Musicals

Ahaha maybe I should just shut the fck up because I've whined about this already enough on my Snapchat


buuuut


A youths' musical is about to have its premiere next week and the theme of the musical is *drum roll* MENTAL HEALTH! Or the lack of health. Wow, sooo original...

So we know it'll be about anxiety and stuff, maybe even suicide or mention of suicide (I bet the latter). They probably think it's original to have a musical with heavier themes. And one of the actors said in an interview something along the lines of: "I don't get how a musical can have heavier themes".

I stopped reading because I got sooo cranky bc of that statement. Okay okay these are teens who've grown up in a more "secure" theatrical world, I guess, so they're not familiar with heavier themes on the stage, esp not youths' theatre.

I was nine years old when I saw a musical called Colorado Avenue, at a big stage here in Finland and I was traumatized by it. All three main characters died. I cried in the car on the way home, and by then I knew that theatre was not safe from plots of sadness and horror.

During my teens I saw many musicals that didn't end well.

Urine Town, Little Shop of Horror, Hunchback of Notre Dame, Chicago, THREE OF WHICH I saw by the same theatre group that is now taken aback by making a musical about achievement anxiety?!?  Fuck, not until your main character DIES are you allowed to talk about heavier themes!

And yet, I know the audience doesn't like violence on stage. I remember the gasps of my tiny audience when I dragged a friend by her hair on stage, because it's not a movie, it's a real stage with real people and an audience witnessing an assault, even if it's not real.

What I'm trying to say is.... The stage is a place for heavier themes. Even musicals. With skilled actors and most importantly, a skilled director, the stage can be a wonderful place for a touching play with both tragedy and hope.