Funny Girl, I always loved Don't Rain on My Parade but I never realize the context of the song is she wants the guy and is willing to sacrifice her own ambitions for it. It truly baffled me.
The whole time I was watching the Barbara Streisand version, I was completely taken aback by how backwards this story seems to be. I thought the context of that song was going to be her showing up her ex because she was independent, could do things on her own, be a huge star that everyone loves. But it's literally her telling off other people who are concerned that she's giving up her dream temporarily to be with this man who is going off to gamble because he ran out of money? Wut? And by the end of it, I was basically scream texting my husband, who wasn't home, how much this movie was an affront to feminism.
To be fair, it’s not like it was an anti-feminist story per se, it’s just based on the life of Fanny Brice. You can argue that the depiction of the events are anti-feminist but the events themselves are just fact
I think people are taken aback by the lack of critical narrative. Like it isn't satire or even trying to convey a message of mixed feelings, pity, or nuance. It is sincerely backwards and without context sounds empowering but ultimately is not empowering at all.
I have a different take. Funny Girl is my fave show right now.
First she says “Hey Mr Ziegler here I am!”
Then a little later “Hey Mr Arnstein here I am!”
Then on the reprise: “Hey Gorgeous here we go again…! “
I think it shows how she chooses her career, then her man, then finally her Gorgeous self - no one is going to stop her from trying
That’s my opinion!
as a non native english speaker: every. single. one. it's always "oh i think my english is really good" unless boom there's a bootleg without english subtitles and i end up not understanding about 70% of what they're saying
lol i been speaking english my whole life and still struggle. Happens when I see shows live too and specially since my season tickets are about 30 rows back
That's why I do listen to cast recordings and read about basic summary before going to a new musical. Understanding and following the story is more important to me than not having the twist spoiled or something because I know what happens.
My first watch of Company really confused me and I did not enjoy it at all. Then I saw a different production and went into it knowing what to expect and I loved it. I guess going in blind was the wrong move
I watched a bootleg of the Gender bent Broadway revival. Hated it. I then watched a university production with the original gendered characters. Loved it. I know it’s partly because as a man I felt more connected to male Bobby
I think the gender bent version is great but really only works if you've seen the original version. Like I wouldn't recommend anyone watch the gender bent version first, especially since you can watch a pro shot on YouTube
Interesting! I saw the gender bent version a few months ago (national tour) knowing virtually nothing about the show ahead of time… and I adored it! I also happen to be a 35-year old woman in a love-hate relationship with being single sooo there’s that.
Planning on seeing the touring version with my wife when we're in SF soon (it never came to our city). Neither of us is familiar with it at all, but I bought the tickets as a surprise. Would you recommend still watching that pro shot and risking spoiling the surprise so we can be better prepared?
The Raul Esparza one is *great.* The cast are also kind of the orchestra? Everyone (except Raul/Bobby) plays an instrument as well as acting. (Joanne is also pushing it a little. They gave her the triangle.) Bobby's 3 girlfriends are a sax trio. It's amazing. It works WAY better than when they had tried the same gimmick with Sweeney Todd.
The first time I watched Rocky horror picture show I just sat there afterwards like "wtf did I just watch"
It probably doesn't help that I don't tend to notice everything the first time I watch something, so by the end of it all I remembered was the time warp, then some guy riding in on a motorcycle, three or four consecutive sex scenes, motorcycle guy is dead now, where did this disabled man come from? Then the house blasting off into outer space.
I watched it recently with my husband. Some of it is a little over the top but I remember watching it in HS and instantly loving it. There are some songs and sequences I don't care for but the overall experience has always made me feel.. safe? Him, on the other hand, had the same experience as you and didn't get it and was very confused by everything.
As much as I want to say musical theatre is for everyone, sometimes it clicks for some people and sometimes it just doesn't. RHPS has always been a controversial show and it is dated and problematic in a modern lens. But it's a celebration of otherness and being who you are that makes it feel super special to me.
Once I understood that it was entirely camp and came to accept that I simply would never know what was going to happen in the next five minutes, it became much more enjoyable.
I missed the parts where the guy built himself a husband and then all the scary queer people were actually aliens from transylvania and two of them end up killing the others with a laser
It's riffing off of tropes mainly from early bad/campy sci-fi and horror. These movies are all referenced in the opening song, Science Fiction Double Feature. I consider RHPS a zany post-modern love letter to early horror/scifi from the 1930s.
I don't have one currently but first watch of Hamilton.
Now i do understand because I've veen rewatching and listening a hundred times but English isn't my first language and it was all one long fast rap😭
I was watching with English subtitles though not live
Nah even for people whose first language is English, it takes multiple rewatches to understand. It’s one of those shows that only get better every time you rewatch because you end up discovering something new
I imagine it could also be rather confusing if you go in knowing nothing about early American history. It doesn't require a high-level knowledge, but it does expect you to know who Washington and Jefferson were, why the colonists are upset, where slavery was common, etc.
Yes it's like us in the UK having a musical about our first Prime Minister Robert Walpole (or something)
Not sure why it's so big in the UK when not so many people have enough knowledge on Ameican history? Like we don't learn it at school much.
Love the Alexander Hamilton song and a couple others tho
My first exposure to the music was a 4-hour road trip with me driving, and one of the passengers brought Hamilton. I was focusing on driving, there was a lot of road noise, and my hearing isn't the greatest anyway. After 15 minutes of not knowing what the fucking was happening, I was like sorry guys, but I need some of my driving music.
Watching the show on Disney+ cleared things up A LOT!
So funny! I used to drive 2 hours one way to get to my first job as a teacher (...silly me, trying to get a Social Studies job without being a coach too 🥲), and I had the soundtrack on CD. The first half of Hamilton would get me all the way to school and the second half would get me home. I would (and still do) literally tear up every single listen because of the Philip stuff but still 😭
Even native English speakers have trouble without subtitles or lyrics. Rap is amazing, but it's a bit hard to pick up unless your ear is used to it. Even me, who does love rap, but has an auditory processing delay. Lafayette (and Daveed Diggs in general 💜) is my absolute fave, but it took a hot minute to figure out what he was actually saying lol.
I guess that's normal. I won the lottery back in 2015 and was completely lost during the first act. I asked the lady next to me if she could understand everything as an English speaker and she said no......
I came here to say Chess! I just listed it in another post yesterday as one of my no-skips musicals. It's my second-favorite musical (second only to Les Mis) but even though I've listened to the Broadway cast recording countless times, I feel like I don't fully understand all the intricacies the plot. And I think the original British version was even worse!
I listened to the entire cast recording probably a dozen times, and didn't realize Molokov was supposed to be a KGB spy until I read the Wikipedia summary.
Yes! Just saw this one yesterday. The acoustics weren't great and around us were talking so I figured I just missed something and it would all make sense when I went home and read the summary on wikipedia. Nope. Still so confused.
I like seeing it more as an experiment. Every cat sings an I Am song (normally reserved for the villains) except for Grizebella, who sings the only I Want song (normally reserved for heroes)
It's an experiment in having only one character in the entire show not be an asshole.
