Welcome to the Musicals Thread, the Avocado’s space for anything and everything related to musical theatre! Every month I’ll post a discussion prompt, but please feel free to comment on other topics, from new discoveries to old favorites. If you have ideas for future prompts or would like to write a feature for the thread, let me know!
After yapping about it in the comments section for months, on Sunday I got to see the recording of Merrily We Roll Along at a local movie theater! The performances were fantastic, particularly from the three leads. Daniel Radcliffe was vibrant as Charley. At first I was disappointed that he wasn’t more energetic and physical during one of my favorite parts, “Franklin Shepard, Inc.”,* but then I realized the focus wasn’t so much on his sarcasm or anger as his heartbreak – a moving and perhaps more grounded way to play it. Speaking of heartbreak, Mary as portrayed by Lindsay Mendez does all she can to keep the group together, holding back her own deep well of feeling. We see her lose her heart to these two bright young men at the end/beginning, and we see her realize there will be no reward for her decades of effort at the beginning/end. And of course, Jonathan Groff’s Frank is by turns cold and opportunistic, brimming with idealism, and torn between the two. In one notable scene we feel his wrenching loss outside the courthouse as his marriage finally collapses, the horrible disparity as those around him insist it’s the “best thing that ever could have happened”, and the desperation with which he joins them in this view to escape the pain.
Since it was a recording rather than a live performance, we could see all this emotion and more in the detail afforded by camera close-ups. In a confusing choice, though, a great deal of the show was shot in close-ups, not giving us a full sense of the stage and the actors’ movement through it. It made me wonder about Richard Linklater’s upcoming film adaptation of Merrily – how he might use the strengths and opportunities of his medium to tell the story. How much or little importance will the spaces the characters inhabit be given in that version? How up close and personal will his camera get? He’s already filming it over twenty years so that the cast will age in real time – with what degree of realism will elements like the transitions (in which the cast sings directly to the audience) be portrayed?
I used to think as many musicals should be made into movies as possible so that as many people could see them as possible without having to wait for, afford, and travel to a live production. I’m still all for accessibility and I love this more direct translation of the theatrical experience (see also Hamilton, Waitress, and the television broadcast of Good Night, and Good Luck, for a non-musical theatre example). But much as I hope we get more and more recordings, movie musicals have an artistry all their own. Surely the world is richer for having captured on film the actual Austrian hills alive with the sound of music.
Which musicals should be adapted into movies? Which only need recordings of the stage versions? How could the advantages and disadvantages of each medium affect the presentation of the material?