#1
Posted: 9/28/09 at 11:38am
So, when I moved to NYC to be an actor in 2000, I wanted to be a part of the dramatic period musicals. Where have they all gone? Is the pop opera dead or are the recent failed attempts a result of brainless construction? Finally, along comes Kristina. Yes, I'm biased being a Minnesotan of Swedish ancestry and having loved the books before the musical and having loved the Swedish musical before seeing the recent English language concerts at Carnegie Hall. But STILL I say FINALLY- some variety in New York. I'm not saying that EVERY musical has to be classical in nature, but neither does every musical have to be rock- or a campy comedy. I was broken by the end of Kristina, watching a broken Karl Oskar hear the last words sung by his wife who had finally found a home (yet not one on earth). It's okay to cry in a musical, right? Though I think the concerts weren't a great format for telling the story of Kristina's journey (and there were sound problems on the first evening)- it was promising to hear a sweeping and epic score filling a venue in NYC once again! Without the book stringing the songs together, the story felt a little episodic and non-linear. But, with some cuts in the music and the reimplementation of dialogue, I think there's a Broadway musical there about searching the world for a home both physically and emotionally and I'm confident that every beat of the story will fulfill that theme. Even the song "Lice" which didn't go over so well among bloggers- in the flow of the show it is an obstacle on Kristina's journey to home. It builds the tension between her and Ulrika which is really a metaphor for the conflict between the old and the new- Kristina clings to the ways of the old country while Ulrika spits on them. A fight breaks out but it's not really about lice. Anywho, I hope there are others out there looking for a new wave of intelligent and moving Broadway shows so that I can be reinspired the way I was at the Kristina concerts!
