Just need some thumbnails sketches of the plots of these popular musicals. I know their popular but I’ve never seen them and have no real clue what they’re about.
Cats - Based on a poem by TS Elliot … right? Uses lots of makeup.
Joseph & the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat - A biblical guy… with a Dreamcoat? Does it deliver food & gifts like a wearable schmoo?
Rent - It’s about gay people and apartments …or something
Urinetown - ? no clue
The Fantasticks - no clue
Fantasticks is pomo Romeo and Juliet: two single fathers want their kids to marry, so they decide the best way to get them together is to FORBID them to. So they build a wall (played by a mime), and hire an actor to “rape” the Girl, so the Boywill rescue her. “Rape” here is used in its archaic form, to mean “kidnap.” Still, takes some getting used to, especially the musically sublime but conceptually icky “Rape Ballet.” Plus, the Girl falls in love with El Gallo, the actor hired to abduct her. So then the Boy has to follow her around the world (“Oh how chic, to be Greek cheek to cheek”) in pursuit of his one true love. At this point, the story becomes “The Bluebird,” and there are happy endings all around.
One of my favorite shows, actually.
I only half remember the story (never seen the play, just the story), but here goes from memory:
Joseph is the youngest son of an old man. He’s also the favourite. His father gives him a magnificent coat of many colours. (How the coat - and story - is usually referred to outside the play.)
His brothers are jealous of him, so they sell him into slavery in Egypt, and tell their father he’d disappeared (or been killed by bandits, or eaten by wild animals…I can’t remember just what their story was).
Joseph then goes on to become a favourite of Pharoah - interpretting Pharoah’s dreams as prophecy - correctly.
Based on several poems. Doesn’t really have a single plot as such, is just a slice of life amongst many cats.
The most famous song, Memory, is just that - a song. It has no story surrounding it that I can recall. Cat comes out on stage, cat sings song, cat gets standing ovation, cat goes back to green room.
Saw the movie. A bunch of wannabe bohemians in New York in the '80s try to make movies, stage protests, write songs, etc., on little money as their landlord threatens to kick them out. Only two are gay (I think?), but several have AIDS, and one’s a stripper. In the end they have to decide between selling out and getting real jobs, or staying true to their principles.
Cats doesn’t really have a plot, which is one of the reasons I don’t particulary like it. It’s pretty much “Introduce a bunch of cats, Cats want to go to heaven, something about the head cat being kidnapped, Old cat goes to heaven”. Maybe there’s more but I only saw the play once and that was enough for me.
Well, the songs aren’t particulary good either, and I tend to like ALW musicals.
Though in LEASE, everyone does have AIDS (“The pope has got it and so do you!”).
JOSEPH (frequently written in all caps like that) is pretty much the Biblical story of the Joseph of the Old Testament.
SPOILERS LIE BEYOND
To expand on Tengu’s post: Joseph is the youngest son of 12, and the most-loved of his father, who gives him a flashy coat. His brothers sell him to some slave traders and tell his father that he was killed by a wild animal, tearing the coat to shreds and dipping it in goat blood for evidence. The slave traders sell Joseph to Potiphar, a high-ranking official. Joseph does a good job, but Potiphar’s wife tries (and fails) to seduce him, though Potiphar catches her doing this and, misinterpreting the situation, throws Joseph in jail. While there, Joseph interprets the dreams of Pharoh’s butler and baker. He tells the butler that soon he will be “buttling once more.” This comes true, and when the Pharoah starts having odd dreams, the butler remembers and recommends Joseph. The Pharoah summons Joseph and Joseph interprets Pharoah’s dreams, saying a famine will occur in Egypt. The Pharoah hires Joseph as the guy who will stockpile the food. Joseph’s brothers and father, meanwhile, begin to suffer from the famine. The brothers go to Egypt to get some food. While there, they meet Joseph but don’t recognize him. Wanting to see if his brothers have changed, Joseph sets it up to look like the youngest, Benjamin, stole a golden cup. As he’s about to throw his brother in jail, the other brothers stick up for him. Then Joseph reveals himself for who he is and all is well.
