Sunday, August 30, 2009
Used to Be a Major Motion Picture - ‘Catch Me if You Can’ Onstage
NYTimes.com: "AS opening night approached early this month for the new musical “Catch Me if You Can,” about a con man on the run from the F.B.I., the director Jack O’Brien and his creative team were making changes to the production here almost hourly. Dialogue was added; dialogue was dropped. The pacing of some scenes was stepped up. Actors’ hand gestures and body language were tweaked. And one entire section — “mostly nuts-and-bolts exposition” — was excised entirely."
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15 comments:
Reading this article makes me wonder if writing musicals has become a lost art. Everything nowadays seems to be a musical based on a movie. Broadway is covered with them...all the Disney musicals, Shrek, Billy Elliot, among others. While this show may be a huge hit, it seems to be just like another movie trying to be on stage. When will there be a completely new idea brought to the musical world?
I completely agree. There are so many musicals that are based on movies and the only successful one i know of as of late is "Billy Elliot". It also kind of scares me that they are making Spider Man into a musical. Can't they be more original than that and what will they think of next?
I almost screamed at my computer screen when I saw this. Why can't we just please have an original show once in a while? I think as theatre students we all get frustrated by the new "movie-to-stage" musicals, so it should further motivate us all to do wonderful original work during PLAYGROUND! I am always so thrilled when we get one of the School of Drama emails about a PLAYGROUND show going to be performed in New York or somewhere--at least I know there is hope.
On the bright side, with the creation of these musicals, Broadway still has a fairly steady income--people at least know (or think) they will enjoy a show if they enjoyed the movie. I guess once people start spending money again and taking risks with the shows they see, I think Broadway will have a better chance at doing new works.
I've been watching the clips for this one on Playbill.com and I've been surprised by how schlocky this production looks. Part of what made the movie so intriguing and so fun to watch was the slightly gritty, almost neo-noir detective-and-fugitive format that it followed. I found myself caught up in how Abagnale conned the money out of Pan Am (even though I have not seen the movie in years, I have the distinct image of Leonardo DiCaprio soaking a toy airplane in the tub to peel off the Pan Am logo and affix it to his first check). If you watch some of the teaser clips and the pictures from the show, you'll see that the grit of the original movie is lost for kicklines (seriously) and the beautiful, but terribly overkill LED wall in the back. The glitzy Broadway spectacular here presented and the smooth jazzy feel of the story are intrinsically disjunct.
I'm also getting sick of the movie-to-stage Broadway shows. For one thing, if I'm going to pay to see a show, I would prefer to see something that's completely new to me. I'm glad that O'Brien isn't referencing the movie religiously as the show comes together, but even though I loved "Catch Me If You Can" as a movie I have no desire to see it performed live with song and dance.
I don't quite know what producers are trying to accomplish by making a musical out of a movie. Catch me if you can was a very good movie in my opinion, subtle and sensitive while exploring this unique relationship between two men. A musical version of the movie just seems like it would deprive the title of all the worth it had.
Ugh.
The minute the article opened on my screen I saw the photo posted at the top. Yuck. Another show with a giant LED panel wall upstage - TELLING us about the nature of the show, and not suggesting.
I think the LED cyc wall is the perfect metaphor for what these shows have become in the eyes of every 'american' who enjoys going to new york and seeing a cotton-candy coated musical every once in a while.
It's way too much about marketability. What would you rather watch Letterman on? A 13" black and white box, or a giant 52" plasma screen. Dont bother to answer.
It's shows that over the extravagant and the vaguely familiar story line that draw in the crowds.
I say it again and again on here - but I wonder if we'll ever see another original musical at the rate things are going.
So although I loath the concept of simply duplicating an existing story rather than the creation of new works, I am actually impressed by the depth of these comments. Many people too often have the false impression of the extreme similarities between film and theatre.
THIS IS NOT TRUE!
Film and theatre are two separate beasts entirely and should therefore be treated as such. I am glad the director understands this and is only transposing the basic plot while modifying and translating everything else for a theatrical performance. This is why Disney fails so often. They simply clone characters that simply do not work on stage (ie the Puma and the Meekrat from Lion King).
