ALW & Les Mis- Page 2

[FoscasBohemianDream]

Posted: 1/25/06 at 1:40am

Kitzarina, I support you all the way so keep them coming.
Les Miserables did get condemned for its dark nature but The New York Times gave it a good review, the Times critic wasn't too fond of Randy Graff or David Bryant though. He loved Ms.Ruffelle who would later take a Tony, and he enjoyed "One Day More" very much. Also, the show was the major front-runner at the Tonys that year. Like Ray said, the triangle in this show is very different because we care more for the character outside the couple, we feel for her. And I agree with him in that Lloyd Webber cannot write complex characters like the ones from Victor Hugo's novel. Look what he did to Woman in White.

[ALWrules]

Posted: 1/25/06 at 6:30pm

*flames pour in.*
" Lloyd Webber cannot write complex characters"
The Phantom isn't presented as a complex character! Eva Peron isn't a complex character! Judas isn't a complex character! Norma Desmond isn't a complex character! Come on... if you're going to bash ALW at least look at the whole picture. I agree with you in the instance of WIW, but you're ignoring tons of other example.

[BSoBW3]

Posted: 1/25/06 at 6:36pm

ALWrules - GIVE UP!

He compared ALW to Victor Hugo...

[RentBoy86]

Posted: 1/25/06 at 7:01pm

I think i'm the only person to say that Sunset Blvd is great. I think its ALW's best score. Its the only show where I actually want to listen to the music w/o the singing - like the overture and stuff. I had just read that ALW didn't like Les Miz in that book, I don't know where the author was coming from. I also have a question, so when did Phantom close in London? Its not still running is it? If so, then Les Miz is the West End's longest running show, so maybe that's why he's peeved.

[JudasIscariot]

Posted: 1/25/06 at 7:20pm

ALW can't write complex characters? What kind of pot are you smoking? I don't care for Sunset myself, but he has dozens of complex characters in JCS, Evita, Phantom, Aspects, and Cats.

[ALWrules]

Posted: 1/25/06 at 9:13pm

I love Sunset as well.
I wasn't comparing Webber to Hugo. I was comparing his ability to bring complex characters in from other works, which is what Schonberg was able to do so well in Les Miz.
To answer your question, RentBoy, POTO is still playing in London, as is Les Mis. Since Les Mis opened earlier, POTO isn't gaining any ground on it for longest running musical. ALW may very well be peeved at this, although again, I doubt he would say such a thing publicly.

[FoscasBohemianDream]

Posted: 1/25/06 at 10:04pm

I never compared Andrew Lloyd Webber to Victor Hugo, that would mean I'm insane. I was merely saying that Lloyd Webber could never make characters as complex as Victor Hugo's to work in the space of a musical as Schonberg and Boublil did very well.
I recognize when I'm wrong, Mr.Lloyd Webber has written TWO complex characters that have made it to the Broadway stage: 1.Judas, 2.Eva Peron. Someone tell me how Phantom is a complex character? I was an English major in college and I studied Gothic literature, characters in Gothic novels were stereotypes, there was the evil figure trying to take over the naive young girl and the hero who was there to save her. Norma Desmond is indeed a much complex character but Mr.Webber never figured out a way to make this complexity work on stage so it was all up to the actress who was playing the role to do something with it. I confess I love "As If We Never Said Goodbye" and "With One Look," but ultimately, Lloyd Webber couldn't make the beautifully complex Norma Desmond from the film, work on his musical. Oh, and JudasIscariot, I want to know what character in Cats is complex, Grizabella could have been a complex character if she had been part of a plot with a book.

[BSoBW3]

Posted: 1/25/06 at 10:07pm

Actually, CATS does have a plot.

It isn't A did B to C to cause D. It's not a moving plot, it's a static plot.

(I wouldn't really argue the characters are COMPLEX though. I'd argue the plot is more abstractly complex.)

[RentBoy86]

Posted: 1/25/06 at 10:21pm

So you're saying Cats is more like Company? Its more about an idea rather than a plot?

I would argue that the character of the Phantom is pretty complex. Can he love Christine? Will she love him, even though he looks the way he does? Should he be selfish and keep Christine even though he knows she wants to be with Raul? He's a very complex character going through a lot of emotions. Loneliness, confusion, love, heartbreak, etc.

[ALWrules]

Posted: 1/25/06 at 10:28pm

Norma Desmond is complex for the following reasons.
She is a star of the old days, who is trying to get over the fact that she is past her prime. She is half mad and half neglected. She wants love second to wanting success, but doesn't know how to acheive it. She is a dreamer. She wants her world of old and thinks she can get it back. Her mind is a sea of confused emotions, that represent some of the own problems the common man has.
Grizabella is also a complex figure in that she is the representation of redemption to man. She is, like Norma Desmond, longing for her prime, and she is also conflicted between the real and the fantasy (to go into psychoanalytical terms). The difference is, that she is able to return and be reborn to "a different Jellicle life" that is better than the previous one. Norma Desmond and Grizabella are similar but different, because Desmond is a tragic figure, where Grizabella gets redeemed.
At the point when you care about a characters fate and become emotional over their fate, then I would say they are pretty complex.

[BSoBW3]

Posted: 1/25/06 at 10:28pm

I don't know enough about COMPANY to say.

But the plot of CATS is both superficial and based on an idea. I love the way it was executed as well.