The draw here is the varying song styles. There’s a huge variety of them, from typical “showtunes” to country, to Elvis-like (the Pharoah is generally a parody of Elvis), to disco-ish and more. Another interesting feature is the use of a narrator who sings the backstory and sometimes interacts on stage with the characters.
To expand on lissener’s post about the Fantasticks:
Fathers forbid the children to marry and hire the villain El Gallo (also the narrator) to “rape” (i.e. abduct) the girl. The boy and girl are singing in a glen (no, really, they’re in a glen) and El Gallo and his two actors storm in to abduct the girl. The boy defends her and fake-kills El Gallo in a swordfight, winning the girl forever. Or until Act Two, at least.
Act Two opens after the happiness of the new relationship has worn off. Everyone begins to fight, the girl slaps the boy and, in song, he vows to leave her and see the world. In the meantime, El Gallo seduces the girl, who also wants to see the world. He takes her on a whirlwind tour, and they just happen to meet the boy in various locales being mistreated by El Gallo’s assistants (he’s set on fire, beaten with whips and shoved onto a bed of nails, at least). After the girl and El Gallo return home, and the girl has fallen for El Gallo, she asks stay with him (or something…I wasn’t on stage at this point…) and he tells her to get ready but asks for her prized necklace to show her devotion. She gives it to him as he promises to return. He gets ready to leave her, but the boy comes in and has a non-choreographed fight with him, but loses. The girl comes in, gets depressed that El Gallo isn’t there, then sees the boy and rushes to him. They sing and make up and then everything really is ok. The end.
Two good shows that I have fond memories of acting in.
Somewhat plotless, although two major plotlines are (1) which cat gets to go to “The Heaviside Layer”, ie Kitty Heaven, this year, and (2) Macavity (the evil cat) fighting against the rest of the cats (led by Old Deuteronomy)
It’s a satire about corporate America… basically, a town has such a shortage of water that all the toilets are pay toilets, and poor people never get to go to the bathroom. Debtors are halled off to a prison called “Urinetown”, or something like that.
What I think is neatest about the Fantasticks is the contrast between the first and second acts. The first act is deliberately frothy and light and silly, basically a fantastickal musical farce. It ends with the two lovers, united by their fathers’ harebrained scheme, kissing by moonlight.
The second act begins:
"Their moon was cardboard, fragile – It was very apt to fray
For what was last night scenic may seem cynic by today
The play’s not done, oh no, not quite
For life never ends in the moonlight night
And despite what pretty poets say
The night is only half the day
So we would like to truly finish what was foolishly begun
For the story’s never ended and the play is never done
'til we’ve all of us been burned a bit, and burnished… by the sun!"
and later, what I think is the key moment of the whole musical:
"There is a curious paradox that no one can explain
Who understands the secret of the reaping of the grain?
Who understands why spring is born out of winter’s laboring pain?
Or why we must all die a bit before we grow again?
I do not know the answer, I merely know it’s true
I hurt them for that reason… and myself a little bit too"
Wait a minute…
Aha! So Joseph isn’t the youngest!
For what it’s worth, the original story of Joseph can be found in the Bible, the book of Genesis, starting with chapter 37 (but skip chapter 38; it’s a digression).
And, isn’t Rent at least loosely based on the opera La Boheme, which is about bohemians living in Paris?
Doh!
But it does, the old mangy girl sings it just before she dies.
[Lewis Black Voice] Bbbb…bwah? [/Lewis Black Voice]
Hmm… I don’t know his material. What say you, good sir?
In the source material, IIRC, Benjamin is born after the “loss” of Joseph.
And they’ve paid $60 a head to be there.
And he’s the only brother with the same mother (Rachel?) as Joseph
The brothers also had a sister Dinah, who isn’t in the musical.
Isn’t she off in the kitchen? And, rumors have it, not alone?
I heard she took an ocean liner to China some time ago, but she’s in South Carolina now.