The Wild Party

Its an excuse to have a dance number in the show.

pictures:

http://images.google.com/images?q=lippa%20wild%20party&hl=en&hs=L22&lr=&client=firefox-a&rls=org.mozilla:en-US:official&sa=N&tab=wi

http://community.webshots.com/album/303797320UFTquN

And the Juggernaut happens to be the "latest dance craze" at the time. And yes, an excuse to have a dance number.

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Updated On: 8/15/05 at 01:48 PM

Yeah, it's not an actual, period dance.

The meaning behind Jackie's dance depends almost entirely on the director's vision. As a mute, it is ironic that he is also a dancer - he MUST express himself through his body, he has no choice. In the original poem and in LaChuisa's Wild Party (where Jackie is not mute), Jackie is portrayed as dangerously indulgent, not being able to say no to anything - drugs, liquor, sex, whatever. Lippa's Wild Party glosses over the idea of Jackie getting with one of the D'Armano brothers and inciting a fight between the two of them. In the Lippa' version, which concentrates more on the Queenie/Burrs/Kate/Black plotline with the guests of the party making up a sort of singular organic character, Jackie's dance comes after the "Come With Me" orgy. Depending on the vision of the director, choreographer, and actor, his dance can be an expression of yearning for escape from this world of parties, dramatic realization of his dangerously fatalistic lifestyle, or any other number of possibilities.

Well what do you want to know?

Some of these questions are major issues I had with the Lippa version. Any speculations?

Which ending conflict? and how?

From the poem to the two musicals, the Wild Party exists as a sort of adult comic book. There's even a newly released edition of the poem that is illustrated by famed graphic novelist Art Spiegelman. It's a sort of Brechtian style show where characters and plot are blown up to larger-than-life proportions. The original poem doesn't cover all the motivations and character backgrounds, so either we have to embrace the mystery of these unexplained things, or the director and actors must provide a worthy explanation, whether it's made clear to the audience or not. The most profound difference between the two musicals is that the Lippa one chooses to focus much more on the quartet's tragic story while the LaChuisa version gives us a cross section of all the characters at this one party. The LaChuisa version follows the poem a bit more, and personally, I find it a bit more interesting dramatically, but that is not to say the Lippa version is defunct. They're just two very fundamentally different interpretations.

I don't think it's too bad at all. I mean even if they were years apart, they'd always be compared. They're virtually the same musical interpreted different ways. Generally there are the same characters with the same title. It's like a famous actress doing a role of another famous actress. Or a revival being compared to the original. I personally find it interesting to find the similarities and differences between the pieces.

I try to like the Lippa version but I can't get past the electric guitars.

The songs work when you don't put them in that time period or in that story. They are fine songs, but don't really fit the mood of the piece the way LaChiusa's do.