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Wednesday 3 September 2014

why i'm unlikely to attend any revival of 'cats'

One of (my) life's little mysteries is why I don't like musical theatre as an adult, when I was completely enamoured of it as a child?

Here are my theories:

1) Bitterness and envy. 

My parents took me to the Founder's Theatre in Hamilton to see My Fair Lady (starring Max Cryer; I forget who played Eliza, but she was beautiful, I thought) when I was about 7 or 8.  My sister was deemed too young, or it was a treat for just me, I don't remember the details.  In any case, she was dropped at the neighbours while Mum and Dad took me to the show.  It was dinner theatre, I think, a late-80s small-town fancy-pants evening.  I was entranced and decided then and there, that's what I want to be.  The star.  Long story short, I am now a lawyer, not a musical theatre performer, worse luck.  Not cut out for it, sadly.  Maybe I'm just jealous, which means I avoid watching?

2) P's curmudgeonliness is rubbing off.

I can't believe it's true, but I married a man who has never watched the Sound of Music.  Or Grease.  He has shunned two mainstay films of my childhood (the other being Pippi Longstocking.  I haven't asked P to join the fan club for that one). 

One of Auckland's main theatres is on our commute.  As we pass, P mournfully intones things like, 'you're not going to make me take you to...Wicked, are you?'  I truly believe he thinks Annie or Mamma Mia would scar him for life.  He happily joins me for plays and has been the driving force behind visiting the opera and orchestral events, but he has drawn a very bright line at musical theatre.  I'm afraid I've never seen him chant a chorus or, you know, shimmy.  Perhaps it's catching?

3) Perversity and/or snobbery

I worry that something deep and dark in me doesn't want to enjoy musicals like many others do, simply because it's popular and not as 'high brow' as other pursuits.  I'd like to think I'm not always an asshole, however, and there's plenty of evidence that I do not give two shits about 'high brow' culture - I often switch the car's radio to deeply uncool top 40 stations, I read and enjoy all sorts of books from all over the scale (Diana Gabaldon to Margaret Atwood to Dickens to Regency to Marian Keyes -- never, ever sports autobiographies -- although, most of the time I suppose you don't catch me reviewing or admitting to the 'low brow' stuff) (BTW, is it 'annoying' how I keep putting 'high/low brow' in quotes? It's because every time I write them I feel like an asshole.  But then the quotes also make me feel assholey.  Net result = 'asshole'?).

Could be a combo of the three I suppose.  Or just a change of taste over time, much like discovering that olives are tasty, around the age of 17.  Who knows? 

(I really hope you didn't think this post was going anywhere, it totally wasn't and it didn't, I'm afraid.  Soz about that.)

1 comment:

  1. I love a good musical and if given the chance I think I could get my husband to come but he would say it was all my idea and then enjoy it more than I would.

    ReplyDelete

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