Wednesday, September 24

how to make things (more) terrible, lesson 347: add singing

so hot on the heels of brokeback mountain: the opera, variety is reporting that american psycho is being shopped around as a broadway musical. and it sounds atrocious, for reasons beyond the obvious. the implication in the article that the book is perfect for adaptation to broadway because of its heavy-handed name-dropping of various popular '80s bands tells me that we're looking at some kind of movin' out: billy joel vomits all over your stage, the musical level of horror here. i mean, sure, you're probably thinking that you'd really enjoy watching a sweeney-todd-esque song-and-hacking number with hugh jackman (or clay aiken or whoever) belting out "hip to be square" or "sussudio" but think about it for a second. you don't actually want to see that. ever.

not to mention that the overstatement of this being an adaptation of the book, not the movie, puts the fear in me a bit too. blah blah blah, they are the same thing -- NO. have you tried to read american psycho? it's a very different beast, and making a really huge deal that your adaptation is in no way related to the film adaptation says...something i'm unsure about yet, but i'm certain it's something bad.

fingers crossed that infinite jest: the musical is coming down the pipelines soon, hot on the heels of sexy, sexy media-friendly death! hooray great white way.

2 comments:

Hereward said...

Before we came out to NY, people asked me whether I was going to see any shows there, the kind of people who mean theater, obviously. It was really hard to respond politely since nowadays it seems like 90% of Broadway shows are adaptations from TV shows or commercials or the back of cereal boxes or something not to mention that I avoid Times Square like a radioactive leper colcony built over a typhoon-prone live volcano.

Anonymous said...

well, i'm still skeptical we'll ever see the Fight Club musical.