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| An Open Letter to TPTB: Fix WHISTLE! | |
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The_Jackster 03:51 pm UTC 10/13/07 |
| This is an open letter addressed mainly to Bill Kenwright Productions, but also to Andrew Lloyd Webber and Jim Steinman respectively, regarding changes that can be made to ensure the success of their musical Whistle Down the Wind. ---------- Gentlemen: Greetings! I am a personage known on the Internet as The_Jackster. However, you may, of course, call me Jack. I've been an unobserved fan and theatre critic on the web for a good deal of my life now, and I am also a fan of your work. Bill, you certainly know how to produce a show; Jim, you've had more success with lack of credit than anyone I've ever known; and Andrew, it started with "Superstar"...where did it go? Really, where did it go? Time surely flies. Well, gentlemen, as you all are too aware, you've joined together once again on a professional tour of the musical Whistle Down the Wind. Jim has often expressed his feeling of a need for rewrites, and it is my considered opinion, with all due respect, that the rewrites for Mr. Kenwright's production took the show in the wrong direction. It was perfectly fine the way it was...but then again, intrinsic problems still remained. I don't pretend to know how to write theatre, but I will tell you that I find these to be very effective solutions to the show's problems in my head. Perhaps they'll work for you? Let's start with the show's setting. Apparently, it was Jim's suggestion to move the show to the Bible Belt, because he has a liking for the Deep South brought on by reading Tennessee Williams plays when he was a young man. However, this just doesn't cut it. The original novel and film upon which this musical was based (and the other, less-remembered musical adaptation of the show in 1994) set the story in Yorkshire, England. I see no reason to change the setting other than a misguided assumption on someone's part that just because they're raised in the South, kids will be so Bible-thumping they'll believe a homeless drifter is Jesus Christ. If anything, returning the show's setting to Yorkshire strengthens the plotline. In the 1950's, right up to the strikes in the late Seventies, the parents (read: fathers) were usually coal miners, particularly in Yorkshire. All they had to look forward to was religion, because it promised something better for them after death (as documented by William Blake, who was once a Baptist lay minister in the coal mines). It actually makes more sense than the Deep South, and therefore, impressionable kids raised to be very religious by their coal mining famiy would be likely to believe the man was Christ. I don't say "more likely" because I find it hard to believe that these children never heard their parents use the Lord's name in vain and therefore realize what "the Man" meant, but since it's a central point of the show, that can be overlooked. The setting doesn't affect the main leads that much. There can be bad boys in leather in any town. I am referring of course to the character of "Amos," the James Dean wannabe. Just make him a Teddy Boy, with the leathers and the pseudo-Edwardian look popular among young male teenagers at the time. He can even still have the motorcycle. However, two issues do come up with the change in setting, one major and one minor. Starting with the minor one, most of the Southern influences in the score have to change with the setting. This isn't exactly an easy task, but some numbers are easier than others. For example, "Cold" can be made less Everly Brothers country, and more like a Fifties rock number one would have heard back then, akin to Gene Vincent, Elvis Presley, and the like. It doesn't date the score in the least, as shown by the sales today of albums by those artists. And then there's the major change: the racism angle. This was a particular problem in the original London production at the Aldwych. What was expected to be social commentary was indeed that, but of the bad sort. The characters of "Edward" and "the Sheriff" could tell "Amos" and "Candy" (whose attempt at a bad joke was this, pray tell?) that their relationship was unacceptable, and yet blacks and whites were seen mingling together both in church and at the bar. A) The message wasn't consistent, and B) it would have struck the wrong note anyway, seeing as "Amos" leaves "Candy" (a black girl, the 'bad' girl) for "Swallow" (a white girl, the proverbial 'good' girl by contrast). Shifting the setting to Yorkshire, this problem is solved by not bothering with blacks vs. whites and making it a case of regional ethnocentrism. For example, in the documentary The Beatles Anthology, Paul McCartney stated at one point that there was a tendency on the part of people in the South of England (near London) to look down on people from the North of England (near Liverpool). Making a change in this regard also makes way for cleaning up many flaws: whether or not she is black or white, the relationship is realistic (e.g. "Candy" doesn't care that "Amos" is a scrub from a poorer part of the country, looked down on by most everybody where she's from, she'll take off with him anyway, and to hell with what his father has to say about it). Now, there is the matter of some of the mis en scene, particularly in regards to the revival meeting and the church-centric aspect. To start with the latter, Mr. Kenwright had the right idea with the show's opening number, "Vaults of Heaven," by all accounts - making it the funeral of Swallow's mother, and using the "Overture" that (for no apparent reason) follows to indicate the passage of time. This is brilliant, and would remain in place for all productions. Then comes the revival meeting. It is my suspicion that this was written in purely to have a scene exploiting the somewhat unorthodox beliefs of a very small segment of the Southern population. This is unfair to the fine people of Louisiana, and to the Bible Belt in general. Fanatical/crazy Christians can come from anywhere at any time. Having moved the setting to Yorkshire, there would need to be an explanation. As it stands, revival meetings are not restricted to any segment of the globe, and theoretically one could stage a revival meeting wherever there is a Christian population. I picture the character of "the Snake Preacher" as a character not unlike an old-time medicine man or snake oil salesman; in brief, a con man. He's been turned away from every church and meeting hall for his very strange ways of testing faith in the Lord, and kicked out of every town for solicitation and theft ("Praise Jesus and pass the donations!"). Maybe he even retains the Southern accent, like those persuasive old time gospel evangelistic types, but make no mistake about it, he can come from anywhere. This leads to the score. Some brilliant cutting has already occurred, eliminating a more unnecessary number or two ("Off-Ramp Exit to Paradise" rings a bell). Unfortunately, this has also created a problem with numbers written to replace songs for previous scenes. The number known variously as "The Gang" or "The Tribe" is one. In this setting, already very dark/gothic/gritty, such a number is out of place. It is recommended that the "Annie Christmas" and "Charlie Christmas" numbers be restored in their place, as they work much better in this darker setting, like "Pick a Pocket" in Lionel Bart's acclaimed Oliver! I also suggest that the sole guideline for any production of WDTW in the future be that it should be more intimate and scaled-down than previous productions of the show. The story itself does not scream "spectacle," sorry to say, and indeed reads more like a Greek tragedy. There's nothing about it that could be even remotely construed as a spectacle, unless you want to count a live barn onstage on fire as in the show's finale, the amazing effect of which wears off in about a minute or less. This is a simple story of an unsure young woman struggling with her coming of age, a town threatened by darkness, children who want only to believe, and a man who can't face the nature of the beast. And yet people continue to try to make the production the next big spectacular. Balmy, I say; nothing more can be gained by that, so kindly stop trying. | |
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