#and for THE LIFE OF ME i cannot find a bootleg of the original cast from 2017.

[lesbianenjolras]

What if I started mauling people to death.

[marshmellowtea]

it was me i follow you because aro flag in icon and youre a self proclaimed freak idr how i found u tho. also PLEASE info dump i’m so deeply curious

those are very good reasons to follow me ngl alkadsjflkd :3 BUT okay sorry for the barrage of text you've unleashed i have a lot of thoughts and feelings about this series putting it under a cut so i don't obliterate people's dashes lmao

i'm assuming based on your anon that you're somewhat familiar with the series but in case not (and because i love being annoying <3) the goes wrong show is a british comedy about a drama society who. well. cannot put on a play correctly for the fucking life of them lmao. as of writing this it's free on youtube and tubi (though tubi actually has the season one episodes in order, most places it ends up on don't for some reason?? this does not matter that much cuz there's very little continuity in this series anyway but as someone's who's very autistic about this series it does bother me lmao), and the two specials that come before the show chronologically, peter pan goes wrong and a christmas carol goes wrong in that order, are also on youtube for free :D

in addition to the series and the two specials there's also a christmas audio special you can find on the internet archive (the christmas that goes wrong, not to be confused with a christmas carol goes wrong lol), and the play that goes wrong, which was the original entry in this series/the first in what could loosely be referred to as a timeline (again, there's very little continuity here lol). there isn't a proshot of the play that goes wrong with the og cast as far as i'm aware BUT the script is available online for free and there are plenty of community theater productions available on youtube (and someone on here mayyy have a bootleg of it with the og cast but i'm too intimidated to ask about it lmao). most of these are pretty easy to find but i have links for most of them if anyone needs them!

anyway all that aside. chris.......chris bean the diieeeerectoooor.......my beloved little gay hater who sucks so much aklsjfkldskfljdas.............it's actually really funny to look back on my relationship to this series because when i first watched it my favorite was actually dennis (whom i still love to death don't get me wrong <3) and i didn't give a fuck about chris but as i watched the show more the tides started to change and now he's all i think about :') i think there's a couple reasons for this shift, the main ones being that my love for my blorbos get a bit uhhh violent (i ❤️ whump!) and i'd feel bad putting dennis through all that in a way i don't with chris lmao, and also because when i first watched the series i wasn't paying full attention so i hadn't realized how fucking actually tailor made this freak (affectionate) is for me adkljfsalkdfjKLSJLKF

AND TAILOR MADE FOR ME HE IS he's got mommy issues (the first time i watched the mother's day promo video i instantly lost my mind ghlkadsjf), he's got daddy issues (putting aside the implied emotional distance casting your dad as the villain in a play who's not only a traitor for the nazis but also preys on one of his subordinates is actually insane and i think about it so so much), and anger issues (his perfectionist onstage tantrum throwing ass ough). he also kinda disassociates onstage (the way he sometimes just. watches things go wrong with a blank expression. he's so unwell actually <3), and there's an in character tweet of him that implies disordered eating ("another hungry night" you'll always be famous)........he's got a lot of issues and all of them are designed to scratch My Brain Specifically glkajdsfkl. if characters don't have these issues i Give Them To Them but he just. already has them. gah 🥲💞

outside of all that there's also the fact that the minute he gets the chance to force his castmates to do it with him he puts on a ballet where he plays a caterpillar who "needs to rest" and becomes a beautiful "lord butterfly" and. well. there's so so much to unpack with that play in general but ballet and butterflies are two of my favorite aesthetics so this really was an attack on me lmao. even if his costume was kind of ugly there <3 listen i never said he had good style lmao that's what dressing up in little outfits in my head is for. though in speaking of style he's also always wearing the gayest theater kid scarfs offstage?? he's so cute and annoying and pretentious and i hate him 🥰🥰🥰

these are only a few things that make me feral about him there's a lot more i could ramble about if i wanted to keep us here all day galskdfsjdlf..........he really was the perfect storm to latch onto my psyche lmao. also lbr writer/actor henry shields who plays him in the show is just kinda pretty i do love my skinny brunette men 💗 (see also my recent crushes on adam scott and andrew garfield lmao)

i've been. extremely feral about him on main as you can tell ahlkdgjsaf. people just keep rewarding me for being insane so thank you everyone for that lmao :') also it's my new year's resolution to be more freaky and unhinged on main so i'm on that putting chris through some of the worst things possible grindset 💪but yeah i could ramble about this guy forever rn i love him so much and think he's really fun to chew on like a squeaky toy so galdfjkldf

[pastorjoshwoods]

Everyone deserves a chance to fly...

This past holiday, I fell down a rabbit hole. (Or more rightly, I got swept up in a tornado YouTube tornado...) It started innocently enough: a friend posted a video on Facebook where a percussionist had a GoPro strapped to his head to show what the pit looked like during “Good Morning Baltimore” from Hairspray. It was awesome! ‘Auxiliary percussion’ may not sound as glamorous as ‘set drummer’, but it’s incredibly important to the full sound of the orchestra. 

I watched one video, then another, and then I saw some videos of pit percussionists playing Defying Gravity—from a powerful musical about an incredible young woman who chooses to live for what’s right instead of what’s presently in vogue. Then I saw a few other songs from that musical, and finally an interview with the pit drummers for Hamilton.

I moved on with my day—even got to spend some time gaming on Zoom with my family. But later on that night, that song got stuck in my head again: 

I’m through accepting limits  ‘Cause someone says they’re so. Some things I cannot change, But til I try, I’ll never know.

Too long I’ve been afraid of Losing love I guess I’ve lost; Well, if that’s love, It comes with much to high a cost!

I’d sooner buy defying gravity...

It caught me again so powerfully that I scoured the internet for a pay-to-view copy of a full performance. And then, when I had exhausted my resources, I stumbled upon a bootleg copy. (Yes—they exist... and there’s even one of the Original Broadway Cast out there, although the video quality is rough [and there are some ‘oops!’ moments��must’ve been a preview...]) Why not just listen to the soundtrack? Because—I remembered there was more to the plot, and I had a sneaking suspicion that there was more to what it meant than I had previously understood.

You see, when I first saw the musical about the ‘untold true story of the Witches of Oz,’ I was thrown by its title: Wicked. As an evangelical teen/early twenty-something--and a pastoral ministry student to boot--I was extremely uncomfortable with the idea of a musical that I perceived as teaching moral relativism: "teaching us how bad wasn’t really bad”; that, in fact, being ‘wicked’ is in the eye of the beholder. 

But I was wrong.

My perception of the point of the musical was about as far off as it could have been. I still believe that there are people who do objectively wicked things, but I had missed something. I had entered the theatre with a judgment already made, based on a label someone else had given to me. My fear of the word “wicked” had cause me to uncritically dismiss anything labeled as such. I had literally been the person the musical was trying to call out. Embarrassingly, I’m only just now grasping the power behind Elphaba’s story. She is remarkable: an exceptional young woman with a heart of kindness wrapped in insecurity, self-loathing, and abusive memories who finds strength to both love herself and stand against what is truly evil, even when vilified for it. Seething in righteous indignation over obvious injustices perpetuated both privately and in broad daylight, she chooses a life of exile and integrity--while evil people call her “wicked”--rather than one of popularity--through espousing what was truly detestable. 

Yes—the Wicked one ends up not being the Witch of the West. It ends up being the Wizard: the charlatan that fortuitously blew into power and now works to keep up appearances by feeding public frenzy and twisting the truth. “It’s not lying—it’s history!” The underlying rationale of the swindler behind the curtain? Moral ambiguities are fodder for public control. [And the Wizard’s press team swirls around him like a tornado, tearing down opposition “with her calumnies and lies”--she lies.]

That never happens in real life, of course... 

I mean, how often do we make villains of the very people suffering for doing good? How often do we paint a character over a person to satisfy our need to blame someone? How often does our togetherness come from hatred rather than love? (Those questions are rhetorical—but maybe you should answer them in your head...)

And how often are the people that we claim as “wonderful” indeed playing us?? When will we discover the difference between what’s really true and what we’re being told is true to manipulate our actions? What will we do?