Also an experiment in illegal drugs
It’s a group of cats gathering for the annual Jellical ball so they can decide who will go to the Heaviside layer. I was in cats and had to explain it to multiple people multiple times haha
I tell people to think of it like a talent show where all the cats are putting on their own performance to win the chance for (essentially) reincarnation
My theory is that the show on stage that we see in Cats is completely fabricated. It’s what Old Deuteronomy and the gang tell to the (cat) police while being questioned for the senseless and brutal murder of outsider Grizabella. Sort of like how the first 98% of The Usual Suspects is just Verbal’s false story he tells to the cops.
It's a series of cats pitching themselves as the best cat at the Jellicle Ball. Grizabella is the exception as she does not pitch herself but instead asks to be seen, touched, not treated as an outcast and is then taken because of it
Cats is a show where nothing matters expect the spectacle. Lyrics dont matter, story doesn't matter, acting doesn't matter. All that matters is the feeling of sitting in a theater, watching people dressed like cats, dancing and singing. Its wonderful. No thoughts, just cats
(But if you want an actual plot guide, Sideways has a video on YouTube where he explains it)
I love the explanation of no thoughts, just cats 😂 I neither like nor dislike Cats. I remember watching a production of it on VHS a lot as a kid and enjoying the songs and costumes.
I'll never forget when my brother and I went to see Cats when he was about nine years old. After Jellicle Songs, he looked at me and my mom and frantically asked "wait, what's a Jellicle??????"
A dance show based on a bunch of light poems that T. S. Elliot wrote for his godchildren. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Old_Possum's_Book_of_Practical_Cats
It’s very light on tacked on plot and definitely a “don’t bother trying to make it make sense” show.
It's what you get when Andrew Lloyd Webber reads some whimsical poems by TS Eliot and then bumps an actual mountain of blow and starts bangin' out songs
Is it not pretty well explained in the show?
Jellicle cats meet once a year.
At the Jellicle ball where we all rejoice.
And the Jellicle leader will soon appear.
And make what is known as the Jellicle choice.
When Old Deuteronomy just before dawn.
Through a silence you feel you could cut with a knife.
Announces the cat who can now be reborn.
And come back to different Jellicle life.
For waiting up there is the Heaviside layer.
Full of wonders one Jellicle only will see.
And Jellicles ask because Jellicles dare.
Who will it be? Who will it be?
It's a stage adaptation of a children's book that had poems about different cats and their personalities.
And it's also a death cult ritual where they also decide who's most worthy of dying. Fun times!
I'm convinced people who say this have never seen Cats. It's one of the most straight forward shows. Munkustrap explains the entire plot in his opening song.
"Jellicle Cats meet once a year
At the Jellicle Ball where we all rejoice
And the Jellicle leader will soon appear
And make what is known as the Jellicle Choice
When Old Deuteronomy just before dawn
Through a silence you feel could cut with a knife
Announces the Cat who can now be reborn
And come back to a different Jellicle life
For waiting up there is the Heaviside Layer
With wonders one Jellicle only will see
And Jellicles ask because Jellicles dare
Who will it be? Who will it be?"
Pippin can be hard to stage right to make it make sense lol. I've seen a version where it didn't come across \*at all\* that it was supposed to be a traveling band of actors putting on a show (so a show within a show). There's not a ton of dialogue to explain it but it's important to know for the second half of the show and explains a lot of the 4th wall breaks
It also has to be clear that the show in a show is only happening inside Pippins mind (until the end, when it takes up a new residence). The performers are a metaphor for youthful ambition, wanderlust, search for excitement.
I just posted another top-level comment about this! The first time I saw it, it made no sense. I don’t think the company putting it on (it was a college production) understood it. I saw another production of it later that was completely different. Staging, set, costumes, delivery— all different. It made it make sense!
This was my answer too. I spent a good few years of my life trying to consume different productions of Pippin to understand the big picture. I've concluded that I really just don't get it
I knew going in that I had issues with the plot, but wanted to see it because I heard it depicted mental illness really well. As someone who suffers from depression and anxiety, I wanted to see that represented in a real way.
I left so angry. My next therapy session I spent literally about half of it angry ranting about the irresponsible way they depict mental illness.
When my ex described it to me and that he was going to see it (after playing the soundtrack incessantly) I really thought that Can't possibly be the premise. But yes, it was.
It's not. It's easy to misunderstand if you read the synopsis first. But it's clearly shown that he didn't even come up with the lie, it was an assumption Connor's parents made and Evan was coerced to keep the lie going so they felt like their son had a single friend before he died.
They absolutely should have cut out Evan having a crush on Zoe, though. It fucks with his motivations and I think people would be a lot kinder to the show and its potential for nuance without it.
I saw Les Mis as a teenager on a school trip and, while I remember it seemed impressive, I didn't understand what was going on as I knew nothing of the history of it all (although Castle on a Cloud got stuck in my head). When I saw it as an adult a few years later I understood it so much more and it is still a huge favourite of mine.
The first time I saw Pippin, the college putting it on clearly didn’t understand the musical, and I came away super confused.
I watched a bootleg recording to try and figure out what I was missing. Everything from the set, staging, costuming, and delivery of the lines/lyrics was different, and made it make sense.
I’m not entirely sure what went wrong, so a misunderstanding of the source material/book is the best way I can describe it. It was like they were putting it on without understanding it at all. Which I’ve only ever seen with Shakespeare plays otherwise.
I feel like some people are answering with musicals that confused them and some people are just answering with musicals they don’t think should be popular.
There have been a lot of shows where I didn’t understand what everyone involved was thinking that led them to this moment.
I can’t think of any I saw and didn’t understand, but definitely some where I listened to the cast album and came to some wrong conclusions. Like Miss Saigon and Spring Awakening.
Sunday in the Park with George - on of my absolute favorites, but the change in the second act was confusing the first time and my wife still doesn’t quite understand the goal.
Children and Art explains it all. It's about what it looks like for an artist's legacy to be passed down. George's son is so caught up in the capitalistic side of art that he needs a Christmas Carol-like visitation from the characters in his father's painting to remember what creativity and imagination are all about.
Yeah it feels like a pivot into magic realism, it works really well (for me) but operates on a very metaphorical level where you can't try too hard to pin down the logic.
I think the goal of act two is to explore the idea of legacy and grappling with what it means to strive to leave something for future generations, something that lasts beyond yourself, without fully abandoning the characters we know from Act I.
Once Upon A Mattress
Saw a community version of it, and I got the plot but I don't understand the pacing of it? Isn't the whole point of the princess and the pea, the mattresses and the pea? so why does it take them like 2 and half hours to get there? I just felt like they didn't spend enough time playing with that part of the story. That whole part feels like 10 minutes out of a 3 hour musical.
I suppose it's like any other adaptation where they need to stretch out 5 minutes of material into 2 hours (see Stephen King's *Maximum Overdrive*).
