How do they all know the same song?

I was reading an interview with the South Park guys in Entertainment Weekly the other week, and they are still going. In their doubtless copious spare time, they also decided to write and put on The Book of Mormon, which is the hottest musical in years and won 9 Tony awards. I am sure Julie Taymor is hatefucking Matt Stone and Trey Parker voodoo dolls every night given that she's probably spent a zillion times as much on Spider-Man: Turn off the Dark and gotten shit reviews to show for it.

Me, I can't wait to see The Book of Mormon when it goes on tour. Until then, I don't want to know anything about it - not the songs, not the plot, nothing.

Last week, apropos of me going down to talk to my future in-laws, I was watching Fiddler on the Roof and I realized that, really, I'm a fan of musical theater. A lot of musicals are shit, but I find many of them super-enjoyable. It's odd in today's culture that they would still be as popular as they are, given the alternative forms of entertainment available.

FOCUS: Musicals! Which ones do you like, which ones do you hate? Whyso?
ALT FOCUS: Or are musicals just for drama geeks and girly-men?

 

I used to go see a show on Broadway every year during the holidays with my dad, and by far my favorite was Sweeney Todd. It was so perfectly done, had great songs and an interesting story, and I loved the dark humor. I remember getting chills. When the movie came out a few years later I thought it was a bit too Tim Burtonized, so if you're judging it based on that alone...don't.

I fucking HATE The Phantom of the Opera. I can't explain this, it's just something I'm very passionate about.

Chicago was the most disappointing though, because I saw it after the movie and had high expectations for it. (I saw The Phantom of the Opera with my French class and didn't particularly want to see it anyway.) The movie is a million times better, or maybe I just saw an off-show.

 

Musicals are for drama geeks, and they seem totally unaware of this fact. If any show on TV runs long enough, there will be a musical episode. It'll suck, and the fans will rank it as one of the worst episodes, but that won't matter, because you can practically see the drama geeks jerking each other off as they made the show and "omg it was totally like theater back in school!" Seriously, cut that shit out.

 

Les Mis has some amazing songs.

 

My dad is mostly not any of the usual gay cliche's. His one big exception is musical theater. He fucking loves Andrew Lloyd Webber, Rodgers and Hammerstein, etc. The songs from broadway are basically his entire music collection (and old school Divas, peggy lee, shirley bassey, etc.)

As a result, I know the words to a bunch of musicals. I was a typical kid who wanted to be good at the stuff my dad was into, so I did a bunch of musicals when I was a kid and was in productions of Miss Saigon and Joseph before my voice broke. I still know the words for most of Miss Saigon, and I could probably still sing (incredibly badly) every part in Joseph.

The one musical that I really, really, really fucking hate is The Sound of Music. I don't know why but I want to murder everyone in the room every time it comes on. I think because My Dad insisted on watching it at least 4 times a year every year of my life.

My parents also had the Vinyl LP's of the original War of the Worlds and used to play them over and over again every time we moved when I was a kid (more than 30 times before I was 14). I don't mind them now - but I fucking hated them as a kid.

 

I have fairly narrow taste in musicals, but the ones I like I fucking love. None of my friends will see them with me so I see far fewer than I would like, but yeah, they can be awesome.

The talent it takes to write a legitimately hilarious song just blows my mind. Try it sometime; I guarantee it's a damn sight harder than you'd think.

Also, I can trace my love of musicals back to the finest of them all:

 

My sister took me to see Rent when I was 16... IT WAS AWESOME!

Also, if you think musicals are dumb, you obviously have never seen Dr. Horrible.

 

RENT is a huge favorite of mine. I heard bits and pieces of the soundtrack for a long time and finally got to see it a couple years ago when Anthony Rapp and Adam Pascal were playing the leads in the revival tour. Fuck that was amazing.

What's incredible is that I love the musical and yet have such disdain for the themes. "Bohemia?" that's just code for "smelly hippies who refuse to get a job." Living for your art? Your art blows. Paul's smug self-righteousness at the Life Support meeting? Eat me, everybody's got problems. The list of Bohemian shit from "La Vie Boheme?" Flashbacks to every pseudo-intellectual 15-year-old girl I knew in High School who was more concerned about her ability to convincingly hang out in coffee shops.

Yet now I will have that fucking song stuck in my head all day.

 

Fuck Andrew Lloyd Webber. He made crappy musicals so mainstream that any jackass with $60 and a pair of "good jeans" can feel like a culture snob because they "just saw Phantom!!" That show sucks. Hard.

