Problems with the US musical...
I just want to comment a little on the US musical, The Hunchback of Notre Dame. The main problems are that it is a fudge between the book and the Disney film. It retains the songs and main structure from Disney, with Phœbus as romantic lead. However, it has restored Claude to being an archdeacon, and Esméralda is executed in the end, although not in the manner of the book. But it still misrepresents the origins of Quasimodo and his relationship with Claude, making him Claude's nephew... No, I'm not joking. They've made Claude older and narrowed the age-gap between the brothers, so that Quasimodo is the teenaged son of Jehan by a gypsy woman... While the show is imaginatively staged and well-acted, there are ultimately too many problems with its attempt to square the circle of Hugo and (spit!) Disney...
Anyway, you can see for yourselves...
Anyway, you can see for yourselves...
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