As if to prove my point, if you’re still reading this, you’re probably trying to figure out which side I land on. You’re also probably thinking that the other side—the one you’ve always been taught to side against—is the one with the ‘wonderful wizard’ who’s really a first-class creep. But what if you’re actually on the ‘wizard’s’ side? What if you’re the one following the person manipulating public opinion (in part or on the whole) for the sake of personal gain?

Wizards will bluster in and bluster out. Some of them may run themselves out of hot air before they cause any harm. But some of them will irreparably hurt people while regularly inventing alternate narratives that say they are really doing right by those same people. Some of them will say anything to be able to take their place behind the curtain, pulling levers as “Oz the Great and Powerful.” And we shouldn’t let them.

But even if they do: we must not lose our sense of what is most right. And part of that is defending the dignity of those who are being trampled on by others. Whether they be mistreated captives, dehumanized to serve the agenda of the powerful, or individuals who have been silenced by fear for so long that they have forgotten their voice, we must restore the dignity of each individual through kindness and compassion. For those who claim to follow Jesus, this is not an option. No: it is, in fact, the surest call of the Savior who let himself be crucified as a ‘wicked man’ after having done nothing wrong. 

So, this summer, when people on either side of the limelight lie, telling you how what you’ve heard them say and seen them do isn’t really what you heard and saw, try three things:

First, choose not to perpetuate the abuse by espousing the lie. Don’t bear false witness to your country, your friends, or your ‘enemies’ for the sake of your candidate.

Second, be a person who does what’s kind and good, even if people villify you. The real villains here are the ones who are telling people who to hate.

And finally, be a person who is willing to listen to the other viewpoint—and who will protect even the people they disagree with. 

We need more Elphabas—more brave young women (and men too--and people of all ages!) who aren’t afraid to say and do what’s right. People who are willing to live out the ideals of honesty, decency, and respect for others, even when it costs them dearly. And people who are willing to fight to end lies, hatred, and abuse. We need them—and we need to celebrate them, too--because they call us back to our best.

It’s time to try defying gravity.

And when we do that?

Nobody in all of Oz No wizard that there is or was Is ever gonna bring [us] down

Post art from https://wickedthemusical.com/for-fans/

[bepoets]

The Prom and all the even numbers!💖

THANK YOU ELLIE!!!

2.Favorite Song

- Unruly Heart. My entire heart belongs to this song.

4.Favorite Scene

- first of all, choosing one scene is just rude. I feel personally Offended. It’s this last real spoken scene though. The last scene between Alyssa & her mom (“my life’s already hard!” It’s a very impactful and emotional scene and you just feel a lot of feelings it’s a lot to handle) to the point where Alyssa says I LOVE YOU EMMA NOLAN and Emma says HOLY SHIT. That whole last scene. And Barry going “you’ll lose her if you don’t let her be who she is you’ll lose her” UGH it’s such s good scene. The SOLIDARITY !!!!

6.First Impression of it?

- “Oh my god there’s going to be a musical coming to broadway about LESBIAN TEENAGERS??????? A MUSICAL COMEDY??? LESBIANS??? THIS IS THE BEST THING TO HAPPEN TO THEATRE EVER I MUST RESEARCH IT SND FIND THE BOOTLEG OF THEIR RUN IN ATLANTA AND DO EVERYTHING IN MY POWER TO LOVE AND SUPPORT THIS SHOW”

8.Least favorite character?

- Mrs. Greene aka Alyssa’s mom because you know she’s kind of depicted as ~the bad guy~ and like yeah I get so hurt by her but also Courtenay Collins is just such a sweetheart angel and I DONT WSNT TO HATE HER CHARACTER AND I DONT SHES JUST AT THE BOTTOM OF THE TOTEM POLE FOR ME

10.Favorite non-original cast member

- considering the majority of the cast is still the OBC I gotta go with Susie Caroll one of the vacation swings she’s really out there going to college and being on broadway at the same time? Incredible. Phenomenal. An icon that we should all aspire to be.

12.Least favorite actor portrayal for [insert character here]

- ALL OF THE PORTRAYALS ON BROADWAY ARE GOOD PORTRAYALS. BUT!!!!!!!! James Cordan as Barry Glickman is a fucking mistake and that will be my least favorite actor portrayal for Barry once the prom movie comes out and yeah I’m forever disgusted & bitter that he’s playing a Jewish gay man get the fuck out of here James cordan

14.Rating from out of 10?

- 10/10 would recommend always and forever

16.favorite sung lyric?

- “So fears all in the past, fading so fast, I won’t stay hidden anymore. I’m who I am and I think that’s worth fighting for. And nobody out there ever gets to define the life I’m meant to lead with this unruly heart of mine.” AND “the curtain goes up and every now and then it feels as if we’re coming home again.”

18.Greatest weakness?

- their lack of Tony awards. I’m not even joking their greatest weakness is the lack of recognition they got in the award communities. They’re viewed as a musical comedy aimed more for teens, which the musical comedy thing is true but it’s really more for all ages. They also didn’t hype up the fact that it was “original theatre” NEARLY enough as they should’ve. Especially considering the other shows up for awards were movie based, movie based, movie based, mythology based, band based, singer based, revival, revival but you know that’s none of my busineeesssssss

20.how long have you followed the show?

- May 2018 about a month before they first released the Dance With You demo

22.Favorite change from previews/pre-broadway

- Oh my god all of them every single fucking one. First of all the casting, recasting Alyssa and Principal Hawkins were the best decisions they could have ever made. Just really and truly such a good choice. There’s dialogue changes and added scenes between Alyssa and Mrs. Greene that give things a more serious, not dark but kind of darker vibe. Unpopular opinion but I love the change to You Happened. The blocking for that scene adds a whole other layer to it that you didn’t get in the fluffy rom com version of Atlanta. I could write an essay on the blocking there omg

24.Have you seen it live?

- INDEED I HAVE!!! March 12th best day of my life. And I’ll be there for their final performance in August as well!

26.Do you own any physical merch?

- LOL DO I OWN ANY PHYSICAL MERCH YOU BET YOUR BOOTS I DO. I’ve got a hard copy of the OBCR, playbill & pride flag from the show, “we are liberal Democrats from broadway” button, today is not s dress rehearsal shirt, we’re all lesbians shirt, classically trained singer dancer activist shirt, The Prom jacket. I think that’s all of it.

28.favorite post canon headcanon?

- I haven’t really thought too much into it? Strange right for a fanfic writer and I don’t think much into post canon or headcanons for this show. I really love the idea of Emma and Alyssa going to college in New York or the surrounding area. And the four broadway performers being like adopted family to the two girls. Barry would do literally anything for those girls okay you cannot change my mind.

30.Favorite ship?

- EMMA NOLAN AND ALYSSA GREENE MY DUDES!!!! LETS GO LESBIANS LETS GO!!!

[confessionsofanoperaghost]

🎭 for the PotO meme

1. Does the name “Erik” get your attention, no matter where or in what context you hear it? ,,,,,,,,,,actually yes.  

2. Would you travel or have you traveled to certain places only because they were PotO-related? Which ones? I certainly would! And I have a long long list of places that are from my headcanon as well!  But sadly they are in Europe, Asia and the Middle East. Cost is a factor.

3. Would you see the musical by yourself because your friends or family weren’t in the mood to go with you? Have you done so already? I haven’t and I might. It really depends on how my relationship to the musical changes over the next 20-60 years. I’m not keen on most of ALW’s recent touch on the franchise and I’m worried about more and more or Maria Bjornson’s work getting dropped from the tour (and rumors say maybe from the Broadway and WE productions as well in time??). So, we’ll see. I will be happy to outlive ALW and bear witness to the various ways the The Really Useful Group shoots itself in the foot. But its so expensive to watch something that’s only going to break your heart--and not in the ways you want it to. So it REALLY depends. 

4. How often have you seen the musical?  I have seen it exactly once. It came to my hometown in 1999 (I was 15) and I spent every penny I could scrape together to get an orchestra-level ticket. And frankly I was unimpressed. I never went back. I feel bad for saying it. It might have been better for me if I had grown up with bootlegs, but I had only read the book and listened to the OLC. I literally didn’t know what to expect from the tour. I’m not sure.

5. How much PotO stuff do you own? I should just say “a lot of stuff I dunno, lol” but I suddenly want to think about this. 

