The Difficulty of What’s Difficult
There’a a moment in William Goldman’s novel “Magic” that I remember well even thought I read it 30 years ago… a magician does a very difficult, subtle trick, and the audience hardly notices. He starts to shout at them, “Do you have any idea how hard this is?”
Sometimes I wonder why actors in musicals don’t ever do that, although I’m sure they’re tempted. Back when I was a literary manager, reading unproduced plays, we would always laugh when somebody sent in the manuscript for their new original musical. Writing a good, produceable play was hard; writing a musical anyone could or would stage is practically impossible. To a first approximation, it never happens. Even if you have the most glorious collection of performers, writers, composers, designers, directors, and a mint of money (cough cough “The Addams Family” cough cough) things never work out.
So I’m particularly pleased to tell you about two that did, which you should see at the earliest opportunity:
In Chicago: The House Theatre (full disclosure: I’m on their board and I love them and wish I could I be them) just opened their original rock musical “Girls Vs. Boys” at the Chopin Theater. Adolescent agonies and sex and drugs and lust, written by Nate Allen, Chris Matthews and Jake Minton, set to an amazing score by Nate Allen and Kevin O’Donnell, choreographed by Tommy Rapley, staged by Nate. It’s raw and funny and loud and kinetic; the actors are gorgeous and passionate and, as Nate put it to me, “will melt your face off.” This is the show the cast of “Spring Awakening” might have put on after hours just to amuse themselves… you know, when they could really cut loose. Ticket info is here.
And in New York: my dear friend Jack Lechner, one of the cleverest people I know, wrote the lyrics for a new musical based on Dan Savage’s moving memoir of adoption, “The Kid.” This seems like the happiest collision of geniuses I’ve come across in a while. New Yorkers: go see it.
April 25th, 2010 at 4:31 pm
Your first paragraph reminded me of the story from Jim Bouton’s Ball Four about Mickey Mantle hitting a home run while hung over, then coming back to the bench and telling his teammates, “Those people have no idea how hard that really was.”
April 26th, 2010 at 7:25 am
As a former literary manager myself, I waded through literally thousands of new play submissions and never once found a musical worth looking at twice. Sadly, that included the artistic director, who still thinks that Beowolf was crying out for a dance number. I almost never find musicals enjoyable, mostly because of the problems with even coming up with a good one to stage and secondly because of the dearth of talented actors who can pull off what’s required.
But man, when it works….
April 26th, 2010 at 10:28 am
A good musical *is* magic.
April 26th, 2010 at 3:43 pm
Actually, the Addams Family show made it to Broadway and seems to be doing okay, despite almost no critical enthusiasm. No, the ::cough cough:; should actually read “(cough cough SPIDERMAN: THE MUSICAL cough cough)” That one has already eaten up untold millions, involves megastars Julie Taymor and U2, the gutting and complete reconstruction of a theater to support the insane special effects, and still doesn’t have an opening date. What’s most troubling to me is that Bono and The Edge, from U2, claim they wrote the entire score in a weekend.