Lestat: The Why (for Phantom2)

[nomdeplume]

Posted: 5/31/06 at 12:36pm

At the wishes for my thoughts (from Phantom2) on the matter of Lestat, I offer this perambulation...


Lestat Thoughts

Part I - The Venture

The Great Confusion

As to the venture by Warner Brothers into new territory of Broadway producing. A rough game by any counts, mounting a successful and money-making show on the Great White Way. One would think the natural step would be to launch a looney, tune-filled cartoon character musical, perhaps a joint venture with experienced Disney for a stage version of "Who Framed Roger Rabbit?" Familar cartoon characters, a few tap dancing numbers, the occaisional acrobatic flippy-do, great singing voices, parody and sillyness, the Disney publicity machine and experience--this would seem the natural choice to fill many seats. A surface story for children, adult layer for the adults--whamo, a crowd-pleaser. Even had a new show been written for familar Warner Brothers cartoon figures, cutting out a joint Disney venture and "toons," still the promise of filling seats was there.

But it was not to be. Instead, another try for the ultimate vampire musical, this one serious, dark, a real horror musical. Hmm. Was there ever a big money successful, serious Broadway horror musical? And are dark musicals ever very commercially successful? As opera perhaps, with all those dying arias.

Now add to the mix we have trendy homoerotic vampire business, adding a little Oedipal thing with the mother and borderline pedophiliac attraction of parenting a psycho female vampire brat and we've got some Oprah daytime television issues here. Which can be submerged to avoid the homosexual issues, which may not sell mainstream, yeah we need mainstream so we'll go with the blood lust thing and the great metaphor that a vampire is just a wolf predator worth preserving as an endangered species. Well, the ecology thing may not work, and we're skipping the sex, so let's go Buddhist, hell yes, and have the primordial vampire show up and make like the Dalai Lama. Ignore the friggin' chick in lit who over the weekend went and read the Dalai's Autobiography about how Buddhists don't believe in killing--hey nobody reads or knows about that sh*t and they'll buy it. They bought millions of those Rice books. Just stick the robes on him and it's like Zen, yeah, vampire Zen.

We've got this sexy stud vampire, so it's okay if he's gay, everything's gay now--well, okay maybe it's not so he'll be like sexy androgenous so both men and women can go for the dude. Well, the women won't pay attention to the gay part, just get a former Phantom. Parents bringing children to see the show? Well, there's a little girl with dolls for the kids. An analogy to drug addiction with the bloodlust? No, it's like mythic, instinct, there's no drugs, except the laudanum, yeah it has opium, but that's to poison him, drugs are poison, even to vampires.

Message? We don't need a message. We do? Okay, this is a tough one. Vampires kill and they want to live forever. Everybody wants to live forever and be sexy androgenous hooked on blood, it'll sell. Then why do we get rid of the bodies? Well, he can't get caught. Isn't he doing something wrong? Oh, don't go moral on me, no one wants to go there, it's like BO-RING, look around you, nothing's moral, this is the real world, people die, sh*t like that--okay, so some of them don't die, that's what this story is about.

to be cont.

© 2006 nomdeplume by pseudonym, all rights reserved Updated On: 5/31/06 at 12:36 PM

Posted: 5/31/06 at 12:48pm

this is a really random comment, but I caught "My Best Friend is a Vampire" with a very young Robert Sean Leonard on TV yesterday and thought wow now THIS is bad.

[nomdeplume]

Posted: 5/31/06 at 1:27pm

Part II - The Team

Money talks.

Elton John for the music. The resurrection of formidable Bernie Taupin for the lyrics. Money for everything, sets, lights. Top talent (we'll get to them later).

