skygiants

This weekend I went to go see a production of Sweeney Todd, notable for being 'immersive' and featuring pie, like real edible pie. (It was also going to be notable for featuring Norm Lewis, aka Handsome Javert in the Les Mis 25th Anniversary Concert, but TRAGICALLY FOR ME left a week before I got there.)

A few notes:
- the immersive aspect was largely based on the fact that most of the audience was sitting at long pie-eating tables, and cast members would frequently come and sit at the last seat of them and stare you intently in the face while singing at you, or march up and down along the top of them and stare you intently in the face while singing at you
- ...it was weirder when you were looking up at them marching along in front of you because you became very conscious of the fact that your neck was extremely exposed
- the Beggar Woman was double-cast as Pirelli sashaying around in a giant moustache chewing on all the scenery, which was delightful and also I imagine nice for the actress to get something to do in the show besides wail at people
- also she lounged around our table for a bit and flirted with me during the big Pirelli number, which, no complaints
- on the flip side, they cut most of her "City On Fire," which is one of my favorite numbers :(
- the three-person orchestra all got to ham it up being visibly nervous during the bit in "A Little Priest" about the respective taste factors of fiddle player and piccolo player
- Johanna's actress was amazing -- very good at selling Johanna as a character and not just just an ingenue, and all her desperation about her situation throughout
- Mrs. Lovett and the Beadle were also extremely good
- I did not love our Sweeney though, who spent most of the time sort of pulling his face down and opening his eyes really wide to signify that he was INTENSE
- most importantly, the pie that they fed us beforehand was delicious
- (and probably not made of people)

December meme, Day 2:

aquamirage asked me about moments in musical theater that fuck me up every single time!

I'm pretty sure she asked me this because at the time we were watching Into the Woods and I was complaining vociferously about the fact that they cut "No More" from the upcoming film (THEY CUT "NO MORE" FROM THE UPCOMING FILM, ARGH); as you all know I have many, MANY feelings about Into the Woods, but for whatever reason "No More" is the song that, in fact, fucks me up every single time. I think it's because there's no bombast to it; it's the total resignation that gets me.

In other really obvious news that is obvious, I always think I'm cool and totally over it as I sit down to see a production of Les Mis, and then the first chords of "Look Down" strike up and NO, NO, I WAS WRONG, I'M NOT COOL, I'M NOT COOL! ALL THE FEELINGS ARE BACK. I'm pretty sure it's not even anything specific about "Look Down," it's just a Pavlovian response! Pavlovian feelings! Hello, fourteen-year-old Becca, I see you're back again!

But, OK, let's try for something slightly less obvious. "I Don't Care Much," Cabaret -- that's another one where the total resignation of it is much more effective for getting me to feel a lot of complicated things than anything else would be. (The ending of Cabaret also really shakes me up if it's done right, but it's not always done right, and I've seen it done well enough often enough that a mediocre production won't do much for me except irritate me about the fact that it isn't better.)

A short list of other songs that make me feel feelings in shows, although not always the same feelings: "Easy as Life," Aida. The "Johanna" reprise that Sweeney Todd sings in Sweeney Todd. "Les Cloches" and "Liberes" from Notre-Dame de Paris. And, of course, ever and always, "Confrontation" from Jekyll and Hyde, a moment in musical theater that I CANNOT EXPERIENCE without getting totally fucked up with hysterical laughter. NO, NEVER! YES, FOREVER.

Crossposts: http://bookelfe.livejournal.com/396898.html

The back cover of Marie Lu's Legend informed me that the author "was first inspired to write Legend while watching Les Miserables one afternoon, and wondered how the relationship between a famous criminal vs. a prodigious detective might translate into a more modern story."

It is not Marie Lu's fault that this somehow explicitly led me to expect a genderswapped steampunk Javert/Valjean fanfic about an obsessive police officer with a black-and-white morality and the escaped prisoner she pursues over the course of three or four decades . . . but apparently somehow this is something that my soul desperately craves, because I was unfairly disappointed not to get it.

Not that Legend is not good! Legend is a perfectly enjoyable dystopian YA novel about two SUPER TEEN PRODIGIES, one who is accelerating within the system (but only because she doesn't know all the terrible things the system does) and one who works outside the system (and is accused of terrible crimes, but has only ever committed the non-murderous ones), and how she's sent to bring him in because she thinks he killed her brother, and it's all very dramatic and interestingly world-built and involves government plague conspiracies and that's fine, I will totally be willing to read the sequel and see where it goes! I did wish that there was more of a clash of legitimately opposed ideologies, as opposed to the heroine realizing that everything she believes in is wrong. ( Spoilers. )

Anyway, it all worked out, because now that I've realized the tragic scarcity of YA novels with the EPIC MELODRAMA of Javert/Valjean slash fiction at their heart, I have simply decided that someday I am going to have to write my own, except with lesbians. (Working title: YOU KNOW NOTHING OF JAVERTINA.) You're welcome, world!

