So I just got back from seeing Real Estate at Theatre Aquarius. I was a good play. Sort of a romantic comedy about a guy who's selling the house he grew up in, while going through a divorce, and dealing with a dying Dad. The real estate agent he gets is quirky. I enjoyed it. There's something about plays though isn't there?
Like everyone born after the 1920s, I grew up with movies. Characters in movies go outside and have car chases. You'll never have a whole movie play out in the same living room with only four characters (unless, of course, it's based on a play). And yet, somehow that same set up is popular on stage.
My favourite kind is a musical. Nothing beats two characters singing a seemingly impromptu duet about how much they love each other, or hate each other, or wish there wasn't a crazy person living under their opera house. The kind of song that makes your heart explode with beautiful melodrama. The kind that would make you switch stations if you heard it on the radio.
Why are musical movies always cheesey, when they work so well on stage? I think it's because the stage reminds you that it's just a fantasy, a facsimile of real life. Singing in the stage world is like thinking, or talking, or yelling, because the people in the back can't see your facial expressions. The best movie musicals kept that stage fantasy in the flick, and never tried to make it seem more real.
Of course Real Estate was not a musical. But it was a good flick, er, I mean play.
2 comments:
While I am a fan of plays, I really can't stand any kind of musical except, say, for Spinal Tap and maybe the Rocky Horror Picture Show. In fact, you could not pay me to see a musical on stage. But if you like it, then that's what's important.
I think the world would be a better place if people belted out their feelings in song. "Dammit Janet I love you" and so forth.
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