the big Phantom of the Opera post, part 4: Love Never Dies concluded!
Here we go, the plot of Love Never Dies. I would call it an analysis, but at this point it's more a catalogue of it's crimes!
The fundamental problem with Love Never Dies is that it was written by someone who neither knew nor cared about the original show or it's characters, and furthermore, that the plot hinges on a premise so preposterous that only a raging misogynist could ever take it seriously. When I heard the book was by Ben Elton, I thought, "not THAT Ben Elton, surely?" But no, it's indeed THAT Ben Elton, writer of stupid but amusing sitcoms starring Rowan Atkinson. Now, much as I love Blackadder, I love it because it's stupid and amusing, and the set of skills needed to create that are much different from those needed to create a musical, especially a serious one. Broad caricature, ridiculous plot twists and naughty jokes are fine there, but NOT in Phantom!!! I think if they had intended Love Never Dies to be a parody, it would actually have been hilarious and maybe even been a hit. But to mess with the characters until they're unrecognizable and make them do stuff no sane person would ever do, and then expect us to accept it as a serious work, is just too much. (And I blame Andrew Lloyd Webber for it too, he should have known better than to hire a sitcom writer. What about the original writer and lyricist, for crying out loud? What a slap in the face to them!!)
Firstly, they screwed up the Phantom, but that's been a problem in recent years. I thought even in the movie the Phantom had been tamed down and prettified more than I would have liked, but here it's really gone too far. He's so mellow and charming and romantic (not to mention jaw-droppingly beautiful, in the case of Ramin Karimloo), and we're obviously meant to root for him to get Christine, and indeed, with all that going for him, you can't understand why she wouldn't just fall into his arms in a second. But that's not who the Phantom actually is! It's way too easy to say that he's really the good guy, Raoul's the bad guy, Christine was just wrong and/or stupid. It's just too simplistic and totally ignores the message of the original show.
Much as Christine (and we the audience) love the Phantom, he's not the kind of guy you can live happily ever after with. No matter what made him that way, or how huch we love all the good things about him, he is crazy, he kills people, and he doesn't have the emotional maturity or even enough of a grip on reality to be able to love anyone without hurting them. The Phantom and Christine are musical soulmates, but they can't be together any other way. Crazy people always hurt the people they love the most, and if Christine had chosen him, it would have just dragged her down and not have helped him. Christine was doing the only thing she could do by choosing to leave him and live a real life, and the Phantom had his moment of redemption when he realized that really loving someone means doing what's best for them, even at your own expense. It's sad, it's tragic, but it's right. There's no other way. Don't insult your audience by telling us "well, ACTUALLY...none of that's true!"
But beyond basic philosophical points like that, they got the Phantom wrong in just about every other way too. Are we really supposed to believe he went back to being a freak in sideshows? really? Even if you're on the run, I gotta think that's the one thing he'd avoid at all costs, since surely such degradation is what made him crazy in the first place. And that he'd go to Coney Island and write ditties for the boardwalk? When his 'muuusiiic' is so sacred and pure and important to him? For crying out loud, he used to kill people to keep Carlotta from singing, I think he'd probably hang himself if he had to listen to crap like "Bathing Beauty" all day, let alone condescend to write it himself! I mean, seriously, who's whoring now? (But more on THAT in a moment!)
And since when did he get so chill? And so totally whipped? That scene of Madame Giry bursting into his lair and busting his chops over Christine? WTF??? He killed guys for less than that before! Are we really supposed to believe he's been putting up with this from her for TEN YEARS??? Are you kidding me?! The Punjab Lasso would have come out long ago, I fear! In all fairness though, even ALW & gang obviously realized this was ridiculous too, since they cut it out in Australia. (Thank God!) Madame Giry just bitches to Meg instead of Erik, but still, the very notion of the Girys hooking up with the Phantom is the worst and most pernicious failure in this whole sordid mess.
