Hi
folks! This is not yet the official re-opening of my Music Blog, but
a “coming soon” sneak preview of what's to come. Welcome, and
enjoy.
In
my career as a kid stage performer, there were only three shows (of
any genre) that I got to perform in two separate productions of:
Carmen, Peter Pan, and The Sound of Music! (Though in
the case of The Sound of Music, the second 'production' was a
concert version/recording that immediately followed the stage
production, so it didn't feel like a separate process.) NBC has
chosen two of them for their live shows; how great if a non-PBS TV
network did a live, made-for-TV production of Carmen! But I
digress...the point is that NBC has chosen two works that I am very
familiar with, and it's safe to say that many of the decision-makers
at NBC were far less familiar with the material at hand.
Before
getting underway, here comes one of the most important statements
from this entire review: it is fantastic that NBC is doing these
productions! They are high-risk, high-cost endeavors, and the arts
world is a far better place with these productions on the air.
However, there is no reason for these productions to be done poorly,
for a wide variety of reasons to be discussed further below. Onward!
Let's
deal with the most obvious and problematic issue: most of the
material in the musical Peter Pan, as written, is neither
particularly strong nor particularly compelling. The music from the
show can be divided into four groups: Throwaways ("Tender
Shepherd"); 2-second songs, where it's only necessary to sing
the title since everything that follows is unnecessary ("I've
Gotta Crow," "I Won't Grow Up," "I'm Flying");
Camp/Cheese (All 3 of Hook's dances, "Wendy,"
"Ugg-a-Wugg"); and Money Numbers ("Never Never Land,"
"Distant Melody.") While the 'Money Numbers' will stand up
relatively well despite mediocre performers or directors, all of the numbers in
the first three categories rely on the strength of both performance
and concept to be successful. Peter Pan is a show that only
works when the actions, motives, and intentions of the characters are
painted with bold, bright colors, and this was NBC's biggest failure.
When the color of the sets and costumes out-dazzles the color of the
characters, Peter Pan is doomed to fail.
The
plot is also problematic, but for two very different reasons. First,
when reduced to the essentials, the story is an unnecessary one: kids
run off to a land of make-believe, have adventures, and return. For
most of the show, if one were to ask "Why is this happening?"
there would be no good answer. Secondly, however, the two 'money'
numbers, along with the epilogue, point to a much more complicated
problem: where do the metaphors and symbolism end, and reality begin?
"Never Never Land" and "Distant Melody" were
added to the musical after it was first premiered, and both songs add
a significant, world-changing new dimension to the character of Peter
Pan. Several important questions must be answered: is Peter Pan in on
the whole joke, like a clever puppet-master in the guise of a naive
boy? Is it the traditional Mary Martin model, where Peter Pan is
indeed a naive boy, and is accidentally profound in the way kids can
tend to be? (This traditional model happens to be the easiest way to solve the plot problems. Draw everyone into your world, rather than have them wonder why they are there in the first place.) Further metaphorical questions are posed by the epilogue,
along with the fact that Hook and Mr. Darling are usually played by
the same actor. Many spinoffs from the Peter Pan story have addressed
these questions in clever and inventive ways, but to carelessly delve
into this world is risky business. NBC's production of Peter Pan
painted many of the characters
in shades of gray. I'm likely giving too much credit thinking it was
a purposeful choice due to the questions posed above, rather than a
simple lack of creative vision/depth/understanding. Either way, it
was a huge mistake, because whether the world of Neverland is fact or
fiction, the *characters* are still real. Whether real or imagined,
how boring is a far-away land if it's not much different than
ordinary life? And where is the payoff, or big-picture moral, if
those worlds are too close together? It's like the Wizard of Oz
without Technicolor.
