#76
Posted: 3/4/10 at 8:36pm
I think the crows are a non-issue. They could be any animals observing the action and rewritten with little effort. The other obstacles will be much harder to overcome. Expanding the score will help with a top-notch team capable of writing some memorable tunes. Ahrens and Flaherty immediately spring to mind. I don't care what anyone thinks of Seussical, I thought the score was strong and infectious. I literally walked out humming Oh, the Thinks You Can Think and had it on my mind for weeks before a CD was ever released. And given the setting, the show has potential to be visually spectacular (no doubt, there are plans to fill some time with traditional circus clowns and acrobats). The concept is something of a lump of coal that could potentially yield a radiant diamond, but it would need an A-list team of creative genius (including the marketing team) with a highly objective captain at the helm. As for the book, it really would have to take us on a bigger journey than the film and therein lies the biggest challenge for the show.
As for the elephant being mute, why not use a child actor and simply keep him as a mute character. Let the story unfold through the other characters who observe the tale along the way. We didn't need Dumbo's voice or to hear his inner thoughts before, so why do we need it now? Generous underscoring and intelligent staging can often replace unnecessary or bad dialogue. And speaking of dialogue...I'll probably get creamed for this...what if it was a (mostly) sung-through show?
I'm also a fan of Song of the South and I love besty's idea. But I have to agree with popular_elphie that it would be a good idea to change the name. It could be "The Tales of Uncle Remus" or something like that and the show could be Remus telling the stories to his own family. Get rid of the slave owners altogether as they are ultimately superfluous to the core of the film. But it would need an especially delicate touch when it came to the Brer characters and most notably the Tar Baby story. Though the tales are originally told in the vernacular, the PC police still consider anything in the vernacular from early African American history to be offensive, whether authentic or not (especially if a white director is involved). I remember one well-respected member of the board who lambasted the way the characters were depicted in the film version of The Color Purple, which was a pretty spot-on depiction of them in Alice Walker's novel, written in first-person vernacular from Celie's point of view (I love the book, love the movie, but wasn't a fan of the musical). I would absolutely love to hear Zip-A-Dee-Do-Dah and Everybody's Got a Laughing Place in a full-on Broadway production.
As for the elephant being mute, why not use a child actor and simply keep him as a mute character. Let the story unfold through the other characters who observe the tale along the way. We didn't need Dumbo's voice or to hear his inner thoughts before, so why do we need it now? Generous underscoring and intelligent staging can often replace unnecessary or bad dialogue. And speaking of dialogue...I'll probably get creamed for this...what if it was a (mostly) sung-through show?
I'm also a fan of Song of the South and I love besty's idea. But I have to agree with popular_elphie that it would be a good idea to change the name. It could be "The Tales of Uncle Remus" or something like that and the show could be Remus telling the stories to his own family. Get rid of the slave owners altogether as they are ultimately superfluous to the core of the film. But it would need an especially delicate touch when it came to the Brer characters and most notably the Tar Baby story. Though the tales are originally told in the vernacular, the PC police still consider anything in the vernacular from early African American history to be offensive, whether authentic or not (especially if a white director is involved). I remember one well-respected member of the board who lambasted the way the characters were depicted in the film version of The Color Purple, which was a pretty spot-on depiction of them in Alice Walker's novel, written in first-person vernacular from Celie's point of view (I love the book, love the movie, but wasn't a fan of the musical). I would absolutely love to hear Zip-A-Dee-Do-Dah and Everybody's Got a Laughing Place in a full-on Broadway production.
"What can you expect from a bunch of seitan worshippers?" - Reginald Tresilian