The idea that Madame Giry and her daughter, two independant women who had buildt careers and a life for themselves, would just up and leave it all behind to follow around a hideous crazed killer and devote their lives to 'worshipping and idolizing him' (actual lyrics there!) is just beyond the pale. What a low opinion of women must Ben Elton, Glenn Slater, Andrew Lloyd Webber and the entire creative team involved with this production have? Why on God's green earth would any sane person do that? There just isn't a reason, unless you're a total chauvanist pig who feels that any women who don't have a husband and/or father in their lives must be looking for a man, any man, to devote themselves to, since women just live to serve men, and simply can't have fulfulling lives without them. You just can't stretch credibilty thin enough to make it believable that a woman with a career and a daughter (and a whole troupe of surrogate daughters in the ballet girls) to look after would forsake her responsibilties on the strength of feeling sorry for the Phantom's plight. But poor little Meg Giry gets the worst of it. No more Christine's sweet little confidante, here she's a sad, deluded showgirl, who prostitutes herself in the hope that if she serves him well enough, the deformed madman who used to stalk her best friend might just notice her and maybe even love her instead of Christine!
O.M.F.G.
WTF?!?!?!?!
I cannot even... I just can't believe... how could they...!!!!! So much for sisterhood and girl power! Apparently we're to believe that women's independant lives mean nothing, their friendships mean nothing, and they'd rather hurt their best friend and degrade themselves for the mere notice of the nearest man at hand, no matter how horrible he might be. This is SO entirely devoid of all reason, I can't even process the epic failure of basic logic here!! I am SO insulted, not only as a Phantom fan, but as a woman, and on behalf of all thinking people in general. I've rarely been so disgusted, and this is probably one of the most misogynistic plots I've ever seen in a musical, which is really saying something considering we've already got Carousel and other such 'classics' out there! (And if I'd have found out the plot to this show back when it was new, I'd have probably written a letter to Ms. magazine or something calling it to their notice and insisting feminists everywhere boycott! Not that that would have made much difference, I suppose, since most Phantom fans already hated the show on their own!) I just... I'm at a loss. I truly can't comprehend why anyone would think this is okay. UGH!!!
Not to mention the complications such a plot creates in the realm of how the Phantom would react to being loved and adored by all these women. It's totally just glossed over in both productions, but considering the Phantom's whole deal is that he's so hideous that no one has ever loved him (save Christine, of course), the notion of him having all these groupies trying to get in his pants kind of defeats the whole purpose of the plot. I guess you really couldn't address a plot twist like that, because there's no way the Phantom could react that would ring true, because the whole situation doesn't ring true. It would just never happen. The Phantom as sex symbol is only possible for us because he's fictional.
Also, I thought the ending didn't make a lot of sense either (beyond how ridiculous it was in general), since once Meg let the kid go and turned the gun on herself, why would he sit there trying to talk her down? Aside from the fact that the Phantom of the friggin' Opera(!) being the voice of reason(!), talking down someone with a gun(!), is maybe one of the more absurd things I can think of in the world, I honestly don't think the Phantom would give a damn one way or the other what happened to her; he's got Christine and his kid, and I think that's all he'd be interested in. He's not really a person with a good deal of empathy in the general way. Even in "Once Upon Another Time", one of the best songs in the score, I really felt that it was a bit too philosophical for the Phantom. I'm sure Christine would have progressed to that stage of emotional maturity by then, but I really think the Phantom wouldn't have. I think he'd still be up to his old tricks, doing all his usual plotting and manipulating because that's all he knows. One thing I give kudos to the creative team for (and just about the only thing!) is that they realized this in the Melbourne production and wrote in a scene of the Phantom threatening Christine with harming her son if she didn't do what he wanted. I absolutely think he would do just that. I really didn't understand why the London production had him being nice to Gustave BEFORE he knew he was his son. After all, he hates Raoul, and if he thought it was Raoul's kid, he'd hate the little bugger on that account. The Phantom wouldn't be nice to him just because he's Christine's son and she loves him, her feelings didn't seem to matter a lot to him throughout most of the events in PotO! (Well, actually that was more of a case of him not being able to understand her feelings, but still, it amounts to the same thing.)
