Student Blog: Movie Musicals as the Star of the Theatre Community: The Obligations for Stage-to-Screen Adaptations
Movie musicals are a wonderful opportunity for musical theatre to be accessable to more viewers.
As most BroadwayWorld readers are surely aware, movie musicals far too frequently seem to miss the mark when attempting to capture live theatre’s charm. This prevalent discrepancy when comparing a work across the two artistic mediums is largely due to the fact that live theatre is so special for a multitude of reasons, meaning that there is no replicable quality that will single-handedly initiate a smooth translation. Despite the difficulty of adapting, theatre’s magnetism can be closely curated through aiming to satisfy the theatre community in filmmaking. Without doing so, a stage-to-screen adaptation can be released that is totally misrepresentative of musical theatre altogether. Even so, the fatal flaw of theatre-lovers is our relentless loyalty to the art, meaning that we can be consistently expected to buy tickets to any movie musical. This essentially frees filmmakers with a capitalistic focus from concerning themselves with the extensive desires of the theatre community, who instead, choose to target less-reliable audiences in hopes of securing the largest box office gain possible. Not only do these films tend to appear mediocre to theatre-fans, but, they generally fail to dazzle ordinary groups of ticketholders; further cultivating the narrative that musical theatre “just sucks.”
This is not to say that we have not been blessed in the adaptation department (see: Wicked, Wicked: For Good, and tick, tick…BOOM!), but rough adaptations have obviously contaminated the genre to the point where I feel that they are worth speaking out against. Although I previously stated that it was impossible to pinpoint an attribute of live theatre that must be copied by filmmakers, I hope that this article can serve as a guide towards broad consenuses of the theatre community. Here are some aspects that me, and many other theatre-lovers, would love to see incorporated into the next wave of movie musicals:
Preservation of Theatrical Integrity
Many significantly underwhelming movie musicals that have been presented to audiences can attribute their regrettable status to the negligence of theatrical principles in movie-making. The line between what is only appropriate for stage versus screen is difficult to draw, and is largely dependent on circumstance. However, some key features that can help in preserving the theatrical integrity of many works are as follows:
- Casting qualified theatre actors
- Maintenance of dance and ensembles
- Careful reworking of the score and book (incorporating all essential songs to drive the plot forward)
- Striving to achieve a theatrical lense
Risk-Taking
Many of our beloved Broadway musicals made their way into the spotlight for being uniquely groundbreaking. Musical theatre is so much more than entertainment and, oftentimes, lauded shows in this category make bold statements that hold a mirror up to controversial social realities in a non-threatening way. Even though movie musicals are expected to be the "film version" of a particular stage production, this doesn’t exempt them from being special in their own right. Contexts around the debuts of a show versus its corresponding film are likely to be wildly different; it is the job of filmmakers to flaunt the source material’s modern-day (aka: why we need this movie now). Risk-taking is integral to any great movie musical, as it allows for a film to be much more resonant with audiences.
This article in no way is intended to stir up hatred for movie musicals that have proved to be disappointing, because just like on Broadway, no production is pleasing to all. I am simply hoping to call attention to this issue in a respectful manner in order to create positive change. The aforementioned asks have been assembled out of love for musical theatre and my wish to extend this love to a wider audience. Movie musicals are a wonderful opportunity for musical theatre to be accessable to more viewers. Musical theatre has the power to change hearts and minds; it would be incredible for all movie musicals to make use of this power to the best of their ability and change the world for the best.
