Madame Giry's rant
22 January 2023 12:09 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
igenlodeI was listening to the original London cast recording of "Love Never Dies" again tonight, and thinking all over again that a lot (if not most) of the changes for the 'Australian Version' were not actually an improvement (I still begrudge the loss in the bar scene of the exchange "Do you know where you are?"/"Hell, I imagine", and his horrified realisation after the bet "My God -- what have I done?"). And the massive edits to the beginning, apparently put in because reviewers complained that you couldn't have a show where the main protagonist didn't even appear for the first five scenes, sacrifice chunks of the Giry plotline and a lot of the backstory of Phantasma, as well as messing up the Coney Island Waltz and removing "Heaven By the Sea" altogether, and, naturally, removing the delayed buildup to the Phantom's appearance. (And since "Till I Hear You Sing" is the last time in the show I feel any sympathy for the character -- even now, after everything, there are still lines that hit too close to home -- sticking it right at the beginning makes him dislikeable for longer thereafter :-p)
But one thing that *definitely* needed to go was Madame Giry's whole rant "You think I took the boy? Why would I do such a thing? Do you think I don't know who he is? [...] Do you think I don't know it hurts to see one's own child brought to harm?"
Because the fact that she knows these things is *precisely* what makes her the prime suspect at that moment, so trotting them out as proof of her innocence makes no sense at all :-p
(Also, I've never understood why the Phantom calls her "ungrateful backbiting snake" instead of the obvious -- which I keep subconsciously anticipating every time I hear the lyric again -- "backbiting jade", to complete the couplet with "comment that she made" on the previous line...)
Well, the Australian version does at least cut Madame Giry's bewilderingly counterproductive attempt at self-defence... although it also makes the Phantom look better by cutting some of his foaming-at-the-mouth threats to all and sundry, and I'm all in favour of allowing him to expose his true nature in front of Christine :-p
But one thing that *definitely* needed to go was Madame Giry's whole rant "You think I took the boy? Why would I do such a thing? Do you think I don't know who he is? [...] Do you think I don't know it hurts to see one's own child brought to harm?"
Because the fact that she knows these things is *precisely* what makes her the prime suspect at that moment, so trotting them out as proof of her innocence makes no sense at all :-p
(Also, I've never understood why the Phantom calls her "ungrateful backbiting snake" instead of the obvious -- which I keep subconsciously anticipating every time I hear the lyric again -- "backbiting jade", to complete the couplet with "comment that she made" on the previous line...)
Well, the Australian version does at least cut Madame Giry's bewilderingly counterproductive attempt at self-defence... although it also makes the Phantom look better by cutting some of his foaming-at-the-mouth threats to all and sundry, and I'm all in favour of allowing him to expose his true nature in front of Christine :-p