LCD Listens to LND (so you don't have to), Act 2 Tracks 11-13
Here's the drawn-out conclusion, with final thoughts and a nice little treat (well, I like it anyway).
Mr. WTF praises Christine’s performance, but you just know the smug git is patting himself on the back over winning the stupid wager. I really want to see a fanfic where Christine finds out about that and ditches both bozos-maybe someday I’ll write it myself. Christine says the song was beautiful (can a piece of music have an Informed Ability?) and it felt beautiful and she felt beautiful and FOR THE LOVE OF GOD SLATER, PICK ANOTHER DESCRIPTIVE TERM ALREADY. The celebration is cut short when Christine finds Percival’s Dear John letter. And I do get choked up a bit, because Percival chalks up everything that happened between them at the opera-the tenderness, the passion, the going quite literally to hell and back for each other-to them being fools and “romantic idiots.” God damn it, when you set out to write a sequel, you don’t do it by pissing on everything people liked about the original. And ALW wonders why there’s a massive Hatedom out there for this show? Idiot. Setting this to the music for “Little Lotte” only adds insult to injury.
Christine’s regret is short-lived, however, because Gustave’s gone missing. Again. They need to put a leash on that kid. Mr, WTF immediately suspects Percival, and in a rare moment of slightly canon behavior threatens to “kill that drunken fool” and orders a blockade of the port. But Percival was seen leaving alone, such a Bad Father™ to the last that he doesn’t have any qualms about leaving the poor kid with his creepy bio-daddy and faithless mom. So long, Percival; we hardly knew ye. Frau Blücher is the next suspect, and Mr. WTF sends Harry, Ron, and Hermione after “the ungrateful backbiting snake” (uh-huh, and what are your thoughts on the kettle?) threatening to “tear her limb from limb.” Hoo boy, is Ramin sinking his teeth into the scenery. It’s ridiculous, but at least it’s not boring.
Frau is brought on with surprising speed, angry at being manhandled by Mr. WTF’s “mini yams” (or something like that). But she doesn’t have the kid either and is rather incensed at the accusation, reminding Mr. WTF of her faithfulness and her maternal instincts towards Meg, Christine, and himself. Some mom. Mr. WTF really needs to be What the Hell Heroed by someone in this, but I’m not sure Frau Blücher is the best choice to do it. Mr. WTF makes more empty threats but it’s all for naught, so he’s reduced to shouting Gustave’s name in a laughably melodramatic manner until Fleck comes in with new evidence: “I passed Meg’s dressing room/It was empty as a tomb.” As a couple critics have already pointed out this is a dumb metaphor (tombs, at least those in use, tend to have bodies in them), but the really stupid thing is that only a slight change could have made it work. “Silent as a tomb” is a familiar phrase, and “empty as the Tomb” could be taken as a reference to the Holy Sepulcher, which was rather famously unoccupied. Lazy, lazy work on behalf of the creative team.
So Meg’s got the kid, and Frau Blücher is distraught but hopeful: “I’m afraid she’s come undone/But she won’t hurt him.” I wonder if that last bit was originally “But she’d never hurt no one” but Slater had a rare flash of sense and changed it. Mr. WTF knows where they’ve gone, because-look, he just does, okay? He’s paid zero attention to Meg this entire friggin’ show, but he happens to know exactly where she’d take an abducted child in a fit of madness. Or maybe he doesn’t, because they spend a couple minutes looking for the kid on the midway (I count at least two “oh sorry, I thought you were someone else” moments) while Christine wrings her hands and the orchestra plays generic “this is really intense” music. But eventually they track them down-“To the pier! Now! Hurry!” There is good melodrama (the original PotO is a classic example of it) and then there’s bad melodrama. No points for guessing which this is.
Gustave’s with Meg on the pier, begging to go back to his mom and once again sounding about half as old as he should be. Meg is more interested in drowning him, or herself, or both-it’s kind of hard to tell here. Whichever it is, her pursuers catch up with her before she can go about it. “Let go of the boy now!” Mr. WTF demands, and his bout of semi-canonness must be over because he sounds about as threatening as my six-month-old (less, actually, if you’ve heard how irritated my six-month-old can get). Meg brandishes a gun that might as well have “Property of Anton Chekhov” engraved on the handle and goes into her Motive Rant-slash-Exposition Dump #8 (isn’t it rather late in the game for one of those?). And oh dear God, it’s to the tune of “Bathing Beauty.” This musical hates me, I swear. Mr. WTF is a bit slow on the uptake, so Meg spells it out for him: “Bathing beauty in the dark/In their arms, in their laps, in their beds…” In short, she's screwed every influential guy in New York so he could be successful, and this is the first time I’ve heard of a woman sleeping someone else’s way to the top. Did Mr. WTF never ask where the money was coming from? Did Frau Blücher approve of this, or did she just think Meg was playing Chinese Checkers with Mr. Thompson? Have I now put more thought into this book than all four writers combined?
