London Theatre: Two New Musicals

London Theatre: Two New Musicals

22 April, 2009
by: Joe Harrod

This month sees the arrival of two daring new musicals on the London stage. It's about time somebody bucked the trend for candyfloss Hollywood reheats and tried-and-tested Lloyd Webber or Sondheim favourites. Old chestnuts have a place but unless the musical genre continues to evolve, it risks becoming a glossy pastiche of itself. So it's great to see a few shows inviting audiences to broaden their horizons.

Spoonfed tracked down two people involved with these new musicals to find out about the process involved in putting on an all-new show, their hopes and fears for their newborn productions, and what drove them to buck the trend and try something different.

Beth Trachtenberg is one of the producers of Imagine This. This has to be the most daring musical project ever. They've gone all out, with a big budget and corresponding West End ticket prices, trying to draw audiences in their thousands to a brand new show about a doomed theatre troupe rehearsing in the Warsaw ghetto on the brink of Nazi extermination.

Lisa Forrell, meanwhile, is the director of Rue Magique. This musical is at the Kings Head for Christmas. The subject? Child prostitution and a 13-year-old girl introduced on her birthday to 'the next level' i.e. the next pay grade – for sex with sadists.

SPOONFED: Beth, you have a strongly commercial background. What is it about Imagine This that made you feel it would win audiences despite a bleak Holocaust setting?

BETH: It has been many years since a musical of this quality has come along. It has an important message… despite the bleakness of the setting... it is a celebration of the human spirit.

SPOONFED: Lisa, you have a strong indie background. Does Rue Magique's prostitution theme make it the most challenging subject matter you've seen put into a musical?

LISA: Without a doubt, although classic musicals such as West Side Story and Carousel contain strong social and psychological themes.

SPOONFED: Why should everyone go and see your show?

BETH: For an unforgettable evening. Laugh, cry, and be inspired... fall in love with the characters and get swept away by spectacular music and lyrics.

LISA: Phenomenal performances and music; but ultimately a moving story that will open people's eyes to the hidden and desperate world around us.

SPOONFED: Will audiences enjoy Rue Magique in the conventional musical sense? Or is it tough?

LISA: Rue Magique has a very classical structure familiar to audiences who enjoy musicals, but they'll have the new, exciting experience of a show with heart, soul and important revelations.

SPOONFED: Which were you most drawn to? The score, the premise or the characters?

LISA: The opportunity to create a show about people who live below the radar.

BETH: That's an impossible question since they are all so intertwined. I suppose that the music is what first made me want to bring the project to the stage.

SPOONFED: Beth, you've organised entire TV series. How does this challenge compare?

BETH: Theatre is very different [and] far more personal both in the creative and financial sense. Creatively, it is incredibly rewarding to work closely with the relatively small group of people. Financially... theatre tends to be underwritten by individuals, people who themselves fall in love with a show and are willing to support it... [TV shows are] underwritten by corporations.

SPOONFED: Will audiences have to work hard to enjoy Imagine This or will it carry them along?

BETH: They won't have to work hard at all. If anything, it will be hard work for them not to.

SPOONFED: How did the cast and crew react to the subject matter of your shows?

LISA: I have never experienced such total commitment. The entire company sense that they are doing something of importance beyond just a 'show'.

BETH: I have never, ever worked with a group of people more committed to a project. With the exception of the authors and myself, no one working on Imagine This is Jewish and yet, our cast and crew understand their responsibility to the integrity of the material, the characters they're portraying and the creative excellence of the show in way that defies any experience I've ever had.

SPOONFED: Musicals have dealt with exploitation before but tend to have a glamorous veneer. Is Rue Magique deliberately gritty?

LISA: We are determined not to glamourise child prostitution as it is hardly a glamorous subject, but I believe it's the first musical that deals with the 'game' in a serious way.

SPOONFED: Rue Magique tested brilliantly in a reduced format, whereas Imagine This is going for broke by opening in the West End. How long have the total development processes been?

LISA: It's taken us an unrelenting 9 years to get Rue Magique right!

BETH: 10 weeks rehearsal but a decade of planning.
 
SPOONFED: Have you found in rehearsals that the show retains emotional impact for crew members despite constant re-treading?

BETH: All I can tell you is what I've witnessed. I don't believe the material has lost one iota of its impact on any of the crew despite how painstaking and even tiresome the process can be.

LISA: Absolutely. Every night we all laugh and cry and the actors have remarkably bonded - which helps their sanity.

SPOONFED: Does having no previous performances to reference inhibit or liberate performers and producers?

LISA: It is very nerve-racking. We had no idea how an audience would take to this subject in a musical. But having no previous benchmarks is also very liberating.

BETH: I think that it is a thrill for everyone working on Imagine This that they are creating the production by which any others will be measured. It's a rare experience and a gift.

SPOONFED: Lisa, what are your hopes for Rue Magique?

LISA: That is will have a long life on tour and in London so that we can introduce audiences to a new form of musical – but also so that the children of our show are not forgotten.

SPOONFED: Which is the most important factor in a musical's success – audience word of mouth or critical reception?

BETH: It's really hard to say. Musicals have gone on to resounding success on the basis of word of mouth despite negative reviews – [for instance] Wicked. Every creative person always hopes to receive critical recognition. In today's world – especially for a new, original musical – a combination of respectable critical reaction with word of mouth is essential... and certainly what I'm hoping for.

LISA: That's something I can't be sure about. But famously Les Miserables had a terrible critical response to its first outing.

SPOONFED: Do you have a place in your heart for nakedly commercial ventures like Dirty Dancing? Have you been to see any of these shows recently?

BETH: I love musical theatre of all kinds. What does worry me is that I think musical theatre's future is in peril if there is only room for revivals, or songbook or “jukebox” musicals. The most unforgettable musicals of our age – the ones that last 10, 15, 50 years – all have sprung from the creative minds of composers, lyricists and writers and if new generations don't believe there is a place for them, we will all be the poorer.

And yes, I've been to Dirty Dancing and Hairspray and Billy Elliot and The Sound of Music and Chicago and pretty much everything that's out there.

SPOONFED: Have these kind of 'pop' musicals made it harder for entirely new shows to win audiences?

LISA: There are not enough producers willing to take risks.

BETH: Yes but I hope it's a trend that can be bucked. If the only way to get audiences into a theatre is with a star name or with a reality show winner or with a recognizable title, we will never see the next generation of great new, original musicals and, ultimately, it's an art form that will disappear.


Not if those two have anything to do with it! We're really excited about both these two shows. Rue Magique is already open and getting good notices, and Imagine This opens this week. The third crazy show out this November (although it has already been for an outing in New York) is Wig Out! Written by sensational young playwright Tarell Alvin McCraney this is a drama about fashion wars and torrid love affairs in the New York headquarters of a drag queen troupe. It's not a full scale musical, but there is a chorus line and you won't enjoy it without a taste for hip hop and disco.

Good to see producers on both sides of the pond taking up arms against a sea of indifferent revivals and Hollywood adaptations. Not that we don't enjoy them, but you have to grow to survive and the two most interesting musicals in the world this month are both here in London – lucky old us.

Check out all London Theatre
Check out Things To Do in London

Joe Harrod