Proof that mindless tragedy doesn't mean great storytelling.
So far, I've listened to the demos of the Raggedy Ann musical, and save for several eye-rolling moments, it wasn't as traumatizing as I was expecting. Mainly because it was just the songs and didn't have as much dialogue from the show itself. But then we get to the Broadway soundtrack, which is basically a live recording of one of the five performances before the show was canned. Now the creepy is hitting you on the head like a sledgehammer. I had to stop for a break after three songs (not counting the Overture) to comprehend what I just heard.
Now, the Mp3s are of low quality, and either way, it's very hard for me to pick up lyrics. I need liner's notes, I need lyrics sites, 'cause no matter how great my hearing is, there's some singers that I can't understand no matter how hard I've tried. And this musical is such an obscure failure that Google brings me nothing. But here's what I've been able to make out so far:
The musical is about Marcella, and she's sick in bed with a fever. To cheer her up, her dad gives her a rag doll named Raggedy Ann and tells her stories about how toys come to life when no one is looking. ("Carry On", the demo version actually being a rather charming song) Now, this doesn't sound so bad for a children's musical so far, right? But what if I told you that...
A. Daddy has a drinking problem.
B. Mommy and Daddy are constantly fighting and they're planning a divorce.
C. Marcella's pet canary dies, which is one of the first things that happens in the musical.
D. To add insult to injury, the canary's name is "Yellow Yum-Yum." I hate the name "Yum-Yum." Also, I'm pretty certain kids don't name their pets like that.
E. The doctors gleefully (yes, gleefully) sing that Marcella is going to die. ("Diagnosis")
"Carry On" in the Broadway version is probably the same as it was in the demo, except here, it's mixed with Daddy screaming at Mommy or authorities or doctors or whatever, so that's jarring as hell.
Now supposedly, this is based off the real Marcella and her family. I haven't read all of "Johnny Gruelle: Creator of Raggedy Ann & Andy" by Patricia Hall yet, but I can tell you a thing or two about the man and his wife Myrtle. If the man had drinking problems, historians would've pounced on it. Something kid-unfriendly about a children's author? Quick, tell it to the world! (See: L. Frank Baum and his two racist articles about Native Americans) Really, somebody clarify me. But nothing I've read so far said that Gruelle was an alcoholic. He and Myrtle loved each other dearly, and she and her sons worked hard to keep the Raggedys and his legacy alive. What I do know is that Gruelle worked his ass off, but while his dolls became famous, it brought him little fame, let alone cash. A toy company called MollyE's Dolls made Raggedy Ann & Andys without his permission, leading to Gruelle v (Mollye) Goldman. While he won, the hullabaloo worn him out and he passed away from a heart attack. Allow me to quote:
"Though Johnny Gruelle had made a career out of making others laugh (or at least smile), among those who knew him best, there was an unspoken consensus that Gruelle had died of a broken heart.
There was, of course, his very real, medically diagnosed heart condition. But, against the backdrop of his many successes, there were also the heartaches with which Gruelle had contended quietly. His daughter's untimely death; the retrenchments at the Volland Company; the more general, grinding pressures of the Great Depression--all lay as wounds on Gruelle's spirit. Ironically, Gruelle's Raggedys--those gentle, nostalgic souls created as an antidote for the stress of modern times--had been the very source of Gruelle's mounting, and ultimately fatal, stress as he fought valiantly to retain his rightful, legal ownership of them." p. 179, Johnny Gruelle: Creator of Raggedy Ann & Andy
So, all this divorce and drinking in the musical? It's not realistic, just cheap. If the mom and dad in this are truly supposed to represent Johnny and Myrtle IRL, it's Robin Williams' dead love interest in "Patch Adams" all over again. The musical was written by William Gibson, who did "The Miracle Worker." That play/movie worked, because:
A. It's based off things that actually happened. Helen Keller's parents have given up all hope for their daughter so they spoiled her and she's unruly as hell, which truly shows Anne Sullivan lives up to the play/movie's title.
