Were the World Mine

This film started off with a great idea. A modern gay remake of A Midsummer Night's Dream with a bullied gay teen, Timothy, serving as a combination of magical Puck and lovelorn Helena. The opening scenes won me to his side and the unleashing of the love potion felt cathartic.

Things fall apart soon after. The film can't agree on tone or internal logic. If the potion makes you fall for the first person you see, it makes sense the all boys school would fill with same sex couples. But why do all couples remain same sex when it spreads to the town? Why does the homophobic coach become a broad gay stereotype? Why do people have selective memories of what occurs during the course of the film? If Tim's point was to make the jocks understand bullying, why leave no straight people left to bully them? Why are the songs so forgettable?

Timothy's primary love interest is a mystery. We aren't supposed to know his true feelings till the end of the film. But we need to learn something about him to invest in the relationship. As is Tim's melancholy is never salved, leaving a streak of pain through the film. A lot of missed opportunities here. It frustrated me as the premise was fantastic.

Bite: A Pucking Queer Cabaret

Midsummer Night's Dream lends itself well to a queer narrative. The fairy potion allows lovers to mix and match in any combination. Directors can paint the show light and spunky or dark and erotic. Still there's only so dark it can go. Midsummer pairs off all the pretty young things. Some of us relate better to the handful of bitter singles at the end of Twelfth Night.

Bite sets the fairies and lovers in a contemporary gay bar, swapping Shakespeare's prose for modern slang and pop hits. It works. Love and lust, requited and unrequited, are universal. Unlike Shakespeare, Bite has Titania take over the narrative midway. She wants the lovers to share her pain and disillusionment. For some love is the sense of being understood. Of being known. It all ends happier than I expected but gave me plenty to ponder.

Cole Porter Series part 1

Kiss Me Kate. Music and Lyrics by Cole Porter. Book by Samuel and Bella Spewack. Basis William Shakespeare's play The Taming of the Shrew. 1948 Broadway.

Silk Stockings. Music and Lyrics by Cole Porter. Book by George S. Kaufman, Leueen MacGrath & Abe Burrows. Basis Melchior Lengyel's story Ninotchka. 1955 Broadway.

This week I'll be looking at six musicals composed by Cole Porter. Two bad films have been made about his life. Both tell us he wrote musicals, had a complicated marriage, and broke his legs in a riding accident. The second film explores his bisexuality. The first film is less honest but features stronger musical performances.

It's been quoted that Cole Porter felt Rodgers and Hammerstein's musical librettos "made it that much harder for everyone else" Kiss Me Kate was Porter's most ambitious and most successful musical to date. The interweaving of Shakespeare's brutal comedy and Spewack's backstage farce inspired a broad range of music from Porter. It also explored a common theme of his: the abusive mismatched couple. Fred and Lilli's first duet, "Wunderbar," is a parody of Viennese opera. The honest song they share is "So In Love."

"Taunt me, and hurt me.
Deceive me, desert me.
I'm yours till I die.
So in love with you am I."

The melody and lyric present their co-dependent relationship as something beautiful and tragic.

Silk Stocking's leading lady gets her liveliest song when she dismisses love as "A Chemical Reaction." When she falls for Steve she sings the dreary "Without Love (What Is a Woman?)" which makes romance sound funereal. Porter's heart was clearly in the brassy comedy and the spiky conflict.

"Though the uninstructed faction
Calls it mutual attraction
it's a chemical reaction, that's all."

Part 2's shows will continue a theme from Kiss Me Kate: hooking up with your ex.

All Shook Up

Since I've posted two Elvis-themed musicals this week, I figured I'd add a third.

All Shook Up didn't bring much new to the table. Twelfth Night has already inspired a rock musical and a jukebox musical. Hairspray handled inter-racial teen dating better two years prior and Broadway critics were tired of jukebox musicals in 2005.

It is refreshing, and still rare, to see a bisexual leading man in a musical comedy. Chad's coming out ballad was played for laughs but the feelings were sincere. Unlike most adaptations his bisexuality didn't vanish when he learned Ed's true identity. The role wasn't great but it launched the career of Cheyenne Jackson. He would go on to better things.

Return to the Forbidden Planet

Few works symbolize the affection Britons hold for the period more than "Return to the Forbidden Planet." This West End hit, scheduled to open in New York next Sunday at the Variety Arts Theater Off Broadway, is based on the 1956 sci-fi movie "Forbidden Planet" and relocates the plot of "The Tempest" to outer space. But its pulling power derives principally from its exhortation to the audience to sing, clap and dance to vintage hits such as "Great Balls of Fire" and "Shake, Rattle and Roll."... In London, to the disgust of the impresario Cameron Mackintosh, "Forbidden Planet" beat his production of "Miss Saigon" for the 1990 Olivier Award for Best Musical. ~ New York Times. 1991.

When I wrote it, it was the plot that came first and then the songs suggested themselves. I didn’t try and write a scene around Great Balls of Fire. I took Shakespeare’s actual tempest scene in The Tempest and thought “What’s the obvious song?” If you’re in outer space it’s going to be an asteroid storm so therefore it’s obvious to use Jerry Lee Lewis’s Great Balls of Fire, which is cut around Shakespeare’s tempest scene. ~ Bob Carlton Interview. 2015.

Tony Awards 2015: The nominees

The 2014 Tony nominees for best musical included two jukebox musicals, a Disney cartoon adaptation, and the well deserved winner A Gentleman's Guide to Love and Murder. I'm pleased to see that three of 2015 Tony nominees possess original scores and the fourth, An American In Paris, is primarily a ballet making it more ambitious than most screen to stage adaptations.

You can take a look at this season's non-nominated musicals here. I've devoted longer posts to Fun Home and The Visit in the past during their pre-Broadway incarnations. Thanks again to Tickle-Brain's Three Panel Shakespeare who's style I pay homage to today (and who is now doing musical recaps of their own).

The Tony Awards will be broadcast this Sunday, June 7, on CBS at 8pm ET / 7pm CT.