Ready to Rock
Thursday, July 10th by scott malia
Something’s Rockin’ in Denmark is not a joke. I swear. In fact, the play enjoyed a very brief run on Broadway over thirty years ago. The play has recently been revived and, yes, it is a musical version of Hamlet. The temptation to snicker at this kind of adaptation isn’t as easy to do as it once was. Last year, Spring Awakening, a century-old German expressionist play was turned into a Good Charlotte-esque rock musical and walked away with the Tony award. Still laughing?
Plays of the past, it seems, are the new future. Ultimately, though, does Something’s Rockin’ in Denmark say more about the state of Shakespearean theatre or musical theatre? Addressing the former, it seems that artists are constantly striving to find new ways to interpret and reimagine these works. Musical theatre is a logical option in this light, particularly because it provides the opportunity to further explore the musicality of the text itself.
The statement this makes about musical theatre, however, may be even more telling. As Spring Awakening attests, there is some backlash to the increased commodification of Broadway musicals. Does every Disney cartoon need to be made into a musical? While I understand the need for family entertainment, shouldn’t there be pieces that speak to other age groups/demographics as well? Also, no matter how successful it is, no matter how many reality shows they build around it, Legally Blonde: The Musical is garbage—a perfectly obnoxious concoction based on a mediocre film that misogynistically celebrates stupidity as some kind of twenty-first-century female empowerment. I don’t blame writers (and audiences) for demanding more gravitas in musicals. If the melancholy Dane wants to sing, I’m all ears.