My original deMattos paperback

A David Coward paperback

A Wolfe paperback (its at a friend’s house at the moment)

The “milestone collection” two DVD disc set with all the extras of the 1925 Poto with Lon Chaney Sr (my babe!!!)

The Cherik miniseries (as a bootleg copy on DVD...i paid good money for it tho, lol)

the 2004 movie cuz it was cheap as hell 

Original London Cast recording of the ALW musical on CD

This BRILLIANT book about the making of the 1925 silent film

An actual first run copy of The Phantom of Manhattan by Fredrick Forsythe (purchased for me on clearance as a joke.)

A cheap copy of Susan Kay’s book that a friend picked up for me. I’ve been asked to do a seething read-along. I figured I should probably own the book before I literally rip it a brand new shiny asshole on YouTube...

a weird, like, 14 pages long, full color, SUPER condensed version of the book with Greg Hildebrant’s drawings. This was the present our teacher purchased for the acting class that produced a weird 1970′s straight-play version of the story that no one seems to remember now (its not particularly good so don’t worry)

the “Barnes and Noble” deMattos hardcover edition that --because it started to fall apart right away--I have been using for art projects and pop-culture-based spells

A large locket with Lon Chaney’s Erik (and his Quasimodo)

one of Muirin007′s gorgeous prints

An adorable necklace made by MegLouiseGiry that’s got a slice from the book in it and a heart-shaped crystal (Poto Secret Santa 2017)

A Lon Chaney 1925 POTO T Shirt. And it glows in the dark! (I got his Quasi on a shirt too but sadly it does not glow in the dark)

a 17,000+ word Google document: a sticky rough draft of my Erik-life-story Phic that I may or may not have been working on for 2 decades.

similarly, a red and gold notebook stuffed with tangled notes and headcanons and bad phan poetry from the 1990s

A bunch of other books that look unrelated to the untrained eye (for research)

a 6 inch figure of Lon Chaney’s POTO dangling from a plastic chandelier that happens to be about to scale 

a thousand other items that may not look like references to Poto to the untrained eye... like: a red scarf and round-framed spectacles and an antique violin case and a choking kink and a skull mask and a dramatic red and gold cape and daddy issues and a balcony overlooking the sea and a black mask that covers the whole face and an attraction to the most beautiful hands........

6. Have you had dreams about the Phantom or other characters? Do you remember any in particular? I’ve only had dreams about Erik. Usually I am myself or Christine or some slurry of the two. Here’s the best one: 

Saturday, November 19, 2016. True Beauty.

There was the theatre. The wings and the lifts. Backstage lights. Curtains.

Joseph Bouquet spots the fiend in the catwalks and is--fast as lightning--slaughtered by the quickest of lassos. Other stagehands and security ascend to the tops, chasing a shadow they can barely see. Someone thinks they’ve captured his cloak only to find their fists full of nothing.They chase this shadow to the roof and find nothing but stars as the phantom killer slips away...down into the dark. 

Carved structure. The dark is black and warm. He feels near. Yes, Erik has come for you. A lucid dream, I am both player and played. 

I am playing you.��

You feel a dance. You cannot find your way out of all that warm darkness. Though she cannot see, she feels her maestro all around. Unable to retreat, unable to find light; she turns but I am already there... darkness and a warm, red, deep glow. She twists in anxiety and frustration--away! away! away!-- breathing as though she is counting her final breaths. Twisting and trying to find some cool air or a bit of sunlight.

Erik shows her that there is no escape from Erik. He is is every corner of her. 

She succumbs. 

 7. How many times have you read the book? Literally more than I can count. At 15 I had MOST of Chapter 13, Apollo’s Lyre, memorized (deMattos translation). Iv’e only read it in English and I have yet to read some of the less-recommended translations.

8. How many songs from the musical could you recite from memory? (Or just sing along to?)  So I have almost the whole thing more-or-less memorized EXCEPT that its ONLY the version as sung in the Original London Cast recording. So every single line that has been changed since then (or god forbid an unedited soundtrack where all the choruses of Hannibal are included, lol) I get wrong. But yeah i listened to that nightly for like 2 years of my adolescence and I can hardly listen to any of it now.  I burned places in my synapses.

9. Do you randomly quote lines from the book or musical in real life? Don’t you? Honestly, the most fun I have is calling up fun lines and needle them into my vocabulary throughout a regular day. Unless you do an obvious one your average person isn’t going to know.

10. Have you ever met up with another phan?  Yes but by the time I’ve me up with them its definitely about something more relevant than the Phandom that brought us together. 

[drakorn]

Disneys The Hunchback of Notre Dame Review (Stuttgart)

Hey guys! So I have FINALLY managed to actually see Disneys The Hunchback of Notre Dame on stage. I love the story in general, the novel is as complex and morally grey as Les Miserables and the Disney version is my favourite Disney movie after Beauty and the Beast. I have listened to the cast recording of the original stage version with Drew Sarich multiple times and was gutted that I would never get to experience this live. When it was announced that this piece would not only be performed again but also get a major restructuring that would make it more similar to Victor Hugo’s novel in many aspects while still keeping the epic Disney score, I was THRILLED to say the least. I watched a bootleg of the US version and was so excited. When it was announced that it would play in Germany, I was SO happy And when I actually held the tickets in my hand, I was in Heaven. So, last Thursday, while everyone was enjoying their Easter preparations, I was sitting in the Apollo theatre in Stuttgart, waiting for the show to begin. And what can I say? I absolutely loved it from beginning to end. It is SO different to both the Disney film and the original stage version. But I think that was only for the best. Now, from this point onwards, this review is full of spoilers. Most people will probably know all of those spoilers already but I’m just playing it safe.

Differences to the Disney Movie

- Claude Frollo got a MAJOR character update. The stage version completely abandons the cold and diabolical minister of justice from the movie and replaces him with a much more book-accurate version. He is, once again, the archdeacon of Notre Dame, the essential head of Church in Paris. This gives his struggle so much more weight and the song “Hellfire” becomes SO much more powerful. And to top it all off, he is not truly evil in this version but a very conflicted and even tragic character. There are moments where he legit shows compassion to both Quasimodo and Esmeralda but ultimately tries to cling on to his religious beliefs. I couldn’t totally hate him like I did in the movie.

- Speaking of Frollo, his younger brother Jehan, who is completely absent from the movie, is actually brought back into the stage version. While he doesn’t have such a crucial role like he did in the book, he serves as a major character motivation for Frollo. As children, they grow up in Notre Dame but Jehan gets banished eventually because he brought a gypsie woman into the cathedral. Years later, Frollo finds Jehan on his deathbed. In his dying moments, Jehan gives Frollo his child, Quasimodo, to care for. Yeah, that’s something that neither happened in movie nor book but it’s an original idea. I’m not sure how to feel about it but oh well, it’s there. However, by making Quasimodo and Frollo actual blood relatives, the stage version already creates a deeper bond with them. Rather than taking him out of fear of damnation and evil scheme plotting like in the movie, in the stage version, Frollo takes the child out of guilt for his brother’s death and pledges to raise him. At first, he is repulsed by the deformities and even considers killing the child, but he quickly pulls himself together and, completely in-line with his religious beliefs, decides to raise Quasimodo because he sees the baby as a personal test.

- The three Gargoyles from the movie are completely gone here and so is the song “A Guy like you”. Instead, Quasimodo is communicating with a Greek Chorus of saints, bells and gargoyles, and all of them are figments of his imagination. He is basically talking to the spirit of the cathedral itself. I find this MUCH more interesting as it gives us a lot of insight into Quasimodo’s psyche.

- Speaking of the Greek Chorus, a lot of the story is told through the chorus. The entire performance looks like a group of storytellers in a medieval theatre performance simply retelling the events of the musical. All of the actors are dressed in grey cloaks in the beginning and gradually reveal their character appearances throughout the play. This is something no Disney musical has done so far. This is an entirely new level of mature storytelling.

