On Feb 18, 2007, at 10:23 AM, John Howell wrote:
Version 1.0 opened in Chicago in 1971. A very revised version
opened off Broadway in February 1972, and moved onto B'way in June
1972, remaining in production for 3,388 performances before closing
in April, 1980. It is being revived as we speak, and apparently
it's being cast on TV to drum up interest. The songs from the 1978
movie will be included in the 2007 revival.
Ugh. I had heard about the revival with the TV reality show
auditions, but I didn't know they were including those wretched disco
songs from the movie.
And apparently "You're The One That I Want" wasn't in the original
score.
No, of course not. It's a horrible fit.
So what? Well, just this. ALL the songs were written in the
1970s. It's manufactured nostalgia, something Broadway is very good
at. Not a '50s song in the bunch. And for very good reason:
copyright. Profit trumps accuracy every time. Richard Rodgers
could have used authentic Gregorian Chant to open "The Sound of
Music," but that wouldn't have been HIS music and he wouldn't have
had control over it.
So the complaint seems to be not that the songs are '70s songs,
because they can't help being. It's that they supposedly don't
SOUND like '50s songs, and there I'll certainly agree
Can anyone on this thread tell me which of the songs from the
original show they feel don't "sound like" 50s songs? I think the
original score is a good score.
Yes, of course, I realize that producers care more about evoking the
era with calls to the popular imagination than they do about actual
authenticity, but they do a good job with the faux-50s sound. Every
song in the original show was a good fit, and every song added for
the movie was not.
I can't believe I'm the only one who hears the difference between
Frankie Avalon singing "Beauty School Dropout" and Barry Gibb singing
"Grease is the Word". I'm horrified that the hits from the movie
have now made it into the current revival. I can understand why the
movie producers felt a need to put in some contemporary hits so that
their sound track might be a hit on the charts, but what reason is
there for perpetuating the error in 2007?
But if even the people on this thread are deaf to the difference, I
guess I shouldn't expect any better from reality TV.
mdl, appalled
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