Bit of Ivory

I have so many different things to blog about that I can’t seem to think of a unifying theme. So here we go.

Preference was a blast. Josh turns every dance into a production number. It was great fun to pantomime to the lyrics of “Dancing Queen” and “I Will Survive” and such things. He taught me a lift as well, so I got to feel all cool. My arm hurts though. And I’m still exhausted. We didn’t get back to Provo until about 1:00 AM, and didn’t get to sleep until about 1:30. Then we were woken up at 7:15 by my roommate Amber, asking if one of us could take her to the hospital. Jen did. Turns out she had food poisoning, probably from a bad taco at Taco Bell. I never eat there anyway, but now I *definitely* won’t. She’s all right, luckily, but it sure cut down on the sleep.

Let’s see. Oh, yeah. That sorry excuse for The Music Man that was on TV on Sunday. It was not only awful, it was practically blasphemous. A crime against humanity. My family and I lasted until about “Goodnight My Someone” before we were forced to break out our DVD to watch the *real* thing. They took my favorite musical of all time and slaughtered it. I was turned off from the first musical number– the one on the train with the salesmen. Because the cool thing about that number is that there is no music. It’s just to the sound of the train– Just talking in rhythm to the wheels and the tracks. But in this version they added an accompaniment, which completely ruins the concept.

And it was downhill from there.

Matthew Broderick had about two facial expressions. He did his songs in a practical monotone. Now, I know the songs are supposed to be spoken above the music, but you’ve got to put some feeling into them. Robert Preston put so much charisma into those songs that I would have paid for my son to be in the band even if I didn’t have a son. Whereas with Broderick I was in no way convinced that I should pay for anything. Part of the charm of The Music Man is that you know Harold Hill is a scoundrel, but you want him to get away with it. You want him to cheat all these nice people out of their money. It’s just so fun to watch him that you want him to succeed. Broderick didn’t convince me for a single minute. He was awful. There was no charisma, nothing. Just a static, monotone voice, delivering his lines too fast. In fact, everyone delivered their lines too fast. They were all too obviously 21st century. The most obvious example of this is the anvil salesman, Charlie Cowel. His lines were so fast that the jokes were barely intelligible.

The girl who played Marion was obviously wearing a blonde wig, which is pretty ridiculous because it never says anywhere in the script that Marion has to be blonde. Maybe her hair was too short or something, but at least they could have wigged her in her real color. If she’s a blonde, I’m Hermione Granger. And there’s no possible way that the large-scaled Mrs. Paroo could ever have given birth to the incredibly petite Marion.

At least Winthrop was a real kid, not a miniature adult with a fake Broadway vibratto.

I didn’t catch “76 Trombones” or “Marion the Librarian,” but we went up to my grandparents for dessert and I did catch the “Shipoopi,” and if that’s any indication, I’m glad I didn’t have to watch them ruin those numbers either. They re-orchestrated the whole show, taking out all the wonderful character that was in the orchestration and making it flat and hollow. What was the matter with the music Meredith Willson wrote, I ask? The “Shipoopi” is a great dance number, and instead of doing it justice, they cut it short and subsituted “Three Blind Mice” for the great melody that was there before. If I had been at my own house instead of my grandmothers, I would have thrown things at the TV. As it was, I had to get up and pace out my frustration.

Because for a lot of people, that’s the only version of The Music Man they’ll ever see. A lot of kids especially would never dream of watching a movie that was made before 1980, unless it’s Disney, and most certainly not a musical. It’s very sad, because the original version is a true work of art.

If you’ve never seen The Music Man, or if you watched that atrocity on Sunday, go out and rent the real one. Today. Now, if you can. You won’t regret it.

Okay, now I’ve got that out of my system. I feel better.