Let's
get a bit more specific by examining the three 'tribes' on Neverland
Isle: The Lost Boys, the Pirates, and the Indians. Using the two
extremes above, they are either literal boys/pirates/indians, or they
are ordinary people who (through their imagination) are sharing the
world of Neverland, like a live-action online game. (Side-note: in the
second case, it would make sense to have the full-grown men who
played the Lost Boys in the NBC production!) In *either* case, they
are going to play their role! How lame is it when a group of people
are playing a game that involves roleplay (improv comedy, charades,
theater shows, D&D, online games, more sultry endeavors like
"playing doctor") and there's that ONE buzzkill that
refuses to play along, but insists on playing anyways? That's how
much of the cast seemed in NBC's Peter Pan, as if everyone was in on
the secret that this was all one big metaphor, and thus should not
fully commit to their role. The Lost Boys should be giddy in "Wendy,"
defiant and ornery in "I Won't Grow Up," and always
wide-eyed and youthful. Otherwise, their choice to go to London- the
metaphorical and literal decision to “Grow Up”- loses its impact.
The Pirates need to be over-the-top campy; instead, they all fell in
to the same, too-cool-for-school, completely in-on-the-joke style of
Christopher Walken (more on him later.) The premise that your leader
(Hook) needs a musical style to inspire his next dastardly plot is
one of the funniest and most unique plot devices in Musical Theatre;
to make that process mundane and uninteresting is a Theatre crime
equal to forsaking Sondheim, Tommy Tune, and Ethel Merman. The
Indians, admittedly, are a trickier quandary. For the record, NBC
handled most of the basic changes quite well (and yes, it was
necessary for the material to be changed, as “Ugg-a-Wugg” is the
1950's version of the famous “Ching Chong Ling Long Ting Tong”
YouTube video from a few years ago.) But (as with anything in life)
just because something needs changing doesn't mean that every change
is a good one! Replacing the nonsense syllables with authentic
language was brilliant; replacing other nonsense syllables with
nursery rhymes was nonsense. The bigger mistake, however, is that the
end product wasn't very good. “Ugg-A-Wugg” (now “Blood
Brothers”) is the only true, old-school production number of the
entire show; in their pursuit to be reverent and non-offensive, they
ended up being boring instead. Not only is it OK for the Indians to
be campy and cheesy, they need to be! Alas, most of the group numbers
in the entire production were boring. The swordplay at the end was
laughably lackadaisical, because (once again) they aim for a shade of
gray. They should have either spent the time to do fantastic fight
choreography, or instead make it campy slow motion (a la The
Matrix.) That was an easy one to fix, as were many of the
problems in the show.
Of
course, much of what I discuss above simply comes down to poor
acting, directing, and quality control. Allison Williams was a
terrible choice for the role of Peter Pan. She had none of the star
power or name recognition of Carrie Underwood, the demographic that
watches her HBO show is completely different from the target audience
of Peter
Pan,
and the brunt of her acting experience is getting faux-boned while
topless on screen. Underwood was not a strong actor, but at least she
understood how to carry a thought/idea between phrases in songs. Here
I'll let slip a small trade secret: it's the silence between musical
phrases that defines the acting, and this is the biggest mistake that
non-singing actors make when they sing. You could *see* Williams's
thought process on her face during every pause in her singing, and
(alas for her) it was at its worst in her debut number. It went
something like this: "I've gotta crow" ("OK, where's
my next floor cue") "I'm just the cleverest fellow 'Twas
ever my fortune to know" ("OK, this next line goes higher,
I need to remember to place this where the coach showed me, and take
a good breath, here goes...") etc. Given that much of Williams's
acting experience involves simulated sex, perhaps the producers might
have considered having Nana (the dog) hump her leg during that
number? For the record, I think her singing was largely OK: she hit
most of her spots, she was mostly in tune, and the sound was
generally fine.
It
did seem, at times, that Williams was aiming for something far more
complex dramatically, but it fell far short. It also added several
layers to the narrative, some unintended, that simply don't fit in a
production of this musical. (This is a much longer ramble that I've
decided to leave out of this review, but suffice it to say that NBC's
track record of social engineering and integrity in decision-making
is horrendous: The Olympics, Last Comic Standing, America's Got
Talent, and more provide plenty of examples.) In the end, some NBC
exec thought it would be cute to hire the daughter of their news
anchor to star in the show. A similar thought process led to the
casting of Tiger Lily, who simply couldn't sing the role. It's a
lovely idea (and politically savvy) to hire a Native American for the
part, but it does no one (especially her) any good to cast a person
that can't handle the role.