And costumes! If costumes could save a show, these were the ones. Susan Hilferty was most deserving of her Tony nom with detail and elegance. Mama vampire dressed to the teeth, like her son, and even the vampirette had lace duds to kill for. Probably I would have begged the Producer Administration Committee for Samurai garb for Marius to shift him from Mr. wouldbe "no attachments" Zen monk to warrior mastermind. And I would have changed Lestat's final red shirt and jeans to a little dressier night-clubby modern, but hey, this is so minor in comparison with the stunning array of fully realized and complete outfits that surely enhanced character play for the actors.

The direction was not the trouble with the show so much as the inherent confusion of the story set-up and the weakness of the book. John's music was enjoyable, though the oddly trudging lyrics of Taupin are unlike his work in such former hits as "Tiny Dancer," "Rocket Man," and so many other oldies. The shortcomings of book and lyrics is old territory with the show's critics that I won't revisit. I think the CD will work better for listening than the musical because you don't mind more explanatory words if you're just listening to a song and don't have the visual there before you. Certainly the quality of the singers' voices and John's fame merit the recording on its own. I particularly liked "Make Me As You Are" and "I Want More" to listen to, unless and until I thought about their content, which was sickening.

I do believe that this musical holds more possibility in smaller regional theatres that can muster an avant guarde style musical that won't have to draw huge audiences, but can bring in its own eclectic crowd. It'll make a good "Hellraiser" movie type of musical for a Friday night.

I think the show will have an "afterlife," and in Part III I'll tell you the merits as to why.

cont.

© 2006 nomdeplume by pseudonym, all rights reserved Updated On: 5/31/06 at 01:27 PM

[nomdeplume]

Posted: 5/31/06 at 4:01pm

Part III

The Players a-Playing

Lestat offers a rich tapestry in developed, fully-realized or realizable characters. This is the strongest feature of the piece, aided by the volume of the literary work in its background. Fiction provides time for insight into the character, hopes, fears, internal controversy, moral dilemma, emotional makeup and the like that give a character dimension.

I'd think this made the work irresistible to Hugh Panaro, Tony-nommed Carolee Carmello, Drew Sarich, Jim Stanek, Roderick Hill, Allison Fischer and the rest of the highly capable cast. Instead of playing some two-dimensional type they truly got to explore and find who they were from the existing tapestry, even where the book got pedestrian they were able to rise above it and give us surprises from their shifting, complex, even seemingly contradictory natures. Surely the actors found the piece a great challenge and great fun to play, and this is why I think Lestat will have an extended life and be able to draw fine talent in subsequent productions.

Examples.

Normally a passive protagonist is death to a plot, and Lestat is a victim in becoming a vampire. However, this is turned into the mythological plot format (reference Joseph Campbell's The Hero With A Thousand Faces, plots of Star Wars, etc.) with Lestat initially refusing the hero's vampire journey if not the bloodkill of the wolves, then engaging in the steps of the journey in seeking the wise old man, trials along the way, returning with a message and so forth. I don't think the message really works for reasons I have partly expressed in Part I above, but the structure is there as are the developing dimensions of character. When Lestat acts protectively toward Nicolas, avoiding him to protect him from becoming a vampire and then caring for him when Nicolas turns imbecile and hunting for his cure, Lestat is not just a grab and kill creature but has retained some chunks of caring humanity.

When Lestat's mother Gabrielle grasps for the perpetual and seemingly free life of a vampire she turns the table on the usual picture of a self-sacrificing mother. She adds an odd women's liberation (the term seems trite) drive to her personality, being able to come and go as a man unafraid in the dark, with invincible strength, fearing nothing and no man. She cavalierly draws the predator metaphor, tosses off morality about killing even more than her son, even finally deserts him to seek her own life. Many drives for an actor to explore, experience, question.

Armand, a chance to have created your own rules of existence and followers and break them at will, the back and forth rivalry with Lestat, personal betrayals yet a Javert-like adherence to some separate standard, an evil one, but a code of a certain selected kind of behavior rather than decisions made from within a connected relationship to another. The seemingly contradictory need to create others, the others, however, being merely underlings to rule. And yet, there is the rejected attempt to connect with Lestat and share the rule.

