The Tonys were on two nights ago, and now we all know just who came out on top. Could you believe it when School of Rock won for Best Musical?! (I kid.)* Now that all the awards have been handed out, there is another Broadway ranking that must be attended to: Which couples have what it takes to last beyond the final curtain?
Some rules for this list: I have excluded any musicals where characters are based on real people — we all know what happened to Alexander Hamilton, and we all know that the Von Trapps made it out of Austria okay. I’ve also cut out all couples in which one or more parties doesn’t survive — which eliminates quite a few famous characters. (Musicals are morbid, no?)
* No offense to Alex Brightman, who will definitely win a Tony at some point in his life. Just not this year. And not with Andrew Lloyd Webber.
Christine Daaé and Raoul Vicomte de Chagny, The Phantom of the Opera:
This may depend on which production you’ve seen, but Christine always seemed way more into the Phantom than Raoul. Christine and the Phantom get all the best songs, “All I Ask of You” is pretty meh when stacked up against “Point of No Return,” “Phantom of the Opera,” and “Music of the Night.” And when Raoul comes to rescue her from the Phantom’s lair at the end of the musical, she just really doesn’t seem all that excited to leave. I get that Raoul and the Phantom are supposed to represent two different choices for Christine, the Phantom being “Darkness” and Raoul being “Light,” but what’s wrong with a little Darkness (and probably some light bondage) when Light is that boring? In the prologue, we see Raoul as an old man after Christine has died, but it never explicitly states that they stayed together. I give Christine six months tops of living with boring old Raoul before she starts skulking around the old opera house, hoping for a little Phantom on the side.
(Also, I know there’s a sequel to this musical, but I have decided to pretend it’s not canon. I did, however, just look up the plot to Love Never Dies on Wikipedia, and boy is it is it wild.)
Maureen Johnson and Joanne Jefferson, Rent:
As the stand-in for La Boheme‘s Musetta, Maureen fulfills all the character requirements by being larger than life, self-centered, flirtatious, fabulous, and fond of tempestuous relationships. Said tempestuous relationship in Rent would be between Maureen and her girlfriend Joanne — a love affair that is consistently on-again/off-again. Though they’re technically together by the end of the musical, it feels like it’s only a matter of time before they break it off again. It’s likely they’ll have a couple more years of being on/off before Joanne finally decides to get off the merry-go-round for good. Either that, or Maureen’s going to dump her for someone else. (Not Mark, though.)
Joanna and Antony, Sweeney Todd:
Here’s a fun game: name as many Sondheim-written shows as you can that don’t end with someone dead, emotionally devastated, or both.
This romance is comprised of one person who is naïve to the ways of the world, and one person who has been through way too much shit to ever connect with people in a normal way ever again. Out of sheer survival instinct and a need to escape the carnival of horrors that is Sweeney Todd‘s London, Joanna will for sure marry Antony, but she’ll spend the rest of her days inwardly rolling her eyes at every pronouncement Antony makes about how beautiful the world is and how lucky they are to be alive. (Though I’ve always wondered: if Judge Turpin is dead, and Joanna was his ward and intended bride, does that mean she inherits his fortune? Because if that’s the case, Joanna’s going to drop Antony like a bag of rocks, go build a house in the most isolated place she can find, and enjoy the rest of her days as a hermit, with only her birds for company.)
Hodel and Perchik, Fiddler on the Roof:
They moved to Siberia. Well, they were forced to move to Siberia. Well, Perchik was forced to move to Siberia, and Hodel, with the bearing of a saint about to be martyred, agreed to join him there because she loved him just that much. If they don’t die of starvation or exposure, they’ll probably stay together, but it won’t be a great life.
Marius Pontmercy and Cosette, Les Miserables:
These two will stay together for life, though that has more to do with the fact that they exist in the mid-nineteenth century than their actual level of happiness. Neither person is at fault, really: Cosette is so sheltered she was bound to fall in love with the first boy who snuck over her garden wall, and Marius used to be on that same level of naïveté but is now stuck with an epic case of PTSD and survivor’s guilt. Their relationship will last the rest of their lives. At least Valjean left them a lot of money.
Bobby and Anybody, Company:
I really, really hope that Bobby finally does decide to become an active participant in the world. The song “Being Alive” is just that good, especially when sung by Raul Esparza. That being said, the odds of Bobby ending up committed in a loving, lasting relationship are 50/50 at best. In the finale he arrives at this wonderful epiphany, but epiphanies don’t always stick around long-term. And let’s face it, when it comes to love and relationships, Bobby’s friends are truly terrible role models: there’s Joanne, the bitter alcoholic on husband number three; Amy, the woman who ends up panicking under a table on the day of her wedding; and Harry and Sarah, who bait each other until they end up engaging in martial arts combat. (I would totally grab drinks with Joanne and make fun of everyone in the bar with her — but she’s not someone I’d model my whole life on.)
Princeton and Kate Monster, Avenue Q:
Here are some of the good points in Princeton and Kate’s relationship: they are incredibly compatible in bed, and over the course of the musical Princeton reaches a level of emotional maturity at which he might be able to provide Kate with the love and support she needs. These are the downsides: Princeton can be a little dense when it comes to the prejudice Kate faces as a monster, and I have a feeling that his dalliance with Lucy is going to be a chip on Kate’s shoulder for a while.
