Alright what concerns me after hearing more in depth what changes were made for this new workshop:
CARRIE is supposed to be scary. Its based on a Stephen King novel. The success of any adaptation of it is going to rise and fall on how well its able to unnerve and frighten an audience. This is an even greater challenge when you take into account that what made King's book unusual and salient was that the 'events' of CARRIE supposedly affected a real small town in Maine.
King never lost sight of that, but his writing was also sophisticated - and adult, even when writing of the kids of the town. It was their inner secrets (Sue's shame at being devirgined, her pregnancy, guilt, the excitement of thrills at another person's expense) that he spent careful time on. Its a major, deceptive point and one of the things that the writers of the musical continue to miss...
When CARRIE premiered on Broadway it was a baffle fest because the writers had beautifully captured the eerie, co-dependent tone of King's material between Margaret and Carrie and yet surrounded their reality by a ridiculous campy 'BYE BYE BIRDIE' goes to the prom sensibility in the writing of everything else. (Terry Hands bizarre original staging of course just has to be dismissed as it arguably had little to do with the story being told).
So now we have a reading/workshop of CARRIE 20 years later. The writers have figuratively (and literally) returned to 1984, when the first workshops of the musical were held at 890 Broadway.
They have written substantial new material, and returned to that workshop script largely based on Cohen's screenplay for the 1978 film.
They have returned to their roots. They have not rethought their original decisions and the idea behind successfully musicalizing CARRIE - the scary STEPHEN KING novel.
The problems that were there in 1984, are still here. The writers needed to rebuild the house - they have simply rearranged the furniture and brought in a few new pieces. Yes, Debbie Allen and Terry Hands took your baby off the deep end, but I'm here to tell you, even with a new director, this script with this concept isn't going to work...
Rather than exploring what made the Margaret/Carrie scenes so perfect - rather than exploring the deeper emotional reaches of the other characters - rather than extending a mood of eerie, approaching fear - the writers have essentially just re-written and come up with the same bad ideas for the rest of the show.
The new songs for the teens may be slightly less cringe worthy than the originals, but they are the same feel. Instead of BYE BYE BIRDIE, we now have a high school of kids singing rejected songs from (yes one poster hit the nail on the head) LEGALLY BLONDE. Despite the sophisticated scores featuring complicated, truthful emotions of maturation that have been given to 'high school students' in recent Broadway musicals (like SPRING AWAKENING, BARE) Gore and Pitchford can't or don't seem interested in going any deeper in their emotional explorations of teen angst than HAIRSPRAY.
To help clarify the story, we are given a very precious framing device narrated by Sue (complete with patriotic singing voices, and a final visual of 'happy' Carrie at the prom).
Need I remind you that this is a Horror story? Do the writers think it would be a good idea to musicalize PSYCHO and have Norman Bates end up as just misunderstood and holding hands with his kind mother at the end?
These choices are absolutely wrong and completely foolhardy. Even more so when you realize that the major thrill factor in CARRIE were special effects that can never be accomplished on stage. To work as a musical, the show must be emotionally compelling from all angles. The tone must be unified and seamless.
What has kept CARRIE alive all these years, was the promise showed in writers' skill in musicalizing its two central characters. But that is never going to be enough until they get a grip on the rest of the musical storytelling.
To date, there has been exactly ONE musical that has succeeded in being , eerie and scary and that is SWEENEY TODD. TODD is text book perfect on how you create scary with mood, with musical themes, with unnerving story telling devices.
The writers of CARRIE need to look at it and get a clue. Go back to the novel. All they need to successfully tell this story is there. Look at the story telling. Look how little time is given on the teens as a group and how much time is given delving into their own private feelings - the fear (at growing up). If you want a framing device involving Sue- even that's there. This is not a story about being IN - its a story about being ostracized.
Most of all look at King's story telling - the mood he creates - the horror that ultimately is rooted in pent up, primeval emotion released without human tempering and write a cohesive complete sophisticated score grounded in this.
Yes, Carrie takes place in a normal, American High school...
But, King got it right. Beyond the horror of frightening parents, High school is one of the scariest places on earth.
Updated On: 11/30/09 at 11:23 AM
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