For Nicolas, from charismatic actor and lover to imbecile, to a gentle soul finally pulling together its sanity to request release, a full dramatic range to play.

Louis and Claudia both climb through existential journeys, Louis in the midst of one after the loss of his wife and child and his resultant guilt at the time he is chosen by Lestat and Claudia's developing dissatisfaction with the state of perpetual ten-year-olddom. (Oddly enough, this past year has seen a triple crown of perpetual female ten-year-olds from mentally-ten-year-old Clara of The Light in the Piazza, to dead-little-ten-year-old Vera of In My Life to undead-little-ten-year-old Claudia of Lestat, all of whom sing up a storm.)

Characters who have meat to munch can have a life, however undead.

Therefore, I think the country's theatres have neither seen nor heard the last of Lestat.

© 2006 nomdeplume by pseudonym, all rights reserved Updated On: 6/1/06 at 04:01 PM

[wickedrentq]

Posted: 5/31/06 at 4:14pm

A well-written analysis.

You're a silly goose....kiddo :-P

Updated On: 5/31/06 at 04:14 PM

[jimnysf]

Posted: 5/31/06 at 4:18pm

"Therefore, I think the country's theatres have neither seen nor heard the last of Lestat.".

I enjoyed your 3 part post but...

To quote Maria from "West Side Story", "Make it not be true!"

If it must be seen again, it should be retooled to, "The Adventures of Claudia: Teenage Vampire".




http://www.talkinbroadway.com/allthatchat/d.php?id=267210

Updated On: 5/31/06 at 04:18 PM

[GClef2]

Posted: 5/31/06 at 4:44pm

LOL JIM!

[nomdeplume]

Posted: 5/31/06 at 4:50pm

Still chipping little edits re above.

I found Lestat and Mom more interesting than Claudia, the V.A.P. (vampire American Princess) with the temper tantrums.

The play has some of the darkness of Macbeth about it, if not the fluid Shakespearean dialogue.

[little_sally]

Posted: 5/31/06 at 5:31pm

Well said and well written. Thank you.

[EponineAmneris]

Posted: 5/31/06 at 5:36pm

This was a pleasure to read. Thank you.

[kasim]

Posted: 5/31/06 at 5:44pm

how about a musical where Claudia Slays Buffy


(only cause i liked the claudia girl more than gellar)

[Fiction Writer]

Posted: 5/31/06 at 5:48pm

That was very fun to read, but I have to add:

Lestat was gay a lot sooner than Will and Grace.

And I thought Allison was the best part of the show. The only part I remember is her singing "I want more".

Poor Hugh. All I remember is him standing at the bow of a boat, or ship, or something. I expected him to yell "I'm the king of the world!"

[Smartful Dodger]

Posted: 5/31/06 at 8:52pm

Do you think that something like BUFFY, THE VAMPIRE SLAYER has a chance as a musical? It's worked as a film and television series? Why not on stage? I loved the analysis above and think that a property like BUFFY helps to address and solve some of what have been identified as LESTAT's challenges.

[RentBoy86]

Posted: 5/31/06 at 9:24pm

Smartful Doger, maybe off-Broadaway or at the Fringe, but def. not on Broadway. It is too campy and "out-there" for B'way.

Anyways, I don't think a Roger Rabbit-esque musical or a Looney Tunes musical would have been any more of a hit. They would have both come off as incredibly cheesy. A person dressed as a rabbit? A cast dressed up as Bugs Bunny & Co.?

[jimnysf]

Posted: 5/31/06 at 10:00pm

"A person dressed as a rabbit?"

Is that any worse than a person dressed as a teacup of a candle holder?

[wickedrentq]

Posted: 5/31/06 at 10:45pm

Are you referring to turning Buffy into a new musical, or "Once More With Feeling"?

That particular musical episode is too much tied into specific stories to work on its own.