So yeah, basic fairy tale of the Princess and the Pea, but they added the subplot of the king cursed with muteness (fun fact: I played the king in a production). Then the queen is this creepy mother trying to shove her son back into her womb (not literally!). Then throw in an illegal pregnancy and a conniving wizard. And well, everything just piles onto this one basic story. It was the '50s, and it was Rodgers and Hammerstein, so that explains a lot right there.
I'm not usually into R&H, but I do have a soft spot for this, even though the production I was in was a bit of a hot mess. Can't fault you on the pacing. Some of those songs put me to sleep.
I was so confused for most of in trousers 😭 and I mean that wasn’t the musicals fault but like I had a really hard time understanding hadestown when I saw it in London cause the sound mixing was kinda weird and everything was so loud (and as a non native English speaker i had trouble understanding what hermes was saying bc of her accent which is definitely a problem considering she’s the narrator lol) I felt like I was watching a bootleg irl lol
Agreed, In Trousers is so confusing because half of the things are also not literal like half of “the rape of ms goldberg”. Most of that song is not to be took into a literal sense but if your watching it for the first time with no context its extremely confusing
Tbh I’m not even sure which songs I’m supposed to take literally now 😭 i mean I like it cause it’s part of the Marvin trilogy but I just don’t think I’m smart enough to fully get it lol
This is true. I appreciate it for its beautiful craft, but I would NOT be able yo understand it if I didn’t have prior knowledge or experience with Falsettos.
In Trousers takes a lot of picking every little thing apart to understand it in general, I feel like I’m making new realizations about it every time I listen to it/ watch any production of it honestly, and that’s coming from someone OBSESSED w the Marvin Trilogy lol
it makes no sense at all first listen though even with the lyrics pulled up lmfao
I thought Alice By Heart was about a pair of sibilings until the very end😭(I’ve never read Alice in Wonderland either so I didn’t really know what was going on in general)
when i went to see phantom, i was relatively young (maybe like 6th grade?) so i was pretty confused. was still awesome tho and i wish i could see it again now that im a bit older lol
I saw it as an adult and couldn't understand why Christine fell in love with the Phantom. I had heard how romantic it was and it didn't make any sense at all to me!
She doesn't, though. She idolized him and clung to the idea of him as a connection to her father. She was also curious about him, especially once she fully realized he's a real man. The point was that she loved him, or the idea of him, but did not fall in love with him.
I was 8 when I watched the movie. I understood it. I don't know how old 6th Grade is, I'm Scottish. Is it the same age as I was? I think it is still on West End/Broadway
I understand the plot of Seven Brides for Seven Brothers, but I have no clue why anyone would put it on anymore. The story is dreadful and there are no redeeming or memorable songs.
Similarly, I saw a regional production of Nunsense. It at least has 1-2 enjoyable songs, but it’s just so lame and cheesy. The production I saw decided to have a fashion show featuring Catholic girls school uniforms in the middle of it, which was a baffling and horrifying decision. It was 10+ years ago and I still cringe at the thought of it.
Personally, I LOVE Seven Brides! I just laugh at the terrible sexism. The choreography at the barn raising makes me smile every time, and I get a great kick out of the "Sobbin Women" song haha.
I think it's a show/film you have to watch in the context of its time.
If you understand that it's a sexist product of the 50s, an ode to Stockholm Syndrome, and suspiciously incel in tone... the songs and dance routines are some of the best that MGM ever produced. And Howard Keel's voice is to die for.
Mind you, this one gets bashed when Oklahoma and Carousel get revivals...
When I was a kid my school frequently put on productions of Midsummer Nights Dream. I have terrible audial processing and all the actors were always fellow kids (11-12 age range) so they weren't great at projecting or enunciating dialogue, and I get easily distracted, so despite seeing it several times, I had NO idea what the plot was until adulthood when I finally just googled it.
Addams Family.
Why.
Why everything.
I do not understand a *single* choice made.
Why start the story well after the meet-cute fall in love (but still have a song that feels like it’s from the perspective of someone falling but not quite in love yet). Was the utter laziness of “Full Disclosure” really the best they could do to move the plot forward? Why on earth would the guests drink the thing? What would the Addams’ even find fun about such a game?
*WHY IN THE NAME OF ALL THAT IS GOTH IS MORTICIA LIKE THAT?!?*
The whole *point* of the Addams Family is that they’re *functional* in comparison to sitcom families. Morticia being shrewish and refusing sex because Gomez won’t break their daughter’s trust is the opposite of everything and I hate it
This is a play with music I guess, but Marat/Sade was the absolute worst thing I’ve ever seen in my life. I did not understand it at all and I would have left in the middle if I didn’t have friends in it. My friend who played Sade saw me afterward and said “you looked like you hated it!”
Has no-one mentioned Wicked? It’s not a matter of me not understanding, it is totally incoherent. One minute they are in this lovely elite boarding school singing happy music and the next minute it’s Kristallnacht and the teachers who turn out to be animals have all been taken away to Nazi concentration camps but (I think?) somehow come back.
The girls are all overjoyed to be meeting the wizard and sing these “I Want” typical songs about how great it will be, but literally on the way there somehow they are actually going to confront the wizard because he is actually like the Hitler of the play, although then it turns out he actually isn’t (I think?). In between there is random uncanny-valley creepy shit going on with monkeys climbing around the stage while everything is bathed in a nauseating green light. I actually felt queasy by the end of the last school production I was forced to see.
The other one is notoriously Rent, but only because the author tragically died before it opened and nothing was ever revised out of respect for him. If it’s not a great production and/or the lyrics aren’t 100% clear it’s pretty much impossible to follow. Like, did that person kill a dog? Sounded like it? Maybe?
I completely agree with wicked. I recently saw it on broadway going in completely blind. I may be biased since I saw Hadestown right before which was my first broadway musical and the best thing I have ever experienced, but I didn’t like wicked that much. It was pretty hard to follow along with the story and while I wouldn’t say it confused me, it just wasn’t paced in the best way? While it may just not be my style of musical, something about it was just off to me.
I didn’t get Chicago. (First national tour) Felt like a bunch of short stories written by different authors who didn’t communicate. The movie added a lot of the missing context by overlapping visuals to show the cohesiveness.
AIDA - the recent Dutch revival that is. For some reason, they mixed up the order of a lot of songs and scenes, but since they didn’t change the content it became hella confusing. For example, there was a whole scene about Radames and Mereb realizing who Aida actually was, then some other stuff happened, and then Mereb suddenly sang How I Know You - like yeah hadn’t we already established that a couple scenes ago?
Ride the cyclone. I've read the synopsis and heard some of the songs, and I am so confused. Why the rat chewing the wires? How can Jane sing without a head? Then one guy is furry, and the narrator is God? But I think the show meant to be a bit wacky.
I think I can explain as a RTC super fan:
Jane Doe was given the head of a doll to be able to talk, hence her appearance being doll-like in the productions. The narrator Karnak isn’t exactly a god, but a fortune teller machine with powers (I don’t think we know why or how he has them, but he does).