And I also think the very ending, with Christine's death, fell totally flat, particularly on the London cast album. It was too little, too quiet. This is the Phantom, he's forever lost his only love! I expect screaming and crying and railing against god! Not just some cutesy reprises of the romantic songs and then silence as melancholy orchestral music plays. This should be as much (if not indeed tons more!) of a wrench as when we lets her go, and they'll just probably not meet again. This is final! It should sound like it hurts! Especially when you've got Ramin Karimloo, a real actor for heaven's sake! His Phantom was so intense in PotO 25, he screamed like he'd been physically hurt every time Christine unmasked him; there was so much pain and anguish in every inch of him in that final parting scene; I want to see that here, dammit! But the poor writing gave him nothing to play. There's nothing of the Phantom here, not really. The Melbourne production let him cry a little, but it wasn't as much as you'd expect, and having Raoul show up at the end muddied the waters a bit. Aside from the obvious question of how he knew she was dead on the pier, it also raises the question of who the hell gets Gustave now? Raoul surely wouldn't just give him up to Erik if he knew Christine was dead, legally he's his father after all, and would have every right to take him. Much as I don't think either the Phantom or Raoul would be very good dads as far their characters in LND go, I do at least think it works in the cause of poetic justice to let the Phantom have Gustave. You want that last scene to be one of unexpected hope after utter devastasion, so you've got to have the exclusive focus on Erik and Gustave with no distractions.
I could probably write a whole book on what's wrong with this plot, and another book on how to try and fix it (futile as that would surely be!) but somehow, despite everything, I'm probably as attracted as I am horrified by this show. It doesn't work storywise, but the score is so richly emotional and beautiful, even the recitative is melodious and never just filler. This work in no way lives up the magical, fantastic spirit of the original (I don't want these characters taken down off their pedastals, thank you, I like them there!) but in tiny moments, in beautiful songs, you do occasionally catch little glimpses of the characters you love, and getting to go there again, however imperfectly, is pretty cool. Do I wish it was better? Yes. Do I wish it had never been written? Actually, no. Yes, I would rather have this score in a good show, but at the end of the day, I'd rather have it here than not at all. It may be ugly, but the music is beautiful, and you can't help but love that about it, which in a way is strangely fitting for a show about the Phantom, because you could say the same for him.
The fundamental problem with Love Never Dies is that it was written by someone who neither knew nor cared about the original show or it's characters, and furthermore, that the plot hinges on a premise so preposterous that only a raging misogynist could ever take it seriously. When I heard the book was by Ben Elton, I thought, "not THAT Ben Elton, surely?" But no, it's indeed THAT Ben Elton, writer of stupid but amusing sitcoms starring Rowan Atkinson. Now, much as I love Blackadder, I love it because it's stupid and amusing, and the set of skills needed to create that are much different from those needed to create a musical, especially a serious one. Broad caricature, ridiculous plot twists and naughty jokes are fine there, but NOT in Phantom!!! I think if they had intended Love Never Dies to be a parody, it would actually have been hilarious and maybe even been a hit. But to mess with the characters until they're unrecognizable and make them do stuff no sane person would ever do, and then expect us to accept it as a serious work, is just too much. (And I blame Andrew Lloyd Webber for it too, he should have known better than to hire a sitcom writer. What about the original writer and lyricist, for crying out loud? What a slap in the face to them!!)
Firstly, they screwed up the Phantom, but that's been a problem in recent years. I thought even in the movie the Phantom had been tamed down and prettified more than I would have liked, but here it's really gone too far. He's so mellow and charming and romantic (not to mention jaw-droppingly beautiful, in the case of Ramin Karimloo), and we're obviously meant to root for him to get Christine, and indeed, with all that going for him, you can't understand why she wouldn't just fall into his arms in a second. But that's not who the Phantom actually is! It's way too easy to say that he's really the good guy, Raoul's the bad guy, Christine was just wrong and/or stupid. It's just too simplistic and totally ignores the message of the original show.
