After reading this post here, Robert Rose sent in this late-night question just in case I happened to feel like taking it up…
In your post Sunday about West Side Story, you write (of the 1961 version), "It's one of those films where I find myself thinking, 'This is really well-made but I'm having trouble caring about those characters.'" I seem to recall your making similar comments about other musicals, of both stage and screen — that you often enjoy the production, the songs, the performances, but have trouble caring about the characters.
I wonder if you'd care to provide any counter-examples, particularly among the better-known musicals? Ones where you either identified with one or more of the characters, or they at least made you really care what happened to them, even if it was only because they made you laugh?
Just a random late-night question if you happen to feel like taking it up.
I could give you examples for days. I find myself caring about Mama Rose and Louise in Gypsy, about most of the cast in A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum, most of those in Follies, Guys & Dolls, Damn Yankees, How to Succeed…, Liza and Higgins in My Fair Lady, John Adams in 1776, Li'l Abner and Daisy in Li'l Abner, the two lead ladies in Wicked, and on and on.
And maybe "cared" isn't the proper word so much as "interested in." I don't necessarily "care" about Sweeney Todd and Mrs. Lovett or the major players in Hamilton but I want to see what happens to them…even when, as is almost always the case, I know the ending.
My favorite non-musical moment in any musical may be in Music Man when Harold Hill, realizing he's becoming emotionally trapped in River City and having a rare (for him) moment of self-awareness says, "I always think there's a band, kid." There are a lot of sappy, contrived beats in that show but Harold Hill's turnaround always gets to me.
Different shows hit different people different ways…and different actors matter. I've seen Merrily We Roll Along with about five different casts and I'd say three out of the five caught me. The Superman musical never won me over…and that's quite a trick, doing a Superman musical and not getting a guy who loves Superman to care about Superman. None of the Rodgers & Hammerstein musicals except Carousel and South Pacific ever really won me over…but I'm thinking: Maybe it was the production, not the play. (Although I've probably seen Music Man eight times, including twice with Birthday Boy Van Dyke, and the above scene never fails.)
It's all a matter of individual choice, of course. Friends raved about Rent and most of it left me cold. Company, to me, is still a show where I sit through bloodless playlets masquerading as a coherent show in order to get to some great musical numbers. But I recognize a lot of people find it life-changing.
I don't know if this is any sort of answer to your question, Rob. It may be as simple as: A play either grabs you or doesn't. I think I'm highly grabbable but some shows — and West Side Story is so one of 'em — just don't do it. Ah…but the ones that do — to locate one of them — make the non-grabbers worth it.
