This week’s musical has taken up much of my time lately–for a good reason. I am a part of Volé, a dance organization on campus, and we have our spring showcase this Sunday. One of my dances is a musical theater jazz number (of course) to “Welcome To The Moulin Rouge!” from Moulin Rouge! The Musical, and the song has been stuck in my head nonstop. This past weekend, the girls in my dance got together to make accessories for the show, and we watched the film that the musical is based on. I had seen the movie a few years prior, but watching it now, I had a new sense of appreciation for the melodrama and suspense of it all. I knew I had to update the blog about it.

The Moulin Rouge! movie was released in 2001 and directed by Baz Luhrmann. The plot follows Christian (played by Ewan McGregor), a young writer, who is in love with Satine (played by Nicole Kidman), the star performer at the Moulin Rouge–a famous cabaret in Paris. Christian goes to the Moulin Rouge and Satine mistakes him for the Duke, who she wants to marry for financial security. Of course, they end up falling in love, but they are driven apart by Satine’s illness and her need to keep her love for Christian a secret.  The final scene is packed with drama as Christian tries to confront Satine about her distance from him and they end up on stage in front of a full audience on opening night of Satine’s show, which was written by Christian and his friends. The Duke and his bodyguard are trying to kill Christian as the cast onstage is trying to get rid of the gun, all the while Satine is professing her love for Christian. In the end, Satine dies in Christian’s arms right after the curtains close. Truly the pinnacle of theater. Well-directed, well-performed and perfectly dramatic.

The stage version debuted on Broadway in 2019. It has the same characters as the film, but some plot points are changed, such as Christian being the one to bring the gun to the opening night performance instead of the Duke’s bodyguard. I have never seen the stage version, but everyone who I know who has seen it has raved about it.

Now on to the music. Moulin Rouge! The Musical is a jukebox musical (a musical made of mostly preexisting popular songs from an artist or genre that are not original) done right. The best songs are the original songs, and the jukebox songs are mixed together to create something new, like “The Sparkling Diamond” which mixes “Material Girl” and “Diamonds are a Girl’s Best Friend” to showcase Satine’s desire to marry into money. The original songs are well-renowned and range from the upbeat “Lady Marmalade” to the dark “El Tango de Roxanne” and the romantic “Come What May.” In my opinion, a musical cannot maintain a focused plot if there is no originality to the music (see the musical Jagged Little Pill, for example). Plus, the chosen jukebox songs are different between stage and screen to appeal to the current audience and work best for the medium.

Last but certainly not least, I would be remiss if I did not mention the iconic Tessa Virtue and Scott Moir gold-winning ice dance routine from the 2018 Olympics, set to “El Tango de Roxanne” and “Come What May.” You’ve likely seen it before, but if not, it’s worth a watch as the Canadian ice dance duo perfectly captured the essence of Moulin Rouge!

This past Saturday, I got to see Penn State’s Centre Stage production of Into The Woods at the Playhouse Theater here on campus, and it was incredible. The acting, singing, scenic design, costumes, and live orchestra surpassed my expectations to say the least. I was not familiar with the plot and only remembered a couple songs from the show from seeing the movie in 2014, but by the end I could tell that this production did justice to Sondheim and Lapine’s original vision.

It is likely that the PSU theater department chose to put on this show this season because there was a recent revival of Into The Woods playing on Broadway from July 2022 to January 2023.  The last time the show played on Broadway was its first revival in 2002, and before that was its debut in 1987. Featuring music by Stephen Sondheim with a book by James Lapine, Into The Woods is a pastiche of several Brothers Grimm fairytales. In Act I, the show cleverly intertwines the stories of Little Red Riding Hood, Cinderella, Rapunzel, and Jack and the Beanstalk, leading to a happy fairytale ending. In Act II, however, a giant has climbed down from the sky to avenge her husband (the continuation of a subplot from the first act) and the show takes a dark turn as multiple characters face a grim demise. Two characters tie all the stories together: a baker and his wife, who are tasked by the Witch (from Rapunzel’s story) to find “a cow as white as milk, a cape as red as blood, the hair as yellow as corn, and the slipper as pure as gold” to lift a curse on their family.