While I would love to see more original creations, I am happy that at least some people understand that theatre is not simply live film. Some of the examples mentioned are actually fantastic shows, Hairspray, and Dirty Rotten Scoundrels among them. The reason for their success is the book is liberated from the film and simply inspires a play rather than dictates a play.
I agree with the other posters that movie to musical conversions hamper originality and show the raw commercialism of the Broadway world. However I would like to bring to light one of the areas that isn't widely talked about. Turning this dramatic movie into a musical takes quite a bit of work for the composers and lyricists. Even for a show like The Little Mermaid, many of the songs were in place, but there were new songs added. Admittedly, the songs range in quality. Some adaptations for the stage bring forth some really touching songs that show character depth that was missed in the movie. Beauty and the Beast has some good examples of this, where the Beast was given songs that show his inner struggle between love and his beastlike nature. Other adaptations have music that is abysmal and attempts to cut out dialogue by putting it to music. The Wedding Singer had some of this, and the songs and show suffered as such. The thing with Catch Me if You Can is that I wonder what the music is like. I am skeptical of the music fitting with the show, especially with the pictures of dance lines we have seen, but who knows?
I have decided to be the trumpeter of capitalism and monetary-based entertainment ventures for the helluvit. This is mostly because I really liked the movie version of Catch Me If You Can and I love analyzing intrinsic differences in formal media, especially when based on the same story.
I agree with Michael profusely. Theater is not film, the same way video games are not film and film is not comic books.
That said, this is how we all make money. Far be it from us to make a living doing what we actually like to do; idealistic projects full of artistic integrity are wonderful and spiritually fulfilling, but no one wants to see them. Make the best of what you're given; try to see the value in all types of inspiration, be it a Disney movie, Greek drama, or Dadaism.
Admittedly, I am quite biased by the images I've seen of this production. I have a huge soft spot for bright and tacky 1960s costumes with overly coordinated color pallets, something CMiYC: The Musical does splendidly.
Honestly, this is one of my favorite movies and it should not be a musical. It is a mostly hard hitting, dramatic, serious movie ... where are they going to burst out into musical numbers? This story does not fit to be told as a musical, it is about a hard working down-on-his-luck father and son relationship. The movie is so human and subtly, and not "musically" Also I don't understand why broadway can not come up with any original movie plots.
I too am really saddened by the lack of ORIGINAL MUSICALS on the broadway stage as of late. I will briefly touch on my Billy Elliot/N2N rant from last season in that I felt the academy took the "easy way out" It's things like that which are ruining the state of original musicals. As far as CMIYC goes, I think it is sure to be an interesting adaptation but would be a bit nervous to be a producer on it with so many changes occurring so close to opening night.
It seems like there is some lazy writing going on. Everything seems to be a copy of something else or some other. I guess its interesting to note that although we as a nation still are on top of pop culture, the move buy other nations to a more industrialized state has begun while we are still here trying to "find ourselves." It funny how much the "self help" section of the bookstores in the past years have exploded and all of these other programs, too. Thus, I guess, this may be one of the reasons why all of this crappy reality T.V. and hence-- bad writing has come about.
It is really tactful to take a piece of work that has already been seen by millions of people and use the underlying themes as your main ones. The theme of fathers and sons in the movie Catch Me If You Can is definitely there but it is not a main theme. Bringing that more to the forefront will help the piece feel more original than if the themes were picked right out of the movie. I however am not sure how I feel about forcing non-musical stories to be musical is such a good idea. I know that this has worked sometimes in the past but, more often it has failed. It also has the tendency to make very serious issues into somewhat of a joke. I just hope they don't lose the message in all of the dancing and singing.
It seems these days everyone is afraid to come up with their own new musicals. Maybe in these economic times, people are to afraid to risk the money, and it is a big risk. However, that doesn't mean we need to rip off Hollywood. This is theatre and we are our own art!!!
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