- We actually get a proper Victor Hugo ending, and I mean ALL THE WAY. Everyone who dies in the book dies in the stage version. Esmeralda dies shortly after being rescued by Quasimodo because her lungs were too damaged by the smoke of the pyre. Frollo dies because Quasimodo finally breaks down and throws him from the roof of the cathedral. Quasimodo dies because he lost the will to live, found Esmeralda’s corpse and embraced her until he starved to death. They brought in the line of the two skeletons and almost entirely quoted it directly from Hugo’s novel. This is DISNEY, may I remind you. It’s marketed as a DISNEY musical. THIS is not what you would expect from Disney at all and I LOVE it. And yes, to answer @3andastra3 ‘s question, I had tears in my eyes at the end. The original book ending, accompanied by Alan Menken’s fantastic music and Stephen Schwartz’s perfect lyrics was just a match made in Heaven.

The Songs

Act 1

Olim: I like this introduction quite a lot. It’s entirely sung by the choir. The slow build-up to the Bells of Notre Dame beginning immediately sends shivers down your spine.

The Bells of Notre Dame: I do prefer this version to the one in the movie. Instead of focusing on Frollo’s hatred for the gypsies and killing Quasimodo’s mother like in the movie, we get a full backstory for Frollo. It explores his life with Jehan, his religious views, explains his hatred for gypsies as his brother got banished because he brought one into the cathedral and forms a much more compassionate bond between him and Quasimodo. 

Sanctuary: It’s almost the exact same as in the movie but the difference is that Frollo actually comes across as protective and compassionate here, as if he ACTUALLY tries to protect Quasimodo from the cruel world. 

Out There: Perfection, just perfection. I don’t really know which version I prefer since both movie and musical are great. But in the stage version, it actually comes across a bit more tragic because of the more mature tone. No talking Gargoyles here, just figments of Quasimodo’s imagination. He is actually properly alone here.

Topsy Turvy: REALLY like this version. There is so much festive dancing and cheering and Clopin comes across as more pirate-esque here than in the movie, meaning, a bit more like a joking scoundrel.

Rest and Recreation: Phoebus finally gets a song, unlike in the movie. Already here he has a deeper character than in the movie as we get to see glimpses of war PTSD. He remembers sieges and rotting wounds of dead and dying men (that is a legit line from this Disney musical).  And the melody itself is quite catchy.

Rhythm of the Tambourine: Esmeralda’s introduction song. It’s basically the same thing as in the movie, but this dancing is actually accompanied by singing here. And I like the trio of Quasimodo, Frollo and Phoebus singing about their first impression of Esmeralda at the same time. While Quasimodo and Phoebus see her dancing as angelic, Frollo sees it as hellish. Love that contrast.

Topsy Turvy Reprise: This is the part with the king of fools crowning. It’s interesting how Esmeralda is the one urging Quasimodo to enter the contest. She isn’t directly repulsed by him but instead encourages him to feel good about his appearance for a day. This MASSIVELY backfires and she immediately helps him recover. This is also a part where we get to see the more villainous side of Frollo as he allows Quasimodo to be publically humiliated and whipped in order to teach him a lesson about the cruel world, that’s pretty dark if you think about it, Disney. 

Sanctuary Reprise: Frollo uses Quasimodo’s humiliation as evidence for his teachings about a wicked and cruel world. He is a HUGE hypocrite here as he actively allowed this to happen in the first place but from a certain point of view, you can actually see why he did it: to ensure Quasimodo would never leave again, probably for his own good? Who knows?

God help the Outcasts: Beautiful. The way the choir is incorporated here is truly magical, especially how it all rises up during “I ask for God and his angels to bless me.” I prefer this to the original version, also due to the scene with Frollo and Esmeralda before that: This is one of the scenes that suggest he might be feeling genuine affection towards her and not just pure lust. She says something that reminds him of Jesus and from this moment on, he tries to get her to stay in the cathedral. He doesn’t want to imprison or kill her like in the movie, he wants to teach her in the ways of the church, willing to put his gypsie hatred aside for her. However, there is also this very creepy undertone that, in turn, DOES hint at lust. And we must not forget that age gap...

Top of the World: A very cute song between Quasimodo and Esmeralda in the bell tower. Quasimodo cannot even comprehend that someone might be kind to him apart from his master. By the end of this song, they both share a friendly moment without any fear. They are just having fun. And this makes the entire scene so heartwarming.

Thai Mol Piyas: At first this song might come across as a bit of a filler, but it actually has a very good purpose: It deepens Frollo’s obsession with Esmeralda as he walks the streets at night to find the gypsies and some of the guards, including Phoebus, having a party in a tavern. This scene also progresses Phoebus and Esmeralda’s relationship as they share a passionate kiss in the middle of the party. And the song itself actually is quite catchy!

Heaven’s Light: I really like the way they incorporated it into this stage version. Since there are no annoying Gargoyles but rather a sophisticated chorus, the song feels a bit more mature. I can’t really pinpoint whether I like the movie version or the stage version more. Both are equally good!

Hellfire: OK LET’S TALK ABOUT HELLFIRE. This has always been my absolute favourite Disney villain song. And boy, did they kill it with this version. While the movie version is much more spectacular and bombastic with the fire and the hooded figures, the stage version is much more subtle and internal. Frollo is on his own on an empty stage and starts the song as a quiet prayer, which slowly descends into raging madness and obsession. The background choir, which is present throughout the entire show, provides the “Mea Culpa” lines here. As Frollo further descends into madness, the entire stage is illuminated in a red light, including the choir, smoke begins to rise up under Frollo and he spreads out his arms like a cross. SO GOOD. Also, the choir joining Frollo in the “Choose me or your pyre” bit was fantastic. This scene alone shows why having Frollo as the archdeacon is so much more powerful. Rather than being a judge who believes in the church, he essentially IS the representation of the church in this musical. Him being the archdeacon and singing this song just adds so much more layers. And it really makes his struggle and conflict seem bigger. Loved this scene, one of my favourites in the show.

Esmeralda: The Act 1 finale. The best way I can describe is “Disney’s answer to ‘One Day More’”. There is so much going on in this song: Frollo speaking to the king of France and getting permission to hunt for Esmeralda, Phoebus defecting after refusing to burn down a house, Frollo stabbing Phoebus and blaming it on Esmeralda (which...I don’t know...I thought it seemed a little out of character for this version of Frollo to do so, yes he was cruel and a hypocrite, but I didn’t see him as a liar), Frollo setting fire to Paris, and then having Quasimodo, Phoebus and Frollo, all at the same time, sing about their feelings for Esmeralda. To top it all off, it finishes with a “The Bells of Notre Dame” reprise. What a way to end an act. This, along with Hellfire, are my favourite act 1 moments.

Act 2

Entr’acte: This piece is entirely performed by the choir. Two minutes of straight up latin chanting. I couldn’t ask for a better way to open up act 2. 

Flight into Egypt: This is pretty much the replacement for “A Guy like you”. And it works so much better. Quasimodo uses the figments of his own imagination, including St. Aphrodisius, who has a VERY cool decapitated head effect integrated into the costume. Esmeralda gives him a map of Paris and through this song, Quasimodo figures out how to find the court of miracles. The music is lovely and it’s great to see Quasimodo be this optimistic for once.

Esmeralda Reprise: A short song where Frollo essentially tries to get the truth out of Quasimodo. This is the first time where Quasimodo openly lies to him. This is also a scene where we get to see Frollo’s more villainous side as he manipulates Quasimodo into leading him to the court of miracles, as we find out later on.

Rest and Recreation Reprise: This is the song where Quasimodo and Phoebus reluctantly team up to find Esmeralda. It’s nice to hear Phoebus’s intro song again with this context. He started off as a womanizer but now truly fell in love with Esmeralda and using the same melody to underline that was quite effective.

Court of Miracles: This is probably one of the only times where I prefer the original movie version to the stage version melody-wise. The movie version is fast, urgent and has a sense of menace to it. The stage version is more subtle and slower in pace. However, Clopin’s character is more sympathetic in the stage version. Rather than wanting to kill them out of joy and fun like in the movie, here he does so because he wants to protect the gypsies and can’t have outsiders knowing of their location. And rather than having the comical “Why didn’t they say so?” when Esmeralda saves them, in this version Clopin chastises Esmeralda for befriending people who are closely associated with Frollo. I like the melody of the movie more but I prefer the stage version’s message.

In a Place of Miracles: This is a love duet between Phoebus and Esmeralda. It’s very heartwarming throughout the first half where Phoebus decides to go with the gypsies and stay with Esmeralda. But it becomes a tearjerker in the second half. First, Quasimodo sings a gut-wrenching “Heaven’s Light” reprise in which he states that he will always be alone and comes to terms with Esmeralda never being his. Then we get Clopin singing about how his people are always outcasts and that “Romani again must roam.” What started off as a nice love duet turned into a heartbreaking ensemble number and I really appreciate it.