Meg turns the gun on herself-“Here’s the big finish and then you can go!” God, I wish; my player tells me there’s something like ten minutes left on this track. Mr. WTF tries to talk her down. “Give me the gun, Meg…Give me the hurt and the pain and the gun, Meg…” I don’t know why I find that line so funny, but I just do. He uses the old hypnotic vocal mojo on her (hey, he can still do that) with a reprise of “Beauty Underneath,” and the song works a bit better here than it does as a God-awful 80s rock number (the fact that it’s being sung to an adult female for a change may help too). And it looks like it might work, but then Mr. WTF finds the Idiot Ball and grabs on with both hands. “Beauty sometimes goes unseen/We can’t all be like Christine.” Right, because the first thing you want to do when trying to calm down the crazy girl waving a gun around is compare her unfavorably to the woman you’ve been ignoring her in favor of. Naturally Meg flips, gun goes off, and whoopsie, Christine gets some ventilation for her vital organs. And the track still isn’t half over.
Mr. WTF sends Frau Blücher for help, and she takes the opportunity to escape the musical. Not like she was doing much in this scene anyway. Gustave calls for his father, and Christine takes the opportunity to explain that daddy’s already here. Mother and son have a reprise of “Look With Your Heart” before Gustave lets out a Big No-ostensibly because Christine is dying, but I like to think it has more to do with the big bombshell she’s just tossed in his lap. If this were Cloud City, he’d be looking for a ventilation shaft to throw himself down right about now.
But Christine’s not dead. She’s just restin’. Beautiful plumage. She and Mr. WTF get a reprise of “Once Upon Another Time” and Christine, in true operatic death fashion, sings remarkably high for a person whose breathing ability is in a critical nosedive. “Remember love never dies…kiss me one last time,” Christine begs. “END! END! END!” begs Tom Servo in the back of my mind. “Till I Hear You Sing” thunders out in the orchestra, sounding rather too triumphant for a tragic death scene but it’s really the closest thing the score has to a decent (original) song so they might as well use it. Christine finally kicks off, and considering Mr. WTF spent the past several years obsessing over her and her killer is still twiddling her fingers off to one side of the stage, he’s taking this all rather well. The orchestra keeps plodding on with “Beneath a Moonless Sky” and “Beautiful” for a couple minutes to allow Gustave and Mr. WTF to bond, an ending which I guess is supposed to be uplifting. But consider: Christine is dead. Meg is bound for jail or a lunatic asylum. Frau Blücher is stuck with the pain and guilt of what her daughter did. Gustave is stuck with a creepy recluse he barely even knows. Percival is alone and broke, and will eventually receive the news that his beloved wife died not a half-hour after he ditched her. Crystal, Ronette, and Chiffon are out of a job. And Mr. WTF, who started this whole mess because he couldn’t leave well enough alone and was too stupid to see what was going on right under his nose? He gets the girl (temporarily), gets the kid, gets the money, and gets to walk away leaving a string of broken lives in his wake. Um, yay?
**
So, there you have it. As a sequel to PotO, it’s obviously pants. It does no good to say “well, people change in ten years” because a lot of the character derailment (such as Gustave’s conception) happens not long after the original. But does it work as a stand-alone, as the production staff insists it does? In my opinion, no. First, there are too many allusions to the original (especially in the score) to allow any real separation between the two. Second, even taken on its own the work has enormous problems. I’m sorry, but people who are saying this is one of ALW’s best scores must not be counting anything before Sunset Boulevard. It’s a mishmash of styles and ideas, and the few good things that crop up are either saddled with terrible lyrics (“Till I Hear You Sing”) or run into the ground (“Dear Old Friend,” “Coney Island Waltz”). The book is a cheap soap opera acted out by horrible characters. The Phantom is a self-absorbed jerk (since the musical wants us to believe he’s a romantic ideal, this has the curious effect of making him less empathetic than he is as an insane murderer). Christine and Gustave are ciphers with no personality. Raoul is a bad fanfic cliché, Mme. Giry is bitter and spiteful, and Meg is a needy whiner. There’s no reason to care about any of them, or what they do. So there’s nothing to be done with it really, except declare DisContinuity. There’s no reason for me to accept this as part of the PotO canon, so I don’t. It’s just a curious bit of theater history, another attempted stage sequel that doesn’t live up to the original and (hopefully) will soon be forgotten.
Finally, a little palette cleanser for all of you who’ve made this arduous journey with me: rehearsal footage from the new version of Phantom of the Opera beginning previews tonight at the Player’s Theater in NYC. If you haven't seen this yet, it's well worth a look (especially at around the minute and a half mark). While there are some questionable choices, there is a lot that’s good here, a lot that Love Never Dies never even guesses, much less aspires to. (Link here if embed doesn't work.)