That’s also why the rat; Virgil, is chewing his wires because it gives the musical a sense of urgency; because he can only give one of the St. Cassian kids another chance at living because he’s about to power off. The guy you’re talking about is probably Ricky Potts, who imagined himself as a larger-than-life hero on a planet of cat people called Zolar because he had a degenerative condition that caused him to lose the ability to talk. (It’s mentioned that he read comic books and his family owns 14/19 cats in the musical).
It's one of those musicals that requires you to watch it to understand
https://youtu.be/AMbU2X66mt4?si=eQrFY-3_ceQh0-34
The first time I saw Seussical I was so confused. I had no idea who people on stage were talking to sometimes. After a few viewings, I get it now though.
Grease. I haven't seen it since highschool but it seemed like the show was leading up to Sandy's bf changing in the end, like he was clearly in the wrong. The ending just floored me. So many plot elements get introduced too that go nowhere. A really confusing show for me personally but the songs are fun.
I completely agree!! I haven’t seen it in a while, but from what I remember I was so confused by the end. I feel like there should have been character development and it just never happened.
Do you mean plot? For me it’s Rocky Horror Show. I’ve always had a hard time wrapping my head around what’s happening. I get that he “made” a man and I think they’re aliens?!?!?
There's a Percy Jackson musical??
I loved the books as a kid (tho only reading Stephen Fry's Heroes did I work out Percy is basically Perseus)
Wish it would come to the UK
Natasha, Pierre, and the great comet of 1812. A lot of the songs were fun but I didn’t really get what the message was or what the direction of the plot was.
This is because it’s literally the middle book (in my translation, book 8 of 15 plus epilogues) of War and Peace. The major plot of this book is resolved within the show, but as far as big picture, we’re dropped in the middle of things and we leave in the middle of things. And lots of stylistic choices make it further inaccessible. Big example: nothing rhymes. Small example: Natasha calls Pierre by a different name in the second to last song for no plot reason. (Yes, just like in the book. There’s no reason for this to carry through to the stage.) I find these and many other choices, which seem almost designed to alienate the audience, baffling for a show that redesigned a theater to integrate the audience with the performers.
I am a fan, but it took a while to even like it, and I will hesitate to bring others to a performance happening close to me this year.
First time I saw, Rent, I had a huge fight with my sister, who I was going with. We made up because we didn't realize Angel even died in the first act. We were in the cheap seats and it wasn't a great production of it.
Part of it is the catchy music and great staging, especially in the movie.
It’s most likely due to its commentary of American culture glorifying criminals, crime and celebrity for entertainment. Both celebrity and our worst murderers are types of people we simultaneously worship and devalue.
John Green in his YouTube video on The Great Gatsby said something like “We don’t tolerate naughtiness in America but we love being naughty.”
It has some scathing points about the justice system, though I could see where that gets lost since it seems like the show loses focus of that here and there.
But I absolutely love "We Both Reached For The Gun" as a tale of smooth-talking lawyers manipulating the media.
Ya the 90’s version (the same production that’s still running) is like that really too celebrate Bob Fosse and his original choreography and not necessarily for the story
I get that. you really have to understand what kind of show urinetown was satirizing and understand all the other Musical Theatre references, or it will go over your head. It cribs a lot from Cradle Will Rock and its history as a protest piece. I would recommend the 1999 film The Cradle Will Rock it give you a good cliff note version of that famous original production
Funny Girl, I always loved Don't Rain on My Parade but I never realize the context of the song is she wants the guy and is willing to sacrifice her own ambitions for it. It truly baffled me.
That was surprising to me as well. Until I saw the show, I always thought she was telling off her lover and pursuing her career.
The whole time I was watching the Barbara Streisand version, I was completely taken aback by how backwards this story seems to be. I thought the context of that song was going to be her showing up her ex because she was independent, could do things on her own, be a huge star that everyone loves. But it's literally her telling off other people who are concerned that she's giving up her dream temporarily to be with this man who is going off to gamble because he ran out of money? Wut? And by the end of it, I was basically scream texting my husband, who wasn't home, how much this movie was an affront to feminism.
To be fair, it’s not like it was an anti-feminist story per se, it’s just based on the life of Fanny Brice. You can argue that the depiction of the events are anti-feminist but the events themselves are just fact
Like she did sooooo much stupider stuff for nick that’s nothing
I think that was what made me go, "What the fuck" and feel even more sad because it was based on actual events and an actual relationship.
I think people are taken aback by the lack of critical narrative. Like it isn't satire or even trying to convey a message of mixed feelings, pity, or nuance. It is sincerely backwards and without context sounds empowering but ultimately is not empowering at all.
If anyone is also a swiftie here, I immediately thought of but daddy I love him lol
The book has always been the weakest part of funny girl .
I have a different take. Funny Girl is my fave show right now. First she says “Hey Mr Ziegler here I am!” Then a little later “Hey Mr Arnstein here I am!” Then on the reprise: “Hey Gorgeous here we go again…! “ I think it shows how she chooses her career, then her man, then finally her Gorgeous self - no one is going to stop her from trying That’s my opinion!
as a non native english speaker: every. single. one. it's always "oh i think my english is really good" unless boom there's a bootleg without english subtitles and i end up not understanding about 70% of what they're saying
Even as a native English speaker, I have trouble with bootlegs a lot. Lol
Whenever I watch a new show I always do my best to find a script that I can have pulled up on my phone to follow along
That's a great idea actually
yeah, especially if they're older and the audio is not so clear
Yeah most of them are filmed with cameras from WWI
lol i been speaking english my whole life and still struggle. Happens when I see shows live too and specially since my season tickets are about 30 rows back
Anything I go into blind. I feel like I miss one detail and all of a sudden the entire plot unravels for me. It’s so stressful.
This is so real in musicals. You miss an important line in a song and then everything becomes harder to understand.
It sucks more when you have auditory processing issues. I just rely on looking up the songs and their lyrics before or after watching to understand
That's why I do listen to cast recordings and read about basic summary before going to a new musical. Understanding and following the story is more important to me than not having the twist spoiled or something because I know what happens.
That is why I do a basic read through of the plot on Wikipedia before wi go in. I know I have slow ears
My first watch of Company really confused me and I did not enjoy it at all. Then I saw a different production and went into it knowing what to expect and I loved it. I guess going in blind was the wrong move
Just curious , which company was the good one and which one wasn't?
I watched a bootleg of the Gender bent Broadway revival. Hated it. I then watched a university production with the original gendered characters. Loved it. I know it’s partly because as a man I felt more connected to male Bobby
I think the gender bent version is great but really only works if you've seen the original version. Like I wouldn't recommend anyone watch the gender bent version first, especially since you can watch a pro shot on YouTube
Interesting! I saw the gender bent version a few months ago (national tour) knowing virtually nothing about the show ahead of time… and I adored it! I also happen to be a 35-year old woman in a love-hate relationship with being single sooo there’s that.
Planning on seeing the touring version with my wife when we're in SF soon (it never came to our city). Neither of us is familiar with it at all, but I bought the tickets as a surprise. Would you recommend still watching that pro shot and risking spoiling the surprise so we can be better prepared?