Much as Christine (and we the audience) love the Phantom, he's not the kind of guy you can live happily ever after with. No matter what made him that way, or how huch we love all the good things about him, he is crazy, he kills people, and he doesn't have the emotional maturity or even enough of a grip on reality to be able to love anyone without hurting them. The Phantom and Christine are musical soulmates, but they can't be together any other way. Crazy people always hurt the people they love the most, and if Christine had chosen him, it would have just dragged her down and not have helped him. Christine was doing the only thing she could do by choosing to leave him and live a real life, and the Phantom had his moment of redemption when he realized that really loving someone means doing what's best for them, even at your own expense. It's sad, it's tragic, but it's right. There's no other way. Don't insult your audience by telling us "well, ACTUALLY...none of that's true!"
But beyond basic philosophical points like that, they got the Phantom wrong in just about every other way too. Are we really supposed to believe he went back to being a freak in sideshows? really? Even if you're on the run, I gotta think that's the one thing he'd avoid at all costs, since surely such degradation is what made him crazy in the first place. And that he'd go to Coney Island and write ditties for the boardwalk? When his 'muuusiiic' is so sacred and pure and important to him? For crying out loud, he used to kill people to keep Carlotta from singing, I think he'd probably hang himself if he had to listen to crap like "Bathing Beauty" all day, let alone condescend to write it himself! I mean, seriously, who's whoring now? (But more on THAT in a moment!)
And since when did he get so chill? And so totally whipped? That scene of Madame Giry bursting into his lair and busting his chops over Christine? WTF??? He killed guys for less than that before! Are we really supposed to believe he's been putting up with this from her for TEN YEARS??? Are you kidding me?! The Punjab Lasso would have come out long ago, I fear! In all fairness though, even ALW & gang obviously realized this was ridiculous too, since they cut it out in Australia. (Thank God!) Madame Giry just bitches to Meg instead of Erik, but still, the very notion of the Girys hooking up with the Phantom is the worst and most pernicious failure in this whole sordid mess.
The idea that Madame Giry and her daughter, two independant women who had buildt careers and a life for themselves, would just up and leave it all behind to follow around a hideous crazed killer and devote their lives to 'worshipping and idolizing him' (actual lyrics there!) is just beyond the pale. What a low opinion of women must Ben Elton, Glenn Slater, Andrew Lloyd Webber and the entire creative team involved with this production have? Why on God's green earth would any sane person do that? There just isn't a reason, unless you're a total chauvanist pig who feels that any women who don't have a husband and/or father in their lives must be looking for a man, any man, to devote themselves to, since women just live to serve men, and simply can't have fulfulling lives without them. You just can't stretch credibilty thin enough to make it believable that a woman with a career and a daughter (and a whole troupe of surrogate daughters in the ballet girls) to look after would forsake her responsibilties on the strength of feeling sorry for the Phantom's plight. But poor little Meg Giry gets the worst of it. No more Christine's sweet little confidante, here she's a sad, deluded showgirl, who prostitutes herself in the hope that if she serves him well enough, the deformed madman who used to stalk her best friend might just notice her and maybe even love her instead of Christine!
O.M.F.G.
WTF?!?!?!?!
I cannot even... I just can't believe... how could they...!!!!! So much for sisterhood and girl power! Apparently we're to believe that women's independant lives mean nothing, their friendships mean nothing, and they'd rather hurt their best friend and degrade themselves for the mere notice of the nearest man at hand, no matter how horrible he might be. This is SO entirely devoid of all reason, I can't even process the epic failure of basic logic here!! I am SO insulted, not only as a Phantom fan, but as a woman, and on behalf of all thinking people in general. I've rarely been so disgusted, and this is probably one of the most misogynistic plots I've ever seen in a musical, which is really saying something considering we've already got Carousel and other such 'classics' out there! (And if I'd have found out the plot to this show back when it was new, I'd have probably written a letter to Ms. magazine or something calling it to their notice and insisting feminists everywhere boycott! Not that that would have made much difference, I suppose, since most Phantom fans already hated the show on their own!) I just... I'm at a loss. I truly can't comprehend why anyone would think this is okay. UGH!!!
