One of the things that I can so geek out about is Broadway musicals. I was raised listening to Andrew Lloyd Webber and Fiddler on the Roof and Man of LaMancha. I have spent this week listening to musical soundtracks, watching documentaries and watching movies of some of these musicals. I have been (understandably) optimistic. I mean, seriously! Where else can a man who looks like Fred Astaire be a heartthrob? Where else can Rick Moranis get a bombshell like Ellen Greene? And where else can you see Tevye's If I Were A Rich Man shimmy? And where else can you get chills from a simple idea like No Day But Today? CHILLS!
ANYWAY... I love music. I love the way music invokes deep emotions of happiness or invokes the darkness of loneliness. I love the drama of music. I love the comedy of music.
One of the movies I watched this week was Funny Girl. Yes, Barbara Streisand. *sigh* I know. But... To hear her sing Don't Rain on My Parade is almost a religious experience. (I said ALMOST) I also watched Fiddler on the Roof. Far From the Home I Love still invokes tears from me. Even after hearing it for 30+ years. The Producers brought my warm feelings during That Face. Then the chills came while Mary Magdalene and Peter the Apostle asked Could We Start Again, Please? And then I get to drift away as the Phantom sings about The Music of the Night. And I always want to help Seymore get off of Skid Row. Watching all of these movies and hearing all this dramatic music is like a soundtrack to my life.
How can this genre be so "passe"? How is it that I feel like I need to hide the fact that I like all this. My brother says it's cause it makes me old. Lots of other people say it's cause it sucks and it doesn't make any sense. Why would people bust into song? But I return with "Why am I supposed to care about blue people?" (I did like Avatar... I am just saying, musicals are no more preposterous than Sci Fi.)
I am now going to go listen to my My Fair Lady soundtrack. Julie Andrews could have danced all night...
And I hope to join her!
GGC
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One of my favorite things about the time we live in is the transformation of Broadway musicals to adapt to popular music. For so long, they WERE popular music, and then rock and roll took over. Broadway tried to keep up, and then just went back to what it knew in the 1980s with the spectacle-driven Weber musicals and the Cameron McIntosh imports - Les Miserables and Miss Saigon.
ReplyDeleteNow - with musicals like Rock of Ages and American Idiot - popular music has successfully found its way back onstage, albeit in the opposite way that it was popular in the past. It's an adapting art form, and NOTHING to be ashamed of for enjoying.
That being said - Spamalot will be in Ft Wayne in May!!!!