Coraline: the Musical

And we're off!

So... I don't normally read the theater reviews in the New Yorker, but the June 22nd one caught my eye. Now, when I found out that they were making Coraline into a movie, I was really excited, and when I found out it was being directed by Henry Selick (the guy who did the Nightmare Before Christmas) I was even more excited. My excitement was justified when it came out. Beautifully animated, best use of 3-D I've ever seen, artistic, creepy, just... perfect. Completely did justice to the book, which is not something I often say about movies based on books. (and my girlfriend took me to see it as a Valentine's Day treat, which made it extra-special)

Well, apparently now they've made it into a stage musical. When I learned this I was... intrigued. Then I found out that the music was being done by Stephin Merritt of the Magnetic Fields and went beyond intrigued into excited. This discovery was all the more exciting since just a few weeks ago after watching Across the Universe and listening to a lot of Magnetic Fields, I decided it would be really great to build a musical out of their songs. And then I flip open the New Yorker and voila! A musical with music and lyrics by Stephin Merritt. Based on a really great Neil Gaiman story. Which is especially perfect because I've been re-reading a lot of Neil Gaiman and listening to a lot of Magnetic Fields lately, so it caught me at the best possible time.

And yet... I don't know. A bad review isn't usually enough to put me off of something. After all, the New Yorker hammered the hell out of Fight Club and I love that movie. But something about this musical just seems... off. Actually, I can pinpoint exactly what it is: the casting of Coraline herself. All the other complaints didn't ruffle me, but when I found out the lead character, a preteen girl, is being played by a middle-aged woman... Yeesh.

What a horrible, horrible idea. The story is all about childhood. And as much as I hate child actors as a general rule, the idea of Coraline being played by a fifty-five-year-old just really puts me off. There's just no way to make that work. A grown-up playing a child is always very tongue-in-cheek, wink-and-nod-to-the-audience. It's far too camp for a heartfelt story that's all about the perspective of childhood. Also, many of the women are played by men, which I'm normally all far, but it makes the whole thing even more needlessly campy. It's not really a story that lends itself to drag, be it gender-drag or age-drag. Not to my mind anyway. Clearly, there are those who disagree.

I guess it was too much to hope for, that musical theater could tell a story without killing it with camp, but still I'm disappointed.

Neil Gaiman has a tremendous gift for female characters, something very rare for a male writer. Too bad the story seems to have passed through too many hands which don't share that gift.