(no subject)

[skygiants]

So genarti and I went to go see Norm Lewis play the Phantom of the Opera last night, and ... I think I've figured it out? I think I know why I can never escape from the Phantom of the Opera and how it got its hooks so deep into me at such a young age? It's because, at heart, it's a WACKY BACKSTAGE HIJINKS STORY. Like, yes, stalking and tragedy and love triangles, oh my, but also: LONG-SUFFERING CHORUS DIRECTORS. I don't know why I never put this together before. I feel a lot better about everything now.

My appetite for narratives about backstage hijinks is vast and unfulfillable, and I am always looking for more recs with which to fill it. Speaking of: I think it was adiva_calandia who most recently recced me Tanya Huff's Smoke and Shadows, which is apparently a spinoff from Tanya Huff's other vampire books that I have not read, but which is mostly about SINISTER GOINGS-ON at a low-budget Canadian TV production when a wizard starts using an interdimensional portal to send shady shadow-beings to possess various people involved in the show.

I have two main complaints about this book. The first one is: too much supernatural, not enough hilarious low-budget television! Every time Our Hero PA Tony was off having awkward moments with his vampire ex-boyfriend or running around rescuing shadow-possessed people I was like "but when can we get back to the TV station? Can it be now? I'd like it to be now..."

My other complaint is that I imprinted really hard on side character Zev, cute gay Orthodox Jewish tv music director with a crush on Tony, and he's totally not the series love interest because the series love interest is boring hot TV star Lee, and that makes me much sadder than is probably warranted. :( Zev is adorable! I WOULD LIKE MORE ZEV.

There are two sequels which I will probably read at some point, and continue to be sad about the fact that Zev is not a main character.

(PS: Norm Lewis was amazing as the Phantom and fully lived up to the promise of his immortal quote when explaining his process for getting in character: "Who is this man and why is he acting like a giant baby?")

Comments

[graycardinal]

Wacky backstage hijinks?

You need to get hold of Spellcast and Spellcrossed by Barbara Ashford. Think summer stock in a quaint Maine village, in which the resident director is from Elsewhere and the company is just full of Eccentric Characters. You would not be far wrong to imagine a sort of crossbreed between How Much For Just The Planet? (only quieter and without lyric dumps) and Emma Bull's War for the Oaks (only with fewer outright black hats and more of a "M.A.S.H." character-comedy vibe). There is a certain amount of romantic and familial angst, but not so much that it takes over the narrative. Ashford has, one gathers, actually worked in summer stock and written musicals, which means that the theatre atmosphere is deadly accurate.

[skygiants]

Wow, apparently I REALLY DO, these sou relevant to my interests to 110%! Thank you so much for the rec!

[shark_hat]

Charlotte Macleod's The Plain Old Man is a mystery, not fantasy, but it's set backstage at an amateur Gilbert and Sullivan production- the heroine gets roped in "just to do a bit of scene painting" and hijinks ensue.

[graycardinal]

Since you mention Gilbert & Sullivan, I probably ought to point out Phantom of the Operetta (small press, ebook only, short). There is a college production of The Sorcerer. The artist-in-residence directing is from Faerie (as the blurb has it, she ran away and joined Actors' Equity rather than the circus). Also there's a ghost. And, as we've been discussing, hijinks ensue.

(Truth in advertising notice: this is a case where I know the author personally, so I can't claim to be neutral. Also, while the above is billed as second in a sequence, the two works are pretty much freestanding and can be read in either order. The other is a bit longer and not as humorous, but also recommended.)

[skygiants]

AWESOME. Thank you also for this! I actually especially appreciate recs for small press or self-pubbed stuff that otherwise I might not come across on my own and could use the publicity; it is where most of my book-purchasing (as opposed to library-fine-paying) money tends to go. I will definitely check this out.

[graycardinal]

Thank you! OTOH, let's try that link again, because I evidently copied the wrong thing into the ref tag last time....

Phantom of the Operetta

[skygiants]

I also like mysteries! :D ...and honestly I will read just about any genre if it comes with wacky backstage hijinks, I'm not going to lie.

[adiva_calandia]

ZEV IS SO GREAT. I have not actually read the other two books, so I can't speak to how much he shows up, unfortunately.

