Kelli and Emily are at it again, going to the theater and coming here to share our reviews and make you very, very jealous of the cool stuff we’ve seen. This time, we’re talking about Moulin Rouge, the broadway musical based on the 2001 Baz Luhrman movie of the same name. Spoilers for both the movie and the play to follow, but like, dang, if you haven’t seen this movie yet, what are you doing?
Emily: Moulin Rouge is my favorite movie of all time. So when they FINALLY got around to making a musical, which first premiered on July 10, 2018 at the Emerson Colonial Theatre in Boston, I knew I WAS DESTINED to see it. Then it came to New York, and that’s when I knew I would have to drag my theater buddy Kelli along. Kelli is not as obsessed with Moulin Rouge as I am, but she was game anyway. Now here we are, one play and one rewatch of the movie later, ready to discuss this thing. So let’s get into it. Kelli, you saw this movie a super long time ago, and you didn’t really remember it going into the play, so how was that for you?
Kelli: Yeah, pretty much the only thing I remembered about the movie was Satine’s tragic fate. I didn’t even remember that most of the songs were covers — somehow I was under the impression that the entire thing was an original musical? I have terrible memory. Anyway, watching the play was interesting because I knew the vibe and the ending but not the plot machinations. One thing that really struck me was how quickly the romance progressed. In the play, they pretty much experience love at first sight, and I’m sorry but it’s always hard for me to buy that.
Emily: I think this was more difficult to convey in the play than the movie, for sure. In the movie, we get the added benefit of close ups and eye contact that really sell those feelings of love. But that’s not to say love can’t be conveyed onstage, because obviously it can. People have been doing it for years. I do feel like there was a lack of chemistry between the two leads, though. Separately Aaron Tveit and Karen Olivo were both very talented, but together, I didn’t see a lot going on between them.
Kelli: Yeah, but I’m willing to bet the close-ups thing was a big part of it. Because the script doesn’t really do much to develop the relationship — plus, the play adds in even more songs which takes away from time that could have been spent on a little bit more relationship development.
Emily: I want to talk about the songs that were added to the musical as well. Of course, whether you remembered it or not, the covers were a big part of this movie. Baz Luhrman has said he wanted to convey the idea that Christian was this brilliant songwriter who wrote the best songs, and what better way to show that than by suggesting he wrote all of these popular songs? That sounds like Baz Luhrman for “I didn’t feel like writing a whole bunch of good songs or finding someone else to do it” but whatever. For me, it clearly works in the movie to have all of these contemporary songs. The play, however, is coming out in 2018-19. The movie came out in 2001. They had to update it to make it more contemporary. That made sense to me. But how did you feel about the songs they added?
Kelli: So, I was pretty mixed. Part of the problem, I think, is that a lot of the pop music we have right now is like… exceptionally bad. Of course, they could have made some better choices too, but the pickings are slim. I don’t necessarily think they needed to add that many super current songs because a lot of the other songs in the movie are from much earlier than 2001. Additions I enjoyed: Lorde’s “Royals,” “Crazy” by Gnarls Barkley, and I actually didn’t mind “Shut Up And Dance” by Walk the Moon even though I don’t like that song IRL. It worked in the moment.
Emily: I think my favorite added song was “Bad Romance,” partially because I do love Lady Gaga, but also because choreography. I love a good dance. HOWEVER, considering these characters in the film (the Argentenian and NiNi), the idea of them being in a relationship seemed very fanfic-y to me. And tacked on. It didn’t really matter.
Kelli: Yeah, I assumed watching the play that they must have had a romance in the movie because why else would they feel the need to include something so pointless unless it was fan service? But no.
Emily: Okay so which songs did you hate?
Kelli: I think you know. “Firework” was terrible. Just terrible. That song fucking sucks. And Karen Olivo sang her heart out, but it still doesn’t make up for the fact that some songs are just stupid. At least they cut out the line “do you ever feel like a plastic bag,” because hearing that would have sent me over the edge. However, as you’ve mentioned, the song they replaced from the movie isn’t particularly good either, so… shrug emoji.
Emily: Yes, “One Day I’ll Fly Away” is my bathroom break song of the movie. Every time.
