Back to late 2009. I remember sitting at my computer, and seeing on my Youtube account that The Really Useful Group (aka The Really Useless Group of middle-aged fuddy duddies; Andrew Lloyd Webber's bunch) had uploaded the Media/Press release thing for his latest musical. [I know, that sentence was so eloquent] The name of this musical was (and, sadly, still is) Love Never Dies. Urgh. Am I the only one who thinks that name sounds so ridiculously cliche? Normally, I wouldn't really care if Lord "Bonkers" Lloyd Webber was making a new musical, but this one was said to be a sequel to The Phantom of the Opera. I'm not going to lie, I was against the idea of a sequel since I first heard about it. I remember reading it in the online news, when Otto (ALW's cat. R.I.P, you wonderful creature) had accidentally deleted his full score for LND, which he had saved on his keyboard. Well, they say it was an accident, but I like to think of that cat as a Godsend, who was trying to save our ears from horror.
Sadly, ALW re-wrote the musical disaster, and it was on that fateful day in late 2009 that I first heard the music. I remember actually cringing when I heard the Coney Island Waltz, which was supposed to be the equivalent of an overture for the musical. It sounded like a rip-off of Carousel, but worse. And well, the Phantom Overture was so intense and just generally amazeballs, so, you'd expect the overture to the sequel to follow suit. I'll let you compare the two below. I don't even think I need to put in an argument as to which is better, because it's blatantly obvious. My heart starts to beat fast every time I hear the synthesiser playing the D minor chord at the beginning of the Phantom overture. I felt nauseous the few times I listened to CIW.
Right! Coney Island! Who was the idiot that decided to move Phantom to Coney Island? Whoever thought: "That dude was mentally scarred from being in a freak show as a kid. ZOMG. SO HE'D TOTES WANTS TO GO BAK TO DAT!" needs to be magically lassoo'd by Erik. Leroux's Erik, that is. I mean, that Phantom was badass! I'm getting off-topic. Anyway, as I was saying, the setting is terrible. I've seen pictures of some of the 'sets', and I really didn't like them. I mean, yay props to ALW for being all technological and using projections for the backdrops and what not, but, it still looked incredibly tacky to me. And, erm, there is this arch that looks like a woman's.. er, private areas. I don't go out of my way to see if sets look sexual, but this arch is really disturbing.
This isn't a great picture of it, buuuut, that arch still looks sus.
And it's not the only thing that's sexual. According to the sequel, after Christine leaves the Phantom to go off and live her life with Raoul, well, let's just say that she doesn't really leave him. On the night before her wedding to Raoul, she tracks the Phantom down and has lots and lots of really hot sex with him, again and then again. *brainexplodes* WHAT? Hold up, the Phantom and Christine have sex? Not only that, he leaves her the morning after, feeling ashamed. Oh, and it turns out that she gets pregnant with his kid, and then raises the boy with Raoul anyway. I have to say, what a complete hoe! This isn't the Christine we last saw at the end of Phantom. The one who stood up to her stalker and finally decided that she wasn't going to be manipulated by everyone. Why she would 'do it' with Phanty is also beyond me. I'll admit, there are times when I've had the biggest fangirl crush on this character, despite his crazy murderings and stalkerliciousness, but, I wouldn't hunt him down on the eve of my wedding and practically beg him to have sex with me over and over. It just doesn't even make sense. Christine clearly makes her choice at the end of Phantom. She chooses Raoul, who she is in love with, and leaves the Phantom all by himself. Yes, this means that half the audience is in tears, but they are crying tears of awesome. The fact that the Phantom lets Raoul and Christine go in the end redeems him. And heaven knows, he needs all the redemption he can get. And the thing is, he lets the lovers go because Christine gives him a long, passionate smooch. In that moment, he is so moved by being shown a form of affection that even his own parents had denied to him; that kiss meant everything. So, am I to believe that this same character is going to be okay with having lots of meaningless sex just a short time later? Firstly, I don't think that the Phantom would ever have slept with Christine. He was way too insecure about his body to ever do anything that made him so vulnerable. Period. Secondly, Christine would never have slept with the Phantom. She felt a bond with him through music, but she was never attracted to him. Well, definitely not after she saw his deformities anyway. Plus, she was in love with Raoul, so why would she hunt down her stalker for a good time? I mean, it was the night before her wedding, so she was sure to 'get some' within 24 hours anyway. And if she did indeed sleep with Phanty and Raoul on two consecutive nights, how could she have been sure that the child she later gives birth to is the Phantom's? It's not like they had DNA testing back in those days or anything... Also, I hate the fact that the Phantom apparently leaves Christine after doing her all night. I mean, if she actually wanted him, and he was okay enough with himself do do it with her, then there is no way that he would ever leave her. All he ever wanted in the original was to have her for his own. Like hell he'd be running away (before she even wakes up!) if they finally got together.
