been a sound engineers nightmare and the screaming audience didn't help.

Still it reminded me how smart the writing is and why some audiences are offended. It's not the goofy 70's slang as much as the fact that it's told from a secular perspective. The principals see Jesus as "just a man" or a political "puppet." For me this raises the stakes over a traditional passion play or a syrupy piece like Godspell. 

The structure is interesting. Judas carries the show. Mary gets the heart. The Pharisees get the exposition. Jesus is unknowable to all around him. Herod and Pilate get the opportunity to steal the show. Alice Cooper won some fans last night by showing up but I was underwhelmed by his deadpan rendition of Herod's song. It was more fun to see Ben Daniels make a meal of Pilate's trial scene.

Andrew Lloyd Webber wrote this when he was 22. What have I done with my life? (Sob)

Easter Parade

"Someday, we’re going to write a treatise on the crazy hats women wear in musicals. We propose that because there was so much sexual repression in these films, the outrageous hats are supposed to represent vaginas on top of their heads. It’s why so many of the men had walking sticks too.
Think about it." ~ Tom and Lorenzo

This one's not about the plot. It's about the showcase numbers. Here are some highlights:

Steppin' Out with My Baby - Fred Astaire and chorus
Shakin' The Blues Away - Ann Miller
A Couple of Swells - Fred Astaire and Judy Garland

A Christmas Story

In March 2017 Pasek and Paul shared an Oscar with Justin Hurwitz for best original song in La La Land. 
In June 2017 Pasek and Paul won a Tony Award for Best Score for Dear Evan Hansen. 
In December 2017 Pasek and Paul received critical pans for the television broadcast of A Christmas Story: The Musical and the film The Greatest Showman. 

What do these shows have in common? What's different?

Anti-heroes: All four feature protagonists who behave badly. I sympathized with the unstable Evan but couldn't stand the narcissistic jerks in La La Land. Ralphie's youth excuses his obsessions while Showman ignores the unsavory side of P.T. Barnum.

The score: La La and Evan use a modern pop sound in a modern setting. Christmas Story goes "classic Broadway" for the 1940's setting. The Greatest Showman put's the anachronistic modern sound in an 1880's setting... It worked for Moulin Rouge but critics didn't like it here.

The performers: La La Land's movie stars were not skilled singers or dancers. For some that was the point. Their dreams were bigger than their reality. For others it was an ugly Hollywood compromise that sunk the film. Evan, Showman and Christmas Story feature a mix of Broadway vets and new up-n'-comers. Some argued this did not fit the working class families of Christmas Story. The television special dialed up the disconnect with Jane Krakowski's sexy school teacher and Chris Diamantopoulos's smoking hot daddy.

Target Audience: La La Land features 20-somethings and Evan Hansen features teens. They have resonated with audiences inside those groups and beyond. Who is the audience for The Greatest Showman? They hedge their bets by surrounding the middle aged Jackman with younger co-stars. Will Zac Efron and Zendaya draw a family audience over the holiday weekend? Christmas Story aims for the family audience but pits itself against their feelings for the original film. Love the original? You can enjoy the musical on stage but there's no reason for a TV remake. Hate the original? Still no reason for the remake.

Santa and the Ice Cream Bunny

RifTrax gave this laughably bad low budget children's film a new life and brought attention to the creepiness of the sweaty Santa Claus and the creepy animal costumes. A comic really can't do it justice. Check out this clip.

Promises, Promises

Okay so it's not really a holiday musical but it does have the song Turkey Lurkey Time.

Billy Wilder's The Apartment and the musical adaptation Promises, Promises fall into the genre of dark romantic comedy. It's boy meets girl with a villain in the way but this time the boy is self loathing and the girl is suicidal. The corporate setting makes it a creepy cousin to the peppier How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying. 

The brittle film has held up better than the sentimental musical. It was a hit in 1968. Bacharach's sound was fresh and the gender politics slightly less dated. When the show was revived on Broadway in 2010 the critics found Sean Hayes and Kristin Chenoweth's natural liveliness was undercut by the hangdog roles. The 2017 London revival faced similarly mixed reviews.

Fortunately act two is perked up by the arrival of Marge, a flirty alcoholic. Christine Baranski and Kate Finneran made three course banquets out of her would be seduction of the leading man.

Holiday Inn & In Transit

I wrap up the musicals of this season with two works about stressed out New Yorkers finding love. And yes Holiday Inn cut the blackface number that was in the film for Lincoln's birthday.

Holiday Inn. Music and Lyrics by Irving Berlin. Book by Gordon Greenberg and Chad Hodge. Based on the 1942 film. 2014 Goodspeed Opera House. 2016 Broadway.

In Transit. Book, Music and Lyrics by Kristen Anderson-Lopez, James-Allen Ford, Russ Kaplan and Sara Wordsworth. 2010 Off Broadway. 2016 Broadway.

The Nightmare Before Christmas

I didn't appreciate The Nightmare Before Christmas in the theaters in 1993. The trailer had spoiled the film's best gag and Danny Elfman's moody ballads didn't appeal. Ten years later I saw the film again and was amazed by what I'd missed. The film is gorgeous with an bold design and a clever score.

The stop motion field was revitalized and continues today with the crazy geniuses at Studio Laika. However Laika, for all their artistry, has been criticized for their inability to sustain a narrative. Nightmare's story remains clever, subversive and well told. Haven't seen it in a while? It's worth another look.

Elf

Jim: I already have a boyfriend.
Buddy: You can never have too many boy friends!

The 2003 film Elf was adapted into a Broadway musical in 2010. In 2014 NBC produced an abridged, stop-motion animated version of the musical titled Elf: Buddy's Musical Christmas. While the first joke of the original film was how un-elf like Will Ferrell was, the actors who've played it on stage have been cast to differing degrees of elf-y-ness.

Watching the special I began to wonder what other musicals could be served this way. Rumors of an animated Cats circulated for years. Would Peter Pan Live! or the recent Annie remake have fared better if their stars had lent their voices to a 90 minute animated version? Now I want to get some play dough and make a Dreamgirls music video! You've inspired me Elf!

Mrs. Santa Claus

I'm Mrs. Santa Claus, the invisible wife.
And Mrs. Santa Claus needs a change in her life.

I saw this special when it first aired, then promptly forgot it. Something recently reminded me of its existence and the earworm title song popped back into my head. Terrance Mann's campy villain makes an impression as well.

"The CBS movie, billed as the first original musical for television since Rodgers and Hammerstein's ''Cinderella'' in 1957, turns out to be, of all things, a feisty feminist and unionist tract set in 1910." ~ New York Times.