Posted: 4/26/21 at 6:23pm
Anyone who listened to the orchestra playing the overture to "South Pacific" during the Lincoln Center revival knows better than to call it trite or old-fashioned or outmoded. It's classic and great.
Posted: 4/26/21 at 7:14pm
Posted: 4/26/21 at 8:06pm
double
Updated On: 4/26/21 at 08:06 PM
Posted: 4/26/21 at 8:07pm
You must be joking. The song is sung by a character who thinks like that. In another era. Seriously, this thread would be hilarious if it wasn't so not hilarious.
Posted: 4/26/21 at 11:17pm
bk said: "DiscoCrows said: "Elfuhbuh said: "Yeah, why is Hello, Dolly! on that list? I only saw the show once on tour a couple years ago, but I can’t remember anything in there that made me think, “Oh no, today’s woke crowd wouldn’t like this.”"
There are leagues of shows that needethnotbe produced before Hello, Dolly!, but I definitely think there are some questionable (at best) gender role ideas being potreyed in songs like It Takes a Woman, where arguably the entire motivation behind Horace's desire to marry is to find a woman who canwork for him in the kitchen and take care of the house. It just comes off as very dated if you ask me, do a quick google search and read the lyrics."
You must be joking. The song is sung by a character who thinks like that. In another era. Seriously, this thread would be hilarious if it wasn't so not hilarious."
I never said I didn't understand it, I said it was dated- which it objectively is, you said it verbatim a second ago in your response. The antagonism is unwarranted. I agree with you. I don't think it warrants the show never being produced again, or that it is/should be "cancellable" because of that. It's very clearly built upon a set of societal ideals that some people nowadays might be off-put by and I don't think looking at it under a new lens is unreasonable at all, even if that's as far as it goes.
Updated On: 4/26/21 at 11:17 PM
Posted: 4/27/21 at 1:57am
Posted: 4/27/21 at 3:52am
NOWaWarning said: "As far as “It Takes a Woman” goes, the show is not endorsing Horace’s views. It’s part of his arc that he starts out as a grumpy cheapskate who only wants a wife as a housekeeper and then changes for the better when he falls in love with Dolly. Audiences in 1964 understood that and audiences for the recent revival understood that. You’re supposed to roll your eyes at Horace."
I guess something about Horace's character development and idea of what it was he wanted in marriage never really clicked the first time I saw it. Appreciate the clarification, makes more sense.
Updated On: 4/27/21 at 03:52 AM
Posted: 4/27/21 at 4:15am
NOWaWarning said: "As far as “It Takes a Woman” goes, the show is not endorsing Horace’s views. It’s part of his arc that he starts out as a grumpy cheapskate who only wants a wife as a housekeeper and then changes for the better when he falls in love with Dolly. Audiences in 1964 understood that and audiences for the recent revival understood that. You’re supposed to roll your eyes at Horace."
This, of course, was what I was trying to say - that it's Horace's character and of course the writer's are not endorsing that character and by the end he marries the one woman who won't do any of the things Horaces sings about.
Posted: 4/27/21 at 6:47am
bwayobsessed said: "As a “woke millennial” I really don’t think South Pacific is cancellable. It is aware of racism and creates conversation. Obviously Liat is an incredibly underdeveloped character but I think Bloody Mary is a pretty dynamic character. Obviously it’s problematic when mostly white high schools do it (like mine did).
Miss Saigon despite some pretty songs and impressive spectacle never did anything for me. I don’t buy the romance they try to create so quickly. And it invokes many harmful stereotypes, I’m fine with it going.
I agree with the previous poster who said Millie in its current form should not be produced. Like it’s a great show but that whole subplot is truly horrible.
I’m very confused by the poster who said Oklahoma and Hairspray..."
Ditto about HAIRSPRAY, because the original post was asking about shows that were dated, and HAIRSPRAY is just as timely now (especially with last year's BLM movement and the George Floyd trial) as it was when it was first on Broadway.
Updated On: 4/27/21 at 06:47 AM
Posted: 4/27/21 at 8:37am
Everything will fade in and out. Nothing will really go away if there is a desire for it, or something awakens relevance to it. I think we'll see Miss Saigon again, but will I ever see a large scale production of Flower Drum Song? Probably not. I think something that needs to change is the lens in which we watch these shows. Look what they did to My Fair Lady, they didn't alter any dialogue, but with the ending then skewed the ending to provide a more "modern" context. The recent Carousel revival didn't do the show any favours by removing the line referencing abuse. Yes, that line may not be the best line, but what about those currently in relationships like that, or have succeeded in getting out? I'm sure we can all relate in some way or another. Think of all of those who have an addiction: how do you love someone when they are possibly destroying you or themselves?
Posted: 4/27/21 at 10:15am
DiscoCrows said: "NOWaWarning said: "As far as “It Takes a Woman” goes, the show is not endorsing Horace’s views. It’s part of his arc that he starts out as a grumpy cheapskate who only wants a wife as a housekeeper and then changes for the better when he falls in love with Dolly. Audiences in 1964 understood that and audiences for the recent revival understood that. You’re supposed to roll your eyes at Horace."
I guess something about Horace's character development and idea of what it was he wanted in marriage never really clicked the first timeI saw it. Appreciate the clarification, makesmore sense."
My pleasure :)
Posted: 4/27/21 at 1:46pm
One of the things that I love about "It Takes a Woman" is that it's actually an indictment of the idea of gender roles themselves. Women are supposed to be beautiful and dainty - but also do all the housework and take out the trash. Its lyrics contradict themselves on purpose and shows how wild and meaningless gender roles are - and it's made even stronger by the already-established fact (which becomes exceedingly clear later on) that the female characters in the show are just as intelligent, if not more so, than any of the men.
As for the person who mentioned Hairspray, it made me think of an excellent article that I keep coming back to by actor/writer Heath Saunders where he talks about Hairspray and many other shows that use Black bodies without truly considering their Blackness. Hairspray, Heath argues, is a show that cannot truly understand the struggles that Black people face when it tries to move past the Blackness of its characters entirely. No show can speak for Black people when its triumphant finale tells us that the characters' future - our present - "don't know white from Black."
The article also mentions Once On This Island, which is another show that I think won't get revived anytime soon - not necessarily because of the points mentioned in the article, but I feel like the newest production gave the show such a clear, indivisible vision that any revival risks falling into "copycat" mode, like many productions of Cabaret after the Sam Mendes revival - and my personal belief is that for a revival to work, it has to do something different, say something new about the material, not just rehash something we've already seen before.