I can foresee Kate and Princeton having another rough patch about six months after they get back together. Princeton will start to feel inadequate when he observes Kate’s success with her Monstersori School, and Kate will overcompensate and end up making the situation worse. From there, we’ll see whether Princeton’s personal growth at the end of the musical is permanent. If it is, they’ll work through it and be fine. If not, Kate will just have to take comfort in her career success until she finds a person who is truly worthy of her.
Nathan Detroit and Miss Adelaide, Guys and Dolls:
Normally, I would not advocate for the “marry the man today and change his ways tomorrow” plan espoused by Adelaide, but in her case, tricking Nathan into marriage might not be the worst idea ever. Consider this: Nathan and Adelaide have been engaged for fourteen years, during which time Nathan never strayed. (Also of note: it seems pretty clear that those were not fourteen celibate years, so we know they’re sexually compatible.) The real hiccup in their courtship shouldn’t be Nathan dragging his feet to the altar — it should be his gambling problems. For the sake of her eventual mortgage, I would advise Adelaide to keep a separate bank account with a very secure password, or that persistent cold of hers might just flare up again.
Dolly Levi and Horace Vandergelder, Hello Dolly!:
Dolly deserves better than old stick-in-the-mud Horace. He never gives his employees a day off, he doesn’t approve of the way Dolly dresses, and he sings a whole song all about how having a wife means having an extra person to muck out the stable. Dolly’s first husband Ephram sounds like a hoot, and it’s a real shame that he died. In a perfect world, Dolly would wait around (she does just fine on her own, after all) until another man as fun-loving as Ephram comes along, or she’d fill up her house with a bunch of friends as amazing as she is, and live her life in a more Mame fashion (not a shock: Jerry Herman composed both musicals). But Dolly wants Horace, and Dolly pretty much gets whatever Dolly wants. And Dolly’s a smart lady — I think the main qualities she likes in Horace are that he’s rich and also dumb enough to be molded into pretty much whatever she wants. It’ll take a bit of effort on her part, but they’ll probably do alright.
Lizzie Curry and Sheriff File, 110 in the Shade:
I’m really rooting for these two. You might be expecting for me to say that Lizzie should end up with the passionate con man/rainmaker Starbuck, but I think the musical got it right: Starbuck is really good for a fling, but he doesn’t have the attention span to make it for the long haul. The caring, stable File is the ideal choice in this scenario. This is doubly true when you consider that, by her own admission, Lizzie doesn’t want to be an adventurer or a world traveller — she just wants to build a home and a family with someone who loves her.
This certainly doesn’t mean that Lizzie is submissive or lacking in personality — in fact, it’s alluded to that the reason she has so many troubles with men is because she’s so independent, and she refuses to dumb herself down in order to appear more charming. Both she and Sheriff File have their share of issues to work through — File has had trust issues ever since his wife left him, and Lizzie deals with plenty of insecurity — but they really seem to get each other. So Lizzie can have the best of both worlds: she can have awesome sex with Starbuck, give herself a good ego boost and leave before she gets wise to his flaky tendencies, and then she can go off and marry File. Everybody seems okay with this arrangement, so who am I to argue?
Mame and Vera, Mame:
Husbands come and husbands go, but Mame and Vera are for life. I flat-out refuse to believe that Mame isn’t shaking Vera’s rocks glass on a regular basis — they just keep it on the down-low; it’s still the 1920s. This is not to say that Mame and Vera don’t have their faults as a couple — some might say Vera drinks a little too much, and I don’t think she’s every going to really forget the time Mame ruined her play. The two also bait and insult each other constantly…but that’s part of their chemistry. They are both excellent communicators! They know when to give each other space, and they know when to come together and support one another. These two Bosom Buddies will be together for life.
Marian and Harold Hill, The Music Man:
The rest of the town thinks Marian is a weird librarian/harlot, so she’s just happy to meet a man who doesn’t support censorship. She inadvertently convinces Harold to give up the con and settle down, just by hanging out and being herself — she even tells him she’s okay with him leaving, and she’s just happy to have known him. Without any moralizing or pressure on her part, Harold decides he’s in love with her and sticks around.
As for their future, who knows? They might leave Iowa for a while and just travel around living by their wits, but I think an even better scenario would be if Marian ran for Mayor of River City, with Harold Hill as her campaign manager. She would do a bang-up job, he’s got the right personality for political machinations, and Marian would keep him (mostly) honest.
This is where I just shout ESPARZZZZZZZZZZA into the void like a mad man
I met him when he was doing the revival of Arcadia, and we had a delightful conversation about our love for the play and the fact he’s played both Valentine and Septimus over the course of his career. He is straight up the best.
(I have cried in the middle of midtown New York, on my way to work, just because his version of Being Alive came on Pandora when I was NOT EMOTIONALLY PREPARED.)
