If there was one thing that felt curious about this year’s Thanksgiving, it was going to be how Macy would do their annual parade. If nothing else, it is the perfect symbolism of community, celebrating pageantry as floats and balloons march down the street. Sure, a lot of it is shameless commerce, but there’s always something fun about those moments that stuck out. For instance, did you know that The Rock is getting his own TV show about his younger years? That was somewhere in-between an interesting mix of ethnically diverse performances and the familiar marching band excitement. While I wouldn’t call it an exceptional year, it definitely was that little boost of life to get the holiday festivities kicked off right.
Though, if I’m being totally honest, there was one particular moment that stuck out like a sore thumb. It wasn’t any of the Broadway dances (usually my favorites of the show), but it came close. As random celebrities gave holiday wishes/promoted shows, there was the appearance of Matthew Morrison dressed as a familiar cartoon character. By some miracle, Dr. Seuss’ The Grinch has become a hot commodity, arguably more recognizable than The Cat in the Hat, and has starred in everything from a really good animation special to a really bad live-action movie. Now, to prove that his legacy is far from over, he’s getting his own TV musical on NBC!
This is a loaded question when getting down to it. The question ultimately isn’t whether or not it’s safe to do in a COVID-19 world, but why would you choose an obscure property? When you look at every major commodity, very few of the Christmas-themed musicals have had their adaptation to this medium, and it would likely draw in a bigger crowd. But hey, who wouldn’t want to see some holiday merriment? The idea of adapting something familiar and ultimately reassuring of the musical genre is the least we can receive in a year that has featured Broadway shut down for eight months (so far).
Here’s the thing. Obviously, I want to watch dozens (maybe even 100) shows before this Grinch musical. It helps that I have had a craving for live theater that has only become harder to whet with every passing month. Still, I’m dying to see what Hadestown looks like on a stage. There is something about a good theater with dynamite acoustics and an enthusiastic crowd enjoying the show with you. In all sincerity, you haven’t appreciated The Phantom of the Opera until you’ve seen it on a stage. What it lacks in flawless story it more than makes up for with maximalist entertainment.
But alas, I’m aware of the differences between live theater and watching a “live” musical on TV. I’ve made it a bit of an obsession to watch the various annual productions to understand why this is a valuable art form. To be totally honest, I don’t ever believe that watching a commercial break-heavy special will capture the theatrical experience, but the optimism lodged in the back of my head wants to believe that this will be what introduces a new audience to the theater, making them curious to watch local or touring productions. I fully endorse it, so long as it isn’t a cynical cash grab like The Little Mermaid Live!
Because the shows at their heart are about being performative. They’re a form of expression and there’s some validation of seeing it on TV, played by very talented actors and crew members adding spectacle wherever they can. While some shows compliment themselves more for this structure than others, I can’t help but give my two cents. I am by no means a theater major, but a lot of my adult life has been spent either consuming theater or sitting in a room watching actor pour their hearts out. I am the audience member who wants to see a show go well.
To be clear, my ideal version of this would be to just air pro-shot productions in primetime. Forgo the effort of making something new and just translate the New York experience to an international audience. It’s one of the few follies of The Tony Awards in that very few will ever see the shows that win in the way that they’re being celebrated. For every successful transfer like Cats (1998) or Hamilton (2020), you get other major hits likes Dear Evan Hansen or Come From Away that you’ll just have to assume were good.
However, I have a certain respect for those who want to update the show to a TV market, where the cast has several studio lots and endless angles to perform their set-pieces. Of the shows that have taken this mold, I personally think that Grease Live! is the most successful for a variety of reasons. While I don’t like the show itself, it’s a successful example of a live show operating to its full potential. There are elaborate sets of gyms, high school hallways, and even a carnival setting that make it feel more lived in.
It also helps that Grease Live! is, to put it simply, one of the trendier shows to have been adapted. Fox has taken to adapting the edgier shows, and Grease is a show full of sex and drug use that really works for a teenage market. Even the way that they handled transitions in and out of scenes had this effective manner of keeping the audience engaged, featuring Jessie J singing “Grease (Is the Word)” with a stylized moving camera. The show had so much personality that it became a celebration of the art form, even if it’s maybe the worst representation of what going to a theater could be by simple virtue of having to wheel cast members via golf carts across studio lots while a presumptive audience only showed up in the final minutes.
Though to be fair, it’s a much more successful outing than Fox’s next big, edgy musical. Rent Live! was always going to be a mess. Despite being considered one of the most revolutionary musicals of the late-20th century for its queer depiction, there was still an effort to get most of its ribald topics on the air without being censored. Enough was lost in translation for a primetime audience that even if it was a show that talked about AIDS and transgender characters, it wasn’t allowed to be as “kinky” as it could’ve been.