The show itself, I see what you're saying. I think it would depend on the creative team. If Joss Whedon set out to make this musical, it would be fantastic.

But oh, which story to choose from? I guess you'd have to do a stupid quick background part where Buffy finds out she's the slayer, and then a background of "Welcome to the Hellmouth" introducing all the characters and such. While The Gift would be a good way to end the show, season 5 isn't as good and way too many things have to be explained. Season 3 also has a good arc, but I think once we get past the background, the arc of season 2 might work best. There'd be the cuteness of Willow and Oz, the comedic Xander and Cordelia, the fun Spike and Drusilla as villains, the cute yet tragic story of Giles and Jenny, and of course, the main story of Buffy and Angel. Put the events from "Angel" of the first season together...have them fall in love, then lose his soul, and then the tragic conclusion which leaves you crying as hard as you would after Miss Saigon. Then you could put in slightly amusing bits from episodes--Halloween, Joyce beating Spike w/ an ax, ooh and Principal Snyder! I could only imagine his song! Or maybe some of the better episodes could be turned into a montage in a song.

That's it. Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Season 2: The Musical by Joss Whedon. The first successul vampire musical on Broadway.

[RentBoy86]

Posted: 5/31/06 at 11:46pm

Well, to me Beauty and the Beast worked. But I can't see Roger Rabbit working at all. I think it would just come across wrong.

[nomdeplume]

Posted: 5/31/06 at 11:54pm

I'd kinda like to see a guy onstage with bunny ears.

I defer all things "Buffy" to wickedrentq's apparent extensive knowledge in the field. Updated On: 6/1/06 at 11:54 PM

[sondheimboy2]

Posted: 6/1/06 at 12:54am

Dear nomdeplume,

An excellent thoughtful, piece of writing. Head and shoulders above "I know you are, but what am I?" tone of much of posting.

I personally wondered why they chose for a director a guy whose last job was getting fired from "Aida".

[rockfenris2005]

Posted: 6/2/06 at 1:49am

LOL, they should have stuck with BATMAN the whole time.

How's this for the Gotham City chorus number (and I'm serious THESE are the lyrics):

"Can't you hear the choir bells?
Listen to the animals sing!
Can't you hear the slaughter-house bells?
In the land of the pigs the butcher is king!
IN THE LAND OF THE PIGS THE BUTCHER IS KING!!"
- Jim Steinman

Updated On: 6/2/06 at 01:49 AM

[Color and Light]

Posted: 6/2/06 at 2:41am

Wickedrentq - I'm thinking that Buffy: Season 2 would make awesome musical fodder, too. I can see it now...

[wickedrentq]

Posted: 6/2/06 at 3:16am

OMFG...

Color & Light...can you imagine Drusilla's song?

[Color and Light]

Posted: 6/2/06 at 4:11am

Oh dear. And for some reason, I see Amy Spanger in a brunette wig as Drusilla.

I'm just imagining a big, tragic love ballad right before Buffy sends Angel to hell. They'd probably set it to "Close Your Eyes". Oh God.

And there has to be a hydraulic lift somewhere.

[BluCat500]

Posted: 6/2/06 at 4:20am

If you're reaaallly lucky, Lestat, may have its ginormous crucifix left over...

Posted: 6/3/06 at 6:06pm

OK....

Who ever posted the thing with Buffy dealing with the same problems as Lestat,no offence, but what were you thinking? Anne Rice's vampires have real feelings and emotions and are opposite to those of Buffy The Vampire Slayer. In Lestat, the only two ways a vampire can die are by sunlight and fire. In Buffy, they are killed by typical weaponds: Crossbows, Stakes, Holy Water, Crusifix, ect.

How in the world are Buffys vampires-- who can be killed numerous ways and are heartless, be compared to Anne Rice's vampires which can love, express emotions, and go though the same problems as humans do?
Die Young. Live Forever.