I was on the subway with my husband once and saw Raul Esparza because Scott was sitting right next to him. (I’d recognize that jawline anywhere.) Because I was sitting directly across from them, I couldn’t indicate to Scott that he needed to look to his right, and Scott, being a regular subway rider, was looking straight down like you’re supposed to. I tried to text him, but we were underground. As soon as we were up the stairs at our stop, I yelled, “YOU WERE SITTING NEXT TO DR. CHILTON THE WHOLE TIME!”
Right? I fell in love with him on SVU and when I found out he can sing my toes curled and my insides turned to jelly. Swoooon.
VIBRAAAATOOOOOO
*Bobby voice* STTTOOOOPPP!
Love Never Dies is fucking BANANAS and I am here to talk about its batshittery ALL DAY LONG
If you want a full-on rundown of every batshit thing in Love Never dies, have I got a link for you!
I’m watching it now. What a hoot! (I have never seen or listened to the musical, but i grew up in love with the first one and the novel.) When the Phantom sang “He’s just ten years old – TEN YEARS OOOLLLLLDDDD!” I burst out laughing!
(The mirrors during his rock song to Gustave are kind of cool though, since in the book he had a terrible burning mirrored trap room with nothing in it but a tree with a noose to hang yourself. But I’m going to pretend it’s coincidence here, not that someone actually read and remembered the book.)
Haha and I love the piece of art at the end!
It’s so crazy. I thought it would be a crazy in a fun terrible way, but after seeing the DVD of the Australia production, I think it is just terrible. One of the friends I watched it with knew someone who saw the original London production and she said they made it less crazy (no robot Christine).
I don’t know anything about it, but did you see THIS in the wiki?
“The Daily Mail announced in May 2007 that the sequel would be delayed, because Lloyd Webber’s six-month-old kitten Otto, a rare-breed Turkish Van, climbed onto Lloyd Webber’s Clavinova digital piano and managed to delete the entire score.”
Back up your shit, ALW!
OTTO HAD TO LISTEN TO HIM COMPOSE THAT SHIT, HE KNEW WHAT WAS UP
He was trying to save us!! Smart kitty
Such a gallant, valiant kitty!
Rare-breed cats=pretty much the same as regular cats, I see.
Truth. I have a Turkish Van rescue cat and while he IS exceptionally sweet and handsome, he is also just like a cat. He’s never deleted anything but he’s destroyed one upholstered chair and multiple rugs.
OH MY GOD, WHAT?!
WHAAAT is happening in this Wiki synopsis? Was ALW just like, “Yeaaaah, but what if we undid EVERYTHING we declared fact and cannon at the end of Phantom?”
Meg is a prostitute? She’s trying to drown Christine’s son? The Phantom is actually Christine’s son’s father from a night of passion?
Am I drunk?
No, you are simply experiencing Latter Day ALW
I know, poor Meg! She could have stayed in Paris and worked with Diaghilev! I think that’s what annoys me the most, poor Meg’s shoddy treatment in this fanfic. It’s all lies. (Everything else is lolz.)
Right? Meg clearly is the only one with sense. I feel like Madame Giry (or at least this coocoo crackpot version of her) maybe has some sort of Thing for the Phantom? Why else is she helping him move to CONEY ISLAND?
ALSO — Meg does a strip tease? How? How is this the same story line?
Plus Madame Giry. She’s turned into Mrs. Danvers or something?
And why doesn’t Raoul stick around to keep being a father to the boy he’s been a father to for the kid’s whole life? He’s just dumping him with the man who once tried to murder him, and who murdered a bunch of other people and kidnapped his wife? “Welp, he’s the kid’s father, I guess? And the poor little bastard’s mother is dead, so… Bye Gustave. I’m sure you’ll turn out fine. No I don’t need a minute to think about this, I may be drunk but I’m sure this is what’s best.”
“Phantom, you are never going to persuade me that my wife had consensual sex with you!?”
“But she did! She did!”
“Oh. Ok, you win. Here’s our son. He’s yours now. So long, kid.”
And then the next musical can be “Love Burns Out” where Gustave turns 18 years old, eighteen years ooooooolllllllddddd! and goes home to join the French army in WWI and finds Raoul and confronts him. “Why did you abandon me when I was ten to be raised by strippers and freaks in America? What kind of life is that for a French child? I didn’t even speak the language! I couldn’t go to school! I had to have music lessons inside that giant skull and mechanics lessons on trap doors and death magic! I can play an organ that’s also a machine gun so they put me in the army band instead of making me an officer like a real vicomte’s son.”
So the plot of LND is based on a book called “The Phantom of Manhattan” written by Frederick Forsyth. Apparently after having both read Leroux’s novel and seen Webber’s Phantom, Mr. Forsyth decided that ALW’s version was better and decided to write a novel that was a sequel to the musical. I read it in high school and it was really terrible. I have read many fanfictions on the interwebs that are better than that novel. But of course Lord Andy was all “oooh he thinks my Phantom is best, I shall adapt his novel!” So, in a way, Frederick Forsyth and his awful book are to blame. ALW would never have come up with this shit on his own.
I am just so mad because, leaving aside the way it makes no sense at all as a sequel to Phantom, Raoul and the Phantom/Mr Y are back playing tug-of-war with Christine and no-one thinks to ask her? At least in the finale of Phantom, she’s given the choice ‘Let the Phantom kill Raoul or go with him’ which is still rubbish.