Kelli: Why wouldn’t they use “Somewhere Over the Rainbow” for this scene? I mean, come on.
Emily: Right? Judy’s having a moment right now. What did you think of the duke’s added Rolling Stones medley? I think I liked it? But the duke in the musical is SUCH a different character than the one in the movie. That’s not necessarily bad, but I haven’t really decided how I feel about this duke. I know a lot of people have argued that the duke is the weakest part of this play. I don’t agree that he’s the weakest, but I’m not sure how I feel about him either.
Kelli: Yeah, I wouldn’t say he was the weakest. I think he actually comes off as a bit more menacing in the play than he does in the movie, because in the movie the Duke is like, an uptight little nerd. In the play he’s this huge imposing scary sort of person. Unfortunately, they don’t really use his scariness as effectively as they could have, which I’m sure we’ll discuss a bit later in the post.
Emily: Right. We have to spend more time talking about all these songs because there were SO MANY. I definitely feel, like you, that the plot was sort of set aside to fit in more songs. So, like, in addition to the added songs we also have the songs from the original movie. How did you feel about them? I was impressed with some of them but HIGHLY disappointed with others.
Kelli: Well obviously I didn’t have as much of an attachment to the movie-specific versions of these songs because I didn’t remember much of the movie. I think Aaron Tveit did a lovely job with “Your Song,” which was sung about 400 times over the course of the play. But his first rendition of it was pretty spot-on, I thought.
Emily: Okay. So. My MAIN issue with “Your Song” is that it’s supposed to be Christian singing it TO Satine, and that’s why she falls in love with him. I really didn’t get, narratively-speaking, why Satine would start singing it too.
Kelli: That’s fair. See, I didn’t realize that watching the play, so I was like, aight. I figured her singing it was just her like, “getting into” the song, that maybe she wasn’t literally singing along with him. Since there are so many other moments in the movie where these people aren’t literally singing. That’s what’s interesting about musicals that take place in a setting where people might actually sing - some of the songs are happening organically and some of them are sort of within the imagination of the characters and we don’t always know which is which.
Emily: I guess I can see that being her way of getting into the song, but she already got her song. She sings her “Diamonds” medley and that’s when Christian falls in love with her. Let him sing his song to you. Y’all get to sing together later.
Kelli: I also thought “Come What May” was good, and I just have to say that this is a beautiful, beautiful song, and it makes me wonder what this movie/play would have been like if all of the music had been original. But I just looked it up and learned that the song was actually composed for Romeo + Juliet so I guess this doesn’t technically count as original...
Emily: I like that “Come What May” isn’t a song that we recognize though because it really drives the point home that this is a song created just for them and that it’s not really meant for anyone else. That was a wise decision, Baz. It’s almost like I love this movie.
Kelli: Yeah and that the song is lit. Just like love.
Emily: FUH REAL. Another song that disappointed me: “Roxanne.” I’m biased because this is my favorite part of the movie, but it just didn’t have that same emotional punch here.
Kelli: Yeah, I think it was better in the movie too, although the actor playing the Argentinian in the play, Ricky Rojas, has a very good voice!
Emily: He does. And the guy in the movie has an… interesting voice.
Kelli: Should we talk about some of the major changes they made to the plot?
Emily: Ya. First of all, there is no more play within a play set in India. Which, you know, I get is a good move to not culturally appropriate and have a bunch of white people acting in a play set in India. But also. I kind of missed all that pretty Indian-inspired set design stuff. Still. Yes. I get why they did it. There are other changes to the play within the play that simplify the plot quite a lot. The Argenenian is no longer playing the romantic lead in the play. Christian is. The writer in me did not like this at all, because writers and performers are two very different things. Sure, some people do both, but the Christian I know and love was NOT a performer. He was a writer who preferred to let Satine shine. Satine’s gift was performance, his was writing.
Kelli: Yeah, I could see that. I think Christian in the play was presented more as both, which seems like a mistake in that Christian is already a more developed character than Satine so to give him the same talent she has takes away one of the only things she has going for her.
Emily: Also, the ending is completely fucked up. I was so mad at the end of the play that Kelli had to tell me to calm the fuck down.
Kelli: Yeah she was like “OH MY GOD I CAN’T BELIEVE THIS” and I was like Emily this is a live performance, p l e a s e.