B. It does not pretend to be cute and saccharine about the subject matter.
If you're going to make a children's musical, fine. If you're going to include dark elements, fine. But for the love of god, know the audience you're writing for. So far, "Raggedy Ann: The Musical" is insulting the intelligence of adults and scaring the living shit out of children. It's one of the same reasons that "Raggedy Ann & Andy: A Musical Adventure" bombed. The creators were so caught up in ANIMASHUUUUN!!!11!1 and the musical numbers that they didn't think about plot and character development, or step back to think, "You know, Emery Hawkins does an incredible job on the Greedy, I agree. But don't you think he would give kids nightmares, and not in the awesome Maleficent-turns-into-a-badass-dragon-with-the-powers-of-HELL kind of way?" You cannot convince me even as a little girl that the king inflating himself to make himself "bigger" was meant to be whimsical. You cannot convince me even as a little girl that Looney Land is anything but a place Pennywise the Clown calls home. And for the love of god, nobody likes the naked twin-penny dolls.
I close this rant with an excerpt from How Not to Write a Novel (The Golden Harmony dub of "The Brave Frog" needs to learn from this too):
"Compassion Fatigue
Wherein the character is beyond help
Ever since Melinda Spew had given up college to look after her ailing mother, she had struggled with depression. All her friends had told her to just let her mother take care of herself. After all, Mrs. Spew was an alcoholic, who had shown Melinda nothing but brutality and let a series of drunken "stepfathers" use the growing girl to sate their angers and lusts. But Melinda couldn't cut the ties that bound her to her miserable past. And now that her mother had died, leaving her with crushing debt, Melinda was struggling just to survive. She had hoped the antidepressants prescribed by her psychiatrist would make her capable of work, like other people, but instead, she just gained 150 pounds.
Character should have serious problems. But one character should not have every serious problem known to mankind. That doesn't mean your characters must be successful, beautiful, and content with life. Readers can identify with a protagonist who is a geek or a failure, but when all that character does is fail and wallow, identification becomes and unwelcome burden.
A pimply, lonely boy who's flunking out of school and gets beat up every day on the way home... well, who wants to see him get beat up one more time, with no hope in sight? However, if the same boy meets a mysterious stranger who promises him the Secrets of Power in Chapter One, readers will stick around to see the bullies get their comeuppance in Chapter Ten. p. 68
And I still have the rest of the musical to listen to. *weeps* Wish me luck, folks.
This post has been crossposted with Dreamwidth at http://shamanicshaymin.dreamwidth.org/56670.html. Pick your poison. Mwoiiiiiiiing~!
Now, the Mp3s are of low quality, and either way, it's very hard for me to pick up lyrics. I need liner's notes, I need lyrics sites, 'cause no matter how great my hearing is, there's some singers that I can't understand no matter how hard I've tried. And this musical is such an obscure failure that Google brings me nothing. But here's what I've been able to make out so far:
The musical is about Marcella, and she's sick in bed with a fever. To cheer her up, her dad gives her a rag doll named Raggedy Ann and tells her stories about how toys come to life when no one is looking. ("Carry On", the demo version actually being a rather charming song) Now, this doesn't sound so bad for a children's musical so far, right? But what if I told you that...
A. Daddy has a drinking problem.
B. Mommy and Daddy are constantly fighting and they're planning a divorce.
C. Marcella's pet canary dies, which is one of the first things that happens in the musical.
D. To add insult to injury, the canary's name is "Yellow Yum-Yum." I hate the name "Yum-Yum." Also, I'm pretty certain kids don't name their pets like that.
E. The doctors gleefully (yes, gleefully) sing that Marcella is going to die. ("Diagnosis")
"Carry On" in the Broadway version is probably the same as it was in the demo, except here, it's mixed with Daddy screaming at Mommy or authorities or doctors or whatever, so that's jarring as hell.
Now supposedly, this is based off the real Marcella and her family. I haven't read all of "Johnny Gruelle: Creator of Raggedy Ann & Andy" by Patricia Hall yet, but I can tell you a thing or two about the man and his wife Myrtle. If the man had drinking problems, historians would've pounced on it. Something kid-unfriendly about a children's author? Quick, tell it to the world! (See: L. Frank Baum and his two racist articles about Native Americans) Really, somebody clarify me. But nothing I've read so far said that Gruelle was an alcoholic. He and Myrtle loved each other dearly, and she and her sons worked hard to keep the Raggedys and his legacy alive. What I do know is that Gruelle worked his ass off, but while his dolls became famous, it brought him little fame, let alone cash. A toy company called MollyE's Dolls made Raggedy Ann & Andys without his permission, leading to Gruelle v (Mollye) Goldman. While he won, the hullabaloo worn him out and he passed away from a heart attack. Allow me to quote:
"Though Johnny Gruelle had made a career out of making others laugh (or at least smile), among those who knew him best, there was an unspoken consensus that Gruelle had died of a broken heart.