But! They at least recognise she might have feelings about some of this, not just; we can gamble over whether or not she’ll sing and then NOT EXPLAIN what the effect of singing will be. Then she’s inadvertently made her husband leave purely because he didn’t say “I have a bet on with the Phantom and if you sing I have to leave and also don’t get my debts paid.”
Like, he begs her not to sing and she says “I have to” and he’s all 🙁 she chose him and I’m sit there and think… or she knows she has to sing to pay off your debts for the good of her kid/maybe your kid and generally everyone’s well being. She doesn’t know you made a STUPID bet and the opposite will happen because YOU DIDN’T TELL HER.
The Phantom, while still having a great couple of songs, is just as bad. Children, none of you learnt the lesson of POTO and now we are here and people are dying and everything is terrible. Just be poly, it will solve your problems maybe (if Christine can’t just leave them both)
THIS MUSICAL. I can’t decide if it makes me angry because it shits over every single thing in Phantom, or if I’m actually too confused by the plot to be angry at it. Why has the Phantom moved to Coney Island? Why is he running a vaudeville circus thing? Why is he the hero all of a sudden even though he’s threatening to murder Christine’s child? WHY IS CHRISTINE’S CHILD ALSO THE PHANTOM’S CHILD?
Also, ALW is just straight-up recycling his less successful stuff now, right? The title song from Love Never Dies is just Our Kind of Love from The Beautiful Game with the words changed (I have not seen the latter because no power on this earth will induce me to see a musical with any involvement from Ben Elton whatsoever, but my singing teacher made me learn it once). So both batshit AND derivative. Hooray!
CONEY ISLAND is a really, really weird jump from Paris. It’s like, I don’t know, resetting Man in the Iron Mask in Tuscaloosa instead.
I think the thing that kills me the most about Love Never Dies is that literally no one seems to remember that the Phantom is a murderer. Both the Phantom and Christine throughout the musical act as though his hideous face is the reason they didn’t end up together in PotO, in spite of her literally telling him that his haunted face holds no horror for her now, it’s in his soul that the true distortion lies. As far as Christine is concerned, his face is not even close to the top of the list of the issues she has with him. But then in LND she’s singing to her creepy son about how you have to “look with your heart, and not with your eyes” and that “love you misunderstand is love that you’ll regret.” Christine for some reason has fully bought into this notion that somehow she is responsible for the Phantom’s pain over being hideous rather than pointing out that his murderousness was the real deal-breaker in that situation.
SHE EVEN SKIPS OVER THE LYRICS WHEN SHE REPRISES TWISTED EVERY WAY! When she’s debating over whether or not to sing the Phantom’s song, she starts with “Twisted every way, what answer can I give?” and then lets the song continue instrumentally. Because you know what the words are after that? “Am I to risk my life to win the chance to live? Can I betray the man who once inspired my voice? Do I become his prey? Do I have any choice? He kills without a thought, he murders all that’s good.” Honestly, even if LND Christine had been like, “I know he has done some bad things but still I am drawn to him through the power of our intensely sexy musical connection,” I could 100% buy that. But “the Phantom is a Sad Puppy who no one liked because he is ugly” is just a stupid idea for all the characters to buy in to and it makes me angry.
PREACH!
Oh my goodness, it’s like terrible fanfic.
i saw it years ago in London (for some reason we got super cheap tickets) and was just like WTF IS THIS the whole entire time
I just went through the Wikipedia summary and /what kind of batshit fanfic is thiiiiiis/
“Here’s a fun game: name as many Sondheim-written shows as you can that don’t end with someone dead, emotionally devastated, or both.”
not a fun game! NOT A FUN GAME!
Merrily We Roll Along! (which doesn’t even really count because by the time it ends the audience, knowing the future of the characters, is emotionally devastated)
Oh god I’d left my abusive boyfriend (but still loved him) just before seeing it. At “Not A Day Goes By” I was ugly crying.
Hello- I did the same thing and I STILL CRY EVERY TIME I HEAR THAT SONG
TOO REAL SONDHEIM
I can’t decide if Sunday in the Park with George counts or not. Technically there are definitely character deaths, but none of them died of Sondheim-itis, so it’s definitely not the same as, say, Sweeney Todd. And the emotionally upset character isn’t really devastated, even though I cry over his song every time.
But I could be swayed by another argument.
Your thinking mirrors mine except with A Little Night Music. The grandma was old! And the marriages were already breaking down! If anything the ending is a bit happier than the beginning in a weird way.
The ending is much happier than the beginning! Anne is clearly going to be much happier with Henrik than with Fredrik, Fredrik is going to be much happier with Desiree (and vice versa), plus they’re going to dote on Fredrika like crazy, and the Countess got her husband to stop ignoring her and treat her like she deserves. (He’s still an asshole, but that’s a given.) Also, Petra got some with the footman.
Anyone Can Whistle tho!!!!!
This is where I mention, yet again, that Cosette and Marius are THE WORST EVER. I hope they got shingles.
I always thought that at least the fact that they end up together means that they’re concentrating their unbearable dullness genes between the two of them, rather than spreading them around. Whatever child they had would probably be too busy staring insipidly at a wall to reproduce and the line will end there.
