Over the past six years, both the silver screen and the Broadway stages have elevated each other to new heights. As often as movie producers have dipped into the ever-warming waters of material on the Great White Way, composers and book-writers have relied upon the support and ideas of their California counterparts. In recent years, the Grandest Canyon has played host to musical versions of "Legally Blonde", "Hairspray" (which was likewise adapted back into a movie musical following the success of the stage version), "Mary Poppins", "The Little Mermaid, "Spamalot", "Cry Baby", "Young Frankenstein", and even... "Xanadu". Fortunately, the recent production played off the campiness of the material in an extremely effective manner, and is even now nominated for the "Best Musical" Tony presented June 15th. Movie musicals are frequently frowned upon by the Broadway bloggers and snootier members of the theatrical community for being unoriginal and catered to blockbuster-seeking tourists rather than more sophisticated Broadway audience members. There may be truth in this, as in examining the list above, only "Spamalot", "Hairspray" and "Xanadu" have been met with critical and audience praise, though "Mary Poppins" and "Little Mermaid" continue to play to full houses weekly. Though no one can deny that Mel Brooks' adaption of "The Producers" effectively 'saved' the American musical in 2001, and pulled it through the depression following 9/11. "Billy Elliot", with a score by Elton John, arriving later this year, is rumored to follow in "The Producers" footsteps as a massive moneymaking hit.
For as much as Broadway chooses the more light-hearted and even soul-less selections out of Hollywood's catalogue, the most successful adaptions of recent movie musicals are some of the darkest seen in the Big Apple. "Sweeney Todd", released last winter with Johnny Depp starring, is one of the more commercially difficult Broadway ventures- typically a difficult sell to tourists due to its morbid and operatic plot-line. "Chicago"'s stage incarnation is even blacker and more cynical than its Oscar-winning movie version; with it's original production running just over two years, and losing the best musical race (honorably) to "A Chorus Line". Although this summer's "Mamma Mia", and last year's hit, "Hairspray" are pure fluff and fun, upcoming projects look to follow the darker side of the genre. "Nine", chronicling a film-maker's struggle for connection and identity, (2009) will surely re-define the genre with a cast-list reading like a "Who's Who" for Hollywood, with stars including Daniel Day Lewis, Nicole Kidman, Judi Dench, Penelope Cruz, Marion Cotillard and Sophia Loren. "Follies", a Sondheim creation chronicling the lost loves and haunted memories of aging and tormented chorus dancers, (allegedly 2009, but I'm betting on an extension) was one of the most mysterious and lauded flops in Broadway history, with no major revival ever mounted due to the enormous costs required in design. The original production has become something of a myth in Broadway culture, as one of the most perfect and wrongly-done musicals of all time. The age of Hollywood's song and dance men and their toe-tapping routines has faded, and (for now at least), the silver screen has developed a more sophisticated and refined taste and definition of when song should be broken into. I, for one, am mesmerized. Just nobody mention the word "Xanadu", and we should be looking forward to many movie musicals to come.
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