Musicals are Terrible

I've been a little bugged for the last week - ever since I saw Rent at the Midvale Main Street Theater. Something about the show completely unnerved me. It was a very upsetting experience.

Now, the production wasn't BAD - far from it, actually. I'm not going to review it here other than to say you should go see my friend Carolyn blow the roof off the place with her mad vocal skill. My friend Larissa did a full review here, and I agree with her all the way. It wasn't the performance of Rent that bugged me, but the story itself. Rent is basically terrible.

For those not in the know, Rent tells the story of a group of residents who live in an apartment building without paying rent. They all live sparse Bohemian lifestyles made possible by their independently wealthy landlord who turns a blind eye to their squatting on his property. Oh, and they all have AIDS.

I don't really have a problem with the "content" issues in Rent, but I am bothered by what they try to pass off as a "happy ending." After a year of bickering and squabbling, our friends are reunited just as one of their number, a girl named Mimi, dies. Roger, who has just realized that the song he's wanted so desperately to write can be found in his love for Mimi, sings her a song as she passes, only for her to suddenly revive. Everyone then lives happily ever after, except for the drag queen, who died a half hour earlier.

Here's how it breaks down:

• Mark quits his job as a news anchor where he gets paid to do what he loves so that he can say he didn't "sell out."
• Joann and Maureen get back together, despite the fact that they have done nothing but bicker for the last two hours.
• After losing his lover, Tom rigs an ATM to dispense free cash to anyone with the secret code. The play ends before the police track him down and arrest him.
• Roger, who sang an amazing song about writing one great song before he dies, finally writes a song so forgettable that it... um... brings his coke-addled girlfriend back from the dead?

The play glamorizes "La Vie Boheme," despite the fact that this lifestyle is actively destroying everyone who lives it. The only person whose future actually looks promising is Benny, the landlord, who is generous enough to pay for the funeral of the man who killed his cat AND put his ex-girlfriend through rehab.

In short, while the music is fantastic, the play itself is just not very good. It kinda bungles the message it's trying to deliver without realizing it. It's indicative of a prominent problem in musical theater, where storytelling takes a backseat to production values.

Seriously, when you look at the genre as a whole, you find that most musicals are actively terrible from a storytelling viewpoint. Musicals are full of fantastic scenery, beautiful dances and costuming, and, of course, catchy and memorable music. The problem, though, is that these flashy and engaging productions are often tied together by flimsy stories with awful morals.

Don't quite believe me?

• The Music Man teaches us that it's okay to let yourself get taken advantage of.
• Annie, Get Your Gun teaches us that you need to suppress your natural talents to be with the one you love.
• Seven Brides for Seven Brothers glorifies Stockholm syndrome.
• Damn Yankees says one can make a literal deal with the devil and walk away consequence-free.
• The Phantom of the Opera is potentially worse than Twilight, since the creepy romantic stalker it idolizes is a cold-blooded killer.
• Speaking of murderers, Oklahoma! lets a killer go completely unpunished because the deceased was super creepy.
• My Fair Lady shows that even rampaging misogynists can win the hearts of the girls they bully.

It's not a problem I see going away at all, either, possibly because you have plays like The Drowsy Chaperone, which affirms that the purpose of musical theater is only to temporarily distract audiences from their problems, rather than enable them to confront those problems.

Maybe I'm being a little unfair. After all, musical theater is hardly alone in presenting stories with suspect lessons. And besides, most musicals fall into the "comedic" category, where morals and lessons are often used for parodic purposes. However, if I had to make a list of musicals that give equal weight to the story as the music, the list would be really short (Les Miserables, Chicago, The Fantasticks...).

I think musical theater should just try a little harder to not be utterly miserable, that's all.