This also however begs the question of which OTHER famous musical nemeses should be updated into steampunk dystopian YA novels. I have provided some options for you, so please feel free to vote for your favorite! I will almost certainly not write it for you but YOU NEVER KNOW.

Poll #10656 THE YA OF THE FUTURE

Open to: Registered Users, detailed results viewable to: All, participants: 38

View Respondents

Which of these FAMOUS MUSICAL NEMESES would you most like to see as the romantic leads of a YA novel?

View Answers

The Phantom/Raoul! HE's a foppish aristocrat! HE lives under the gladiatorial opera house where people compete in a singing competition to the death! Wacky circumstances force them to raise a baby together! (See Love Never Dies.)
8 (21.1%)

Velma Kelly/Roxie Hart! Both of them are showgirls arrested for spectacular tabloid crimes, but what Velma doesn't know is that Roxie's got an extra card up her sleeve: she's a RENEGADE ROBOT showgirl.
17 (44.7%)

Mark Cohen/Benjamin Coffin III! HE's a member of the secret BOHEME group that's spreading revolutionary viral videos . . . and HE'S the angry landlord who just got accidentally implicated in the conspiracy! NOW THEY'RE ON THE RUN TOGETHER.
5 (13.2%)

Sweeney Todd/Mrs. Lovett! Trapped in an oppressive society, they decided to rebel against the system by becoming cannibals and -- actually you wouldn't really even need to change the plot here. BUT WITH STEAMPUNK!
1 (2.6%)

Elphaba/Galinda! . . . is already a YA novel. BUT IT COULD ALWAYS BE ANOTHER ONE. This time with actual lesbians!
7 (18.4%)

The depressing secret of my life is that I would one hundred percent read all of these. (But especially Velma/Robot Roxie.)

PLEASE ALSO SUGGEST YOUR OWN.

Crossposts: http://bookelfe.livejournal.com/292419.html

Many years ago, as a wee little high school sophomore, I read an abridged version of The Count of Monte Cristo for class. It is no surprise that we were assigned the abridged version, seeing as the full version is 1200 pages long; still, I was bitter, and swore to myself, "SOMEDAY I WILL READ THE REAL THING." (I also said, "SOMEDAY I WILL READ THE REAL THING IN FRENCH," but, uh, that is not happening at this time.) Then that same English teacher assigned us Julius Caesar and told us we didn't have to read beyond the third act because there was nothing important in the text after Antony's speech, and I forgot my bitterness over the Count because I had something new and exciting to be bitter about!

ANYWAYS. Recently, I caught the end of the Count of Monte Cristo movie on TV and I remembered my vow! And the story is just as awesome and cracked out as I remembered, oh man. I have to admit I do not care much about poor Edmond Dantes and his Terrible Sufferings, but once he reinvents himself as the crazy manipulator with at least five secret identities, OH MAN AWESOME.

( Cut for extended rambling, but not really spoilers, because there are FIVE MILLION SUBPLOTS and it is not like I could even spoil more than three of them. And you know you all want to know about the opera-singing lesbians )

I also really, really want the Count to hang out with Sweeney Todd. Come on, they would have the best conversations! In my head it goes something like this:

Sweeney Todd: Man, fuck judges.
Count of Monte Cristo: I know! I totally hate those guys.
Sweeney Todd: I was completely innocent and I was condemned just because this judge wanted my wife!
Count of Monte Cristo: ME TOO. Well, my girlfriend. Fiance. And it was someone else who denounced me, and the judge actually just condemned me to save his father, but hey, close enough!
Sweeney Todd: Then the judge raped my wife and left her to go crazy and try to commit suicide and die.
Count of Monte Cristo: Well, my fiance . . . married that guy who denounced me and is living a rich and happy life . . .
Sweeney Todd: And now I'm poor and bitter and alone with only a cannibalistic pie lady who is disturbingly attracted to me for company.
Count of Monte Cristo: And now I'm really rich with a gorgeous ward and a lot of servants who adore me. But I suffered a whole lot before then, seriously. Anyways. VENGEANCE.
Sweeney Todd: Right. Vengeance! I am going to SLIT EVERYONE'S THROAT.
Count of Monte Cristo: That is not even hardcore. Make them suffer first!
Sweeney Todd: Oh, that's just for innocent people. The guilty will totally suffer! Especially that creep of a judge who is trying to marry my daughter, WHO IS HIS WARD, I mean, how sick is that!
Count of Monte Cristo: . . . . . . . . . Uh. Maybe I should be going.

(In a Sweeney Todd vs. The Count of Monte Cristo angst/craziness cage match, Sweeney Todd totally wins.)

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