Is it possible to be revolutionary at this point? — Page 2

I agree Bway Girl. I think in our time, we lost sight of what revolutionary/bold/provacative/pushing boundaries is.

Okay. Caution: Soap Box ahead.

It used to be that "Supper Time" was revolutionary because it said something bold. OKLAHOMA! was revolutionary because it stretched the form. In other areas--"Guess Who's Coming to Dinner" stretched the bounds of inter-racial relationships. ALL IN THE FAMILY brought on a very controversial character but in a smart way.

Now . . . Something is pushing boundaries or breaking new ground if it involves sex or nudity or swearing. NYPD BLUE was revolutionary . . . For what?!? Doing what movies had been doing for years but now on television? Girls kissing . . . body parts . . . particularly gory violence . . . Sorry. Not bold/pushing boundaries/smart.


Broadway Blog: Give Them What They Want / Za Ba Zoovee (Broadway vs. Pop)

Not to bash the revival, but what was Sweeney Todd trying to "say" with it's inventive staging? To me that's an example of reviving a musical for it's storytelling, not making a statement.

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>> Xanadu on Broadway has managed to do what no other show that was based on a film managed to do: make a show from a movie and say we know it wasn't the greatest movie, but so many of you enjoyed it - have a freakin' good time! Xanadu took the (knowing) wink and took it to the Nth degree. It actually surpassed The Producers without being totally crass.

The problem tho is that XANADU assumes a great deal of its audience: that the audience is so familiar with the source material that it gets the jokes about it, that the audience appreciates the parodaic nature of the form. XANADU wasnt a hit film by any stretch; maybe 14 people actually saw it in its theatrical release and perhaps a couple of dozen more bothered with the DVD until the stage version was announced. Now, from what I've read of the stage version, it's all camp and no substance -- and good parody *requires* a sense of substance, no matter how slight, to succeed. Otherwise, it's a one-joke approach ("We're making fun of a failed 80s movie! Arent we clever?"). REEFER MADNESS knew better than to go this route, and that's the difference.

But Broadway? Revolutionary? Given that there are hardly any original musicals anymore and that everything is adapted from something else, it's difficult to be revolutionary when you're simply a reflection of someone else's success. SA is "revolutionary" only in the sense that it's taking 20-year-old musical forms (Face it: a lot of it comes directly from the 80s punk sensibility) and parading it before a market that's never seen it presented on stage before. But that doesnt make it "revolutionary", nor is very little else listd in that previous post. HAIR, probably, but the rest? Not really. They're evolutions, not revolutions.

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I think time will tell what is revolutionary. It is impossible to tell today what will people will see as important in 10 years from now.

I feel like we can't know what something revolutionary would be like because then it wouldn't be revolutionary. I think the possibility is still out there I mean we don't live in a completely taboo-less word nor have we seen everything there is to be seen so yes, I think it's certainly possible.

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I think those who are saying that "revolutions" are hard to judge as they are happening are closest to the truth.

With this "we need perspective" theory in mind, I think The Last Great Revolution in The Musical came out of the 1980's -- aka The British Invasion (and though it may sometimes seem so, they are not really written by "all the same people," but we'll call them ALW & Co. for short).

What ALW & Co. did, in their desire to keep a constant stream of spectacle and wonder directed at the audience, was to provoke stagecraft/design to greater heights. In turn, this affected how shows were actually written. They are now written more cinematically, in my opinion. Perhaps this is also why we see so many movies being turned into musicals, but that's another point.

Prior to this time, it was standard to write "traveler curtain" scenes -- short scenes with little or no sets where big changes could be happening behind the traveler. Think "The Rumor" from Fiddler. I've noticed the great reduction, and in most cases elimination, of these types of scenes.

That, to me (in a way) is an actual revolution.

BTW on another note, SeanMartin, nice of you to say about Reefer Madness. We did try to make it about something more than just poking fun at how bad the source was -- it always annoys me to hear dumbass comments like "you can't parody a parody" in relation to that show because A) easy to say, B) I don't think that's all we did, and C) the other stuff is not very difficult to see or understand. I always want to say, "Maybe *you* can't..."

I would add that there have been other "bad" movies that were made very successfully into musicals, chiefly among them the one Reefer owes a large debt of gratitude to, Little Shop of Horrors, which is actually Faust in disguise much the same way that Rent is La Boheme in disguise.