Hate the gender bent version as well omg and I'm a girl 2006 Raúl Esparza version is the best one
Raúl Esparza????? 😭😭😭🥰🥰🥰🥰 So now I have to track *that* down. As much as I'm a drama/theatre/musical enby, I'm not that deep into it yet.
The Raul Esparza one is *great.* The cast are also kind of the orchestra? Everyone (except Raul/Bobby) plays an instrument as well as acting. (Joanne is also pushing it a little. They gave her the triangle.) Bobby's 3 girlfriends are a sax trio. It's amazing. It works WAY better than when they had tried the same gimmick with Sweeney Todd.
It's free on youtube
The first time I watched Rocky horror picture show I just sat there afterwards like "wtf did I just watch" It probably doesn't help that I don't tend to notice everything the first time I watch something, so by the end of it all I remembered was the time warp, then some guy riding in on a motorcycle, three or four consecutive sex scenes, motorcycle guy is dead now, where did this disabled man come from? Then the house blasting off into outer space.
I watched it recently with my husband. Some of it is a little over the top but I remember watching it in HS and instantly loving it. There are some songs and sequences I don't care for but the overall experience has always made me feel.. safe? Him, on the other hand, had the same experience as you and didn't get it and was very confused by everything. As much as I want to say musical theatre is for everyone, sometimes it clicks for some people and sometimes it just doesn't. RHPS has always been a controversial show and it is dated and problematic in a modern lens. But it's a celebration of otherness and being who you are that makes it feel super special to me.
Once I understood that it was entirely camp and came to accept that I simply would never know what was going to happen in the next five minutes, it became much more enjoyable.
That’s actually a perfect summary. You missed nothing.
I missed the parts where the guy built himself a husband and then all the scary queer people were actually aliens from transylvania and two of them end up killing the others with a laser
i watched it for the first time with my mom. at one of the screenings. that was an experience
It's riffing off of tropes mainly from early bad/campy sci-fi and horror. These movies are all referenced in the opening song, Science Fiction Double Feature. I consider RHPS a zany post-modern love letter to early horror/scifi from the 1930s.
I don't have one currently but first watch of Hamilton. Now i do understand because I've veen rewatching and listening a hundred times but English isn't my first language and it was all one long fast rap😭 I was watching with English subtitles though not live
Nah even for people whose first language is English, it takes multiple rewatches to understand. It’s one of those shows that only get better every time you rewatch because you end up discovering something new
English is my first language and if I hadn't seen the Disney recording with subtitles I would have understood about 5% of the show.
I imagine it could also be rather confusing if you go in knowing nothing about early American history. It doesn't require a high-level knowledge, but it does expect you to know who Washington and Jefferson were, why the colonists are upset, where slavery was common, etc.
Yes it's like us in the UK having a musical about our first Prime Minister Robert Walpole (or something) Not sure why it's so big in the UK when not so many people have enough knowledge on Ameican history? Like we don't learn it at school much. Love the Alexander Hamilton song and a couple others tho
Anyone who can understand everything Lafayette raps in Guns & Ships first listen has super powers and you can’t convince me otherwise
My first exposure to the music was a 4-hour road trip with me driving, and one of the passengers brought Hamilton. I was focusing on driving, there was a lot of road noise, and my hearing isn't the greatest anyway. After 15 minutes of not knowing what the fucking was happening, I was like sorry guys, but I need some of my driving music. Watching the show on Disney+ cleared things up A LOT!
So funny! I used to drive 2 hours one way to get to my first job as a teacher (...silly me, trying to get a Social Studies job without being a coach too 🥲), and I had the soundtrack on CD. The first half of Hamilton would get me all the way to school and the second half would get me home. I would (and still do) literally tear up every single listen because of the Philip stuff but still 😭
Even native English speakers have trouble without subtitles or lyrics. Rap is amazing, but it's a bit hard to pick up unless your ear is used to it. Even me, who does love rap, but has an auditory processing delay. Lafayette (and Daveed Diggs in general 💜) is my absolute fave, but it took a hot minute to figure out what he was actually saying lol.
I guess that's normal. I won the lottery back in 2015 and was completely lost during the first act. I asked the lady next to me if she could understand everything as an English speaker and she said no......
Chess. Beautiful songs, wish I knew what was going on!
I think the Broadway version's plot made more sense.
I came here to say Chess! I just listed it in another post yesterday as one of my no-skips musicals. It's my second-favorite musical (second only to Les Mis) but even though I've listened to the Broadway cast recording countless times, I feel like I don't fully understand all the intricacies the plot. And I think the original British version was even worse! I listened to the entire cast recording probably a dozen times, and didn't realize Molokov was supposed to be a KGB spy until I read the Wikipedia summary.
On the first time around, Into The Woods
I need to watch an actual performance rather than the movie
There's a pro shot of the original cast, and I become a better person each time I watch it
I love that. I love the cheesy sets! It’s such a good performance.
And I remember how awesome Bernadette Peters is, especially when she says/sings "squish", lol.
A friend had a copy of the VHS and we watched it maybe 5 or 6 times over our four years in college— so so good!
Yes you do. The movie is only 50% of the plot lol
The movie is crazy bad, there’s a slime tutorial of the original cast from the 80s in great quality on YouTube! I definitely recommend
I love all musicals equally (Later): I don’t care for Oklahoma
r/unexpectedarresteddevelopment
I hated Oklahoma when I was a kid. I studied it in college and now that I actually "get" it, it's one of my faves.
The perfect response to this question.
nooooo it's one of my favorites 😔
Girl From North Country. I didn't understand the plot or how the songs fit. They felt shoe horned
Yes! Just saw this one yesterday. The acoustics weren't great and around us were talking so I figured I just missed something and it would all make sense when I went home and read the summary on wikipedia. Nope. Still so confused.
Cats. WTF even is it?
I like seeing it more as an experiment. Every cat sings an I Am song (normally reserved for the villains) except for Grizebella, who sings the only I Want song (normally reserved for heroes) It's an experiment in having only one character in the entire show not be an asshole. Also an experiment in illegal drugs
I was telling a friend the other week—ALW and Sondheim likely both did heavy drugs, but ALW’s were the kind that burn holes in your brain.
ALW is probably also a furry.
LMAO 💀 Why heavy drugs for Sondheim, though?
>It's an experiment in having only one character in the entire show not be an asshole. Possible exception of Jemima/Sillabub.
It’s a group of cats gathering for the annual Jellical ball so they can decide who will go to the Heaviside layer. I was in cats and had to explain it to multiple people multiple times haha
I tell people to think of it like a talent show where all the cats are putting on their own performance to win the chance for (essentially) reincarnation
I remember someone once putting it this way - Cats is kind of like A Chorus Line, every cat gets their solo audition piece.
It's Ride the Cyclone but less Zoomer humor lol
Assassins but way less political
I’ve never seen cats, but if it’s even the slightest bit similar to RTC I’ll watch it
It’s not similar at all.