There was, of course, his very real, medically diagnosed heart condition. But, against the backdrop of his many successes, there were also the heartaches with which Gruelle had contended quietly. His daughter's untimely death; the retrenchments at the Volland Company; the more general, grinding pressures of the Great Depression--all lay as wounds on Gruelle's spirit. Ironically, Gruelle's Raggedys--those gentle, nostalgic souls created as an antidote for the stress of modern times--had been the very source of Gruelle's mounting, and ultimately fatal, stress as he fought valiantly to retain his rightful, legal ownership of them." p. 179, Johnny Gruelle: Creator of Raggedy Ann & Andy
So, all this divorce and drinking in the musical? It's not realistic, just cheap. If the mom and dad in this are truly supposed to represent Johnny and Myrtle IRL, it's Robin Williams' dead love interest in "Patch Adams" all over again. The musical was written by William Gibson, who did "The Miracle Worker." That play/movie worked, because:
A. It's based off things that actually happened. Helen Keller's parents have given up all hope for their daughter so they spoiled her and she's unruly as hell, which truly shows Anne Sullivan lives up to the play/movie's title.
B. It does not pretend to be cute and saccharine about the subject matter.
If you're going to make a children's musical, fine. If you're going to include dark elements, fine. But for the love of god, know the audience you're writing for. So far, "Raggedy Ann: The Musical" is insulting the intelligence of adults and scaring the living shit out of children. It's one of the same reasons that "Raggedy Ann & Andy: A Musical Adventure" bombed. The creators were so caught up in ANIMASHUUUUN!!!11!1 and the musical numbers that they didn't think about plot and character development, or step back to think, "You know, Emery Hawkins does an incredible job on the Greedy, I agree. But don't you think he would give kids nightmares, and not in the awesome Maleficent-turns-into-a-badass-dragon-with-the-powers-of-HELL kind of way?" You cannot convince me even as a little girl that the king inflating himself to make himself "bigger" was meant to be whimsical. You cannot convince me even as a little girl that Looney Land is anything but a place Pennywise the Clown calls home. And for the love of god, nobody likes the naked twin-penny dolls.
I close this rant with an excerpt from How Not to Write a Novel (The Golden Harmony dub of "The Brave Frog" needs to learn from this too):
"Compassion Fatigue
Wherein the character is beyond help
Ever since Melinda Spew had given up college to look after her ailing mother, she had struggled with depression. All her friends had told her to just let her mother take care of herself. After all, Mrs. Spew was an alcoholic, who had shown Melinda nothing but brutality and let a series of drunken "stepfathers" use the growing girl to sate their angers and lusts. But Melinda couldn't cut the ties that bound her to her miserable past. And now that her mother had died, leaving her with crushing debt, Melinda was struggling just to survive. She had hoped the antidepressants prescribed by her psychiatrist would make her capable of work, like other people, but instead, she just gained 150 pounds.
Character should have serious problems. But one character should not have every serious problem known to mankind. That doesn't mean your characters must be successful, beautiful, and content with life. Readers can identify with a protagonist who is a geek or a failure, but when all that character does is fail and wallow, identification becomes and unwelcome burden.
A pimply, lonely boy who's flunking out of school and gets beat up every day on the way home... well, who wants to see him get beat up one more time, with no hope in sight? However, if the same boy meets a mysterious stranger who promises him the Secrets of Power in Chapter One, readers will stick around to see the bullies get their comeuppance in Chapter Ten. p. 68
And I still have the rest of the musical to listen to. *weeps* Wish me luck, folks.
This post has been crossposted with Dreamwidth at http://shamanicshaymin.dreamwidth.org/56670.html. Pick your poison. Mwoiiiiiiiing~!