Not to mention the complications such a plot creates in the realm of how the Phantom would react to being loved and adored by all these women. It's totally just glossed over in both productions, but considering the Phantom's whole deal is that he's so hideous that no one has ever loved him (save Christine, of course), the notion of him having all these groupies trying to get in his pants kind of defeats the whole purpose of the plot. I guess you really couldn't address a plot twist like that, because there's no way the Phantom could react that would ring true, because the whole situation doesn't ring true. It would just never happen. The Phantom as sex symbol is only possible for us because he's fictional.
Also, I thought the ending didn't make a lot of sense either (beyond how ridiculous it was in general), since once Meg let the kid go and turned the gun on herself, why would he sit there trying to talk her down? Aside from the fact that the Phantom of the friggin' Opera(!) being the voice of reason(!), talking down someone with a gun(!), is maybe one of the more absurd things I can think of in the world, I honestly don't think the Phantom would give a damn one way or the other what happened to her; he's got Christine and his kid, and I think that's all he'd be interested in. He's not really a person with a good deal of empathy in the general way. Even in "Once Upon Another Time", one of the best songs in the score, I really felt that it was a bit too philosophical for the Phantom. I'm sure Christine would have progressed to that stage of emotional maturity by then, but I really think the Phantom wouldn't have. I think he'd still be up to his old tricks, doing all his usual plotting and manipulating because that's all he knows. One thing I give kudos to the creative team for (and just about the only thing!) is that they realized this in the Melbourne production and wrote in a scene of the Phantom threatening Christine with harming her son if she didn't do what he wanted. I absolutely think he would do just that. I really didn't understand why the London production had him being nice to Gustave BEFORE he knew he was his son. After all, he hates Raoul, and if he thought it was Raoul's kid, he'd hate the little bugger on that account. The Phantom wouldn't be nice to him just because he's Christine's son and she loves him, her feelings didn't seem to matter a lot to him throughout most of the events in PotO! (Well, actually that was more of a case of him not being able to understand her feelings, but still, it amounts to the same thing.)
And I also think the very ending, with Christine's death, fell totally flat, particularly on the London cast album. It was too little, too quiet. This is the Phantom, he's forever lost his only love! I expect screaming and crying and railing against god! Not just some cutesy reprises of the romantic songs and then silence as melancholy orchestral music plays. This should be as much (if not indeed tons more!) of a wrench as when we lets her go, and they'll just probably not meet again. This is final! It should sound like it hurts! Especially when you've got Ramin Karimloo, a real actor for heaven's sake! His Phantom was so intense in PotO 25, he screamed like he'd been physically hurt every time Christine unmasked him; there was so much pain and anguish in every inch of him in that final parting scene; I want to see that here, dammit! But the poor writing gave him nothing to play. There's nothing of the Phantom here, not really. The Melbourne production let him cry a little, but it wasn't as much as you'd expect, and having Raoul show up at the end muddied the waters a bit. Aside from the obvious question of how he knew she was dead on the pier, it also raises the question of who the hell gets Gustave now? Raoul surely wouldn't just give him up to Erik if he knew Christine was dead, legally he's his father after all, and would have every right to take him. Much as I don't think either the Phantom or Raoul would be very good dads as far their characters in LND go, I do at least think it works in the cause of poetic justice to let the Phantom have Gustave. You want that last scene to be one of unexpected hope after utter devastasion, so you've got to have the exclusive focus on Erik and Gustave with no distractions.
I could probably write a whole book on what's wrong with this plot, and another book on how to try and fix it (futile as that would surely be!) but somehow, despite everything, I'm probably as attracted as I am horrified by this show. It doesn't work storywise, but the score is so richly emotional and beautiful, even the recitative is melodious and never just filler. This work in no way lives up the magical, fantastic spirit of the original (I don't want these characters taken down off their pedastals, thank you, I like them there!) but in tiny moments, in beautiful songs, you do occasionally catch little glimpses of the characters you love, and getting to go there again, however imperfectly, is pretty cool. Do I wish it was better? Yes. Do I wish it had never been written? Actually, no. Yes, I would rather have this score in a good show, but at the end of the day, I'd rather have it here than not at all. It may be ugly, but the music is beautiful, and you can't help but love that about it, which in a way is strangely fitting for a show about the Phantom, because you could say the same for him.