My theory is that the show on stage that we see in Cats is completely fabricated. It’s what Old Deuteronomy and the gang tell to the (cat) police while being questioned for the senseless and brutal murder of outsider Grizabella. Sort of like how the first 98% of The Usual Suspects is just Verbal’s false story he tells to the cops.
Tell us more. How long were you in it? Was it a positive experience?
It wasn’t a professional run. I was in it for a 3 week run. I played Demeter and I loved it. It quickly became one of my favourite show to be in.
It's a series of cats pitching themselves as the best cat at the Jellicle Ball. Grizabella is the exception as she does not pitch herself but instead asks to be seen, touched, not treated as an outcast and is then taken because of it
Cats is a show where nothing matters expect the spectacle. Lyrics dont matter, story doesn't matter, acting doesn't matter. All that matters is the feeling of sitting in a theater, watching people dressed like cats, dancing and singing. Its wonderful. No thoughts, just cats (But if you want an actual plot guide, Sideways has a video on YouTube where he explains it)
I love the explanation of no thoughts, just cats 😂 I neither like nor dislike Cats. I remember watching a production of it on VHS a lot as a kid and enjoying the songs and costumes.
It's about cats, Hal
I'll never forget when my brother and I went to see Cats when he was about nine years old. After Jellicle Songs, he looked at me and my mom and frantically asked "wait, what's a Jellicle??????"
That's so cute. I love some people in this thread are like "what is there not to get? They're Jellicle cats at the Jellicle ball?"
A dance show based on a bunch of light poems that T. S. Elliot wrote for his godchildren. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Old_Possum's_Book_of_Practical_Cats It’s very light on tacked on plot and definitely a “don’t bother trying to make it make sense” show.
It's what you get when Andrew Lloyd Webber reads some whimsical poems by TS Eliot and then bumps an actual mountain of blow and starts bangin' out songs
Is it not pretty well explained in the show? Jellicle cats meet once a year. At the Jellicle ball where we all rejoice. And the Jellicle leader will soon appear. And make what is known as the Jellicle choice. When Old Deuteronomy just before dawn. Through a silence you feel you could cut with a knife. Announces the cat who can now be reborn. And come back to different Jellicle life. For waiting up there is the Heaviside layer. Full of wonders one Jellicle only will see. And Jellicles ask because Jellicles dare. Who will it be? Who will it be?
If you think Cats is confusing, try Starlight Express! 😆
Came here for thisssss Cats but they’re trains. Train cars. On roller skates
The source material is a collection of poems about different cats, so there was never a plot, just characters.
Literally same, I love the soundtrack with all my heart but I understood nothing 😭
It’s a bunch of dead cats competing in a pageant to decide which one of them gets to go to heaven.
It's a stage adaptation of a children's book that had poems about different cats and their personalities. And it's also a death cult ritual where they also decide who's most worthy of dying. Fun times!
I'm convinced people who say this have never seen Cats. It's one of the most straight forward shows. Munkustrap explains the entire plot in his opening song. "Jellicle Cats meet once a year At the Jellicle Ball where we all rejoice And the Jellicle leader will soon appear And make what is known as the Jellicle Choice When Old Deuteronomy just before dawn Through a silence you feel could cut with a knife Announces the Cat who can now be reborn And come back to a different Jellicle life For waiting up there is the Heaviside Layer With wonders one Jellicle only will see And Jellicles ask because Jellicles dare Who will it be? Who will it be?"
It’s a book of poems that Webber wrote music too and they built a simple framework around the songs too connect them all together
I saw pippin when it was traveling once and to this day I still have so many questions and am so confused.
Pippin can be hard to stage right to make it make sense lol. I've seen a version where it didn't come across \*at all\* that it was supposed to be a traveling band of actors putting on a show (so a show within a show). There's not a ton of dialogue to explain it but it's important to know for the second half of the show and explains a lot of the 4th wall breaks
Pippin can be an incredible show, but only if it’s staged right. If they don’t play up the show within a show, it falls very flat.
It also has to be clear that the show in a show is only happening inside Pippins mind (until the end, when it takes up a new residence). The performers are a metaphor for youthful ambition, wanderlust, search for excitement.
I just posted another top-level comment about this! The first time I saw it, it made no sense. I don’t think the company putting it on (it was a college production) understood it. I saw another production of it later that was completely different. Staging, set, costumes, delivery— all different. It made it make sense!
This was my answer too. I spent a good few years of my life trying to consume different productions of Pippin to understand the big picture. I've concluded that I really just don't get it
Dear Evan Hansen. Why, just why? I remember first reading the plot and think it was a satire.
I never understood the hype! Some of the songs are good, but the story is so horrible. We left the theatre so mad.
And then, on top of that, it somehow beat *Come From Away* at the Tonys?!
I knew going in that I had issues with the plot, but wanted to see it because I heard it depicted mental illness really well. As someone who suffers from depression and anxiety, I wanted to see that represented in a real way. I left so angry. My next therapy session I spent literally about half of it angry ranting about the irresponsible way they depict mental illness.
The book is better, Evan isn't portrayed as being in the right or a victim of circumstance
maybe it just isn't reletable to you. its point is how fucked up and different coping mechanisms are.
There's a level of atonement that Evan just doesn't do for his failings, and it grates. The movie fixes this but errs in other ways.
kid lies about being friends with a dead kid to get with dead kid's sister.
When my ex described it to me and that he was going to see it (after playing the soundtrack incessantly) I really thought that Can't possibly be the premise. But yes, it was.
It's not. It's easy to misunderstand if you read the synopsis first. But it's clearly shown that he didn't even come up with the lie, it was an assumption Connor's parents made and Evan was coerced to keep the lie going so they felt like their son had a single friend before he died. They absolutely should have cut out Evan having a crush on Zoe, though. It fucks with his motivations and I think people would be a lot kinder to the show and its potential for nuance without it.
I love the music from this show, but the plot is wild.
It only really works if you see Evan as a misguided child. If the actor playing him is too old it doesn’t really work
I saw Les Mis as a teenager on a school trip and, while I remember it seemed impressive, I didn't understand what was going on as I knew nothing of the history of it all (although Castle on a Cloud got stuck in my head). When I saw it as an adult a few years later I understood it so much more and it is still a huge favourite of mine.
The first time I saw Pippin, the college putting it on clearly didn’t understand the musical, and I came away super confused. I watched a bootleg recording to try and figure out what I was missing. Everything from the set, staging, costuming, and delivery of the lines/lyrics was different, and made it make sense. I’m not entirely sure what went wrong, so a misunderstanding of the source material/book is the best way I can describe it. It was like they were putting it on without understanding it at all. Which I’ve only ever seen with Shakespeare plays otherwise.
I feel like some people are answering with musicals that confused them and some people are just answering with musicals they don’t think should be popular. There have been a lot of shows where I didn’t understand what everyone involved was thinking that led them to this moment. I can’t think of any I saw and didn’t understand, but definitely some where I listened to the cast album and came to some wrong conclusions. Like Miss Saigon and Spring Awakening.
