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Entertainment Failure
Feb. 13th, 2011 05:48 pmI am, in case you hadn't figured this out yet, a serious fan of musical theater. I'll admit that I can't sing to save my life, and so I haven't shared the common theater-junkie's habit of performing in them myself, but I love to watch them.
And my favorite musical is almost certainly 'The Secret Garden.' I loved the book when I was a little girl, and when I heard that they had turned it into a Broadway musical, I was over the moon. It came out when I was in high school, and a friend and I skipped school one day, caught the shuttle bus to NYC, and picked up tickets. They were horrible nosebleed seats in the back row of the balcony, but it didn't matter. Within minutes of the start of the show, I was truly, utterly in love.
I haven't seen it since then. I have the soundtrack, but that's it. So when I was listening to the local all-Broadway radio show and I heard that a local theater was putting on a production of 'The Secret Garden,' I was delighted. And my husband, being a loving and thoughtful man, bought us tickets as a Valentine's Day present.
I had been looking forward to it for weeks, and when we got to the theater today I bounced happily to my seat, opened up the program.... and paused, as it informed me that we were about to see an an original interpretation of the story, written by one of the leaders of the local theater. I flipped to the description. Sure enough, none of the characters and none of the songs I had been looking forward to.
Apparently this was a "family friendly" version of the story. Which, more or less, meant that it was the original novel, but gutted, simplified, dumbed down, and full of either screechingly melodramatic or inappropriately perky songs (including, for those who are familiar with the characters, an early scene where Ben and Mary, upon meeting, perform a skipping little Shirley Temple tap dance in the garden, accompanied by a stuffed robin on a stick).
I'm sure, for the eight-year-olds in the audience, it was fine. Me? I couldn't stomach it; we left at intermission.
I'm not mad that they made the show. I'm not mad at the actors; they did the best that they could with the material. Heck; I'm not even mad at the writers - someone has to make shows for the ten-and-under set. But I am frustrated as hell, because I was promised something and delivered a completely different product. Nowhere in the advertising does it mention that this is NOT, in fact, the Tony-winning Broadway musical. Apparently the theater's web page does mention, in the fine print, the writer's name, but not in any way that made it clear to![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
umbran when he purchased tickets.
So. My day has taken an abrupt turn for the grumpy. I believe this is a crisis that can only be remedied with binge-spending at Michael's, hot tea, and sulking while listening to the real soundtrack....
And my favorite musical is almost certainly 'The Secret Garden.' I loved the book when I was a little girl, and when I heard that they had turned it into a Broadway musical, I was over the moon. It came out when I was in high school, and a friend and I skipped school one day, caught the shuttle bus to NYC, and picked up tickets. They were horrible nosebleed seats in the back row of the balcony, but it didn't matter. Within minutes of the start of the show, I was truly, utterly in love.
I haven't seen it since then. I have the soundtrack, but that's it. So when I was listening to the local all-Broadway radio show and I heard that a local theater was putting on a production of 'The Secret Garden,' I was delighted. And my husband, being a loving and thoughtful man, bought us tickets as a Valentine's Day present.
I had been looking forward to it for weeks, and when we got to the theater today I bounced happily to my seat, opened up the program.... and paused, as it informed me that we were about to see an an original interpretation of the story, written by one of the leaders of the local theater. I flipped to the description. Sure enough, none of the characters and none of the songs I had been looking forward to.
Apparently this was a "family friendly" version of the story. Which, more or less, meant that it was the original novel, but gutted, simplified, dumbed down, and full of either screechingly melodramatic or inappropriately perky songs (including, for those who are familiar with the characters, an early scene where Ben and Mary, upon meeting, perform a skipping little Shirley Temple tap dance in the garden, accompanied by a stuffed robin on a stick).
I'm sure, for the eight-year-olds in the audience, it was fine. Me? I couldn't stomach it; we left at intermission.
I'm not mad that they made the show. I'm not mad at the actors; they did the best that they could with the material. Heck; I'm not even mad at the writers - someone has to make shows for the ten-and-under set. But I am frustrated as hell, because I was promised something and delivered a completely different product. Nowhere in the advertising does it mention that this is NOT, in fact, the Tony-winning Broadway musical. Apparently the theater's web page does mention, in the fine print, the writer's name, but not in any way that made it clear to
umbran when he purchased tickets.So. My day has taken an abrupt turn for the grumpy. I believe this is a crisis that can only be remedied with binge-spending at Michael's, hot tea, and sulking while listening to the real soundtrack....