Mr. WTF praises Christine’s performance, but you just know the smug git is patting himself on the back over winning the stupid wager. I really want to see a fanfic where Christine finds out about that and ditches both bozos-maybe someday I’ll write it myself. Christine says the song was beautiful (can a piece of music have an Informed Ability?) and it felt beautiful and she felt beautiful and FOR THE LOVE OF GOD SLATER, PICK ANOTHER DESCRIPTIVE TERM ALREADY. The celebration is cut short when Christine finds Percival’s Dear John letter. And I do get choked up a bit, because Percival chalks up everything that happened between them at the opera-the tenderness, the passion, the going quite literally to hell and back for each other-to them being fools and “romantic idiots.” God damn it, when you set out to write a sequel, you don’t do it by pissing on everything people liked about the original. And ALW wonders why there’s a massive Hatedom out there for this show? Idiot. Setting this to the music for “Little Lotte” only adds insult to injury.
Christine’s regret is short-lived, however, because Gustave’s gone missing. Again. They need to put a leash on that kid. Mr, WTF immediately suspects Percival, and in a rare moment of slightly canon behavior threatens to “kill that drunken fool” and orders a blockade of the port. But Percival was seen leaving alone, such a Bad Father™ to the last that he doesn’t have any qualms about leaving the poor kid with his creepy bio-daddy and faithless mom. So long, Percival; we hardly knew ye. Frau Blücher is the next suspect, and Mr. WTF sends Harry, Ron, and Hermione after “the ungrateful backbiting snake” (uh-huh, and what are your thoughts on the kettle?) threatening to “tear her limb from limb.” Hoo boy, is Ramin sinking his teeth into the scenery. It’s ridiculous, but at least it’s not boring.
Frau is brought on with surprising speed, angry at being manhandled by Mr. WTF’s “mini yams” (or something like that). But she doesn’t have the kid either and is rather incensed at the accusation, reminding Mr. WTF of her faithfulness and her maternal instincts towards Meg, Christine, and himself. Some mom. Mr. WTF really needs to be What the Hell Heroed by someone in this, but I’m not sure Frau Blücher is the best choice to do it. Mr. WTF makes more empty threats but it’s all for naught, so he’s reduced to shouting Gustave’s name in a laughably melodramatic manner until Fleck comes in with new evidence: “I passed Meg’s dressing room/It was empty as a tomb.” As a couple critics have already pointed out this is a dumb metaphor (tombs, at least those in use, tend to have bodies in them), but the really stupid thing is that only a slight change could have made it work. “Silent as a tomb” is a familiar phrase, and “empty as the Tomb” could be taken as a reference to the Holy Sepulcher, which was rather famously unoccupied. Lazy, lazy work on behalf of the creative team.
So Meg’s got the kid, and Frau Blücher is distraught but hopeful: “I’m afraid she’s come undone/But she won’t hurt him.” I wonder if that last bit was originally “But she’d never hurt no one” but Slater had a rare flash of sense and changed it. Mr. WTF knows where they’ve gone, because-look, he just does, okay? He’s paid zero attention to Meg this entire friggin’ show, but he happens to know exactly where she’d take an abducted child in a fit of madness. Or maybe he doesn’t, because they spend a couple minutes looking for the kid on the midway (I count at least two “oh sorry, I thought you were someone else” moments) while Christine wrings her hands and the orchestra plays generic “this is really intense” music. But eventually they track them down-“To the pier! Now! Hurry!” There is good melodrama (the original PotO is a classic example of it) and then there’s bad melodrama. No points for guessing which this is.
Gustave’s with Meg on the pier, begging to go back to his mom and once again sounding about half as old as he should be. Meg is more interested in drowning him, or herself, or both-it’s kind of hard to tell here. Whichever it is, her pursuers catch up with her before she can go about it. “Let go of the boy now!” Mr. WTF demands, and his bout of semi-canonness must be over because he sounds about as threatening as my six-month-old (less, actually, if you’ve heard how irritated my six-month-old can get). Meg brandishes a gun that might as well have “Property of Anton Chekhov” engraved on the handle and goes into her Motive Rant-slash-Exposition Dump #8 (isn’t it rather late in the game for one of those?). And oh dear God, it’s to the tune of “Bathing Beauty.” This musical hates me, I swear. Mr. WTF is a bit slow on the uptake, so Meg spells it out for him: “Bathing beauty in the dark/In their arms, in their laps, in their beds…” In short, she's screwed every influential guy in New York so he could be successful, and this is the first time I’ve heard of a woman sleeping someone else’s way to the top. Did Mr. WTF never ask where the money was coming from? Did Frau Blücher approve of this, or did she just think Meg was playing Chinese Checkers with Mr. Thompson? Have I now put more thought into this book than all four writers combined?
