meteordust (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
meteordust) wrote2022-05-20 11:50 pm
meteordust) wrote2022-05-20 11:50 pm
Entry tags:
Musical Fictions
I love a good musical. Even an imaginary musical.
If there's one thing we know for sure, it's that a great novel is a spectacular foundation for a musical extravaganza. Oliver! Matilda! Les Miserables! Mary Poppins! Sadly, not every beloved story becomes a famous musical. Some of Australia's finest songwriters have uncovered lost songs from the greatest literary adaptations you've never heard.
Musical Fictions was an event by the Sydney Writers' Festival, held last night at Sydney Town Hall. I went because of Casey Bennetto, the writer and composer of Keating!, one of my favourite ever musicals.
So here's the idea. Seven songwriters each get to pick a book - any book - and write a song for a musical inspired by it. Three singers and four musicians bring them to life on stage. Anything goes - if they all pick the same book, so be it. (As it turned out, there were two double ups.)
While the book selection turned out to be more literary than my own tastes, the songs were creatively written and explored a range of tones, and the performances were excellent. It made me appreciate - once again - the power of song to cut right through to the heart of a character, and lay bare their distilled emotions. Highlights:
* Crime and Punishment - The song is what the songwriter wishes he could say to Raskolnikov, if he got to persuade him not to kill the pawnbroker and just take a pleasant walk along the river together. There's black humour in contrasting the dark subject matter with bright upbeat music.
* The Adventures of Pusscat Wizzy Willums - This is a lift-the-flap picture book about a stray cat looking for a home, that was the songwriter's childhood favourite. The song is a duet between the stray cat and a lonely widow, who both (spoiler alert!) may end up finding what they need by the end of the book. Bonus points for Mike McLeish wearing cat ears for his part.
* The Slap - The song is what the mother of the child imagines what she would say, if she got to take the stand at the trial of the man who slapped him. It did that amazing thing where you get to feel both sympathy and repulsion for a character, and then also get that punch of revelatory backstory - in just two lines - that explains so much about them.
* The Bell Jar - The song is about the fig tree! I've never read the book, but I always think about the metaphor of the fig tree. Even more memorable in song.
Other songs were based on: Heart of Darkness, Catch-22, To Kill a Mockingbird, and two of Helen Garner's memoirs. I wish they had given us a program, so I could keep track of who wrote and sang what songs. Anyway, the website says:
* Songwriters: Tim Rogers, Angie Hart, Dean Bryant & Mathew Frank, Simon Hall, Jude Perl, Gillian Cosgriff.
* Performers: Casey Bennetto, Virginia Gay, Mike McLeish, Natalie Abbott, and the house band.
Just as genderswapped song performances have become a thing, I would love to see musical fictions become a thing too.
If there's one thing we know for sure, it's that a great novel is a spectacular foundation for a musical extravaganza. Oliver! Matilda! Les Miserables! Mary Poppins! Sadly, not every beloved story becomes a famous musical. Some of Australia's finest songwriters have uncovered lost songs from the greatest literary adaptations you've never heard.
Musical Fictions was an event by the Sydney Writers' Festival, held last night at Sydney Town Hall. I went because of Casey Bennetto, the writer and composer of Keating!, one of my favourite ever musicals.
So here's the idea. Seven songwriters each get to pick a book - any book - and write a song for a musical inspired by it. Three singers and four musicians bring them to life on stage. Anything goes - if they all pick the same book, so be it. (As it turned out, there were two double ups.)
While the book selection turned out to be more literary than my own tastes, the songs were creatively written and explored a range of tones, and the performances were excellent. It made me appreciate - once again - the power of song to cut right through to the heart of a character, and lay bare their distilled emotions. Highlights:
* Crime and Punishment - The song is what the songwriter wishes he could say to Raskolnikov, if he got to persuade him not to kill the pawnbroker and just take a pleasant walk along the river together. There's black humour in contrasting the dark subject matter with bright upbeat music.
* The Adventures of Pusscat Wizzy Willums - This is a lift-the-flap picture book about a stray cat looking for a home, that was the songwriter's childhood favourite. The song is a duet between the stray cat and a lonely widow, who both (spoiler alert!) may end up finding what they need by the end of the book. Bonus points for Mike McLeish wearing cat ears for his part.
* The Slap - The song is what the mother of the child imagines what she would say, if she got to take the stand at the trial of the man who slapped him. It did that amazing thing where you get to feel both sympathy and repulsion for a character, and then also get that punch of revelatory backstory - in just two lines - that explains so much about them.
* The Bell Jar - The song is about the fig tree! I've never read the book, but I always think about the metaphor of the fig tree. Even more memorable in song.
Other songs were based on: Heart of Darkness, Catch-22, To Kill a Mockingbird, and two of Helen Garner's memoirs. I wish they had given us a program, so I could keep track of who wrote and sang what songs. Anyway, the website says:
* Songwriters: Tim Rogers, Angie Hart, Dean Bryant & Mathew Frank, Simon Hall, Jude Perl, Gillian Cosgriff.
* Performers: Casey Bennetto, Virginia Gay, Mike McLeish, Natalie Abbott, and the house band.
Just as genderswapped song performances have become a thing, I would love to see musical fictions become a thing too.