My main takeaway from the show was the theme of growing up. I admire Sondheim and Lapine for not only combining a bunch of fairytales, but recognizing the audience and mixing the dark tones of the original Brothers Grimm stories with the societal notion that fairytales (as we know them from Disney movies) are childish. The show appeals to children but doesn’t infantilize its audience. First, the theme appears in Little Red Riding Hood’s story. After her encounter with the wolf in the woods, she sings the song “I Know Things Now.” The character sings, “I know things now, many valuable things, that I hadn’t known before,” and “Isn’t it nice to know a lot, and a little bit not.” These lines reflect the experience of growing up, as the character is learning more about the dangers of the world and that not everything is a stereotypical fairytale. Another song that continues this theme is “Giants in the Sky” sung by Jack from Jack and the Beanstalk. He sings, “And you know things now that you never knew before,” repeating the line from Little Red Riding Hood’s song. Jack and Little Red Riding Hood act as stand-in characters for the children in the audience since they are children in their stories.  Later in the show, the two young characters are consoled in “No One Is Alone” after they lose their families. Cinderella and the Baker sing, “Sometimes people leave you, halfway through the wood. Others may deceive you, you decide what’s good” to them. It is as if the fairytales are sticking up for the children and showing them that they can take their time growing up and that they have the agency to make their own choices.

Overall, Into The Woods is an excellent show with themes for both children and adults, and I highly recommend seeing future Centre Stage productions, especially since there is a student discount on tickets!

This week, we’ll be taking a look at the well-known and renowned musical West Side Story. You’ve likely heard of West Side Story before and might have even seen one or both of the film adaptations, so we’ll be diving into the interesting casting choices that seem to characterize the West Side Story universe.

West Side Story was inspired by Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet. The idea to adapt Shakespeare’s timeless play into a modern musical came from Jerome Robbins (1918-1998), who is mostly known for his prolific ballet career with American Ballet Theatre and New York City Ballet.  His original idea was to focus on a relationship between a Jewish girl and an Irish Catholic boy, which–after many years and much dissatisfaction with the drafts–evolved into the story of forbidden love between a white boy and a Puerto Rican girl that we know now. Both the original idea and the final product involved the main characters being teenagers involved with opposing New York City gangs.

West Side Story debuted on Broadway in 1957 at The Winter Garden theater with music by Leonard Bernstein, lyrics by Stephen Sondheim, and book by Arthur Laurents. There have been three Broadway revivals since the initial run: 1980, 2009, and 2020. The show has been adapted into a film twice–first in 1961 and recently in 2021.

The show is renowned for its music. Bernstein did an incredible job composing a wide range of recognizable melodies, from the suspenseful “Cool” to the dance-inducing “Mambo”. It is a dance-heavy show, so there are quite a few instrumental interludes. The most popular songs from West Side Story that you are likely familiar with are “I Feel Pretty” and “America”. The plot unfolds similarly to that of its source material Romeo and Juliet, but there are some twists and turns along the way that I will not spoil since I highly recommend watching one of the movies or listening to the soundtrack.

The interesting thing about West Side Story is that it acts as social commentary on racial divides and violence, and yet the casting in many of the earlier productions is does not hold these values. Take the original Broadway production, for example. Carol Lawrence played the lead role of Maria and won many accolades for her performance, but Lawrence is Italian-American, not Puerto Rican like her character Maria. An actor portraying a story about someone of a different ethnicity is problematic, especially went the character’s ethnicity is not often represented in theater as it is. Specifically with West Side Story, the story is all about ethnicity and how it shapes communities and relationships, so it is inauthentic for the ethnicities of the characters to not be seen in the actors. Even in the 1961 film, Maria is played by Natalie Wood, a Russian-American actress, and the members of the Sharks gang who are supposed to be Puerto Rican were almost all portrayed by white people wearing dark makeup to give the appearance of a darker complexion. Chita Rivera in the role of Anita is the only good example of casting in the original production and the 1961 film, as she is actually Latina, not to mention incredibly talented.

In the 2021 movie, Rivera paid tribute to her early career by playing the role of the shop owner, for which a new song was added just for her. The casting of the 2021 film is incredible, except for the choice of Ansel Elgort as Tony. Even disregarding the accusations of sexual assault against him (which came out after the filming of the movie but before its release and strongly impacted its reception), Elgort does not have the range for the role and plays it with little believable emotion. Still, both movies are worth a watch. I recommend comparing both, as the original includes a better actor playing Tony and has inherent historical value, but the newer version wins in terms of set design and Maria’s acting and singing.