Justice in Paris: Frollo arrests the gypsies, except Clopin, who escapes in time. Esmeralda’s pyre has been prepared and everyone locked up. A hopeful scene turned dark in a matter of one minute. Frollo truly has descended further into darkness and madness here as he proclaims his disappointment for Quasimodo and has him chained up to witness Esmeralda’s execution. That is PRETTY dark, Disney!

Sanctuary Reprise II: Yeah, we have another one of those. But this time it’s EXTREMELY creepy. Frollo proclaims his “love” for Esmeralda and actively attempts to sexually assault here in her cell. And no, it’s not just hinted at, it’s actually shown on-stage. Disney is really going all out in this piece. Whoever says they haven’t got the courage to properly highlight dark themes should watch this musical.

Someday: This is a very sad song and beautiful at the same time. It was originally supposed to be in the movie but got cut because it was too emotional. And I can see why. Esmeralda is fully aware that she is going to die in a matter of hours and as it dawns on her, she breaks down and starts to cry. Phoebus is there to comfort her but both of them know that they can’t do anything to stop it. The only way out for Esmeralda would be to submit herself to Frollo and that is never going to happen. The lyrics are also very relevant to today’s world and still manage to induce hope for the future. I absolutely love this song.

While the City slumbered: A nice and menacing transition song back to Quasimodo that perfectly sets the stage for the finale.

Made of Stone: This is Quasimodo’s other big number. And it’s also a very heartbreaking one as he vows to never feel anything again and pretty much gives up on his life. He abandons the chorus and the voices in his head cease to be for the time being. And the line “His [Frollo’s] words were cold as stone...but they were true” is especially haunting because it somehow makes sense. Everything Frollo told Quasimodo about the outside world has, in fact, come true. But Quasimodo ultimately fails to see the positive things that happened to him as well. This is how far Frollo’s emotional abuse of Quasimodo has gone by now. The sad thing is that this version of Frollo probably genuinely believed that he was being a good father figure and didn’t see the negative aspects his parenthood inflicted on Quasimodo. But holy shit, the music, the lyrics, this is definitely one of the highlights of the musical.

Finale: There is SO much going in the last ten minutes of the show! It starts off with Frollo offering Esmeralda one last chance of freedom. She spits in his face and he sets the pyre ablaze. Quasimodo ultimately breaks free of his chains and rescues Esmeralda, Phoebus gets rescued by Clopin, Frollo negates the laws of sanctuary, the soldiers barge in the doors of Notre Dame and Quasimodo pours molten lead over them! And all of this is accompanied by Latin chanting, culminating in a “The Bells of Notre Dame” reprise when the molten lead is being poured on the soldiers (that red curtain effect was wonderful). Then we get an “On Top of the World” reprise before Esmeralda ultimately dies of smoke inhalation. This is the part where everyone is fully aware that this is not going to get a Disney happy ending. Esmeralda dying in Quasimodo’s arms after calling him a good friend and Quasimodo not realising it until a few moments after is one of the saddest Disney scenes ever. Then we get one of the most villainous but also one of the most tragic scenes with Frollo. He sings a quiet “Esmeralda” reprise and tries to comfort Quasimodo by stating that she made her own choice and that now things will “get back to normal”. He fully believed that what he was doing was the right thing and actually shows some remorse over Esmeralda’s death. He tells Quasimodo that he could have given her love (which is all sorts of unsettling), and then we get one of the saddest scenes between the two: Quasimodo asks Frollo to tell him who he had ever loved in his life. Frollo looks at him and for one moment it looks like he wants to say Quasimodo’s name but he stops mid-sentence and talks about his brother Jehan instead. This once again shows how Quasimodo is the only thing that reminds Frollo of Jehan and that deep down he still has love for his brother and nephew, despite committing all of those evil deeds. Quasimodo ultimately breaks down and attacks Frollo. The spirits of Quasimodo’s parents (Jehan and Florika, the gypsy woman Jehan once brought into the cathedral) recite Frollo’s “The wicked shall not go unpunished” line, as Quasimodo carries Frollo to the edge of the roof. Frollo, terrified, pleads Quasimodo to let him go and says that he doesn’t want to truly hurt him. This is where the chorus comes back and ominously whispers “Yes, you do.” This sent chills down my spine. Quasimodo picks Frollo up and throws him down the roof to his death. It gets even more heartbreaking when the reprises of “Sanctuary”, “Out There” and “Olim” start playing. Quasimodo picks up the dead Esmeralda and walks out of the cathedral. And finally, the people accept him and reveal that all of them have imperfections. While Quasimodo’s deformity is on the outside, everyone else has hideous parts inside. And if THAT isn’t sad enough, we get a “Someday” reprise by the chorus, which ends with the actor of Quasimodo stepping out of his role, addressing the audience by quoting Victor Hugo’s novel about Esmeralda and Quasimodo’s skeletons crumbling to dust years later. And only THEN we get Clopin coming in, mourning and starting the “The Bells of Notre Dame” reprise. All of the cast comes out and sings the final notes and the audience is left in tears. WHAT A MUSICAL.

The Cast

Quasimodo - Kevin Köhler: I LOVED him as Quasimodo. I already saw him as Alfred in Tanz der Vampire once but here he is totally different. He perfectly captures the broken and innocent child-like nature of Quasimodo and does a superb job of imitating the crooked walking. His performance of “Made of Stone” was just heartbreaking.

Frollo - Felix Martin: I was SO happy when I saw that he would be Frollo in my viewing. I already saw him as Peron in Evita but this was so different. He was much colder than he seemed on the CD but when he had to be compassionate or regretful, he pulled it off perfectly. His rendition of “Hellfire” was a villainous, tragic descent into madness. I remember seeing other Disney musicals like The Lion King and Aladdin. The villain always got booed at the end. Here, the villain got the biggest applause. This alone speaks for the different approach of this show and Felix Martin’s performance.

Esmeralda - Mercedesz Csampai: I saw Mercedesz twice as Sarah in Tanz der Vampire and very much looked forward to seeing her as Esmeralda. While she didn’t exactly look like I would imagine Esmeralda, she definitely pulled it off singing- and acting-wise. I enjoyed seeing her in a different role and was sold from the beginning.

Phoebus - Maximillian Mann: While I always imagine Phoebus with blonde hair, Maximillian pulls the persona off perfectly. He is funny and serious at the same time and his voice is PERFECT. I really enjoyed seeing him.

Clopin - Gavin Turnbull: I was used to Jens Janke on the cast recording so Gavin was VERY different. This is an older, more serious Clopin who doesn’t shy away from good jokes though. I think I had the most fun watching Gavin acting-wise. His voice also perfectly fits. While Jens Janke shows more of the joking jester side of Clopin, Gavin shows more of the gypsy king side. So it seems to me at least. 

Overall

Overall, I LOVE this show. It is in my top 5 musicals right now and I would recommend it to everyone. It is SO GOOD. Definitely the darkest Disney piece ever made. It’s great to see that both of the well-known Victor Hugo stories now have critically acclaimed musical counterparts. I would love to see this show again if I can make it. It’s still playing in Stuttgart. Everyone should watch this piece. The messages, the acting, the songs and the overall impression are fantastic. 