Meg turns the gun on herself-“Here’s the big finish and then you can go!” God, I wish; my player tells me there’s something like ten minutes left on this track. Mr. WTF tries to talk her down. “Give me the gun, Meg…Give me the hurt and the pain and the gun, Meg…” I don’t know why I find that line so funny, but I just do. He uses the old hypnotic vocal mojo on her (hey, he can still do that) with a reprise of “Beauty Underneath,” and the song works a bit better here than it does as a God-awful 80s rock number (the fact that it’s being sung to an adult female for a change may help too). And it looks like it might work, but then Mr. WTF finds the Idiot Ball and grabs on with both hands. “Beauty sometimes goes unseen/We can’t all be like Christine.” Right, because the first thing you want to do when trying to calm down the crazy girl waving a gun around is compare her unfavorably to the woman you’ve been ignoring her in favor of. Naturally Meg flips, gun goes off, and whoopsie, Christine gets some ventilation for her vital organs. And the track still isn’t half over.
Mr. WTF sends Frau Blücher for help, and she takes the opportunity to escape the musical. Not like she was doing much in this scene anyway. Gustave calls for his father, and Christine takes the opportunity to explain that daddy’s already here. Mother and son have a reprise of “Look With Your Heart” before Gustave lets out a Big No-ostensibly because Christine is dying, but I like to think it has more to do with the big bombshell she’s just tossed in his lap. If this were Cloud City, he’d be looking for a ventilation shaft to throw himself down right about now.
But Christine’s not dead. She’s just restin’. Beautiful plumage. She and Mr. WTF get a reprise of “Once Upon Another Time” and Christine, in true operatic death fashion, sings remarkably high for a person whose breathing ability is in a critical nosedive. “Remember love never dies…kiss me one last time,” Christine begs. “END! END! END!” begs Tom Servo in the back of my mind. “Till I Hear You Sing” thunders out in the orchestra, sounding rather too triumphant for a tragic death scene but it’s really the closest thing the score has to a decent (original) song so they might as well use it. Christine finally kicks off, and considering Mr. WTF spent the past several years obsessing over her and her killer is still twiddling her fingers off to one side of the stage, he’s taking this all rather well. The orchestra keeps plodding on with “Beneath a Moonless Sky” and “Beautiful” for a couple minutes to allow Gustave and Mr. WTF to bond, an ending which I guess is supposed to be uplifting. But consider: Christine is dead. Meg is bound for jail or a lunatic asylum. Frau Blücher is stuck with the pain and guilt of what her daughter did. Gustave is stuck with a creepy recluse he barely even knows. Percival is alone and broke, and will eventually receive the news that his beloved wife died not a half-hour after he ditched her. Crystal, Ronette, and Chiffon are out of a job. And Mr. WTF, who started this whole mess because he couldn’t leave well enough alone and was too stupid to see what was going on right under his nose? He gets the girl (temporarily), gets the kid, gets the money, and gets to walk away leaving a string of broken lives in his wake. Um, yay?
**
So, there you have it. As a sequel to PotO, it’s obviously pants. It does no good to say “well, people change in ten years” because a lot of the character derailment (such as Gustave’s conception) happens not long after the original. But does it work as a stand-alone, as the production staff insists it does? In my opinion, no. First, there are too many allusions to the original (especially in the score) to allow any real separation between the two. Second, even taken on its own the work has enormous problems. I’m sorry, but people who are saying this is one of ALW’s best scores must not be counting anything before Sunset Boulevard. It’s a mishmash of styles and ideas, and the few good things that crop up are either saddled with terrible lyrics (“Till I Hear You Sing”) or run into the ground (“Dear Old Friend,” “Coney Island Waltz”). The book is a cheap soap opera acted out by horrible characters. The Phantom is a self-absorbed jerk (since the musical wants us to believe he’s a romantic ideal, this has the curious effect of making him less empathetic than he is as an insane murderer). Christine and Gustave are ciphers with no personality. Raoul is a bad fanfic cliché, Mme. Giry is bitter and spiteful, and Meg is a needy whiner. There’s no reason to care about any of them, or what they do. So there’s nothing to be done with it really, except declare DisContinuity. There’s no reason for me to accept this as part of the PotO canon, so I don’t. It’s just a curious bit of theater history, another attempted stage sequel that doesn’t live up to the original and (hopefully) will soon be forgotten.
Finally, a little palette cleanser for all of you who’ve made this arduous journey with me: rehearsal footage from the new version of Phantom of the Opera beginning previews tonight at the Player’s Theater in NYC. If you haven't seen this yet, it's well worth a look (especially at around the minute and a half mark). While there are some questionable choices, there is a lot that’s good here, a lot that Love Never Dies never even guesses, much less aspires to. (Link here if embed doesn't work.)
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