Wow, why all the hate for Cosette and Marius? They’re sweet! And they’re going to need each other (and Marius’ wealthy grandfather) after she becomes an orphan and he has his PTSD. You guys are mean.
They do seem to be in love. I just find Cosette kind of boring and Marius a clueless douche (hello, Eponine? Way cooler than Cosette and already your friend). But I agree, they’ll stay together- I mean, they have to. Everyone else they know is dead.
Yeah, unfortunately he probably never would have returned Eponine’s love because she was so lower in class than him, even though he wants to be all egalite. She might have ended up as one of the “witty girls who went to our beds,” but he’d be saving love and marriage for “pretty girls who went to our heads.” But I think he barely even thinks of her as a girl. She’s like an errand boy or a pet dog who’s kind of amusing and useful to have around.
Anthony is the “silly little ninny-noddle” in that relationship. Johanna, who even has to kill the asylum keeper herself when he wimps out, is Sweeney’s daughter all the way.
As for “Fiddler,” I worry more about Tzeitel and Motel. They’re in Warsaw, trying to save some money for their passage, when the rest of the family leaves Anatevka; I have a terrible feeling they’ll still be there 30 years later and will die in the ghetto.
Nah, 100% of the family makes it to New York (including Hodel’s kids in about 30 years) and being a tailor is suddenly an amazing career choice. Motel gets to be a generous patriarch, Tzeitel manages to save fifteen passages from various ports in Russia out of the housekeeping budget.
From your mouth to God’s ears.
omg now I want Motel to be some sort of small town tailer turned haute couture designed success story
SOMEONE WRITE THIS FANFIC
Mame and Vera compare themselves to Gertrude Stein and Alice Toklas?
CANON.
Case closed
Lesbihonest, Joanne and Maureen (and Jewish Male Piper Chapman) are the only characters from RENT who aren’t dead of AIDS by 2000.There’s no way they have a strong enough relationship to survive that.
Well, the baby chose NYU so they can’t afford to split up.
Ach! The Phantom and Christine! Could not disagree more! To me, the Phantom is the ultimate Nice Guy. Giving, obsequious, adoring…until you don’t return his affections and then he turns into a crazy violent dude who feels entitled to women because he’s talented.
Not really saying Raoul is a great prize, either. But man, I do not enjoy the Phantom, nor find him romantic in any way.
I also thoroughly ignore the events of Love Never Dies.
Phantom is totally a Nice Guy, but that didn’t stop me from having a giant teenage crush on Gerard Butler in the Phantom movie. Consequently I was super annoyed with Emmy Rossum in that movie (although I probably would have disliked her as Christine regardless, because of her weird singing style).
Totally fair. I actively resent how attractive I find Gerard Butler, because I think he’s probably a trash human.
I mean, his last two movies were (I think) Gods of Egypt and London Has Fallen, so he at the very least picks shitty movies with racist plots/casting to act in?
I should also note that I found neither Johnny Depp nor Orlando Bloom attractive, shutting me out of many 9th grade conversations, and I was worried I was dead inside. My attraction to Butler-as-Phantom was kind of a relief.
As someone whose first two (male) crushes were Johnny and Orlando, I apologize, because holy shit we fangirls were obnoxious about them.
I used to have to sit with my guy friends at lunch to get a reprieve from the fangirling, haha.
What should have happened is that when your friend group is split between Frodo and Legolas, one of your other unobsessed girlfriends makes a joke about “But that GOLLUM, guys, wow…” -fans self- thereby opening up the opportunity to participate in hot guy discussions with the joke of your choice.
The Nazgul are mine. All nine of them. Because black is a classy color.
He’s the Nice Guy who goes on murder rampages, so yeah, definitely not a good choice for romance.
To me, Phantom is clearly sociopath (I mean, he’s had a hard life, it’s understandable, but STILL) and poor Christine is too naive at the beginning to see that (HEY WE’VE ALL BEEN THERE) and is taken in by his angelic voice. WHICH is also why I’m always SO, SO selective of my Phantom casting, because he needs to have a voice that is angelic enough to reasonably make a girl think it could be the angel of her father come to teach her. Raoul is the one who is like, “Oh, honey, let’s get some therapy.”
I feel like not enough people take note of the fact that Christine is incredibly unstable, emotionally. In some ways, her relationship with the Phantom is sort of a terribly unfortunate coincidence in that two people that fucked up just happened to encounter each other and also to have neuroses that feed into the other’s.
Oh my God YES. I know several men who modeled their early romantic personas on the Phantom and it is just a tar pit of terribleness, ugh.
I honestly hate the fact “Jewish Male Piper Chapman” describes Mark perfectly.
As long as they sing “Take Me or Leave Me” in public every. single. time. they break up, I guess I’m OK with an On/Off Mauren/Joanne relationship that ends with them off.
Is Alex bright man related to Sarah bright man? It doesn’t say on Wikipedia, but that would be a weird coincidence, if not. It’s not that common a name. Yet nobody has mentioned Andrew Lloyd weber creating a musical to give his nephew a job. Am I just that removed from theater gossip?
