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starladySo I went up to New York on Saturday to accomplish a potpourri of goals. On one of these (obtaining the dress I wanted from H&M), I failed miserably, but I achieved the rest. Hurrah!
After meeting up with nojojojo, who is an awesome person and who very kindly gave me her ARC of Thirteenth Child, as well as a boatload of advice and things to ponder, I wandered down through Lower New York to see the "Coraline" musical. In a word, my impression was: OMG AMAZING GO NOW.
I suspect there are very few people who (if they are familiar with Coraline at all) will come to the musical without having seen the movie, and one of the most important differences in that regard, aside from all the obvious ones, was that the musical preserved the explicitly British setting: there's talk of flats and Wellingtons and London and such things, and all the actors sport British accents. In and of itself, though, the musical is a brilliant achievement and a testament to the sheer madcap ingenious power of stagecraft. The book is by David Greenblatt, who plays the Other Mother, while the music was by Stephen Merritt of The Magnetic Fields--and all his wit transfers extraordinarily well to the characters' songs, and to the prepared piano and other instruments deployed to create the soundscape.
A major theme in the musical is how nothing is what it seems--I think it's the cat who tells Coraline, "Never trust mirrors" (and indeed, Coraline explicitly notes throughout how the mirror never shows what she is--she looks scared when she wants to be brave--and eventually she realizes that the mirror doesn't show her underlying reality), and this ties in not only with Coraline needing to look through the triangle stone to see the reality of her Other House, which is in the source-text, but also quite explicitly with the production itself. All the roles are played by the cast of seven actors without regard to age, race or gender: Coraline herself is played by a middle-aged woman, while the actors playing her parents are not only younger but an Asian man and a black woman--and they double Miss Spink and Miss Forcible, hilariously (and my first thought was, "Hmm, a Boston marriage?"). The Other Mother is played by a man, and he actually looks creepier as just himself than when he's wearing a wig, apron, and button-eyes. Maybe it was just me, but there were definitely times when other members of the audience were laughing (nervous tension?) but I myself was too creeped out to laugh. But, seriously, mere reality is not allowed to stand in the way of theatre, and it's great. I was utterly enchanted in a way I haven't been since I saw Urinetown.
I really, really hope they record a full-cast audio version. The songs are brilliant, and everyone performs them brilliantly.
On the other hand, though, I picked up the second half of Gaiman's new Batman comic, "Whatever Happened to the Caped Crusader?" and thought it had a complete, total, sentimental cop-out of an ending. So let that be a warning to ye!
After meeting up with nojojojo, who is an awesome person and who very kindly gave me her ARC of Thirteenth Child, as well as a boatload of advice and things to ponder, I wandered down through Lower New York to see the "Coraline" musical. In a word, my impression was: OMG AMAZING GO NOW.
I suspect there are very few people who (if they are familiar with Coraline at all) will come to the musical without having seen the movie, and one of the most important differences in that regard, aside from all the obvious ones, was that the musical preserved the explicitly British setting: there's talk of flats and Wellingtons and London and such things, and all the actors sport British accents. In and of itself, though, the musical is a brilliant achievement and a testament to the sheer madcap ingenious power of stagecraft. The book is by David Greenblatt, who plays the Other Mother, while the music was by Stephen Merritt of The Magnetic Fields--and all his wit transfers extraordinarily well to the characters' songs, and to the prepared piano and other instruments deployed to create the soundscape.
A major theme in the musical is how nothing is what it seems--I think it's the cat who tells Coraline, "Never trust mirrors" (and indeed, Coraline explicitly notes throughout how the mirror never shows what she is--she looks scared when she wants to be brave--and eventually she realizes that the mirror doesn't show her underlying reality), and this ties in not only with Coraline needing to look through the triangle stone to see the reality of her Other House, which is in the source-text, but also quite explicitly with the production itself. All the roles are played by the cast of seven actors without regard to age, race or gender: Coraline herself is played by a middle-aged woman, while the actors playing her parents are not only younger but an Asian man and a black woman--and they double Miss Spink and Miss Forcible, hilariously (and my first thought was, "Hmm, a Boston marriage?"). The Other Mother is played by a man, and he actually looks creepier as just himself than when he's wearing a wig, apron, and button-eyes. Maybe it was just me, but there were definitely times when other members of the audience were laughing (nervous tension?) but I myself was too creeped out to laugh. But, seriously, mere reality is not allowed to stand in the way of theatre, and it's great. I was utterly enchanted in a way I haven't been since I saw Urinetown.
I really, really hope they record a full-cast audio version. The songs are brilliant, and everyone performs them brilliantly.
On the other hand, though, I picked up the second half of Gaiman's new Batman comic, "Whatever Happened to the Caped Crusader?" and thought it had a complete, total, sentimental cop-out of an ending. So let that be a warning to ye!