Monday 2nd June 2014 by Will Langdale
The audience is waiting by Blondin Rikard
Stage-to-screen adaptations are curious animals. Converting much-loved film sequences into something that’ll look great on stage can be a real challenge due to the constraints of the theatre, though you only need to look at something like the much-lauded set design of Strangers on a Train or the long, long West End runs of Billy Elliot and The Lion King to see that these restrictions can create unforgettable theatrical experiences. On the other hand, taking a stage musical and moving it to cinema can be a fantastically liberating project, allowing access to a staggering range of visual tools to evoke character, plot and setting. Some of the most iconic films in the Western canon have been the result of such a move – though that’s not to say there haven’t been some stinkers too!
With less than a month until Clint Eastwood’s Jersey Boys film arrives in cinemas, we’re getting a little nostalgic for some of our favourite stage-to-screen adaptations and thought it was about time to share. Definitive it ain’t, but here’s a few stage-to-screen gems!
The Sound of Music (1965)
We had to lead off with a classic: this Rodgers and Hammerstein musical enjoys a revival every few years, but it’s the film that has inducted many a dewy-eyed musical theatre enthusiast into the genre during a snoozy Boxing Day. Some sequences, like So Long, Farewell very much retain their staged origins, but the film takes as much advantage as is reasonably possible of the majestic Austrian Alps. The title song, The Sound of Music, is an excellent example of this. The film was so popular it surpassed Gone With the Wind in box office gross (though reneged the title to it 5 years later), and in 2001 was preserved in the US’s National Film Registry. For us, it’s the setting that really makes The Sound of Music such a wonderful film, and it’s almost impossible for a darkened theatre to quite recreate the glorious, rich, saturated mountain greens and blues.
West Side Story (1961)
After 2013’s incredible revival at Sadler’s Wells, this is our first recommendation that you can actually go and see, with the production currently travelling the country. One of the most compelling elements of the 1961 film is how incongruous the traditions of musical theatre seem to the story. The toughs of the Sharks and Jets performing towering synchronised balletic leaps is both kitsch and aggressive, and the reinterpretation of Romeo and Juliet in a vivid New York neighbourhood complete with maze-like fire escapes, crumbling building sites and endless chain-link fences provides a compelling confluence of high-brow culture in a poor, urban setting. These contrasts mean so much more on film than on stage as the setting is (to an extent) a presentation rather than a representation of the city, and it makes West Side Story an absolute classic. We love it!
Les Misérables (2012)
It got pretty solid reviews across the board, and we were absolutely thrilled with the Tom Hooper-directed film, adapted from the 1980 musical, itself an adaptation of Victor Hugo’s epic 1862 novel. Right from the huge opening, as a group of convicts haul a ship from the sea, battered by foam and spray, you know that film is an incredibly natural medium for this story. As we’ve covered in previous blogs, the original London production of Les Misérables was attacked for its bombastic approach to Hugo’s nuanced novel, but the film takes this so-called “flaw” and enunciates it with just as much humanity and passion as the musical ever has, with a scope and scale that the theatre can powerfully suggest, but never quite illustrate literally.
Working in a tradition with such a remarkable pedigree, we hope Jersey Boys is able to join the pantheon of great stage to screen adaptations. Clint Eastwood is an incredible director, and with such acting talent as John Lloyd Young as Frankie Vallie (who comes from the Broadway production) and the inimitable Christopher Walken as Gyp DeCarlo, our hopes couldn’t be higher!
Excited? Watch the trailer for Jersey Boys, or book a Jersey Boys theatre break with TicketTree and see the show live in London’s West End.