Playbill.com: Religion may be the "opiate of the masses," as Karl Marx once observed, but faith — a much greater force — is a healer of souls. If the difference between the two seems indistinguishable, taking in a Broadway show these days may help sort it out.
Sunday, April 08, 2012
From Leap of Faith to Jesus Christ Superstar, Religion, Faith and Musicals Are a Smashing Mix
Playbill.com: Religion may be the "opiate of the masses," as Karl Marx once observed, but faith — a much greater force — is a healer of souls. If the difference between the two seems indistinguishable, taking in a Broadway show these days may help sort it out.
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4 comments:
If religious musicals ARE more popular than other musicals (which I doubt), let's think about the reasons that could be that don't have anything to do with religion.
1. They're guaranteed age appropriate. For obvious reasons, a community theatre in my hometown that relies on people over 60 keeps refusing to do RENT.
2. It's easy to follow along, because most everyone knows at least the gist of the subject matter.
3. Theaters choose to do them, for the above reasons. When you only have a couple theaters in your town, like most of America, you're stuck going to whatever they decide to put on for a musical.
4. They're good stories. Whatever you believe about the Bible, it's pretty entertaining. Not that good stories are exclusive to the Bible, I mean.
I'm just saying.
I'm not sure I agree with what rachael is saying, first of all, musicals like "the book of mormon" or "Jesus Christ superstar" definitely are not guaranteed age-appropriate material, even though they use the bible as source material. The bible itself is not the most G literature out there. Just because a show has a religious theme doesn't make it guaranteed wholesome, though it does increase the chances of mass appeal and accessibility, which is the focus of this article. Religious stories, generally, and not unlike other great literary works, tend to focus on ordinary people (Moses, Jesus, Noah, etc) who are called upon to do something great. When we see them, or Elder Price, or Tevye, or Joseoh rise to the occasion and make a legitimate impact on their society/way of life, we love it because it reminds us of what humans are capable, and also that everyone has layers of good and bad in him/her. There are a ton of murders, there is adultery, theft, broken promises, all things that surround us today. The most impactful stories aren't always the ones that end happily, but shows about religion succeed because they can start somewhere familiar and use a known story to say something new, which will get people into buy tickets (and tht's the first step).
Isn’t religion fascinating? Not the actual God and Jesus and life everlasting mumbo jumbo, but our obsession with belief. Religion is obviously under serious attack from all areas of the media, specifically the wealth of overflowing cynicism that is the Internet. Questions that once caused people to turn to religion are now answered by typing a few words into Google. So then why believe in religion at all, if it is so wrong about so many things? I think this is the question that the recent surge of theological musicals is trying to answer. Take Book of Mormon for example. This musical pokes fun at the more ridiculous portions of the Mormon religion, yet at the end of the day, religion manages to bring together and breathe hope back into the lives of hopeless people. The bright, catchy tunes in musicals are able to remind audiences of the positive power of religion, maybe helping them remember why it was ever important in the first place.
Its pretty crazy that so many musicals nowadays are based on religion. I think its great- and I could understand this being the case for a number of reasons. It's funny that the common complaint for musicals and plays is that they are un-original, and some of the widely popular musicals currently are based on religion. Especially in the fact that the bible is a series of stories, these shows seem to be increasingly like far fetched musical adaptations to the holy book, the bible. I happily support basing musicals off of such material, because unlike some other books, the material that can be applied to stage is endless. The stories of the bible are also not only substantial, but also quite interesting.
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