Like Grease Live!, it was a massive undertaking that found a jungle of a set being assembled. The major difference is that where the previous one was a maximalist set design, Rent Live! was largely steel grates, finding actors singing while running across rafters. This isn’t an issue, but whereas I could assume the geography of Grease Live!, I couldn’t do the same here. Part of the issue is that there’s an audience there and you aren’t entirely sure how they’re able to see anything half the time. And, of course, there is the notorious irony of the aired version not being live because a rehearsal featured a pivotal actor breaking his leg while crowd surfing.
I’ll confess that I like Rent Live! a lot more than its reputation suggests. It at least tries to convey the live experience in ways that add an implicit excitement to the show. For everything it lacks in a faithful transition it more than makes up for as another exercise in solid filming. The ending is also a touching reunion with the original cast as they pay tribute to the show’s creator, Jonathan Larson. Sure, there’s a lot of contradictory reasons to call it a mess, but again I think it’s great to see diverse source material making it to TV. Sure, it caused Fox to reconsider their selection of adaptations, but for these two, in particular, they had a stamp on something that other channels had failed to capture: youthful spontaneity.
To be fair, NBC has been the flagship channel for many of these adaptations. Among their work, there is of course the notorious flop of Peter Pan Live! (if you didn’t watch it live, you missed a random, hilarious cutaway to Christopher Walken holding a high note while being sailed across a swamp during a commercial break). To me, it’s the epitome of how to do these shows wrong. For as whimsical as it was, high on visual theatrics, it also lacked the audience feel, where you’re more transported by these elaborate set pieces (a miniature that symbolized an aerial view). It was too impractical and was a borderline cheap movie.
They improved upon it for Hairspray Live! and The Wiz Live!, which remain two of the best examples of this so far. While they were just as rooted in studio production, they had practicality that felt like highly produced pro-shots, where the costumes were impeccable and everyone was having a good time. More than anything, I was personally impressed with how organic the sets felt, managing to feel like real theater work.
What I mean by this is something you might not appreciate unless you’ve seen live theater. Basically, most scenes in a show have a static set, where the actors are navigating something that never changes. The backdrop will remain consistent and for the most part, the props aren’t complicated. They can be wheeled on and off the stage for a quick scene change. While Hairspray Live! still incorporated visual tricks like split-screen for songs like “Mama I’m a Big Girl Now,” there was practicality. You could understand its work on a stage. It also helps that, if I can be totally honest, the best songbook of the shows I’ve mentioned so far.
Though if I’m being honest, there really is only one show that I have continually come back to. I’ve seen it three times now and wouldn’t be above seeing it in expected reruns. Whereas most of these shows were compelling experiments, I don’t think they hold a candle to how perfectly realized Jesus Christ Superstar Live! ended up being. Sure, part of it is my general affection for the show and its campy idea that “what if this religious figure was a rock star?” However, it gets to the heart of what I’ve been talking about this whole time: recreating the theatrical experience.
Filmed at a military base, the show similarly uses a bare-bones stage like Rent Live!, but does so in a manner that is useful to the narrative. It’s merely a backdrop to the action onstage, notably between John Legend and Brandon Victor Dixon as they sing these passionate numbers. It helps that the reimagining found the supporting dancers either playing their instruments onstage, spraying graffiti, or doing ridiculous flips as the scenery was moved around. Its ending was big and there are points where things may appeal more to the concert aesthetic than live theater, but it conveyed what the other shows were missing.
It helps that Jesus Christ Superstar Live! is largely sung-through and has no room for dramatic fodder. There are several chances for the supporting cast to shine and give the main actors a break. More than anything, it feels like a TV version of going to the theater in the most realized version to date. While I’ve tried to overlook the problems of every other production, I find myself enjoying the success of this Andrew Lloyd Webber show. It proves that you don’t need complicated sets to make rousing theater. You just need a great songbook.
This is all a long way of saying that I feel doomed to watch The Grinch musical in a few weeks. Even if the make-up is horrifying and I doubt any of the songs are new essentials, I am starved for live theater. I want to see how we’ve come to pass the time on this particular night. Will it be a success? I doubt it. With that said, all of these pale in comparison to pro-shots or even just being in a theater, but I still endorse them in the hope that this new pastime provides dividends, informing a new generation that theater is a great way to express yourself and connect with others. It’s given me so much to be thankful for and, even if I get stuck with The Grinch this December, I’m glad to see people singing songs and telling stories. It’s really what we need right now.
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