Again: Marie Danvers Stood On Business When It Came To Laying Smooches On Her Costars. And Her Roster

And of course I'm thinking about Phantom of the Opera.

panna a netvor (beauty and the beast), dir. juraj herz (1978) + anne williams - art of darkness: a poetics of gothic

“Floating, Falling …”

Earl Carpenter and Katie Knight-Adams, 2006, London. The iconic MOTN pose and some very dynamic acting from both!

Phantoms: Sad Wet Cat or Crazy Bitch?

Inspired by this tweet by @glindaupland (i think). May delete because, well...

Earl Carpenter: Duh, the OG sad wet cat OG.

Kevin Gray: Definitely a crazy bitch, but makes me a sad wet cat watching him.

Ian Jon Bourg: Sad wet cat pretending to be a crazy bitch.

Tim Martin Gleason: Name a difference between his final lair and a kitten left out in the rain?

Hugh Panaro: Psycho bitch who becomes a sad wet cat for 1.5 seconds when he says "my angel."

Davis Gaines: Sad wet crazy bitch.

JOJ: Crazy wet cat.

David Thaxton: Is a crazy bitch because he's a sad wet cat.

Ramin Karimloo: Extra crazy bitch. No cat in him whatsoever, unfortunately.

Jeremy Stolle: Was a sad wet cat in his early days as an understudy but graduated to crazy bitch and sex god in the 2020s.

Greg Mills: People literally call him finger lickin' Greg...but he's still a wet cat.

Ben Crawford: Crazy bitch who swears he's not crazy.

David Shannon: Sad wet cat who is also injured.

John Cudia: Sad wet cat who makes my cat w—*phone dies*

I thought Gary Mauer and Marie Danvers's final lair kiss was special but after watching (more than) a few bootlegs I realize that Danvers never fails to deliver a good kiss regardless of who's playing the Phantom or Raoul.

And I feel like she deserves more appreciation because this is in fact an acting skill. Multiple Christines and Phantoms have already told us that Erik's face is just a disgusting mass of makeup, glue, saliva and sweat by that point in the show, so manufacturing chemistry and infusing the kisses with the right nuance(s) is no small feat.

To say music is your life is an understatement. Music is what makes you wake up each day—albeit always in darkness. It’s the living substitute for the family and friendships your face, a damning accident of birth, has denied you.

Then one day you hear her voice from your desolate hiding place. You discover music personified in the form of a grieving girl just as lonely as you are. You can't explain why you took the risk of revealing yourself to her; you only know that there’s no meaning in music anymore without that seraphic voice in your possession. Molding it, controlling it, is your closest approximation to happiness.

It doesn’t end well. Your desire turns to a murderous obsession that nearly wrecks her. You forget that that messiness of the human heart is only partly transposed in the sheet music of an opera. She isn't music personified; she’s just a woman who belongs to the living world from which you're exiled. 

Still, she shows you compassion. For a moment she sees you. In that fleeting fraction of time, she understands you better than you've bothered to understand her in your relentless quest to own her. And so you release her. With one last goodbye, she returns the ring you gave her and your eyes follow her long after her form disappears from view.

You’ve accepted it. You nod your head in resignation and kiss the ring that once touched her fingers. You'll be brave! You’ll think of her fondly and savor the fragments of her that live in your mind's eye.

Then you hear her voice again: that call that first summoned you from the darkness; the instrument that shaped you as much as it was shaped by you; the melody on which you'd set all your wretched hopes. It possesses your body as usual. As it radiates down your spine, you react like a cobra to a charmer's flute. The angelic sound seems to await your response.

But your face crumbles when her rescuer sings back. In the notes of their duet you hear all the things you can't give her, all the grief you've caused, and the sure certainty that you've lost her forever. You hang your head and realize that you're not brave; you're sorry. So very, very sorry, and...

You love her. You love her desperately!

In one of your older posts I read about how Marcus Lovett deliberately echoed Raoul and Piangi for some scenes, because he thought that Erik would mimic them in terms of “manly” behavior. I thought this was really interesting, and I was wondering if you could talk about any scenes in particular that stood out in this way?