[queerdilf]

top 5 musicals

Oooookay I freaking love musicals, thank you so much for this Helga, okay!!!1. Les Misérables- Duh. This used to be a Les Mis blog and I still reblog Les Mis bc it's so important to me. Literally I can listen to the songs for any occasion, if I'm sad, if I'm angry, if I need to pump myself up, or if I just need a good belt of On My Own, which, as cliche as it is, is my comfort song. Eponine is very important to me, along with the Barricade Boys and Valjean and Javert and Cosette and Marius and everyone but the Thenardiers who can fucking choke, they literally abandoned their children and used the others for crime and abuse. I've read the book eight times and annotated it seven time over, finding something new every time. Whenever someone thinks of me, they think Les Mis, my name is synonymous with it at this point, and that really hypes me up!2. Natasha, Pierre, and The Great Comet of 1812- A new entry into my list, but not any less important! I saw this show in August and instantly fell in love. The costume and set design were absolutely marvelous, I cannot believe they gutted the whole Imperial Theatre to make that stage, and with the stairs going all the way up to the balcony and the chandeliers like oh my god it was beautiful. I need to go see Carousel so I can see what they did with the stage. Anyway, Natasha Pierre also had such a diverse cast, it was so cool to see POC in roles that didn't need to be cast as such, like it wasn't a requirement to have POC, but they were all in leads, it was such a nice change. Along with that, the music was not only incredible sounding, but it was original too. I never quite expected how the next song was going to sound. And the special effects and the snow and the fact that people were onstage and the humor and the high notes, like shit I could go on about this one forever!3. A Gentleman's Guide to Love and Murder- This odd little show is the last in my theme I have going of "period pieces that aren't exactly period pieces". I don't know why Gentleman's Guide stands out to me. I didn't get to see it on Broadway, but I recently saw it on tour coming around and I watched the bootleg six times. It's honestly just such a good, funny show! Like it's suspenseful, you love to root for Monty, even though he's literally murdering his whole family for power, you can tell he genuinely feels for both Phoebe and Sibella, which is why the ending is so satisfying when they somewhat agree to share him. The music is whimsical and floaty and older sounding and I'd literally kill to play Sibella. The humor is so blunt in a good way, like I really enjoy this show far more than I can explain because I can't quite put into words what attracts me to it. Like it's just so genuinely good and it makes me so happy to just hear songs from it and see pictures from it.4. Godspell- A new entry into my top five, but not at all new to me. This show was introduced to me when I was in it in 5th grade. I had the Day By Day solo on the Thursday night show and to this day it remains one of my favorite shows I've ever been on. Because it was a rec show, it had a big cast, but if I were to cast it, I'd have a cast of 13, Jesus, Judas and the other disciples. I've fallen in love with this show again recently because of Jesus Christ Superstar live and how much I didn't enjoy it. It reminded me how much I love Godspell and I went back and watched the 1973 movie for shits and giggles and just remembered how much fun it was to be on that show. It was so clowny and abstract and colorful and creative and all I want to do now is direct this show. I'll listen to the music and just play out choreography and set design because I think it's so cool. Also, it sets itself up for so much fun and symbolism. The music is phenomenal and sometimes it's just fun to have fun in a show!!5. Wicked- My first ever Broadway musical. This is musical is close to my heart, and I remember sitting in my friend's basement and hearing it for the first time and only singing the Fiyero bits because I wanted to be him so bad. Since then I've kind of outgrown that, though I'd be lying if I said I still didn't jam to Dancing Through Life and imagine myself in the Fiyero pants. This show provided me with my very first dream role of Elphaba, and was my first show I actually got the chance to see on Broadway when I was eleven. This show inspired me to do the stuff I do now, and as much as I've grown, this musical will always have meaning to me and my best friend, who sang songs from this show at our middle school talent shows. This show means so much to me, honestly, plus great music, incredible effects, it's just the Broadway Show :)These should have been counting down the shows from 5-1 I just realized, whatever, you get the idea!!

[rezaabdoh]

King Kong

Reza Abdoh (1963-1995) was the fervent, tenacious and visionary orchestrator behind a pack of rabid dogs named 'dar a luz' who corralled audiences incessantly into the depths of hell.

The AIDS era director, playwright, company leader, and poet wryly deferred his biographical details to his own fallacies, a twisting of details and the strenuous efforts of researching journalists and critics. But, some of what we do know is that he was born in Tehran to parents well connected to diplomats, his father a violent former boxer and a member of the Shah's coterie. He was sent to school outside London, where he experienced British boarding school racism but also directed his first play, a youth theatre enactment of Peer Glyt, and published a book of poetry, 'The Sound of a Poet Breathing in an Imprisoned Air'.

Immediately after high school, he found himself in Los Angeles with his father who had fled exile due to the 1979 Iranian Revolution and was subsequently no longer a wealthy friend of the monarchy due to its' abolition. The family was there mere months when Reza was cruelly outed as gay by his step-sister via pornography he may or may not have owned. His father was furious and two weeks later, before Reza could speak with him, he died, leaving Reza and his siblings penniless in America.

The next few years are mysterious: possibly he dropped out of literature or film at USC, possibly he completed it, possibly he started a law degree and in 1981, possibly, he directed 'Darkness Visible', 'a compilation of meditations on Satanism.'... or not. For sure though, he continued to conceive new works and cultivate friendships that would grow into his production company. By the end, he had prolifically directed eighteen theatre works, ten of them his original productions.

There are three plays which Abdoh considered a trilogy; 'The Hip-Hop Waltz of Eurydice' (1990), 'Bogeyman' (1991) and 'The Law of Remains' (1992). Only he really knew why...

The first, genderswaps the Greek myth of Orpheus and Eurydice, placing the couple in a neglected domestic setting, bickering away, ambiguously following the plot twists of the ancient source material. The murder, the bargaining, and return from the underworld lie somewhere amidst resentful one-liners, exploding Statues of Liberty and banned eroticism. This was the calmest of Abdoh's works but contains the most explicit use of a theme that over-arched his work; the theme of descent, or a careening through, and, towards indefinite endings.

The result is a rebuke to the reality of forbidden love in America: to the imposed rigidity on gender, to censorship of private lives and the tragic evasion of public queer suffering under Reagan's non-existent AIDS policies. Abdoh's Hades is a disgusting lesion covered fascist, he appears in a white suit, has Eurydice decapitated and brandishes his repugnant rant of mockeries, vanities, and hypocrisies with confidence that they're the wisdom of an astute businessman. For Abdoh, gallows humour like the comical tyrant was a potent technique to scrutinize the widespread human paradoxes which he dramatised, 'the most important part of my aesthetic;'

“Eurydice: Suppose a burglar breaks into the house and finds me? Orpheus: It would serve him right.” - The Hip-Hop Waltz of Eurydice (1990)

In his often large-scale and always experimental performances he encompassed a scope of topics difficult to comprehend. Each different for he never wished to do the same thing again, and each holding precipitous, tense contradictions, moral ambiguity and never once a release or reconciliation. Any point one might like to pull out to draw a singular understanding from would have been violently negated by the preceding passage, or the screams of a voice from off stage, or subsumed in the chaotic invasion of pop, political and dramaturgic details.

He cut out the pastiching, plagiarising, deconstructing heart of the '80s and regarded it's many fatty details before he sliced them up and fed them to his actors for his audiences' entrancement, and then, he refused to license another to ever re-stage a single thing. A beautifully contrary act from a self-proclaimed 'receiver': to pillage culture then demand the results never be distorted? But, it makes sense, Abdoh thought his work existed outside post-modernity because he had a strong point of view. One which could easily slip away, like a line missing from a poem, and he considered himself like a 'symbolist poet' and his work like a poem; irreducible to its parts. Besides, he was more fascinated by contradiction than ambiguity.

Documentation of his work is rare and seems like a clandestine bootleg, but its still worth watching; how often do you see people or art explode like this? Today we're more likely to represent the onslaught of societal injustices privatised as things to personally overcome, threaded through some drama, or seeping through environs as familiar weeds. Unlike Reza, who's plays' furiously jabbed at every soft spot around them, like a virus eating through vitals from the inside out. Implicating everyone and seething with tears and laughter.

'Bogeyman' (1991), Part II of the trilogy, towards the end features a severed head, among falling feathers, freshly plucked from a crow, the head is bitten and swung like a pendulum over a mother and the sycophantic metropolitan reincarnation of her original pig of a husband. A coming-out story of sorts, the son's narrative is subsumed in the action of the many other characters spread across nine settings within a three by three grid construction which contains apartments, an upturned hospital room, a field of wheat and video screens.

The maniacal parents fume and berserk throughout the play dragging the sex and intermittent dancing undertow to their abusive relationship with delirious speed. At any moment various scenes play out beneath the shouting, all on view simultaneously in different boxes: a demarcating structure constantly undermined by the intermingling characters scaling the set. In real life, behind the scenes, the complicated set resulted in many minor injuries and once an actor screaming at a colleague 'Don't touch my blood!' The truncated lives of queer persons flow beneath the hypocritical tirades of heteronormativity. From the disclosure, to taboos and to a hospital bed with rapid speed 'Bogeyman' fits lifetimes into its short span, rampaging across the stage to confront people with a raucous and angry work of art-imitating-life.