The other areas of the plot are just as dire. The premise of the story is that Christine becomes a successful opera singer, and likes with Raoul in France. The Phantom, however, flees Paris after the Opera house burns down (though, I swear that was only in the movie. I don't remember any burning happening in the stage production. Grrrr.) and jumps on a boat bound for Coney Island, America. Oh, did I mention that Madame Giry and Meg come along for the ride? The Phantom ends up making a successful freak show and entertainment thing at Coney. Meg falls obsessively in love with him. He doesn't care, because for "ten looooong years" he wastes his time on "smoke and noise" and pines for Christine. He ends up sending her a letter, beseeching her to come and perform at Coney, and signing it as "Mr Y". Actually, I think they changed this in the latest version of LND, but I don't really understand why or how. Something about Hammerstein? I don't know, it's rubbish either way. Christine, apparently losing all her intelligence, agrees to come and sing in "Phantasma", the Phantom's act. Subtle name, I know. She brings along Raoul, who is now an abusive drunk, and 'their' son Gustave. To cut a long story short, Christine ends up finding out that the Phantom is the one who lured her to Coney. They sing Beneath a Moonless Sky aka the song about them remembering all the good sex they had that one night. I can sum up the rest of the show in a few sentences. Raoul and "Mr Y" fight over Christine, and end up betting on which one of them she will go with. The Phantom says that if she agrees to sing for him, he'll have her, and is she doesn't, Raoul can leave with his wife and child, and the Phantom will repay all his debts. Yes, betting on women is soooo romantic *barf* Anyway, she ends up singing, and Raoul goes to leave for Paris, alone. Suddenly, Meg decides to kidnap Gustave, and threatens to kill him. Phanty and Christine come along, and the Phantom tries to persuade her to put away her gun. She gets annoyed at him for never noticing her (why she's in love with him is beyond me) and he says that he sympathises with her, and knows what it's like not to be loved. Sadly, the idiot goes on to say "We can't all be like Christine..." and, well, Meg goes psycho and accidentally shoots Christine. Christine dies, the Phantom becomes a single Dad. I think they changed the ending to have Raoul return and be with Gustave, and then Gustave goes to the Phantom? I don't know. It's completely messed up. I don't know how an innocent ballerina turned into a slutty murderer, a starry-eyed young gentleman became an abusive drunk, a manipulative, badass murderer became a sappy emo kid, and a sweet young woman became a whore. ALW can't claim that this is character development. This is character assassination.
Have I mentioned the lyrics? They're awful. Some examples include:
- He knows you're made of finer stuff (THEY USED 'STUFF' IN A SONG. THE LYRICIST SHOULD BE FIREDDDDDDDDD!)
- I'll always feel no more than half way real, 'til I hear you sing once more
- Once there was a night beneath a moonless sky, too dark to see a thing, too dark to even try [...] And I held you. And I touched you. And embraced you. And I felt you. And with every breath and every sigh. I felt no longer scared. I felt no longer shy [...] cloaked under the night, with nothing to suppress. A woman and a man. No more and yet, no less.
... I can't go on, because I feel like my eyes are being raped, reading these appalling lyrics. The last point is from Beneath a Moonless Sky. Now, we all know that I like to rant on romance. That rubbish is not romantic. It is just tacky beyond words. I know Phantom had a lot of sexual metaphor in it (think "When will the blood begin to race? A sleeping bud burst into bloom? When will the flames at last consume us?" from The Point of No Return), but it was just that: metaphor! There is no subtlety in the lyrics to BAMS at all. The second point, which is from Til I Hear You Sing, errrr. Many people who hate the show love this song. I am not one of them. It's meant to be somewhat of an equivalent of Music of the Night, but, it fails. If someone sung the former to me, I would cringe and slap them. If someone sung the latter to me, I would swoon and vow to be with them forever. It's as simple as that.
I could go on all day about the faults in this show, because there are just so many. I think that people have the right to like it, but I certainly never shall. And to be honest, many LND fans are pretty loco. I've been a member of the group Love Should Die on Facebook since early last year, and I've been tracking their progress. I haven't really wanted to get involved with anything, but reading the page, I've found most of the people on there to be intelligent and dedicated phans. Yet, I've seen them be crazily abused just because they don't like the show. I'll never forget how even The Really [Useless] Group treated this one Canadian couple who had supported the original for years, but, uhm-ah, dared to speak out against the sequel. It was so unprofessional, and quite appalling. In fact, Andrew Lloyd Webber and his gang have been nothing but awful to anyone who doesn't like the sequel, even if they continue to support the original in all ways possible. That guy is just messed up.
Phew! I can't believe I've managed to restrain from ranting about this on my blog for so long! It feels good to get it out. Actually, there is a reason that I chose now to explode. You know how I was establishing earlier that JCS is my second favourite musical? Well, there's going to be a return season of the show in June, and I've booked to see it another two times. All of the original cast are returning... except for the guy who played Judas. This news was devastating enough for me, as he portrayed the character to perfection, was absolutely gorgeous to look at, and had one of the best voices in musical theatre that I have ever heard in my entire life... And his growl in Heaven on their Minds was so lush... And the emotion he put into Judas' suicide was insane. It's the only scene that has ever made me cry more than the Final Lair from Phantom... And he just owned the role. Completely. So, yeah, I was 'totes devo' to discover that I'd never get to see him in the role again.
This afternoon, I was looking at that independent theatre company's Facebook page, and I see that the guy has been cast in an ensemble role in the Australian production of Love Never Dies. So, not only has this musical ruined the way I view my favourite musical, but it has stolen one of my favourite performers, and stopped them from performing in my favourite musical. Did I mention that a heap of other musical performers who I love and respect have been cast in the monstrosity too? I'm feeling rather heartbroken at the moment... But, I still refuse to see the show live. I've heard all the songs, seen a heap of pictures, and read all about the storyline. I know that I don't like it, and I don't want ALW to get a cent of my money...
... LOVE SHOULD DIE! >:D
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