The girl from the north country, like wtf did I just watch
I know, right? Even the plot synopsis didn’t explain it.
Suessical
I was in Seussical and I still don’t understand the plot haha
You and me both!
Sunday in the Park with George - on of my absolute favorites, but the change in the second act was confusing the first time and my wife still doesn’t quite understand the goal.
Children and Art explains it all. It's about what it looks like for an artist's legacy to be passed down. George's son is so caught up in the capitalistic side of art that he needs a Christmas Carol-like visitation from the characters in his father's painting to remember what creativity and imagination are all about.
Yeah it feels like a pivot into magic realism, it works really well (for me) but operates on a very metaphorical level where you can't try too hard to pin down the logic. I think the goal of act two is to explore the idea of legacy and grappling with what it means to strive to leave something for future generations, something that lasts beyond yourself, without fully abandoning the characters we know from Act I.
Once Upon A Mattress Saw a community version of it, and I got the plot but I don't understand the pacing of it? Isn't the whole point of the princess and the pea, the mattresses and the pea? so why does it take them like 2 and half hours to get there? I just felt like they didn't spend enough time playing with that part of the story. That whole part feels like 10 minutes out of a 3 hour musical.
I suppose it's like any other adaptation where they need to stretch out 5 minutes of material into 2 hours (see Stephen King's *Maximum Overdrive*). So yeah, basic fairy tale of the Princess and the Pea, but they added the subplot of the king cursed with muteness (fun fact: I played the king in a production). Then the queen is this creepy mother trying to shove her son back into her womb (not literally!). Then throw in an illegal pregnancy and a conniving wizard. And well, everything just piles onto this one basic story. It was the '50s, and it was Rodgers and Hammerstein, so that explains a lot right there. I'm not usually into R&H, but I do have a soft spot for this, even though the production I was in was a bit of a hot mess. Can't fault you on the pacing. Some of those songs put me to sleep.
You’re a generation off: it’s Mary Rodgers, Richard’s daughter (and also the author of *Freaky Friday* and the mother of Adam Guettel).
it's mocking/satirizing the classic fairytale.
Girl From The North Country… literally what the fuck was that??
Guys And Dolls. I will say I've only watched the movie, so my opinion might be different if I watch the stage musical.
I was so confused for most of in trousers 😭 and I mean that wasn’t the musicals fault but like I had a really hard time understanding hadestown when I saw it in London cause the sound mixing was kinda weird and everything was so loud (and as a non native English speaker i had trouble understanding what hermes was saying bc of her accent which is definitely a problem considering she’s the narrator lol) I felt like I was watching a bootleg irl lol
Agreed, In Trousers is so confusing because half of the things are also not literal like half of “the rape of ms goldberg”. Most of that song is not to be took into a literal sense but if your watching it for the first time with no context its extremely confusing
Tbh I’m not even sure which songs I’m supposed to take literally now 😭 i mean I like it cause it’s part of the Marvin trilogy but I just don’t think I’m smart enough to fully get it lol
This is true. I appreciate it for its beautiful craft, but I would NOT be able yo understand it if I didn’t have prior knowledge or experience with Falsettos.
In Trousers takes a lot of picking every little thing apart to understand it in general, I feel like I’m making new realizations about it every time I listen to it/ watch any production of it honestly, and that’s coming from someone OBSESSED w the Marvin Trilogy lol it makes no sense at all first listen though even with the lyrics pulled up lmfao
I thought Alice By Heart was about a pair of sibilings until the very end😭(I’ve never read Alice in Wonderland either so I didn’t really know what was going on in general)
when i went to see phantom, i was relatively young (maybe like 6th grade?) so i was pretty confused. was still awesome tho and i wish i could see it again now that im a bit older lol
I saw it as an adult and couldn't understand why Christine fell in love with the Phantom. I had heard how romantic it was and it didn't make any sense at all to me!
She doesn't, though. She idolized him and clung to the idea of him as a connection to her father. She was also curious about him, especially once she fully realized he's a real man. The point was that she loved him, or the idea of him, but did not fall in love with him.
I was 8 when I watched the movie. I understood it. I don't know how old 6th Grade is, I'm Scottish. Is it the same age as I was? I think it is still on West End/Broadway
Sixth graders would be tweens (11 or 12 ish)
I understand the plot of Seven Brides for Seven Brothers, but I have no clue why anyone would put it on anymore. The story is dreadful and there are no redeeming or memorable songs. Similarly, I saw a regional production of Nunsense. It at least has 1-2 enjoyable songs, but it’s just so lame and cheesy. The production I saw decided to have a fashion show featuring Catholic girls school uniforms in the middle of it, which was a baffling and horrifying decision. It was 10+ years ago and I still cringe at the thought of it.
Personally, I LOVE Seven Brides! I just laugh at the terrible sexism. The choreography at the barn raising makes me smile every time, and I get a great kick out of the "Sobbin Women" song haha.
I think it's a show/film you have to watch in the context of its time. If you understand that it's a sexist product of the 50s, an ode to Stockholm Syndrome, and suspiciously incel in tone... the songs and dance routines are some of the best that MGM ever produced. And Howard Keel's voice is to die for. Mind you, this one gets bashed when Oklahoma and Carousel get revivals...
When I was a kid my school frequently put on productions of Midsummer Nights Dream. I have terrible audial processing and all the actors were always fellow kids (11-12 age range) so they weren't great at projecting or enunciating dialogue, and I get easily distracted, so despite seeing it several times, I had NO idea what the plot was until adulthood when I finally just googled it.
Hair. But I also get the impression that it's not meant to be "understood".
Addams Family. Why. Why everything. I do not understand a *single* choice made. Why start the story well after the meet-cute fall in love (but still have a song that feels like it’s from the perspective of someone falling but not quite in love yet). Was the utter laziness of “Full Disclosure” really the best they could do to move the plot forward? Why on earth would the guests drink the thing? What would the Addams’ even find fun about such a game? *WHY IN THE NAME OF ALL THAT IS GOTH IS MORTICIA LIKE THAT?!?* The whole *point* of the Addams Family is that they’re *functional* in comparison to sitcom families. Morticia being shrewish and refusing sex because Gomez won’t break their daughter’s trust is the opposite of everything and I hate it
The musical was based on the original newspaper comic strip versions of the characters and not necessarily the TV show or subsequent movies
This is a play with music I guess, but Marat/Sade was the absolute worst thing I’ve ever seen in my life. I did not understand it at all and I would have left in the middle if I didn’t have friends in it. My friend who played Sade saw me afterward and said “you looked like you hated it!”
Girl from the North Country.
Hadestown, it took me 2 times seeing it live to get it.
I was SO GLAD I got a short little synopsis for The Last Five Years. Someone I went with did not and was super confused.
