(Source: Playbill.com)
A Gentleman’s Guide to Love and Murder. Bit of a marathon for the mouth to get
out, right? For some reason the title of this Broadway musical kept me away
from the show for several months, even though I had heard such great things
about it from other people. Set in the beginning of the 19th
century, the show focuses on an impoverished young man by the name of Monty
Navaro, who, in the wake of his mother’s death, discovers that he is eighth in
line to be the Lord of one of the most distinguished families of the day, the D’Ysquiths.
Monty then goes on a crusade to eliminate the eight family members between him
and the title of Lord in order to win over the girl he loves.
A cute bachelor,
eight murders, wealth and love – sounds like a pretty good show to me. Yet, I
couldn’t quite put my finger on it, but something about the show just didn’t appeal
to me. But after taking home four Tony Awards (the theater’s Oscar) in June,
including Best Musical, I started coming around to the idea that I should see
the show.
And so last week
I went…and I LOVED it. The show was fantastic from start to finish, from an
engaging, exciting, and humorous story, to beautiful melodies and creative
lyrics. The set, which subtly employed the use of a video screen in the
background, was simple but yet always interesting to look at. The cast inredible
in the show, especially Jefferson Mays, who brilliantly played all eight
members of the D”Ysquith family.
(Jefferson Mays - Source: Broadway.com)
During the show,
not only did I realize why I loved it, I also realized why I hadn’t wanted to
see it – and to my surprise, it was the same reason: A Gentleman’s Guide was a throwback musical. Let me explain my use
of the term throwback here. In the past, most musicals drew their inspiration
from books, poems, comics, or even original stories invented by the writers.
Nowadays, since musicals have become so expensive to produce (the average is
around $15 million and only one in five ever recoup that investment), producers
are not willing to put their money into original stories that are untested with
audiences. What stories have been best tested with the most people? Movies.
These days, producers are very often only willing to put their money into shows
that derive their titles and stories from successful movies that are likely to
draw families and tourists with their brand recognition. In my opinion, and in
the opinion of many other musical theater purists, this trend has been tainting
(or ruining, depending on how passionate you are) the art form of musical
theater.
A Gentleman’s Guide on the other hand, draws from a book
published in 1907 that almost no one has ever heard of called Israel Rank:
the Autobiography of a Criminal,
and features a classic musical theater score, unlike a pop or rock score that
is found in so many modern musicals. The show is a throwback to the golden era
of musical theater. But I think for this reason, many people, including myself,
have shied away from the show purely because we don’t know what to do with it.
Though we crave an original musical, we are unsure of what to do when the show
does not have a familiar title such as Legally Blonde, Spiderman, or Rocky
to name a few. We have become so used to movie-musicals, that it is a shock to
the system when an original musical comes along. But the beauty of seeing A
Gentleman’s Guide was that I didn’t know who the characters were or what
was going to happen next. And I wasn’t disappointed when my favorite scene from
the movie was cut from the stage adaptation. I got to experience musical
theater in its purist form: watching an unfamiliar story unfold live in front
of my eyes.
Despite facing several movie musicals as competition, it was A
Gentleman’s Guide that won the Tony for Best Musical this year, which leads
me to believe that appreciation for a classic, throwback musical is not lost.
Now it’s up to producers to figure out how to make them profitable. But that’s
another post entirely.
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