From yesterday’s Variety article on the musical adaptation of Saved! (2004; my article), the comedy about a Christian high school student who gets pregnant by her gay boyfriend:
Even as quirky musicals go, “Saved” is an odd bird.
The general trend for screen-to-stage adaptations is to make everything larger than life — broadening the comedy, heightening the romance and rendering the characters sufficiently loud and cartoonish to play to the back row. But the creative team behind the tuner adaptation of the 2004 indie pic, which satirizes life in an evangelical Christian high school, has gone the opposite route. “Saved” the musical has reined in the spoofing and is softening the edges of the characters, playing them more empathetically. It even excises the exclamation mark from the film’s title. . . .
Friedman says there have been obvious guideposts. “Every time we took an honest, sympathetic approach, the show seemed to work,” he explains. “Any time we went toward harsher satire or commentary, it stopped working.”
That’s why Hilary Faye, the righteous leader of a teen-pop gospel group played by Mandy Moore in the movie, gets a sympathetic number in act two. “She makes more sense as a real person, not as a caricature,” says Dempsey.
Creatives insist they’re interested in universal dramatic questions, not pronouncements about any particular religion. “There’s political thought involved, but I wouldn’t say there’s a political message,” says Groff. “What we’re really asking is, ‘How do you live with faith in contemporary society?’ “
That question could underwhelm auds expecting live versions of the film’s irreverent moments, such as Hilary Faye screaming, “I am filled with Christ’s love!” while hurling a Bible at her friend.
But Friedman feels those expectations have spurred better work.
“Our audience in New York is primed to go to the satire place, to find these things funny, because our audience isn’t necessarily from a world where people speak in tongues or practice that really charismatic Christianity,” he says. “It’s more complicated and more satisfying to take them to an emotional place, where those beliefs suddenly seem very approachable.” . . .
The Variety article says the musical “opens” at Playwright Horizons in New York on June 3, but the theatre’s website indicates it has been playing there for a couple weeks already.
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