This year, Australian theatre audiences have seen stage adaptations of the films School of Rock, Billy Elliot, Saturday Night Fever and Muriel’s Wedding. Tom Kitt and Lin-Manuel Miranda’s adaptation of Bring It On, based on the 2000 cheerleading movie, has already played in Melbourne and Perth and opened in Sydney last week.
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I am of the opinion that adaptations are inherently more difficult because you have to appease the original audience as well as an entirely new audience. You can’t assume that everyone understands the groundwork, but you can’t over explain either. However, this article is looking at Australia and Australian performances and adaptations. It’s interesting to consider that there have been stage adaptations of the films, School of Rock, Billy Elliot, Saturday Night Fever, and Muriel’s Wedding. It seems that Australia is chugging along in providing their audiences with stage adaptations of successful movies. It’s not a bad tactic. Not only are they doing this with films, but with novels as well. In my opinion, novels are a bit more difficult than films because there is inherently more information in a novel. I’m sort of confused in general about the purpose of this article. I mean I would think that anyone who is interested in adapting a work for the stage would know the avenues they could go to achieve an adapted work.
A prevalent situation in society today is the recreation of classic movies in musical format (i.e. Mean Girls, BeetleJuice, etc.). While this is occurring more and more recently, the article brings up a valid point of view I hadn’t considered prior: most musicals prior to the rise of cinema were based on novels and books. Such a detail makes the “Broadway needs to return to original stories” argument slightly less valid. One of the most popular shows on Broadway, Les Miserables, for example is based on a book. Thus, the defense of much of the Broadway originality argument falls short as, similar to Les Miserables, many of the examples of originality are based around media-influenced shows. Off of this, I see no real issue in basing musical productions off of modern films, so long as the power of media are not abused. However, as the article mentions, I agree that musical reincarnations of modern films should introduce a new aspect to the world, story, or characters, such as Bring It On’s LGBTQ messages. Ultimately, this progression is a positive thing from what I can tell, so long as the people behind Broadway don’t abuse their power and make the theater things everyone has seen before, or an experience one can get watching the film at home on the couch.
Unfortunately, I cannot remember the exact words, but an American critique John Corbin said something like in order to be successful in the theatre business, an artistic audience is as important as an artistic performance, back in the early 20s. However, this theory will not pass in these days, where the art is taken over by capitalism. That might be a little exaggerated, but it is a fact that an advertisement is an essential factor in the modern theatre industry. Therefore, I do not object to the creators who is trying to make the best possible use of the hit movie by making it into a musical, or the other way around. It can partially omit the step of selecting and attracting the audience, and it does develop the theatre industry. However, the importance of developing original works must not be ignored. To be more precise, people who are trying to develop original works must be valued more highly. I believe the current problem lies in the allocation of funds.
I think this article brings attention to an interesting development from recent years of recreating classics in different formats. I've questioned whether this is to take advantage of our generation's nostalgia culture, and though many have critiqued this practice as unoriginal or destroying the industry's creativity... I'm quite a fan of it! I think it's fun to rewatch something that has been translated into a different style. Though I do agree that original work is more important, I think that there is still creativity involved in adapting, say, a movie, into a musical and recreating its spaces and developing a score. I do believe there is a demand for it, but also, I do worry that for some people this is a cheap and easy route to make more money faster. If a recreation maintains its integrity, however, I think it has the power to bring lots of good. An example that comes to mind for me is a 21st century interactive web-series adaptation of Pride and Prejudice that I absolutely love! It's so different yet so familiar to the novel, and it never once feels like a money grab. I would love to see more adaptations like this, but I really hope that these sorts of works don't eventually drown out the voices of the new and original plays, musicals, etc. etc. that we can be seeing and loving and appreciating and one day years from now adapting into a different format.
If given the choice, I will almost always gravitate towards original shows. Amongst other reasons, they tend to be better accepted - and therefore perceived as a better show - because there aren’t enough expectations to be let down by when they are unrealised or unfulfilled. I don’t know why, but I didn’t realise that “Billy Elliot the Musical” was adapted from the movie. I think, because I saw the musical before I saw the movie, I just assumed that it came before. Generally, I think that musicals borne from movies are not as good, especially when they are cult classics. “Mean Girls”, “Tootsie”, and “Heathers” all fell a bit flat for me (from what I’ve seen of all of them). When all a musical does is copy the structure of a movie (typically while taking some technical short cuts), it is almost always bound to fall short of expectations. Just like movie reboots, a musical reboot will almost never be as good as the original.
I have never really been a fan of screen-to-stage adaptations. Perhaps it’s the result of being the stage manager for (not one but) two particularly traumatizing productions of Legally Blonde, but I always find myself drawn to the originals. I tend to be closed minded in this opinion, but this article brought a new viewpoint to mind that I hadn’t really considered before—before movies, the productions seen on stage WERE adapted. From books. However, I still think that original productions offer more to the audience. Theatre is about telling stories and offering messages to the viewing audience. In this case, why spend a considerable sum of tine and money to copy a film onto stage, when you could increase the number of NEW stories being told (I’m looking at you, cult classics). Of course, a few of the fun and nostalgic productions can be up, but it’s just irritating when the vast majority of shows in a season are adaptations.
Yes and no, there is an argument on both sides of the aisle here when talking about musicals that are directly adapted from a movie. The first argument is that it just rips off the original to squeeze every penny out of the original movie, which is highly capitalist. On the other hand, something that these remakes and remounts bring to the table is its ability to take older and more antiquated texts and stories and convert them to be much more nuanced and socially aware, in a sense it aligns them with the current world by bringing women and people of color to the forefront. I know certain musicals like tootsie, which is problematic in its own sense, but you can see the idea or though that they tried to put into it. A more successful version of this idea is seen in King Kong, where the musical aims to portray the leading female character as more than just a damsel in distress, as it is in the movies.
The idea of creating a stage musical out of popular movies is one that has been a very interesting phenomenon. While I have not seen that many, I do understand that there can be very different interpretations of a stage musical than the original film. Adaptations can be and many times are fun, and sometimes they improve upon their source material. There is a very interesting conversation happening in the entertainment industry in terms of adapting material into additional movies that are clear copies of the originals. These have faced backlash. Similarly, there is a criticism of a lack of originality when it comes to seeing a show that was once a movie. This appears to be a legitimate issue that feels similar to the issue with remaking or rebooting movies. While there are many talented people who work on the reimagining of these previously created works, this talent can most certainly be applied in the creation of an original project.
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