I am intrigued by this too. I googled it and could find nothing to suggest they were related – even a quip from ALW about how he finds casting someone named Brightman a good omen – but I do 100% believe that ALW would create a musical to give his nephew a job.
Looks like no relation, although ALW did make a joke about the casting last year…
http://www.playbill.com/article/i-have-no-intenti…
This is what I want out of my internet content! Just this. Only this. How monetarily feasible is a website devoted solely to my musical obsession? Because I’m starting one.
I feel like I know too many real life Bobbys to ever believe that one can be in a successful relationship.
I have to believe that Petra from A Little Night Music will end up okay with whoever she settles down with (perhaps the miller’s son, finally getting herself a nice piece of property?)
Petra is my personal savior, and I choose to believe that whoever she does settle down with is okay with what “has to be done on the sly”, in a DADT pre-modern-poly way.
Petra is Madame Armfeldt’s working-class counterpart. She’ll do fine (but probably won’t get a Titian or a duchy. Maybe a fire opal).
Christine was generally just hurting for decent romantic suitors. I mean, your choices are really between obsessive, violent recluse and milquetoast viscount? Or maybe milquetoast isn’t quite right for Raoul. He’s more the guy who thinks he’s badass, but only because he’s never been actually challenged in any way and ends up basically useless when the rubber hits the road.
Anyway what I’m saying is surely there are more dudes who come by the opera house, Christine.
I would pay good (okay, average) money to see a musical about all the wacky opera patrons who are mystified by what’s going on during Phantom.
I’m imagining Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead but set at the Paris opera house. Alternatively, Statler and Waldorf in a box giving a running commentary.
Yes please!
Someone set up a GoFundMe to get this made NOW.
Just all the season ticket holders trying to get their money back after the umpteenth performance ends abruptly before intermission.
“I’ve been to this opera 5 times, and have yet to see its conclusion. No stars.”
“My husband has a weak constitution. I don’t know if his heart can take another falling chandelier.”
“The number of chorus members elevated to starring roles at the last minute is significantly lowering the standard of arias in this theater.”
Yeah, I can see how Christine and the Phantom were never going to work out but Raoul? Raoul her childhood friend? The thought of marrying any of my childhood crushes makes me do a full-body shudder. This is why I’m glad I don’t live in 1826 or whatever.
Poor Raoul, he doesn’t think he’s a badass! He knows he’s just a gentleman dandy, but he goes and fights against a known murderer in his own lair to rescue the woman he loves who has been kidnapped. And then when he’s caught in a trap himself, he tells her to save herself from the maniac rather than try to save his life. He’s doing the best that he can.
YOU WILL NOT MAKE ME FEEL EMPATHY FOR RAOUL.
Raoul is okay. But he’s pretty dismissive of Christine’s emotions a lot of the time. I mean, his first response to realizing who she is during Think of Me is essentially, “Woah. She got hot!” When he invites himself into her dressing room after the show (presumptuous much?), she opens up to him emotionally about the death of her father and even confesses her secret about being visited by an angel. And Raoul is like, “Haha, an angel! You are so cute! Get changed so I can take you to dinner!” When she protests, he fully steamrolls her objections.
On the rooftop, he keeps insisting that there is no Phantom of the Opera, even as she is literally describing her time in the Phantom’s lair to him.
In Masquerade, after the goddamn chandelier almost fell on her, he is pestering her about why she wants to keep their engagement a secret and asking what she’s afraid of. Dude, she’s afraid of the guy who murdered someone six months ago and almost dropped a chandelier on her! Were you drunk for the whole first act?
Haha, you make some very good points. But to be fair, she DOES sound a bit delusional talking about angels and ghosts of her dead father giving her magic singing lessons in her head. Raoul probably believes it’s just some bad guy in a mask like a Scooby Doo villain pretending to be a ghost to scare people and steal her love (which I think is what he means when he says the phantom is a fable – because he also wonders who the man is who hunts to kill, this mask of death. Which is true, it’s a man, not a ghost.) He’s a normal belle epoque dandy who has been lifted and dropped into a very abnormal storyline. Maybe he should have gone for Meg. But he finally gets it in the end!
Wow, now that I write all that out, I realize it sounds like Cupid and Psyche, and her jealous sisters who thought that Cupid must be a monster, so they got out the lamp and ruined it all. Raoul is jealous – and it’s silly to be jealous of a ghost, so he dismisses his rival as her imagination OR as an evil man, just a man.
(I’ve never been a big Raoul fan, always felt kind of meh about him, but I’m still writing to defend him because I think he’s as good as one can expect, and now I’m getting more and more interested in his viewpoint.)
To be fair, Christine didn’t have all that many sparkling personality traits either. The only one that stands out was an ability to leave that the guy giving her singing lessons through the walls was an angel sent by her father. She and Raoul probably would’ve been pretty happy together (completely ignoring the bonkers events of Love Never Dies)
Danny and Sandy break up like three minutes after the end of Grease, clearly.
And then, Sandy and Rizzo forever.
How.
How did I never think of this.
HOW!
I’m now so happy and also so sad for past me who lived so long without this in her life.
I have never clicked on an article so fast in my life. This is all great.
(Also, I was shocked that Eliza Doolittle and Henry Higgins weren’t here, until I realized they’d be so far at the top of the list they are probably hovering somewhere over my monitor.)