Abdoh abhorred theory, the term 'avant-garde', and the word 'radical.' He explained, he thought art was not radical; 'what is radical is what is in the streets, what is radical is the war in Iraq.' Drawing comparisons to his work leaves you with insufficient and reaching declarations. It has been compared to a massive array of artists and writers from Bosch, to Burroughs, to Shakespeare, Edgar Allen Poe, Bach, Rimbaud or Marquis de Sade. Much is written also on the influence of the permanently evolving, mournful and unstable Shi'ite theatre/ritual called Ta'ziyeh which does away with such unities as time or place, and the detachment of the audience, as fundamental requisites for it's staging. How important he considered these influences we don’t often know. If he ever saw Ta'ziyeh in his life it may have been from the window of a limousine as a child, but regardless with art this complex, comparison shines a light, coincidental or not. In his own words, however, his biggest inspiration was life in America, and included cryptic notions like the 'multi-layered realities' of MGM musicals, or the performance from L.A.'s 'Club FUCK!', and especially, pop culture and TV, specifically, the way 'popular media is, to me, abusive.'

“I ignore 99% of all information, 99% of all products. The tiny amount that I do absorb subjects me to perpetual electrocution. There is something so disgusting about this endless uselessness. It’s the disgust for a world that is growing, accumulating, sprawling, sliding into hypertrophy, a world that can’t manage to give birth.” -'Quotations from a Ruined City' 1993

In part III of the trilogy, 'The Law of Remains,' the audience is moved around from setting to setting, co-conspirators in the consumption and exposition of the 'story.' The story is the making of a movie and furthers a line that recurred, like a fugue, in many previous plays, repeating the idea of finding a star for a movie or being that movie star. The star here, however, is Jeffrey Snarling (a.k.a. Dahmer), the serial killer, necrophile and cannibal who targeted young boys of colour until he was caught in 1991. The director is Andy Warhol, the tyrannical auteur who literally framed pop-culture and controversially exploited his muses. What follows is an hour and half of cruelty and fascination, examining and complicating the function of a gay serial killer in American culture.

The show is as usual loud and unrelenting. This time with more dance breaks than previous pieces -which serve to punctuate Abdoh's plays- but in this most cacophonous one, the punctuation is with speed and force. Replacing traditional silence with noise and flitting between creation and destruction, there is no room for pause, for as in real life death is not an end. Whether you are spiritual or not there is the macabre fact -remember physics class- that energy cannot be created or destroyed but only transmuted to new forms. We watch processes begin at death: 'boy toy chilli cheeseburgers' for example, potentials like making 'a heap of money out of this movie', or interviews which begin as the victim is dying, a microphone held out to grab the story or just the anxiety that grows in Snarling and permeates the cast and audience as Dahmer's psyche riled a culture. Like an endless loop, everything seems inevitable and interconnected. Dahmer is a dark star in American mass media, his nefarious story, racially and sexually charged, far crosses the boundaries of taboo but it was foremost his taboos and not his evil that made him an American star. After all he's far from the only serial killer of that time. In the end, Snarling writes a letter from heaven in a typically twisted scene that questions the authority and innocence of the moralisers, both in the audience and society at large;

“Dear Bridget, Do you remember Ronald Reagan in 'The Killers'? He's here now in heaven. Dressed in the old glory he's become a fuckable doll. I study his moves. We drink tea and sympathy with an avid swig of joy. We yelp the baseball scores over the radio. I tap the channel changer: multiple pile-ups, head-on collisions, motorcade attacks and the simulated anus of Reagan post-colostomy surgery - which generates spontaneous orgasms in me. I love him. I wanna fuck him. Time to go do, Bridget.” -'The Law of Remains' 1992.

Abdoh's plays draw together a vast network of details for audiences to get lost in, but pull back to view the bigger picture and you're similarly lost. His genius did not lay in a tortured theorisation or an orderly effort to understand, but rather, in the illumination of the emotions which propelled his obdurate drive to live. He would compound a barrage of information into a single heavy emotional mass via very complex pieces that used their complexity to delve down to a place where artistic creation can express that which is beyond the individual and cannot be reached sufficiently with rationality or logic. The sheer complexity of events is embraced fully and details of contradictions, injustices, and pleasures are played out without sentimentality so they may commit their energy to the communication of what it felt like to live these lives. Instead of offering an interpretation of interpretations he had, like everyone else, received, he got right to the point of why humanity had to do better.

“I have a lot more to say, but I have a plane to catch. And the ruined city will follow me wherever I happen to go. 'I carry the ruined city under my skin, in my belly, in my underbelly. And so do you motherfucker. And so do you motherfucker.” -'Quotations from a Ruined City', 1993

The final work Abdoh staged was 'Quotations from a Ruined City' (1993), co-written with his brother Salar. Staged between barbed wire and a picket fence, it takes a broad view of the violence exerted by the lives we live, by capitalism, identity, and war. It takes the themes of power/powerlessness and justice/injustice to caustic hyperrealism. With a pair of narrators who stand with only their heads showing through hatches in re-purposed elevator cars placed like watchtowers, screaming 'DON'T DO THAT!' intermittently between a script of quotes blasted over the lip-syncing cast.

The setting is a post-apocalyptic ruined city where brutality proliferates. Characters dressed from the future, or as Puritans, '50s & '60s Americana, Victorians, mummies, or the Civil War era, stream through the stage conversing across time at a blistering pace. The scene always changing, the characters pulling up new props and evolving their persona to new realities. Pummelled through changing circumstances they go through mutations in their lives exerted by the regularities of American power, and an emerging 'New World Order' that charged the components of that power with a new and terrifying edge. Whether religious fundamentalism verses/in politics or economics, the effect of folk culture vis-à-vis mass media or brutality exerted through the body-politic on politically dispossessed bodies he offers a searing critique on our culture, showing us what he sees but preferring not to apportion any blame unless its inhaled by all like the air we breathe.

In this final play, before Abdoh was killed by AIDS, we glimpse the complexity of the concerns the director of dar a luz (which means 'bring to light' i.e. 'give birth') had, tempered with rage, find an eloquent reciprocity between dark and light. Amongst the noise of existence, the most unmissable aspect that runs through every moment of Abdoh is the depiction of the nature of queer identity and its role against normative society. He has been called a queer prophet, which still stands true today as his works expose the deep origins that shaped our culture, on both human and inhuman scales, with far-sighted and stinging sophistication.

On an (often difficult to draw) autobiographical note, we see in 'Quotations' perhaps one such moment; when living bodies are as if mummified and stuffed into coffins lain upstage behind two gauze-wrapped, wreathed and garlanded women who's heads have emerged from trap doors. It is the way of AIDS, and viruses, that you wouldn't know from whom you contracted the illness and likely they wouldn't know where theirs came from either. This multiplicitous nature meant that one could not apportion blame, rather the cumulative injustices of the world had conspired to act upon your body. When considered in such terms what differentiates that from anything else? There are more trap doors than doors with money behind. There's no doubt he saw that life is cruel, and perhaps, he felt that a trap door had opened beneath him when at only twenty-one he was given a diagnosis of a terminal illness itself slathered in taboo. One writer, John Bell, thought that in 'Quotations' he had detected a political philosophy more so than in previous works and when he asked Abdoh about it his response was more succinct and encompassing than any that've been figured by critics:

“I believe that one has to not be a victim.” -Reza Abdoh

[thealpacalypse-archive]

1-50 #notevensorry #ily<3

oh wow, so much for going to bed early today^^

1. what’s your favorite musical?

ALL OF THEM

but my top faves over the years have been Elisabeth, 3 Musketiers, Into The Woods, RENT, Jesus Christ Superstar, Book of Mormon, Hamilton, and most recently, Dear Evan Hansen

2. favorite character in your favorite musical?

Robert from Company, Elphaba, The Witch from Into The Woods, Angel from RENT

3. what’s your favorite play?

bruh, SO MANY. recently i’m really into chekhov again, I recently saw an amazing Ivanov. other than that, I’m absolutely into Shakespeare, and I have a weakness for Schillers Die Räuber. Oh, and Andorra by Max Frisch.4. favorite character in your favorite play?