The
casting of Walken was a stroke of genius, and was the biggest wasted
opportunity in the entire production. Stage direction has many
parallels to my world of orchestral conducting; any mediocre
conductor or director can help a mediocre orchestra/artist perform
better, but a true test of a great conductor or director is improving
people who are already world-class artists. Every viewer was
expecting much more from Walken, but where does the fault lie? Sure,
Walken should have been better, but there are several important
points to put this in context. First, we've all seen Walken do
better, so we know he is capable of it. Second, as I've mentioned
above, the show was already rife with poor choices in acting,
concept, and direction; Walken's low-key approach was congruous with
the many shades of gray that engulfed this production. Third, what is
the director there for? Going back to the conducting analogy, a
conductor (among other things) helps to provide a unifying vision
that brings all of the musicians together to work towards the same
goal. While musicians are certainly expected to come prepared and to
play at their best, the duty of quality control ultimately falls on
the conductor. In the unique case that a musician is completely
missing the mark, the responsibility falls on the conductor to (put
simply) find a solution to make it work. I've been fortunate to see a
bunch of orchestras from behind the scenes, and this type of scenario
happens more often than you would think! While I might be wrong, I
can't imagine that Walken was un-directable. In fact, I'm convinced
(especially given what I've already typed above) that everyone on set
thought he was HILARIOUS. It was Walken playing the role of Walken,
which the NBC folks found funny in a
drunk-at-midnight-watching-Saturday-Night-Live sort of way. The lack
of sensible quality control in the rest of the show makes this
scenario very likely (Occam's Razor), and I seriously doubt Walken
was any different in the rehearsals prior to the live show. So, just
like so many SNL skits that were clearly funnier to the writers than
the audience, the Walken deadpan was a colossal failure, and no one
on set saw it as a problem leading up to the performance. Ultimately,
the director of Peter
Pan
was unable to utilize or improve the many tools that Walken brings to
the table, and thus Walken's performance became the main topic of
conversation for all the wrong reasons.
There
were several bright spots in the show. First, Wendy was the only main
character to fully commit to her role. She was wide-eyed with wonder
at the youth (Pan) who was going to help her run away, and she fully
believed in the real-ness of Neverland. She is the perfect example of
the importance of the bold, bright character colors that I mentioned
above; the weight of Minnie Driver's reality would have made no sense
without it. There were two other shining lights: Kelli O'Hara as Mrs.
Darling, and Christian Borle as Mr. Darling and Smee. They certainly
brought weight, legitimacy, and high standards to the table.
Unfortunately, they were not utilized enough (or on screen enough) to
counterbalance the many problems with the show. A great comparison to
make is with Audra McDonald, who had a significant impact upon the
quality of The
Sound of Music Live,
despite minimal screen time. Importantly, she was also able to draw
the best acting out of Carrie Underwood, during the song “Climb
Every Mountain.” In contrast, Borle was unsuccessful in drawing
Walken out enough in order to be his foil, and thus did not have the
opportunity to portray a proper Smee. If Audra would have been cast
as Smee (which would have been an amazing casting choice!) would she
have done any better? Likely not, but the novelty of having Audra and
Walken as Smee and Hook would have likely resulted in better and more
focused direction.
Since
music is normally my primary focus in any critique, it's surprising
to me that it has taken this long to finally speak of the orchestra!
As I've already mentioned, the musical material is not particularly
strong, with lots of 'boom-chick' numbers and time fillers.
