377 days - Blog #103, Oliver, or how I can't just go see a musical and merely think about song and dance

So… it’s another night of late theater.  And I will reflect on both shows I’ve seen this weekend.  Just not now.

Tonight my mind drifts away from the actual local performance and more a contemplation of the play Oliver!

I guess in the theater world, it is on a par with Annie.  Maybe slightly less omnipresent (and I suspect that is merely because it is about boys instead of girls, of whom there are abundant casting opportunities and thus the cash of adoring grandparents)… but still pretty frequently performed.

It was actually the first play I ever saw.  I was five.  So I will always love it, in spite of any overdone eye rolling provocation.  It’s also Charles Dickens.

Charles Dickens.

And that is where my mind veers off topic.

So I’m having some Nanowrimo regret right now (ha, almost typed up the homonym write there).  Not regret.  Just a huge mental clog… especially as I deal with all these theater proposals and press releases and going to see plays.  My left brain has been preoccupied the last couple of days.  And I find myself contemplating another option… because I’m distracted.  I’ll get back on track Monday, I suspect.

But still… the branch off this path intrigues me.  And makes me think a little bit about what’s next or… well… we shall see.

I left tonight’s show thinking I want to direct this play.  I think it actually makes sense – a kind of poetry because it was the first play I saw and because I like social justice.   Especially the way Dickens took it on.  With a dose of an improbable fairy tale.  Also, I really like kids in theater.  But, of course, that bucket list is getting pretty long.

So let’s just contemplate the form Dickens actually used.  The novel.  Although the play and the movie and the BBC miniseries also work too in this discussion.

I came home (as I often do after seeing a musical - and oh my GOD, Rowan Atkinson played Fagin in 2009!!  Why did I miss that?) and went online to seek out youtube videos of other productions.  As I sat at this computer watching a London production’s rendition of Consider Yourself, I wondered what the modern day equivalent of Dodger would be.  I guess there are pickpockets still… but my mind did go to gangs and drugs.  Maybe that is a bad prejudice… but I was trying to think of the underclass of 2014 that would be the contemporary Fagin’s gang.  That thought came from thinking how Dickens didn’t write this to be a fun singy songy musical… but a spotlight on the horrible conditions of the poor and the children (and yes, I really need to read Dickens again after having the musical in more recent replay than his text).

But you know, I do this with Hugo, too.  My literary history nerd doesn’t forget the inspiration for these novels that talk about the poor and the prisons and the horrific conditions… turned into a night out to escape… reality?  With a song and dance number.

So… this makes me think two things.  1. What hasn’t changed since this was a paid by word (supposedly) serial in the newspaper?  Kids who are poor are still considered ruffians … and maybe they are.  But they have a need for love.  Thankfully, there might not be a poor Oliver because of our acceptance of unwed mothers (but… well, we’ll see where this new Republican regime leads us).  2. How could one take a modern version and turn it into an entertaining fairy tale… and still make a point?  Or does the point get lost in the entertainment and cute little child singing Where is Love?

Huh.

Things to think on.  Maybe write.  Now, I will sleep on it.