{"id":713,"date":"2013-12-07T21:29:00","date_gmt":"2013-12-07T21:29:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/admin.patheos.com\/blogs\/janetheactuary\/2013\/12\/how-do-you-solve-a-problem-like-maria.html"},"modified":"2013-12-07T21:29:00","modified_gmt":"2013-12-07T21:29:00","slug":"how-do-you-solve-a-problem-like-maria","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/janetheactuary\/2013\/12\/how-do-you-solve-a-problem-like-maria.html","title":{"rendered":"How do you solve a problem like “Maria”?"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<\/head>

Everybody\u2019s getting snarky about the NBC \u201cSound of Music\u201d production.<\/p>\n

Here are the obvious observations (every article or post\u00a0 about SoM seems to be in list form, so I\u2019ll follow suit):<\/p>\n

1)\u00a0 NBC always said they were producing the original Broadway production, not the Julie Andrews movie.\u00a0 Anyone who gripes that this didn\u2019t follow the script properly and, for instance, had moved My Favorite Things and The Lonely Goatherd around shouldn\u2019t even be commenting.<\/p>\n

2)\u00a0 It\u2019s not Julie Andrews.\u00a0 Get over it.\u00a0 <\/p>\n

3)\u00a0 Yes, Carrie was more reciting memorized lines than acting, and it would have been lovely to have a highly talented Broadway cast, accustomed to singing, acting, and dancing \u2014 but NBC needed (or had good reason to believe they needed) an A-list performer to bring in the ratings.
Fundamentally, if you\u2019re the sort of person that was bothered by Carrie\u2019s (lack of) acting experience and got all snarky about the movie, and didn\u2019t like the Wal-Mart commercials with the (Mormon?\u00a0 Quiverfull?) family, this wasn\u2019t for you.\u00a0 Just go away, change the channel, but leave this for the rest of us \u2014 I thought it was nice, and appreciated the differences (** click below for more on these differences, after the break in case you haven\u2019t seen it yet), while still being nostalgic for the childhood memories of the annually televised SoM.\u00a0 <\/p>\n

Here\u2019s what I really liked about the production: it really gave you the feel of being at the theater. Yes, it was an odd hybrid, with what must have been a massive soundstage, to have the different sets adjoining each other, and they had some interesting transitions from one scene to another, but it was still a quite different feel than watching a movie. Now, with three children, it\u2019s no easy feat to find a family-friendly production (and to pay the cost of five tickets), or to find a babysitter for my husband and I to go into the city \u2014 and yet, we\u2019re certainly more able to than most American families where finances are tighter. For us, it was a bit of a motivator to say, \u201clet\u2019s experience the real thing again \u2014 it\u2019s been too long.\u201d For other families, it was quite likely as close to a theatrical performance as they might experience. <\/p>\n

And this was for families<\/i> \u2014 and my boys (yes, my boys) have been singing half-remembered lines since then. So little on TV is family-friendly \u2014 what\u2019s so wrong with giving us a few crumbs, something I can allow my kids to watch rather than chasing them to bed before yet another kid-inappropriate crime show? I was glad to read that the ratings were high, and I hope that NBC tries this again.<\/p>\n

Oh, and some more observations on the \u201cit\u2019s not Julie Andrews\u201d attitude: yes, of course it\u2019s not Julie Andrews. Adults in good mental health can cope with changes and differences, you know. Consider the Les Miserables movie \u2014 it wasn\u2019t the musical. It took shortcuts and cut out songs or shrunk them drastically. Watching it (on DVD) was a lovely experience, and I pulled out the Les Miz soundtrack the next day, and remembered when my friends and I had tickets in college. But I\u2019m mature enough to recognize that the movie and the musical were two different productions. <\/p>\n

I have fond memories of the Julie Andrews musical. I remember falling asleep to it when it was aired on Thanksgiving or Easter (it always rotated with The Wizard of Oz, didn\u2019t it?). And when we were in Salzberg, travelling, we picked up a souvenir brochure at the train station and visited some of the sites. I may even watch it again, say, with the kids, when they\u2019re off school at Christmas. But the musical is largely about the music, not about Julie Andrews herself. <\/p>\n

(Click below for \u201cspoilers\u201d and a picture.)
<\/a>
The most interesting differences were the ways that Nazis factored in:
\u2014 Max and Frau Schrader promoted cooperation with the Nazis, in a song that got cut from the movie.
\u2014 Georg and Frau Schrader broke up because he couldn\u2019t go along and told Ilsa he\u2019d resist.
\u2014 After the family performs, Max warns them that the Nazis are going to scoop up Georg from the festival itself, so that the family flees, and Max is taken by the Nazis for his efforts.
\u2014 Rolf is with the Nazis at the abbey, but does not betray the family.<\/p>\n

The other interesting difference is that, as far as I can tell, the family NOT is identified as being from Salzberg, but the name of the abbey, Nonnberg, becomes the name of the town, and the music festival is not the Salzberg Festival. I\u2019m not entirely sure, and I\u2019m not going to watch the show again to figure it out, but\u00a0if I\u2019m\u00a0right, then I imagine\u00a0this was to address one of the continuing snarky criticisms of the movie: the fact that if the family did, indeed, cross the mountains from Salzberg, they\u2019d end up in Germany. (In fact, in the movie, they talk about the borders being closed, and having to cross the border by foot \u2014 after having driven through Austria to the Swiss border \u2014 and, if I remember the book correctly, that does reflect reality, though they don\u2019t actually show the road trip part, of course. And, actually, to be specific, though Germany borders Austria at Salzberg, it\u2019s a river, not a mountain, that forms the border.) <\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

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Everybody\u2019s getting snarky about the NBC \u201cSound of Music\u201d production. Here are the obvious observations (every article or post\u00a0 about SoM seems to be in list form, so I\u2019ll follow suit): 1)\u00a0 NBC always said they were producing the original Broadway production, not the Julie Andrews movie.\u00a0 Anyone who gripes that this didn\u2019t follow the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2209,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-713","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"yoast_head":"\nHow do you solve a problem like "Maria"?<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Everybody's getting snarky about the NBC "Sound of Music" production.Here are the obvious observations (every article or post  about SoM seems to be\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link 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