"What's really dangerous here is throwing around words like grooming and sexual assault. These are serious, life-changing crimes and trying to make the Phantom a rapist or a predator does quite a disservice to SA victims and survivors. This is going into boy-who-cried-wolf territory and pretty soon SA victims will be doubted even more than they already are because we are so sloppy about using the terms. "
I never said sexual assault but there is constant emotional trauma and sometimes physical assaults (er murders anyone?) he is making every single person go through. As for grooming, I genuinely didn't think that would up for debate lol. He has been hearing her thoughts and prayers and desires forever without her knowing he was listening in, including knowing that her father said an "angel would come". He overtook that place in her mind, actively referring to himself as angel over and over again. Plus all the other examples people mentioned. I'm also low-key sick of people's ages being brought up as if someone's age somehow magically protects them from being gaslit / groomed into falling in a powerful person's trap. Literally millions of 40+ year old people in America think Trump won the Presidency in 2020.
The Distinctive Baritone said it pretty well, that the original staging toes the line well. Although I think it goes well over the line and then some near the end, which is when I think the performers' individual choices starts making a pretty big difference. Some shows I do not care about Raoul and want Christine to end up with Phantom, some shows I want Christine to end up fully free of both these men. And I get it, it's theater and yes there's room for interpretation and subjective perspectives etc., but that's kinda what I was in my original post. I would like to see a production where the director's perspective is very clearly that "hey this guy is talented and powerful and very seductive, but also, he is not a good person so i'm not going to pretend he is" or even a slightly twisted spin on Christine where she is actively seeking Phantom so he could train her and she can finally get to the level of stardom she's dreamed of (I mean the text wouldn't have to be altered much - she ends up with a very wealthy patron; her arch nemesis thinks she sees right through her, what if that's who Christine actually is? etc. etc.)
Final thing. I personally don't much stock into whether Phantom and Christine had sex or not in the original play. Because despite Love Never Dies being framed as an anthology with same characters instead of a sequel, I personally feel that ALW made it part of the cannon that they had been intimate by making Christine & Erik have a biological son together.
Caption: Every so often there was a rare moment of perfect balance when I soared above him.