You want a good musical? See The Magic Flute. Or Madame Butterfly. Or anything written by anyone with talent. Or, there's always Avenue Q...

 

My favorite modern musicals are Rent, Wicked and Spring Awakening. I love the music and the plots were well-written.

My favorite classics are Les Mis, and pretty much anything that Fosse choreographed (Chicago, Caberet, Sweet Charity, Fosse). His style is so distinct that it's almost a technique. I love that it's tongue in cheek and subtle.

Least favorite? Cats. I saw it on tour when I was 11 or 12. It was just a bunch of people dressed like cats, leaping around forever. I didn't like the songs and didn't give a shit about any of the characters. I was so disappointed.

I think even the most manly man could find a musical he liked. My brother is moving to NYC but refuses to see a show on Broadway because he "can't suspend his disbelief" for 2 hours.

 

I went to a high school in a district that put nearly equal emphasis on the arts as they did on sports. It was great. In my four years of highschool, I was in Fiddler on the Roof, Camelot, Man of La Mancha, and Brigadoon. I've also seen Rent and a couple other shows on Broadway.

I think people get the impression of Cats or Miss Saigon in their heads, and then write off every other musical based on that.

 

I was one of those drama geeks in high school (although, I spent my weekends being the millennial version of a punk rock chick. I destroyed the pictures, it was sad.) Twice a year, I got to see a show with the drama club and again with my chorus class. I don't think we ever went to see anyone but musical theater. I saw Mamma Mia, Spamalot, Urinetown, Rent, Hairspray, Aida, Gypsy, and Avenue Q in a span of four years.

Even before high school, my grandmother used to take my sister and I on a bus trip to New York to see plays. I saw Beauty and the Beast and The Lion King with that bus trip. That's where I got my love of theater and why I became such a drama geek in high school.

 

Oklahoma isn't bad in this regard. My parents had the LP sitting around the house back in the day, and the younger Misanthropic would put it on the turntable every once in a while.

I can take or leave musicals, but I don't mind them. I still remember being 9 years old and watching a middle school production of The Music Man, and thinking how cool it was. I've seen Mama Mia (I knew someone who was one of the dancers) and Cats (girlfriend dragged me there). Musicals are ok, but if I never saw another musical again that would be just fine.

 

I went to college on an opera scholarship, so naturally I like musicals. I am a bit picky, however.

Personal favorites: Les Miserables and The Mikado. Spamalot was hilarious, even better than the movie it was based on IMO. I think Phantom is decent, if a little overwrought, and think Cats is just awful.

Like The Fry Guy, I'm so pumped about seeing The Book of Mormon, partly because I'm such a Matt & Trey fanboy, partly because the snippets of music I've heard from it have been fantastic.

Also have to give props to South Pacific, Oklahoma, and Showboat. I have to include Showboat just because it gave us "Ol' Man River". Just a beautiful, beautiful song.

 

Alt. Focus:
I don't like live theater. I've tried to like it, but I just don't.

I almost fell asleep when I went to see Zarkana (one of the Cirque shows) at Radio City. The acrobatics were really cool, but the stupid story behind it all ruined it for me. Stop singing about nothing and get on the death wheel already. That's what we're here for.

I went to the Christmas Spectacular a couple years ago (again, at Radio City), and struggled to remain conscious and feign excitement since my girlfriend was having such a great time and that was her Christmas present.

Lion King apparently changed my girlfriend's life and it pisses her off to no end that I have no interest in going. "But the costumes are amazing," she'll tell me. Which is all well and good, but after about 5 minutes of "...and look at the guys on stilts as giraffes..." I'm going to be bored out of my damn mind.

My mom has begged me to go see Young Frankenstein on Broadway, but I could care less. I've seen the movie, the movie is fantastic, but no matter what, for me, the show will be like Depp's version of Wonka. No thank you.

The only live show that I've seen that I legitmately enjoyed was Stomp on my 13th birthday. That was cool, but it was cool because there wasn't any bullshit story or song behind everything. It wasn't an adaptation of something I already liked. It was original and fun. I'd probably consider going to see the Blue Man Group for the same reason.

 

Godspell and 1776 are my favorites from Broadway. The Mrs. and I saw We Will Rock You in London a few years back and quite enjoyed it.

I think they should make Oedipus Rex into a musical..."I wanna girl just like the girl that married dear ol' dad!"