Compounding this is the terrible trend in Pops/Musical Theatre to
treat popular music like Guitar Hero: just push the buttons down at
the right time. This was especially noticeable in The
Sound of Music Live,
where none
of that fantastic score was treated like music- no phrasing, no
subtlety, no use of color or texture...not much better than a MIDI
recording. I'm pleased to say that Peter
Pan Live
is an improvement, which was immediately heard in “I've Gotta
Crow”: the brass added fantastic shape to each 'answer' of Peter
Pan's invocation of the song title. In fact, the brass was making
great shapes, phrases, and colors in several places throughout the
show! Alas, the strings and winds were largely in Guitar Hero mode,
which leads me to believe the Brass innovations were a result of the
brass section itself, and not from the music direction. Kudos also to
the consultant who made adjustments to “Ugg-a-Wugg,” because it
would have been silly to change the lyrics, but not change the
musical components that were equally problematic. These changes gave
“Blood Brothers” a new feel, and would have worked great had the
choreography and performances been stronger. Last item: that terrible
Synth sound they used for Tinkerbell's 'voice'. In the original show,
her voice is supposed to be represented by a Celesta, which (simply
put) is a piano that uses bells for keys. Of course, hauling around a
Celesta is both expensive and difficult, so most shows use a
Synthesizer Celesta sound instead. The sound used in Peter
Pan Live
was an anemic cross between a windchime and a toy piano; you can also
file this choice in the already-stuffed “quality control” folder.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------
So,
why is any of this important? Anytime an artistic event of this
magnitude occurs, you get plenty of people (like me) who express
their opinions in different ways, followed by a small (but vocal)
group that sets their target on the expressers. The most common
phrases from this group: “Who are you to judge?”; “Why don't
you try to do it better?”; “These people put hard work into it,
and you are disrespecting their work”; “We've all had bad days”;
“You're going to discourage them from doing more shows”;
“__________ show was far worse”; “What does it matter?
_____________ is happening (fill in the blank with a true story of
suffering.)” I will hear these (and other) comments occasionally,
and I feel it's always important to address them directly. The basic
answer is this: that's not the way the world works! When people
invest in something, they will have an opinion on what they've
invested in. When it comes to the arts, that investment is usually
time, money, or resources. Three hours is a significant time
investment, so people are going to express their opinions. Now, here
comes the better answer: quality matters.
In the worlds of symphonic music and opera, a major selling point is
that the audience will get a more special experience in the concert
hall than they would watching TV or listening to a recording; the
quality of the experience is an oft-cited reason. Why, then, would
quality not matter when it comes to art and music in the popular
realm? Sadly, a significant number of individuals in the classical
world believe that the quality of a popular performance is not
important to its success, and (worse) that the general audience will
not be able to tell the difference (and thus critical reviews only
serve to hurt future audience numbers.) This is a much longer topic
of conversation that will need to be addressed in a separate article,
but nothing could be further from the truth. Today's general
audience, for a variety of reasons, is more attuned to the quality of
performances than ever before. It's not enough to throw a famous name
on stage/screen- the viral negative social media reaction to Walken's
performance is a great demonstration of this.
So,
why would any organization spend so much money, time, and resources
to put on a production, but not put in the effort to make sure that
it is good? I'll have to save the detailed answers for a separate
article, but it's often a combination of bad decision-making by the
powers-that-be, a complete misunderstanding of the viewing/listening
audience, and laziness. It never ceases to amaze me how many arts
organizations (both intentionally and unintentionally) will
completely gut the quality of their outreach, educational, popular,
or even subscription programming, and then lament their poor sales
numbers. How many TV shows have 'jumped the shark,' and then, years
later, lamented the cancelling of their show on a “Where are they
now” retrospective? In most cases, money is not the issue. All it
takes in one person behind the scenes that understands the audience
enough, cares about quality enough, and is willing to work hard
enough to fight for the highest artistic standards. It's no accident
that a small subset of decision-makers (directors, producers,
conductors, etc.) are responsible for so many successes in the arts
world. These are the people that can lead and motivate the legions
desperate to settle for “good enough” to instead aim for
something greater.
Most
of the problems with Peter
Pan Live
were both easily noticeable, and easily fixable. While it seems crazy
that not a single person involved with the production was aware of
these problems, that is not an uncommon occurrence in this industry.
With all of the millions of dollars that NBC spent on this
production, it's a shame that they didn't spend a fraction more to
bring in a hired gun, with credentials in the worlds of both Music
and Theatre, who is known for their exacting standards. (P.S. NBC:
I'm relatively inexpensive, and willing to make myself available for
your next project!) In the end, it is such a shame that the reviews
of the production were so poor, because that could lead to fewer
viewers in the future. However, this is why detailed analysis of what
went wrong is crucial, otherwise the blame will be deflected towards
the common excuses (dwindling audiences, technology, too much
competition, lack of the arts in schools, etc.) instead of the actual
reasons: poor decisions, and poor quality control.
So,
kudos to NBC for its courage and vision to bring live,
designed-for-TV musicals back to the small screen. Now, let's be sure
to get it right next time!
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