Musical-Type Awesomeness (And Other Thoughts)

I can't stop watching Smash, even though I think it has a lot of problems, and while I was following a thought about Smash down the rabbit hole I came across this delightful clip. It's the original cast of A Chorus Line singing "What I Did For Love" on the Phil Donahue show shortly before the original run closed in 1990:



It's like, you only thought this song was poignant.

Anyway, I was thinking about Smash specifically compared with the documentary Every Little Step, which chronicles the casting process for the 2006 revival of A Chorus Line. One of that film's mini-arcs - the "inexperienced-but-talented" throughline focused on Jessica Lee Goyner - works where Smash's presentation of Karen frequently doesn't because they freight her with all this baggage of naivete and moral superiority when the "but talented" should be the going concern. Every Little Step derives all its drama from the audition process and the auditionees' perceptions of themselves as performers, rather than try to pile on any extraneous personal issues. 

Other wishes? A few weeks ago, I watched All About Eve again and thought the show could use an Addison DeWitt; specifically, someone savvy who's invested in the various goings-on of the plot and who can give some direction to the aimlessness that seems to govern characters like Karen and Ellis. Sometimes you need that character who'll actually tell people to stop behaving like simpering fools, instead of just you the audience member yelling it at the TV from your armchair. Hell, you could even have one of those characters actually sit down and watch All About Eve as Marilyn research and decide to actively seek out an Addison DeWitt figure. It would probably make about as much sense as anything else that's gone on this season.

And I wish the show would stop having characters act like Ivy's relationship with Derek somehow precludes her from also being talented. I don't think they're setting her up to function in a muse role (if anything, the recent "Karen-is-Marilyn!" hallucinations seem to be heading in that direction, which in turn is making me pull extra-hard for the Grey's Anatomy/Bones-esque brain tumor option) but it's crazy to not have at least one person mention that some of the most fruitful creative/romantic partnerships in the history of dance and musical theater have been between performers and their director-choreographers.

Quoted

"Maybe because the show is a comedy, some viewers can’t help believing the show “wants” us to sympathize with Hannah in stealing the money, but I think that couldn’t be less true. The interest of the show is in showing her as an intelligent, unformed, selfish, self-pitying young screw-up. She’s funny, and she’s irritating. She’s sometimes perceptive, and yet stunningly un-self-aware. She cares deeply for her friends, and sees her parents as ATMs. The show is not about seeing her as a good person, it’s about wanting to see her—hopefully, by taking on some responsibility, growing up and seeing beyond herself—become one."

- James Poniewozik
from "From Tony Soprano to Hannah Horvath: What Does a TV Show 'Want' You to Think of Its Characters?" at Tuned In


I've been working a lot recently trying to articulate what exactly it is I want to focus on in my studies going forward, and I think part of what I want to achieve is the kind of breadth of knowledge Poniewozik draws upon here to make his point. I particularly love the comparison of the character moments in the respective pilots of Girls and The Shield. (I'm currently in the middle of the sixth season of The Shield - knocking shows off of this list like a champion, if I may say so, and on the verge of tackling Nos. 1 and 2 in the aforementioned process of deepening my body of knowledge.) So much has been said about the pilot all over the Internet that I think I'll save judgement on Girls for a few weeks, but based on Sunday's episode I agree with this assessment of the level of self-awareness involved in presenting the show's characters.