Even as quirky musicals go, \u201cSaved\u201d is an odd bird.<\/p>\n
The general trend for screen-to-stage adaptations is to make everything larger than life \u2014 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. \u201cSaved\u201d 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\u2019s title. . . .<\/p>\n
Friedman says there have been obvious guideposts. \u201cEvery time we took an honest, sympathetic approach, the show seemed to work,\u201d he explains. \u201cAny time we went toward harsher satire or commentary, it stopped working.\u201d<\/p>\n
That\u2019s 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. \u201cShe makes more sense as a real person, not as a caricature,\u201d says Dempsey.<\/p>\n
Creatives insist they\u2019re interested in universal dramatic questions, not pronouncements about any particular religion. \u201cThere\u2019s political thought involved, but I wouldn\u2019t say there\u2019s a political message,\u201d says Groff. \u201cWhat we\u2019re really asking is, \u2018How do you live with faith in contemporary society?\u2019 \u201c<\/p>\n
That question could underwhelm auds expecting live versions of the film\u2019s irreverent moments, such as Hilary Faye screaming, \u201cI am filled with Christ\u2019s love!\u201d while hurling a Bible at her friend.<\/p>\n
But Friedman feels those expectations have spurred better work.<\/p>\n
\u201cOur audience in New York is primed to go to the satire place, to find these things funny, because our audience isn\u2019t necessarily from a world where people speak in tongues or practice that really charismatic Christianity,\u201d he says. \u201cIt\u2019s more complicated and more satisfying to take them to an emotional place, where those beliefs suddenly seem very approachable.\u201d . . .<\/p><\/blockquote>\n
The Variety<\/i> article says the musical \u201copens\u201d at Playwright Horizons in New York on June 3, but the theatre\u2019s website<\/a> indicates it has been playing there for a couple weeks already.<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"From yesterday\u2019s 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, \u201cSaved\u201d is an odd bird. The general trend for screen-to-stage adaptations is to make everything larger than life \u2014 broadening the comedy, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1116,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-855","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"yoast_head":"\n
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<\/a>