You begin with learning about the different types of Cats...then you meet a few different examples. Throughout you meet Grizabella. Also throughout, you are reminded that one Cat gets to be "reborn" - got to the Heavyside Layer.

I've always seen it as each cat that we meet is trying to convince Old Deuteronomy to choose them. Then you have Macavity who captures OD - scaring the other cats that, perhaps, no one will be chosen.

[ALWrules]

Posted: 1/25/06 at 10:29pm

I think the plot structure of Cats and Company is comparable, being experienced with them both.

[TimeSuckage]

Posted: 1/26/06 at 4:31pm

I heard that, for awhile after Miss Saigon, if you were auditioning for Lord Lloyd Webber, you were advised NOT to sing anything from either Les Miz or Saigon, and that he definitely felt the French had encroached on his territory. Personally I think there's room for everyone, and considering that ALW supposedly earns $200,000 a day from "Memory" royalties alone, he should get over himself.

I think both Judas and Jesus are incredibly complex. "Gethsemane" alone says more to me than "The Last Temptation of Christ" and "The Passion of the Christ" combined. That tune is deep.

I disagree that the Phantom as portrayed in the musical is not complex. He is a villain who completes a serious character arc - from lovesick, egomaniacal thug to a creature capable of sacrificing his happiness for another's. That dude is deep.

I think Cats is beyond ridiculous, JCS is my fave ALW show, and Les Mis is the best musical ever.

[MargoChanning]

Posted: 1/26/06 at 5:00pm

Wait, you're giving Webber credit for "creating" the character of Norma Desmond? Desmond is the invention of Billy Wilder and Charles Brackett who wrote the film. Don Black and Christopher Hampton who wrote the musical's book and lyrics, get a tiny amount of credit for adapting Wilder and Brackett's screenplay for the stage, but realize that the entire plot, most of the dialogue and many of the lyrics are "borrowed" word-for-word from the original screenplay. The fact that Norma Desmond is a very complex character has NOTHING whatsoever to do with Webber's contributions to the show (the music and some of the orchestrations).

As for Jesus and Judas, I think the New Testament gets credit for "creating" these complex characters and Tim Rice did a decent job adapting them to the stage. Same with Joseph. And Rice took biographies and the historical record and created the "character" of Eva Peron.

TS Eliot created all the characters in Cats, save for Grizabella, which I believe was the invention of Trevor Nunn.

Webber can craft some nice melodies, but he's never been responsible for creating the stories or characters in his shows. If they have depth and complexities, it's the result of the work of others not him. And while music on its own, can create mood and feeling, he's not Wagner or Verdi, who were capable of telling story through melody.

Updated On: 1/26/06 at 05:00 PM

[FoscasBohemianDream]

Posted: 1/26/06 at 5:33pm

Let me clarify myself just because I want to make my point clear. Like Margo very well explained, Norma Desmond, Eva Peron, Grizabella, the Phantom, Jesus, and Judas are all characters created outside the space of the theater that Lloyd Webber later musicalized. My point is that authors like Sondheim, Arthur Laurent, James Lapine, Jerry Herman are able to make the complexities of their characters work on stage, and sometimes they even add more complexity to them such as it is the case with characters such as Dolly Levi, Fosca, George Seurat, Gypsy Rose Lee, Rose Havoc, etc; all of these characters were either real (just like Eva Peron) or they were literary figures (like Grizabella, the Phantom, Judas, etc). Those characters not only are portrayed seamlessly on stage but they sometimes become completely different from the original medium they were taken from.
Mr.Lloyd Webber has used characters as popular as Norma Desmond, a woman who in my opinion is probably as complex as Blanche DuBois or any other significant woman in literature. My point is that whenever Lloyd Webber attempts to musicalize for the stage figures as complex as Ms.Desmond, he fails. His two big hits are full of characters that lack the complexity of George Seurat or Rose Havoc (Mamma Rose). Like I said before, there are a couple of songs from Sunset Blvd. that I enjoy but that doesn't mean the musical itself worked, he failed to create a new Norma Desmond for the stage, he wasn't able to effectively musicalize Desmond's final breakdown which was so powerful in the original film. Woman in White is a novel famous for its sense of suspense and darkness, and look what Lloyd Webber did to it, and as you can see it has not become a big hit. So the point I'm making is that yes, Lloyd Webber tries to work with complex characters but he is never able to make the transfer from another medium to the stage be successful for those characters.

[BSoBW3]

Posted: 1/26/06 at 8:11pm

F*ck.

Yes, I agree - with Margo.

Yea, Trevor Nunn actually wrote the lyrics (in one night?) to "Memory" - I remember reading that.

I love some of his melodies, but they really don't tell their own story. They are rather generic. Great, but generic. (And, though I love Les Mis like it's the end of the day, those melodies are also somewhat generic.)

AND, "literary figures (like Grizabella, the Phantom, Judas, etc)."

Isn't Judas real?

[FoscasBohemianDream]

Posted: 1/26/06 at 8:15pm

That's getting on a religious discussion. To me Judas is a literary figure to you it might be a historic figure.

[BSoBW3]

Posted: 1/26/06 at 8:17pm

I happen to be Jewish...so it really isn't religious to me.

I just always thought (as we are taught) that the people are real.

I suppose you could say that we only know about Judas from the Bible...but when you go that far back into the past, everyone could be considered a lterary figure in the sense that there really are no first hand accounts.