It doesn’t count if the couple’s ending got adapted into your musical adaptation of a play and the original author specifically said it would never work.
They are already breaking up in the last few seconds, when he asks for his slippers, because it shows he has Learnt Nothing.
No, no no no! He didn’t mean it like that. ‘Twas a joke. (I 100 percent know this FOR A FACT. 🙂 ) I’m convinced that Eliza and Higgins made it — I don’t know how, but they did. Because she’d learned to stand up and throw everything right back in his face, and that was exactly what he needed. (And he was the only man in her life intelligent enough to keep up with her, which was exactly what SHE needed.)
I saw a version of My Fair Lady at a dinner theater once where, at the ending, Eliza flings Henry’s slippers at him and they both barely suppress their laughter. If you have to stick with the original ending, I think this is a good way to go.
Clearly!
But she wouldn’t choose Freddy, either. Even if he did resemble Jeremy Brett. All because he didn’t Show Her.
Oh, agreed. Eliza is too good for anyone in this show.
I would allow Freddy to call on me for vigorous sexual relations, though.
Yes I was waiting for them too!
I ship Higgins/Pickering pretty hard, and I think Shaw did too.
The subtext of his essay was definitely “wait, did any of you actually think that either Higgins or Pickering is interested in women? Just…why would you think that?”
That is a relationship that can stand the test of time.
They were in the list of old Hollywood movie couples – and indeed they were the first and worst.
http://the-toast.net/2016/04/26/which-classic-hol…
That explains it! I never should have doubted.
Harold (Gregory) and Marian forever. (As long as I have The Sims and my River City neighborhood, anyway.) I am not a shipper, but that is a ship I will never abandon. The mayor idea is delightful; I think I will switch to that headcanon now.
Dolly clearly knows just what Horace and his money should be doing, and I think they will both be happy doing just that.
Madam Mayor-ian is absolutely 100% canon now, no dissent will be acknowledged.
The only problem is: will Eulalie gracefully step aside? I mean, clearly Mayor Shinn needs to retire and relax, away from the stresses of mayoral life–maybe he will even manage to finish his Gettysburg address. But Eulalie is a woman of action. Perhaps she should open a dance academy, or run for state government. YE GODS!
THEORY: the casting direcor for the recent Phantom of the Opera movie MISTAKENLY hired Gerard Butler as the Phantom thinking he was Raul Esparza only to realize their mistake too late so they had to hire other mediocre singers for Christine and Raul to lower the bar so it would be less noticable.
Apparently Anne Hathaway was originally cast as Christine. She had to back out due to her contractual obligation to film….Princess Diaries 2.
I support this theory all day. I love to look at Gerard Butler but the man cannot sing, especially not an opera themed musical. His falsetto hurt me, personally.
Before the 1970s, there was a tradition in Hollywood of casting big actors, and then having actual competent singers to dub them (see: Marni Nixon, who was the voice of everyone, including Natalie Wood and Audrey Hepburn).
Watching POTO, I have no idea why they ever gave that up.
They did it for Carlotta, though, is the crazy thing! So it created this really weird thing where they had to use extras to try to convince the audience that Carlotta was bad (maids stuffing cotton in their ears while she sang) and Emmy Rossum was good (everyone looking at her rapturously) when the opposite was in fact true.
I’m biased on Phantom of the Opera because I read the book it’s based on. Don’t judge me, our high school took us to see it and I wanted to know the story before we went. The book makes it clear that Christine pities the Phantom but doesn’t love him, and that she and Raoul have been in love with each other since they were children.
But Raoul is still sooooo borrrrinnnnggg in the book.
I do find it sort of hilarious that the phantom’s name is Erik, though. Erik with a K!
I mean, somebody has to love the boring dudes though.
To be fair, Christine isn’t all that dynamic, either.
^^^^true story. The setting is the true winner for that book.
Confession: I briefly decided I was a re-incarnation of Gaston Leroux because, well, that is exactly the kind of pretentious twerp I was in jr. high.
SAME, yes.
I realized halfway through this article that none of my favorite Broadway couples made this list except Adelaide and Nathan. Because, you know, musicals are devastating.
I feel like a horrible child-hating musical philistine, because the School of Rock Tony performance left me feeling incredibly “meh.” I am a lifelong musical nerd and I just couldn’t see the appeal. I assume it was just bad and no one else wanted to say so publicly.
Oh my god, I have never read the synopsis for Love Never Dies, just a blurb when it was in pre-production that it was set in Coney Island and the luminous and underutilized Sierra Boggess was playing Christine again. What the hell? I maintain my stance that ALW has written two decent musicals in his life and Tim Rice probably dragged him on his lyrical coat-tails through both (Evita and Jesus Christ Superstar). I used to love Cats, but I’m not sure of my opinion these days…
Raoul is like a cardboard cut-out of a person. I can see the appeal of all of the control Christine would have in that relationship, but otherwise, no. Like having sex with a bowl of oatmeal or something.
The one good thing I’ll say about LND is that I do really like the song “Til I Hear You Sing.” I love Ramin Karimloo and Sierra Boggess is pretty great, too. I’m glad both of them emerged from LND with their careers intact.
