Just a note up front - I'm not a musicals person. I actually joined a Mal Blum fan discord that we created during Mal Blum's concert chat (and like over 100 people joined right there!!) and the first night we did a voice chat and when the topic got to musicals I had zero clue what anyone was talking about! Ha. The traditional genre of show tunes is one of the only genres I haven't been able to get into.
But no, I had never seen Phantom before. My thought was that the Phantom was a real person who hid in the theater and wore a mask because his face was disfigured by acid and creeped on the actress, which was true enough though they never said anything about acid in this version. I just expected him to be likable? And he wasn't. At all. I think giving antiheroes a gigantic helping of toxic masculinity and misogyny really hinders their ability to work as antiheroes. I love Gollum and he's a manipulative murderer, too, but far more sympathetic in my mind. The Phantom (Erik??) just came across as literally an incel. I know it was made in the 80s, but I was made in the 80s, too!
The music didn't do a ton for me. It was okay. I preferred the Cats music, at least the second half. But the movie was more modern with several characters apparently gender flipped though I'll never think of them any other way. Cats will always be about Judi Dench and Ian McKellan to me, which honestly was basically the reason I signed up.
But like this Phantom was from 2011 and there was not a single actor of color in the play??? I was so confused how that could happen. I have only been to a few plays but that was never the case. London is a cosmopolitan city. And I last went to plays in the late 2000s so same time period.
Actually, one of the ones I saw was Hamlet which somehow I had never read in school for various reasons so I first consumed Hamlet by watching the Shakespeare Theatre Company perform it in DC. That was cool. I also watched Taming of the Shrew which I would rate as worse than Romeo and Juliet but I'm a hopeless romantic. Then again, I haven't consumed R+J since I was a teenager so who knows how I'd feel about it now? But I'm the teen who cried at Titantic when it came out.
Speaking of streaming, the Met is making a different opera available every single night!!!! I still haven't watched one. I never have gotten into opera. I keep meaning to check one out but haven't yet. I've never seen an opera in my life I don't think - my dad was into classical music but not opera so I was never exposed to it as a kid. My parents love musicals, though.
I'll try to do a new post about my rpg adventures. I also prefer real life gaming but couldn't find a new group after I had to leave my old one due to social issues (and eventually harassment - I really didn't think that would be a problem in an all-nonbinary group but alas, there are apparently truscum even in enby circles - I got attacked and made fun of for hanging around furries and being otherkin). I much prefer in person but it's hard to find a good place to run it as my home is small and not clean enough yet and maybe someday but alas.
The pandemic forced me to find new things and an rpg designer posted a link to his discord and about a Sunday Swords Swords Without Master run and we've been doing it every Sunday since, even though he's only made the original one! He's the same guy who wrote Dread, my favorite rpg of all time. I also am in a new D&D 5e campaign that was organized on the Mal Blum discord. And I am trying to get a game going of the Steven Universe rpg which is based on Swords Without Master as well as an indie discord based rpg, This Discord has Ghosts In It.
And I'm writing a Dread game about an abandoned theater in Boston. I will probably invite my Dreamwidth friends to play once I get it finished and the first run done. I am basically finished but I am being a perfectionist and trying to make my questions better. It's been over a month I've been writing it, alas.
More on my new characters like my beloved new shapeshiifting microraptor in a new post!
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timeasmymeasure
no subject
Date: 2020-04-22 01:56 pm (UTC)But no, I had never seen Phantom before. My thought was that the Phantom was a real person who hid in the theater and wore a mask because his face was disfigured by acid and creeped on the actress, which was true enough though they never said anything about acid in this version. I just expected him to be likable? And he wasn't. At all. I think giving antiheroes a gigantic helping of toxic masculinity and misogyny really hinders their ability to work as antiheroes. I love Gollum and he's a manipulative murderer, too, but far more sympathetic in my mind. The Phantom (Erik??) just came across as literally an incel. I know it was made in the 80s, but I was made in the 80s, too!
The music didn't do a ton for me. It was okay. I preferred the Cats music, at least the second half. But the movie was more modern with several characters apparently gender flipped though I'll never think of them any other way. Cats will always be about Judi Dench and Ian McKellan to me, which honestly was basically the reason I signed up.
But like this Phantom was from 2011 and there was not a single actor of color in the play??? I was so confused how that could happen. I have only been to a few plays but that was never the case. London is a cosmopolitan city. And I last went to plays in the late 2000s so same time period.
Actually, one of the ones I saw was Hamlet which somehow I had never read in school for various reasons so I first consumed Hamlet by watching the Shakespeare Theatre Company perform it in DC. That was cool. I also watched Taming of the Shrew which I would rate as worse than Romeo and Juliet but I'm a hopeless romantic. Then again, I haven't consumed R+J since I was a teenager so who knows how I'd feel about it now? But I'm the teen who cried at Titantic when it came out.
Speaking of streaming, the Met is making a different opera available every single night!!!! I still haven't watched one. I never have gotten into opera. I keep meaning to check one out but haven't yet. I've never seen an opera in my life I don't think - my dad was into classical music but not opera so I was never exposed to it as a kid. My parents love musicals, though.
I'll try to do a new post about my rpg adventures. I also prefer real life gaming but couldn't find a new group after I had to leave my old one due to social issues (and eventually harassment - I really didn't think that would be a problem in an all-nonbinary group but alas, there are apparently truscum even in enby circles - I got attacked and made fun of for hanging around furries and being otherkin). I much prefer in person but it's hard to find a good place to run it as my home is small and not clean enough yet and maybe someday but alas.
The pandemic forced me to find new things and an rpg designer posted a link to his discord and about a Sunday Swords Swords Without Master run and we've been doing it every Sunday since, even though he's only made the original one! He's the same guy who wrote Dread, my favorite rpg of all time. I also am in a new D&D 5e campaign that was organized on the Mal Blum discord. And I am trying to get a game going of the Steven Universe rpg which is based on Swords Without Master as well as an indie discord based rpg, This Discord has Ghosts In It.
And I'm writing a Dread game about an abandoned theater in Boston. I will probably invite my Dreamwidth friends to play once I get it finished and the first run done. I am basically finished but I am being a perfectionist and trying to make my questions better. It's been over a month I've been writing it, alas.
More on my new characters like my beloved new shapeshiifting microraptor in a new post!