Carrie the Musical podcast teaser — Page 3

If they had only been able to hold it to the Spring of 1989 I wonder what would have happened. That was a terrible year for musicals. Buckley probably would have won the Tony and the show nominated. It might have had a future.

The Off-Broadway one seemed so strange and the publicity was always all about how Margret is a victim too. (the film remake with Julianne Moore went that way too.)

I think they were afraid making Margret all out evil would be considered mysogynistic by today's standards. But the story only really works if Margaret is evil and cruel.

Leadingplayer said: "If they had only been able to hold it to the Spring of 1989 I wonder what would have happened. That was a terrible year for musicals. Buckley probably would have won the Tony and the show nominated. It might have had a future.

The Off-Broadway one seemed so strange and the publicity was always all about how Margret is a victim too. (the film remake with Julianne Moore went that way too.)

I think they were afraid making Margret all out evil would be considered mysogynistic by today's standards. But the story only really works if Margaret is evil and cruel."

You and BJR have hit the nail on the head. Margaret is a villain, and although "Where There's No One" is a beautiful song, I do wish it wasn't in the show, because it asks the audience to be sympathetic for a really terrible, awful, horrific person. I also think that if Carrie's home life is not as terrible as it is at school, than the tragedy is lost. I cringed into the ethos when Stafford said they wanted Margaret to be someone you could run into at Whole Foods. Such a disappointing, fundamentally incorrect, and boring read of the character.

Also - I saw Alice do Margaret live and unfortunately she was not very good. And that robe she wore at the end? Dreadful and totally off the mark. That entire production was terribly directed, unfortunately. Keaton was great, though.

I always thought 'Oh Lord, I've seen this power before' meant she has seen it in herself, which is one of the tragic things about Margaret and relationship with Carrie - she is actually conflicted about herself and disgusted in her own previous behaviour (see also: I Remember How Those Boys Could Dance).

I take the point that "When There's No One" is somewhat sympathetic but I think it's multi-layered because she is essentially announcing she is going to kill Carrie in this song. The subtext is very dark, not sympathetic. It's all the more creepier.

I've just binged all 10 episodes of the podcast and am waiting for the book to arrive. What an awesome achievement! Congrats to all who were involved. I really enjoyed all the interviews and the history that the podcast unearthed – I definitely learned a lot.

One thing that I found a little sad is the degree to which folks seemed to dump on the original and praise the “revisal” (although I was so glad to hear some, including Linzi Hateley, stick up for the original vision). I didn’t see the original show live; I’ve only watched the bootlegs. But based on that, I think the original is far superior, for many reasons.

Here is just one: At its core, "Carrie" is a horror story. For a horror story to work, it has to feel alive, tense, and perhaps a bit out of control. From what I can tell, the folks involved with the original production understood that. In contrast, the "revisal" bleeds a lot of the energy from the story. The framing device – the interview with Sue Snell – is plodding, overly cerebral, and uninteresting. Especially unhelpful is Sue's whining comment, "What you need to understand is that we were just kids." No. For this story to work, you have to believe that Chris is nasty, perhaps bordering on evil, and (at least initially) powerful. I think that Charlotte d'Amboise and the original production completely understood that. The revisal doesn’t seem to.

Also….

missthemountains said: "I cringed into the ethos when Stafford said they wanted Margaret to be someone you could run into at Whole Foods. Such a disappointing, fundamentally incorrect, and boring read of the character.”

1000% agree. I think another comment made is that Margaret is "all about love." Um, no. She's also about judgment, fear, sexual repression, and violence.

In my eyes, these character misreadings are more evidence that the folks behind the revisal didn’t understand the story and wanted to turn it into an anti-bullying public service announcement. (I think they were afraid of "bullying" Margaret by portraying her unkindly.) I don’t like bullying anymore than anyone else. However, as is the case with many of Stephen King's works, the story is implicitly anti-bullying. It doesn’t need to be gutted of its villains and embellished with a choir of people singing about kindness.

Lastly, folks really seem to love beating up on Terry Hands about his “Greece” ideas. I agree that most of the costumes didn’t work. However, in my eyes, the stark, expressionistic sets and staging did. When you combine those visuals with the sung-through style of the show, it gives the story a dreamy feeling – another quality that meshes well with horror. And the staircase at the end was perfection.

While I understand that the show might have been hard to follow for folks who hadn’t read the book, I think it could have been improved with added music and lyrics. In the revisal, they obviously opted to explain things by using spoken-dialog scenes. Unfortunately, some of those scenes are overly derivative of the movie, and they contain unnecessary detail. (Do we really need to know that Tommy went to Carrie's house to ask her to the Prom? No. The original handling of this scene, embedded within "Do me a favor," was superior.) If I want to see the movie, I’ll watch the movie.

I agree with whichever podcast guest said that the show could have been fixed with minimal changes, such as improving the costumes and special effects. While I understand that the original reviews must have been traumatizing, it’s a shame that the copyright owners seemed too fearful to stay faithful to the original. Hopefully, someday we'll get to see a true revival of it.

As an aside, it's not mentioned in the podcast, but Stephen King himself praised the original show. I couldn't find anything about his reaction to the revisal.

Updated On: 8/8/23 at 03:17 PM