Old Classic Musicals (film or otherwise) with New Books

It depends on the book. I've seen BABES IN ARMS with revised book at a dinner theater in New Jersey and with the original book by the music department at UCLA. Though the latter was by far the better production, I longed for the brevity and integration of the revisal.

Certainly, pre-OKLAHOMA! musical comedies tend to rely on highly topical humor that may have little to do with the plot or characters, or even make sense to modern viewers. Such books are almost always better revised.

But for my money, they could have stopped "revising" ANYTHING GOES in the early 1960s. The revisals since have added little, IMO.

Updated On: 5/16/13 at 07:15 PM

Working comes to mind

I think it's interesting that many "creative folks" find the songs perfectly okay, but they have to tinker with the spoken word.

They were written at the same time, with the same sensibilities, to be a seamless cohesive unit. So "visionaries" come along and mess with just one aspect of the writing.

I understand fixing a few things, but when they do a massive rewrite of the book and leave the score (mostly) alone, it always feels disconnected.

And more often than not, it's because the creatives involved don't know how to direct the older material, and the actors involved don't know how to perform it well enough.

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Annie Get Your Gun and You're a Good Man, Charlie Brown came to Broadway as revivals with revised scripts (I bet Kristin Chenoweth is very grateful for that).

The celebrated Show Boat revival also featured an altered script.

Me and My Girl was re-written, wonderfully, I believe, by Stephen Fry.

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It's good when it works and it's not when it doesn't. And it's not a new trend. Reworking plays and (later) librettos (as well as scores) of operas and musicals has been happening since Thespis stepped out of the chorus.

Updated On: 5/17/13 at 02:48 PM

The 94 revival of Damn Yankees had a pretty heavily revised script, and while the score remained in tact, there were some heavy alterations to the arrangements, and a character reassignment for "Two Lost Souls." I personally felt the show worked much better in this version, but I will admit I've only seen high school and college productions of the original script to compare it to. I especially loved the '94 arrangements for "Six Months Out of Every Year," Lola's new entrance and the scene leading up to "A Little Brains, a Little Talent," the new dance break for "Whatever Lola Wants" and the new courtroom/hearing scene.

Seems like we've identified three categories of revisals:

1. The original show failed and the revisal is an attempt to make a hit out of a flop. (See BARE and CARRIE)

2. The original material is strong enough to inspire more than one different vision of the work and the book is adjusted accordingly. (CABARET, SHOW BOAT and, recently, PORGY AND BESS)

3. Most commonly, a pre-OKLAHOMA! show contains out-of-date references and humor and needs updating to appeal to a modern audience.

Each of these categories seems to involve very different motivations and different strategies.

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best12, I think we know the old songs, however dated, thanks to OBC albums and pop versions. Nobody knows what a "cunning cottage" is, but we're used to the line in Hart's lyric and expect it when it approaches. The same is rarely true of a show's book.

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I agree, Matt, that "Heavenly Hop" has no real justification. But which song in ANYTHING GOES does? Even the title song seems thrown in at random (but I think it makes more sense in the early 60s version.)

Sorry, but isn't the song entitled: HEAVEN Hop? I can just hear the lyrics in my head: Hop, Hop, the heaven Hop.

Am I mistaken?

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^That was the intended purpose to talk about all three.

Well I can thank heaven that I live in a world where The King and I, Carousel, Oklahoma!, The Sound of Music, and South Pacific sure don't need no revision from anybody.

A fourth type of revisal: the original production was so strictly tailored to the skills of a unique performer that, in order to salvage the good and workable material in the rest of the show, the book or score must then be retooled again in order to work for a different performer.

best12, I think we know the old songs, however dated, thanks to OBC albums and pop versions. Nobody knows what a "cunning cottage" is, but we're used to the line in Hart's lyric and expect it when it approaches. The same is rarely true of a show's book.

That's a good point, Gav.

The songs are familiar because of the many recordings. Plus tampering with dated lyrics or melodies is taboo, unless you're the composer or lyricist.

But tampering with a book is perfectly okay ... as long as the author is dead.

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