Viola from Shakespeare’s Twelfth Night maybe?? I love her.

5. what’s your dream role?

macbeth. andri in Andorra. Robert in Company. Mercutio in Romeo and Juliet. Antigone.

6. what’s a role you’d like to play that you’d never be able to?

I’m probably never able to play any of the roles I just mentioned, so…

7. do you prefer being behind the scenes or in the spotlight?

i mean going into dramaturgy, I will have to be happy with staying behind the scenes, but my heart will always bleed because I’m not on stage

8. do you like hamilton?

IT’S MY JAM I LOVE IT SO MUCH I CRY

9. have you seen hamilton?

AND I CRY SOME MOREmaybe one day, now that it’s coming to London

10. how do you feel about hyped up shows like hamilton, les mis, and rent?

Honestly, I couldn’t care less about how hyped they are. I love all my faves equally, doesn’t matter if it’s Wicked or some obsure 40’s book musical no one has played for decades. the good thing about hyped shows is: better cast recordings, better bootlegs, movie versions, all that nice stuff.

11. did you like this year’s tony awards?

didn’t watch the last tonys tbh. i don’t even know why, there wasn’t any particular reason

12. what award should there be that isn’t?

huh, don’t know, maybe one that specifically honours female writers and composers?

13. what shows have you been in/helped with?

mostly plays: my first one was Andorra, then a Shakespeare mashup thingie, then an original play about a teen with Aids, then an awesome one that was called The Trojan War Will Not Take Place, then Pension Schöller, then I was singing Carmina Burana, then Andorra again, and then a revue kinda thingie where we did various songs from musicals, operetta, opera, some choreographies, some other stuff… I probably forgot a few things, but oh well.

14. have you ever been paid to act onstage or on camera?

haha nope

15. do you prefer broadway or west end shows?

well I’ve never been to broadway. I’ve seen a couple of shows on west end tho. but one day I will go to Broadway and watch all the shows. have to get awfully rich first though

16. favorite stage actress?

Pia Douwes was one of my first stage crushes. of the german speaking ones, I also really love Sabrina Weckerlin, Annemieke van Dam, Lucy Scherer, Isabel Dörfler and Kerstin Ibald. Internationally, i have a huge crush on Kelli O'Hara, Phillipa Soo, and Alexia Khadime.

17. favorite stage actor?

Carl van Wegberg was my first crush, 12 years ago in Elisabeth. Rasmus Borkowski tho. And Oliver Arno and Serkan Kaya and Ben Platt and Nic Rouleau and tbh I have a bit of a thing for Aaron Tveit. Neil Patrick Harris, I know, I know, but DAMN i’m still not over his “Being Alive” and never will be.

18. favorite show currently or recently running?

Might be Dear Evan Hansen. I don’t know it well enough yet to say for certain, but damn, I love it!!!!

19. what’s your dream #ham4ham (even if you don’t like hamilton)?

my favorite one? obviously the schuyler georges. and the one where they got various people to do guns and ships. or is the question, who would I want to be at a ham4ham? Then my answer is Dame Julie Andrews of course. damn, forgot to mention her at my fave actresses.

20. who should host the tony’s next year?

LMM? With Dwayne The Rock Johnson as a co-host.

21. do you watch broadwaycom backstage vlogs?

from time to time. though it’s been ages since i last did that.

22. what’s your opinion on movies turned into musicals?

well, everything is turned into musicals these days. I don’t care so much what the source material is, as long as the music is good and the characters are great and it works with the plot. i mean, generalizing doesn’t really work, because you got stuff like Heathers, and then something like the Spiderman musical, so…

23. do you prefer musical movies or live musicals?

i love both, for very different reasons. i mean live theatre though. i have yet to find anything in this world that compares to it.

24. do you have an opinion on american psycho?

haven’t seen it. don’t care about it.

25. what movie would you want to be turned into a musical?

hmm. something gay. Imagine Me And You maybe? Or, wait, hold on, holy shit. PRIDE THE MUSICAL.

26. what role would you like to see your favorite actor play?

umm…. Ben Platt should go places, and get the parts he wants to have, and get to create new parts, because he’s amazing and he deserves it and I would probably watch him play a banana peel for two hours straight because he’d be amazing at that as well.

27. do you prefer musicals, plays, or operas?

I LOVE ALL OF IT???? DON’T MAKE ME CHOOSE THAT’S SO RUDE

28. dramatic plays or comedies?

again, cannot choose. both is good.

29. andrew lloyd webber or stephen sondheim?

Sondheim, always. I love JCS and I will fight anyone for the trash show that is Joseph and the Amazing Technicolour Dreamcoat, but that’s about it with Webber. Sondheim hasn’t done anything wrong in his life, ever, and I know this, and I love him.

30. neil patrick harris or james corden?

i mean, I love James Corden, but I mentioned it before, NPH in Company. BRUH.

31. did james corden do a good job hosting the tony’s (in your opinion)?

don’t know, didn’t see it

32. create a show mash-up and explain the plot (ex: legally todd = sweeney todd + legally blonde)

umm???? okay I’m tired and not very clever anymore, so the only thing I can come up with is

hamilrent - a couple of angry twenty- and thirtysomethings trying to make a change in american politics while being broke af

33. what song always makes you cry?

“Being Alive”. Isn’t it boring that I keep on bringing this up over and over again? I know. I still cry. Also “Children Will Listen” from Into The Woods. And “Wo ist der Sommer” from 3 Musketiers. And so far, “You Will Be Found” from Dear Evan Hansen.

34. how do you feel about musicals using other artists’ music?

like in jukebox musicals? I’m mostly trash for it tbh. We Will Rock You is such a trash fest but I love it, and I will always fight anyone on Mamma Mia.

35. what celebrity would you like to see on broadway next?

idk amandla stenberg?

36. favorite show you’ve been in?

we did a huge medley of “Im Weißen Rössl” once and tbh i love this operetta. it’s cheesy af but who cares.

37. would you like to act professionally?

i would. i gave that up a while ago though, when I realized I was too disabled to be accepted into acting schools.

38. television or stage acting?

i would personally always choose the stage over television acting, but I don’t necessarily think one is better than the other

39. what disney movie should be a musical that isn’t?

not sure if moana could work on stage but damn i love that music

40. if you could see one show on broadway or west end, what would it be?

i really miss book of mormon and I want to see it again, but hamilton or dear evan hansen would be first i guess. or fun home.

41. what musical should be revived next?

i’m so glad miss saigon is coming back, i love it. how about we bring back Into The Woods?

42. are musical sequels okay?

i personally don’t care much for them, but i don’t condemn them. like, i dislike theatre that’s made solely for the purpose of making money, which is something sequels are usually about. but that doesn’t mean that sequels are always and will always be a bad thing.

43. what musical sequel would you like there to be that isn’t?

umm???? well it would make sense for there to be a wicked sequel, since the book has a sequel as well? or, maybe not exactly a sequel, but more history musicals in the style of hamilton? that’d be rad.

44. have you ever had a crush on a character from a show?

umm. … no? *sweats nervously* why would you ask that…….? … never

45. how do you feel about musicals being done live on tv now?

i think it’s a cool idea in general, making musicals more accessible to a wider audience, in a way that’s closer to live theatre. i just think the format is still too new and it needs a lot more practice until it’s going to work.

46. did you like grease live?

haven’t seen it

47. are you excited for hairspray live?

i was really excited beforehand, and then i was absolutely disappointed because it was more racist, more sexist, more ableist, and generally worse than the movie version, and while the cast was good, it wasn’t good enough to save bad directing.

48. what show do you desperately want your school/community to do?

well, I want RENT to be back in Germany, and not in the horrible German translation please. Maybe my current employer could get on that? they’re known for excellent stagings of musicals, and they also did Anything Goes in the english original.

49. are you a stronger singer or dancer?

i’m not great at either but I love doing both. since my body is a bit shit though, I suppose i have a slight advantage for my singing.

50. would you rather design the set, direct the show, or help with effects?

i already helped with video and audio effects once, that was fun. i’m no good at set design, and directing doesn’t sound too bad, but I’m not into the creative pressure that comes along with directing. i think I’ll just stick to my dramaturgy. :P

thanks love, for all the questions! <3