[skygiants]

I realize it's bad to want a protagonist to date someone they're not that into just because that person likes them? But I just kept wanting to be like TONY, DATE ZEV, HE'S ADORABLE.

[sgac]

He continues as a supporting character.

[ladymondegreen]

Also, he's a tuckerization of a real person who lives locally, and I can introduce you if you think you'd get on in real life.

[batyatoon]

Man, I was just thinking it's been ages since I've seen Zev.

[ladymondegreen]

I was thinking that too. Albeit, I saw him at Arisia, since he was working consuite.

[skygiants]

...my knee-jerk reaction to this is a giant @__@ at the blurring of lines between fiction and reality; I think we might well get on but if we ever meet in real life I'd rather not know he was the original of the character! I generally talk about fictional people quite differently than I talk about real ones!

[lovepeaceohana]

I AM SO JEALOUS, NORM SOUNDS AWESOME!! Hahaha personally I think I love POTO more every time I see it just because it becomes increasingly clear how utterly ridiculous the whole thing is - Norm's quote sums it up perfectly for me.

[genarti]

There was one point where Raoul and Christine are clinging to each other and the Phantom just slams himself down into his throne like a sulky fifteen-year-old and, I swear to god, slouches down and crosses his arms and scowls in the other direction. It was glorious.

And so was everybody else -- Sierra Boggess was really really endearing as Christine, and all the secondary characters were giving it their ALL, oh my god. Madame Giry stalked and scowled and slammed her cane on the floor; Carlotta swanned and tantrummed her way about with Piagi popping up behind her like an indignant brocaded gopher; and the costumes were fabulous.

[lovepeaceohana]

the Phantom just slams himself down into his throne like a sulky fifteen-year-old and, I swear to god, slouches down and crosses his arms and scowls in the other direction

THAT IS FANTASTIC, I AM LITERALLY WHEEZING WITH LAUGHTER!! <3

Does he still do the thing after Christine unmasks him where he literally crawls across the floor to her?! That never fails to crack me up, it's just such over-the-top melodrama and I would kill for a single take of Christine telling him to grow the fuck up.

[genarti]

HE DOES. HE ABSOLUTELY DOES.

And the thing is, Norm Lewis actually sells it! He wasn't great with the seductive menace stuff at the start -- I mean, his voice is gorgeous, but Music of the Night and all that never quite clicked for me -- but he's really, really good at playing somebody self-sabotaging and awful and pitiable. So you really kind of feel bad for him (even as you're trying not to wheeze aloud with laughter at the sulking), and when he collapsed to the floor like a puppet with his strings cut, it really felt like exactly the kind of over-the-top self-pitying melodrama this emotionally stunted overgrown teenager of a Phantom WOULD do. There was genuine desperation in how he literally crawled across the floor, and he held one hand over his face the whole time like a parody of the mask, with this wild pleading hope that maybe, if he just left his hand there, she could come to love him...???

And yet, at the same time, you know, a grown man had just flung himself to the floor and crawled the length of the stage to where Christine was in an UNDERSTANDABLY WEIRDED THE HELL OUT HUDDLE.

[lovepeaceohana]

God, I'd dearly love to see that. I don't suppose there's any chance he's going on tour...?

And, so, I watched what bits of his performances I could find on youtube and there's this video of The Music of the Night - and I agree, I'm seeing less "seductive menace" and more "complete awkwardness," and when Beau and I were watching it we CRACKED UP at the part where he uses his hand to turn her face away ("turn your face away / from the garish light of day") because, I don't know, it's so much pushier than any other version I've seen? It's weirdly and hilariously aggressive. (And of course it's since become an inside joke.)

[skygiants]

IT'S COMPLETELY HILARIOUS and I am extremely glad Gen has descended to provide the in-depth descriptions that I did not have time to do. :D

[umadoshi]

This sounds glorious. *^^* I haven't seen Phantom since...wow, probably in twenty years.

[genarti]

I hadn't seen it in probably about twelve -- this was the second production I'd ever seen live. (And then, you know, the movie of some years back.) So I have no idea what's standard blocking and what's new for this cast, with a lot of things, but it was SO GREAT.