Jagged Little Pill: The Musical
Nov. 22nd, 2019 03:33 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
chuckroBecause we all love a good jukebox musical, here’s one featuring the music of Alanis Morissette!
For a plot, they mashed together six different after-school specials. No, seriously: We’ve got a bisexual love triangle, the issues of a black girl adopted into a white family, a marriage falling apart, opioid addiction, date rape, bullying…plus a bunch of issues the supporting cast had that they barely even touched. (Jethrien noted, “It’s like fourteen after school specials and also all of your anxieties crammed into two hours!”)
The dialogue was witty, though, and given both the material and the songs they could have gone really dark, but they backed off of that. (The lesbian doesn’t die. Nobody’s dies, actually.) On one hand, the bisexual (Explicitly! Yay!) main character…cheats on her girlfriend with a boy and gets caught. On the other hand, the ex-girlfriend got and deserved a standing ovation for her performance of “You Oughta Know,” and the plot did need to get her there. So I’ll accept it.
In terms of other song, presenting “Ironic” as a class creative writing exercise (especially so they could lampshade the lack of irony) was really clever, because they had to use it (it was one of the best charting songs Morissette ever wrote), but there’s no logical way to make it part of a plot. I specifically wasn’t crazy of their use of “That I Would Be Good”, but it’s unlikely I would be, because that song is about Alanis Morissette rocking herself gently in a closet. Also, I have a mental image of the circumstances of “So Pure”, and a high school drinking party is not it.
Morissette herself is not actually a terribly good dancer (especially when she doesn’t have the distraction of long hair), but she does have a distinctive style of dance. And you can get some pretty impressive stuff by showing that dance to Broadway choreographers and letting them teach variations on it to extremely talented Broadway dancers.
Though the story is very much framed as modern-day (social media plays a role in the plot; everyone has cell phones), the chorus generally wears 90s grunge attire. We could also tell we were in a crowd of Broadway fans (rather than Alanis fans) because there was not a single red-and-black oversized flannel shirt anywhere in the audience. (When we attended an Alanis concert last year, there were dozens.)
Overall: It’s not even on the same level of trash fire that Bat Out of Hell was, because though the plot is patently ridiculous, the dialogue is fun, the characters are earnest, and the music makes you feel like it’s 1996 and you’re justifiably furious at a middle-aged actor/comedian.
For a plot, they mashed together six different after-school specials. No, seriously: We’ve got a bisexual love triangle, the issues of a black girl adopted into a white family, a marriage falling apart, opioid addiction, date rape, bullying…plus a bunch of issues the supporting cast had that they barely even touched. (Jethrien noted, “It’s like fourteen after school specials and also all of your anxieties crammed into two hours!”)
The dialogue was witty, though, and given both the material and the songs they could have gone really dark, but they backed off of that. (The lesbian doesn’t die. Nobody’s dies, actually.) On one hand, the bisexual (Explicitly! Yay!) main character…cheats on her girlfriend with a boy and gets caught. On the other hand, the ex-girlfriend got and deserved a standing ovation for her performance of “You Oughta Know,” and the plot did need to get her there. So I’ll accept it.
In terms of other song, presenting “Ironic” as a class creative writing exercise (especially so they could lampshade the lack of irony) was really clever, because they had to use it (it was one of the best charting songs Morissette ever wrote), but there’s no logical way to make it part of a plot. I specifically wasn’t crazy of their use of “That I Would Be Good”, but it’s unlikely I would be, because that song is about Alanis Morissette rocking herself gently in a closet. Also, I have a mental image of the circumstances of “So Pure”, and a high school drinking party is not it.
Morissette herself is not actually a terribly good dancer (especially when she doesn’t have the distraction of long hair), but she does have a distinctive style of dance. And you can get some pretty impressive stuff by showing that dance to Broadway choreographers and letting them teach variations on it to extremely talented Broadway dancers.
Though the story is very much framed as modern-day (social media plays a role in the plot; everyone has cell phones), the chorus generally wears 90s grunge attire. We could also tell we were in a crowd of Broadway fans (rather than Alanis fans) because there was not a single red-and-black oversized flannel shirt anywhere in the audience. (When we attended an Alanis concert last year, there were dozens.)
Overall: It’s not even on the same level of trash fire that Bat Out of Hell was, because though the plot is patently ridiculous, the dialogue is fun, the characters are earnest, and the music makes you feel like it’s 1996 and you’re justifiably furious at a middle-aged actor/comedian.
no subject
Date: 2019-12-21 05:38 pm (UTC)