I saw School of Rock (for free). It was fine. The kids were talented. I haven’t seen the movie, but I have the impression that they literally just put the same thing onstage. Also I love Sierra Boggess, so that helped.
Correct, if my experience as a “love the movie; saw the Tony awards thing” person counts. The movie is cute, it helps if you like Jack Black (as I do, TREMENDOUSLY), and that scene on the Tony’s is a real scene in the movie except without the song, which did.not.help.
The thought has been running through my head all week; I think this is the best place to post this. How many chorus girls do you think the phantom went through before finding one as gullible as Christine?
How dare you?! The Phantom is truly in love with Christine, and has been … since she was a … small child.
I forget why that’s better.
Only the filmed version implies that the Phantom has been singing to Christine since she was a child. Both the novel and the stage version suggest that the Phantom and Christine’s singing lessons have only been going on for maybe six months or so before the events of the narrative begin.
Perchik is by far the worst suitor in Fiddler in the Roof. I recently rewatched the movie and I was kind of shocked by what a jerk he is. Bleh.
Ah, Marian. 12-year-old me had a huge crush… the lady who knows what time it is!
Same
But do we think Elphaba and Fiyero stay together at the end of Wicked? Girlfriend deserved a little happiness.
Full disclosure: I have not read any of the novels.
How have I never seen that Angela Lansbury/Bea Arthur performance before?!
People. People. Did you check out the wikipedia link? Because it’s worth it for this:
“The Daily Mail announced in May 2007 that the sequel would be delayed, because Lloyd Webber’s six-month-old kitten Otto, a rare-breed Turkish Van, climbed onto Lloyd Webber’s Clavinova digital piano and managed to delete the entire score.”
I feel a very strange sense of glee.
I had two, simultaneous reactions to this amazing story:
1 – lol, good kitty!
2 – omg, Andrew Lloyd Webber and I have the same breed of cat.
(My Turkish Van is a rescue cat and he is exceptionally handsome and sweet. He’s also a dedicated physicist and is conducting a decades long study into the properties of water.)
That cat is my new hero.
CATS
I once saw someone pose the question, “Why do you think Christine chooses Raoul over the Phantom?” Uh…because Raoul is nice and normal and handsome and loves her and the Phantom is a murderous, controlling creep in a mask whose one redeeming quality is that he’s a good singing teacher?
Yeah, but… Christine DOESN’T choose Raoul over the Phantom. She’s totally ready to stay with her stalker, and he has to SHOO HER AWAY when they hear the mob coming. Whatever math she’s doing, I’m pretty sure it ain’t “rich and titled fiancée who prioritizes my well-being over life itself > dude in the sewer.”
Er, no. She chooses to sacrifice herself to save the man she loves from her violent, obsessive stalker. “Pitiful creature of darkness” doesn’t speak very highly of how she sees him. You can also make the argument, which I think is very strongly supported, that she is hoping to distract him long enough that the mob will arrive before he kills Raoul.
My dream is to perform as Harold Hill in The Music Man. I am too kind/shy/Minnesotan to actually be a dapper rogue, but I do love playing them on stage.
Mame + Vera 4 LYFE
Yessss for Phantom > Raoul.
Is Phantom great? Sure nope. But Raoul spends the whole show manipulating and gaslighting Christine, plus super creepy offers to “guard and guide” her. Which she’s probably into cause of her obsession with her dad!!! WORK ON YOURSELF FIRST, CHRISTINE.
My point is phantom is also gross but he has musical genius and a lair. #alliask
(grin) In the book she’s more in control of her relationship with Raoul.
I was cringing so hard from all the secondhand shame by the time I got the the actual synopsis on the Love Never Dies page that I had to take a little walk and then come back to it. How? HOW?
I went to a movie theater screening of LND a few years ago, it really is THAT BAD. I was cringing the entire time! It just… doesn’t make any sense at all, it’s so weird.
I’ve never understood what Princeton’s thought process was with that mix tape. Forget whether or not there’s a coherent message about his feelings for Kate; the song-to-song flow is TERRIBLE. Also, why you would include a live version of “Goodnight Saigon” on a chill playlist possibly designed to tell your neighbor that you have a crush on her?
Can we discuss how Raul Esparza some *lost* the Tony for this performance? That was real and it happened and I’m still looking for answers.
bobby’s gay though RIGHT or am I a CRAZY?
I maintain my crush on Robert Preston.
Why no evaluation of Curly and Laurey? 🙁 they’re the only R&H ship that doesn’t end in death or pursuit by Nazis.
Oh yes Curly, thank you very much. Love him.
OH! And what about ALL the brides and brothers from Seven Brides?! That’s a lot of relationships to dissect and discuss.
Nellie Forbush and Emile de Becque would like to have a word with you.
Oh, oh, thank you for mentioning Dolly and Horace. I fell in love with this musical when I was a little girl because Barbra’s fingers are so long in those gloves, and COME ON with the dresses and hats. Plus I have always loved Walter Matthau since I was a wee lass because he seems so snuggly, even though he wants to be grumbly. Awww. Like a bulldog or something.
Anyway, he’s damn lucky to have her.