One scene that definitely stood out was the proposal after “Point of No Return”, before the unmasking. Here Marcus Lovett’s Phantom seemed to perfectly mimick Raoul’s movements and manners in the Rooftop scene.

I thought it was an interesting take on it, and I brought it up when talking to Marcus Lovett after the show. He looked mighty pleased that I had noticed that detail. He told it was an acting choice; that he envisioned the Phantom studying the men of the opera numerous times to try and understand how a man was supposed to appear to the world. Which is why the Phantom has a slightly theatrical flair, because without realizing he was just as much studying opera roles than actual men. But with Raoul he saw genuine affections towards a woman, and this is what he figures out Christine wants - hence the PONR moment (albeit he could probably pick up more clues from Raoul, given what happens next...!)

There’s something deeply human and adorably clumsy about this, and when seeing Marcus Lovett’s Phantom again with this arch in mind I loved him doubly. He had really thought of every single little detail he did on stage, from hand movements to grander arch storytelling. Which is also why, despite moments of rusty vocals, I list him as one of my favourite Phantoms.

The Last Black Man In San Francisco (2019)

dir. joe talbot

I've been thinking a lot about the relationship between gothic romance, melodrama, and fanfiction (mostly Re: POTO) and how they've been shunted into the category of "women's media." Like women and queer folks have been writing their desires into media for centuries and being told that such desires--the excess, the sensationalism/sensuality, the emotional transcendence--are not "realistic" and only good for aesthetic consumption in its place.

But then you look at the general endurance of "women's media" through time...and the fact that even in a capitalistic world obsessed with monetization and the "hyper-real," there are whole fandoms/online communities where authors are writing fanfics with hundreds of thousands of hits for FREE and where third spaces and alternative economies based on trading and sharing have taken shape around the very same desires deemed "unrealistic"....

Idk where I was going with that, but someone gets the point. Is it that queer and feminine desire are "silly," or do they imagine other ways of living and relating to each other, our bodies, our emotions that certain power structures want us to think is impossible?

An Essay on ALW's Erik

One of the best insights I got into ALW's Phantom from some random Reddit user is to watch for whether the lead plays Erik from his own POV or from Christine's, especially in MOTN. (I also add a third option because several actors also play him from the perspective of the audience or a more omniscient narrator.)

These approaches result in entirely different, but no less accurate, interpretations of the character. For example, Earl Carpenter's performance from the first lair to the final lair is entrenched in the Phantom's perspective, from the total anxiety he projects in MOTN, to his more hesitant physical engagement with Christine, to his decision to kneel/silently beg Christine to stay with him during the ring return. And I love that there's variety within this perspective as well. Carpenter uses this POV to portray a very earnest and sympathetic (if unscocialized) Erik, but I'd argue that Anthony Warlow also falls within this category even though he leans into the darker aspects of the Phantom's psyche.

I have favorite Phantoms in both categories, but I admit that Christine's POV is actually what hooked me to this musical. I got deep into Phantom boots after losing my dad in my 20s and watching an engagement fall apart under the strain of grief. When Erik is viewed or portrayed (à la Hugh Panaro) through Christine's eyes, you can see the character undergo a pitchy transformation throughout the musical as Christine works through her own relationship to men while grieving and coming of age. Erik initially presents himself to her as a father figure, then as a full-on seducer in the first lair, and then as a total monster. The story is in part about Christine's journey toward reconciling these different ways of perceiving/relating to masculinity in the absence of what had been the only male figure in her life. And the musical approaches resolution when Christine realizes that Erik is neither her dad, her lover, or a total villain--he's just a man. And he's worthy of compassion, but she can also choose to leave him.

Anyway, I hate when people say that it's inaccurate for Erik to be "X" or "Y". Because especially through the lens of Christine's journey, Erik is all the things at one point or another (or even simultaneously). He is a daddy-coded immortal messenger and a genius and sex incarnate and unhinged and broken and, and, and...a literary figure shaped by the internal worlds of the author, the reader, and the viewer/listener. What's the point in trying to make objective claims about him? Resist binary thinking and make literary and media analysis great again.

#oh boy #i forgive Ramin for so much based on how he acted out this one moment