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Re: Tommy on the stage



This is an article from the Times today about the phenomena of pop
music/rock operas. Not a lot about Tommy, but it's interesting.
 
--------------------------------------------------------------
 
See 'em, hear 'em, feel 'em

BY ADAM SHERWIN

Theatre: Some of British pop's stalwarts are hoping to reinvigorate
the West End musical

How we mocked that "deaf, dumb and blind boy" who sure played a mean
pinball. For years The Who's Tommy has been spoken of in hushed
tones as the height of an unfortunate delusion which afflicted our  
premier performers in the 1970s - the rock opera.

It was a time of concept albums, overblown power chords and ludicrous
storylines which were only comprehensible to whichever Indian mystic
was tending to the group at the time. West End impresarios eyed these
rockers warily and happily plied audiences with a regular diet of
"proper musicals". The Sound of Music appeared immortal.

But the relationship between rock music and West End theatre is
changing. Box-office takings for London's stalwart musicals dropped 10
per cent last year, suggesting that the West End needs to find a
different audience. So the artistic whims of pop and rock stars are
now being actively indulged by the musical moguls.

In May, Neil Tennant and Chris Lowe of the Pet Shop Boys will unveil
their musical Closer to Heaven, backed by Andrew Lloyd Webber's Really
Useful Group, in London.

Boy George has written Taboo, a musical based around his own emergence
from the exotic creatures who populated the early Eighties New
Romantics club scene. Even now a set designer is planning to recreate
downtown Zanzibar, where the young Freddie Mercury grew up, for Queen:
The Musical, a project being written by Ben Elton for reasons he has
yet to divulge.

Although these shows have the benefit of famous-name recognition even
before they've opened, it doesn't guarantee success. Just look at
Tommy.

It was a worldwide hit for The Who as a double-album in 1969 and was
made into a movie by Ken Russell in 1975. A few years ago, Pete
Townshend turned his rock opera into a hit Broadway show. But like
Jonathan Larson's Rent, a rock reworking of La Bohème, it failed to be
a hit in the West End and closed early in 1997 despite trailing
box-office and critical success from America.

But there may now be a more receptive climate for rock and pop
musicals, thanks to the West End success of the Abba musical Mamma
Mia. Since it opened two years ago at the Prince Edward Theatre, the
show has grossed £42 million and sold over 1.5 million tickets, with
the full-house signs up every night.

It was Judy Cramer, the show's canny producer, who first convinced
Benny Andersson and Bjorn Ulvaeus that there could be a few bob to be
made from a show based around their songs.

"There was a marketing value in that Abba's songs are known to an
audience from eight-year-olds to 80-year-olds," she says. "It cost £3
million to stage this production and the large corporations which fund
shows are less likely to take a risk on original scores.

But people are coming because we are presenting a strong contemporary
story (a mother and daughter reunion). They are not expecting to see a
physical representation of Abba on stage."

That is what the Pet Shop Boys and Boy George are also intending to
do. "I will not play myself," says Boy George. "Someone younger,
prettier and thinner than me will be cast. It'll be like Valley of the
Dolls, only with bigger hair, more tragedy and no glitterballs." Queen
guitarist Brian May promises that "young people" will play his group
in the Freddie Mercury musical.

The Pet Shop Boys' Closer to Heaven, written with Jonathan Harvey,
whose latest play Out in the Open is currently at Hampstead Theatre,
details the rise and fall of Dave, a glamorous young Irish boy who
escapes to London and becomes entangled in the decadent delights of
the London club scene. Fame and pop stardom beckon, but Dave quicky
learns "things are not as straightforward as they seem".

There are 15 new Pet Shop Boys songs in the show but, as Neil Tennant
points out, there has always been a Sondheim element to their music:
"We've always liked the theatre and our live shows have very strong
theatrical elements. We have wanted to do a musical for ages because
we wanted to see if it was possible to put contemporary pop music on
to the stage."

The play, however, is not having its premiere in a large theatre on
Shaftesbury Avenue but in the smaller, more intimate, environment of
the Arts Theatre, just off Charing Cross Road.

It seems like a shrewd move. When the rock musical Hedwig and the
Angry Inch, a hip off-Broadway cult hit, came straight into the West
End last year, it looked completely out of place and died a death with
no chance to build word-of-mouth support.

According to Paul Jones, of the Society of London Theatre, there has
never been a better time for a pop musical. "We are returning to the
days when pop and show music were one and the same. Through the rock
era of the Sixties and Seventies they drifted apart. But now a
pop-music audience is being brought to the West End, where there has
been a rather static period in which we have not really been breaking
box-office records."

Tennant and Lowe, regarded by some as the new Lerner and Loewe, and
Boy George, whose Karma Chameleon has joined the canon of classic
songs, could well be the pop stars to produce the fresh hit musical
that the West End needs.

For Boy George, writing a show is a "childhood dream finally come
true". Even reconstructed rocker Bono from U2 claims: "Musicals are
where it's at - they are modern morality plays."

Stars who no longer trouble the chart compilers may hope that their
beloved rock opera will become an excellent pension scheme as a West
End hit. But audiences should beware.

According to Ben Knowles, the Editor of NME: "Rock opera means the
horrible, pompous self-indulgence of rock stars with too much money
and taking too many drugs. It is for the prawn sandwich and chablis
brigade who want to 'keep in touch' with their music without getting
sweaty at a concert. The same people went to see the Three Tenors
thinking that was opera."

But the "prawn sandwich and chablis brigade" are never happier than
when spending money reliving the sounds of their youth, as shown by
such West End long-runners as Buddy.

Beatles fans will be able to do the same when the "musical journey"
All You Need is Love opens in London in May. So while the coach
parties are dancing in the aisles, could there be an NME-friendly rock
opera for Knowles? "A Damon Albarn/Ray Davies collaboration could work
because Blur are pure music hall," he says. "But how about the Oasis
story with lots of scarf-waving anthems? Not so much Mamma Mia, as Our
Mam."