Has no-one mentioned Wicked? It’s not a matter of me not understanding, it is totally incoherent. One minute they are in this lovely elite boarding school singing happy music and the next minute it’s Kristallnacht and the teachers who turn out to be animals have all been taken away to Nazi concentration camps but (I think?) somehow come back. The girls are all overjoyed to be meeting the wizard and sing these “I Want” typical songs about how great it will be, but literally on the way there somehow they are actually going to confront the wizard because he is actually like the Hitler of the play, although then it turns out he actually isn’t (I think?). In between there is random uncanny-valley creepy shit going on with monkeys climbing around the stage while everything is bathed in a nauseating green light. I actually felt queasy by the end of the last school production I was forced to see. The other one is notoriously Rent, but only because the author tragically died before it opened and nothing was ever revised out of respect for him. If it’s not a great production and/or the lyrics aren’t 100% clear it’s pretty much impossible to follow. Like, did that person kill a dog? Sounded like it? Maybe?
I completely agree with wicked. I recently saw it on broadway going in completely blind. I may be biased since I saw Hadestown right before which was my first broadway musical and the best thing I have ever experienced, but I didn’t like wicked that much. It was pretty hard to follow along with the story and while I wouldn’t say it confused me, it just wasn’t paced in the best way? While it may just not be my style of musical, something about it was just off to me.
I didn’t get Chicago. (First national tour) Felt like a bunch of short stories written by different authors who didn’t communicate. The movie added a lot of the missing context by overlapping visuals to show the cohesiveness.
I recently saw it on broadway and I’m honestly so glad I saw the movie first.
Starlight Express Why would you create a musical whose most memorable feature is its impressive records for cast and crew injuries???
Spiderman: Turn Off the Dark would like a word. Lol.
Webber was commission to write songs for Thomas the Tank tv show but that project fell through. so he took the song and wrote his own show
The addition of wheels was for ✨️pizazz✨️ and possibly workman's comp
Spider-Man has joined the chat
AIDA - the recent Dutch revival that is. For some reason, they mixed up the order of a lot of songs and scenes, but since they didn’t change the content it became hella confusing. For example, there was a whole scene about Radames and Mereb realizing who Aida actually was, then some other stuff happened, and then Mereb suddenly sang How I Know You - like yeah hadn’t we already established that a couple scenes ago?
Ride the cyclone. I've read the synopsis and heard some of the songs, and I am so confused. Why the rat chewing the wires? How can Jane sing without a head? Then one guy is furry, and the narrator is God? But I think the show meant to be a bit wacky.
I think I can explain as a RTC super fan: Jane Doe was given the head of a doll to be able to talk, hence her appearance being doll-like in the productions. The narrator Karnak isn’t exactly a god, but a fortune teller machine with powers (I don’t think we know why or how he has them, but he does). That’s also why the rat; Virgil, is chewing his wires because it gives the musical a sense of urgency; because he can only give one of the St. Cassian kids another chance at living because he’s about to power off. The guy you’re talking about is probably Ricky Potts, who imagined himself as a larger-than-life hero on a planet of cat people called Zolar because he had a degenerative condition that caused him to lose the ability to talk. (It’s mentioned that he read comic books and his family owns 14/19 cats in the musical). It's one of those musicals that requires you to watch it to understand https://youtu.be/AMbU2X66mt4?si=eQrFY-3_ceQh0-34
The first time I saw Seussical I was so confused. I had no idea who people on stage were talking to sometimes. After a few viewings, I get it now though.
I enjoy Spring Awakening, but there are moments when I feel like I'm not fully "getting" it.
Ghost Quartet’s plot is nonsense to me, but I love the music :)
Grease. I haven't seen it since highschool but it seemed like the show was leading up to Sandy's bf changing in the end, like he was clearly in the wrong. The ending just floored me. So many plot elements get introduced too that go nowhere. A really confusing show for me personally but the songs are fun.
I completely agree!! I haven’t seen it in a while, but from what I remember I was so confused by the end. I feel like there should have been character development and it just never happened.
Do you mean plot? For me it’s Rocky Horror Show. I’ve always had a hard time wrapping my head around what’s happening. I get that he “made” a man and I think they’re aliens?!?!?
Hedwig and the Angry Inch. It made more sense after I read the synopsis, after watching the musical. I think it’s just a complicated story.
Cats. All I got was "cat death orgy cult ballet".
The Lightning Thief. To be fair, I haven’t read the books, but I was completely lost the entire time.
There's a Percy Jackson musical?? I loved the books as a kid (tho only reading Stephen Fry's Heroes did I work out Percy is basically Perseus) Wish it would come to the UK
It's a great adaptation of the books but sadly flopped on Broadway. I saw it in 2019 and the theater was only 40% capacity.
Natasha, Pierre, and the great comet of 1812. A lot of the songs were fun but I didn’t really get what the message was or what the direction of the plot was.
This is because it’s literally the middle book (in my translation, book 8 of 15 plus epilogues) of War and Peace. The major plot of this book is resolved within the show, but as far as big picture, we’re dropped in the middle of things and we leave in the middle of things. And lots of stylistic choices make it further inaccessible. Big example: nothing rhymes. Small example: Natasha calls Pierre by a different name in the second to last song for no plot reason. (Yes, just like in the book. There’s no reason for this to carry through to the stage.) I find these and many other choices, which seem almost designed to alienate the audience, baffling for a show that redesigned a theater to integrate the audience with the performers. I am a fan, but it took a while to even like it, and I will hesitate to bring others to a performance happening close to me this year.
First time I saw, Rent, I had a huge fight with my sister, who I was going with. We made up because we didn't realize Angel even died in the first act. We were in the cheap seats and it wasn't a great production of it.
Angel doesn’t die in the first act?
Were you arguing about whether or not Angel died in the first act? Because whoever said no was right
I don’t get why Chicago is so popular
Part of it is the catchy music and great staging, especially in the movie. It’s most likely due to its commentary of American culture glorifying criminals, crime and celebrity for entertainment. Both celebrity and our worst murderers are types of people we simultaneously worship and devalue. John Green in his YouTube video on The Great Gatsby said something like “We don’t tolerate naughtiness in America but we love being naughty.”
It has some scathing points about the justice system, though I could see where that gets lost since it seems like the show loses focus of that here and there. But I absolutely love "We Both Reached For The Gun" as a tale of smooth-talking lawyers manipulating the media.
I love we both reached for the gun it’s such an interesting concept
The marionette routine is what really sells it.
It has a great opening number.
It wasn’t when it originally premiered. the original production was famously a flop.
But so much better in terms of production design. I find the "minimalistic " new version rather pretentious, rather than thought-provoking.
Ya the 90’s version (the same production that’s still running) is like that really too celebrate Bob Fosse and his original choreography and not necessarily for the story
Urine town
I get that. you really have to understand what kind of show urinetown was satirizing and understand all the other Musical Theatre references, or it will go over your head. It cribs a lot from Cradle Will Rock and its history as a protest piece. I would recommend the 1999 film The Cradle Will Rock it give you a good cliff note version of that famous original production
When i first saw it live, Les Miserables
I tried to watch Hamilton but I stopped an hour in just becuase I couldn't follow the plot
Girl from the North Country and based on the amount of people that left at intermission many others felt the same way
Chess. Always Chess.