Sweet Christian would never stand for this.
Emily: I was definitely not the most obnoxious audience member there, so do not even. Anyway. Namely, after Satine rejects Christian, he goes off and BUYS A GUN. IN WHAT WORLD? Just when I was commending this play for being culturally sensitive and getting rid of the Indian cultural appropriation, they go and let a white man buy a gun and bring it into a theater? I’m sorry… this is so bad. On so many levels. Not only because it in NO WAY resembles anything a “Bohemian” poet who claims to believe in love above all else would do. But because, like, IN THIS DAY AND AGE? YOU GONNA WRITE A WHITE MAN THREATENING PEOPLE WITH A GUN IN A THEATER? BECAUSE A WOMAN REJECTED HIM? WHAT KIND OF INCEL BULLSHIT IS THIS?
Kelli: Yeah, I think they tried to make it seem like he was losing his mind (insert “Crazy” by Gnarles Barkly which I still think was a killer performance but I digress).
Emily: BUT YOU CAN GO CRAZY WITHOUT BUYING A GUN. Exhibit A: ME RIGHT NOW.
Kelli: You can???? Brb returning my gun.
Emily: Christian being the one with the gun also really changes the threat-level of the Duke. But I’ve been screaming a lot, so Kelli maybe you want to explain this bit since you teased it earlier.
Kelli: Yeah, so — the Duke is the one who is dangerous and evil, and in the movie he’s the one who brings a gun to the play with the intention of killing Satine’s lover (Christian obvi). So he’s like, this goober, but suddenly he does become a threat because he has a weapon, and it heightens the tension of that final scene because we’re waiting to see if he’s gonna shoot and if it’s going to hit someone and no one on stage seems to realize what’s going on. It’s all very dramatic and fun and almost farcical? Since nobody ends up getting hurt. By a gun, anyway. But in the play, the Duke is just chillin at this performance and Christian is the one who is going to shoot HIM, which just kind of… makes Christian into the bad guy. Which is so far from the point of this story. It’s just kind of stupid that they went through the effort of making the Duke a more threatening presence just to have him be the one who was threatened in the end.
Emily: And also: in the play, Satine does sleep with the duke pretty early on. In the movie, a big part of the tension and the reason the duke is going bananas is because he’s not getting laid. There’s a really excellent Vulture article that goes into this a little more. But basically, what stakes does the Duke have in this when he’s getting exactly what he wants? What other changes you wanna highlight? I guess we also need to talk about how THEY GOT RID OF “Like A Virgin” and replaced it with “Chandelier” and how Zidler is using the song to distract Christian instead of the Duke and how that changes… a lot.
Kelli: Also, “Chandelier” is another bad song. Sorry Sia, that’s just how I feel. I hate the way she says chandelier because it just sounds like she’s saying “chandalee” and for a really long time I was like “what the fuck is this song even about?” So yeah, that wasn’t working for me.
Emily: I keep coming up with stuff, but if you have something, please say it now because you know my ass can rant forever about the changes this play made.
Kelli: Well I know you also wanted to talk about Satine’s illness and how that was changed around in the storyline of the play, and how that had an unfortunate effect on her ALREADY weakly-developed character because it made her motivations really confusing. Then again, I was also confused during the movie because this bitch was coughing up blood and was then shocked to discover that she was dying. I mean, I guess they knew a lot less about tuberculosis back then, but it’s just funny when we’re so familiar with the trope of someone coughing into a handkerchief and seeing blood to have a character do that exact thing and not know what it means.
Emily: Well, I also think the Satine in the movie is in hard denial land. She has these dreams of becoming an actress and getting out of the courtesan life. This is also something they leave out of the play. But anyway, she’s so hopeful for her future that when the doctor comes to see her and everyone’s like, “Yeah, he says you’re fine,” she believes them. Because why wouldn’t she? But in the play, she knows she’s dying. She finds out offstage at some point. And she’s the one keeping it from everyone because she wants Christian’s play to go on without a hitch. This was weird to me because, like, his play can go on with your understudy, I’m pretty sure. Also the fact that she knows and tells everyone later completely takes out the drama AND changes characters a whole lot. In the play, she tells Zidler she’s dying, and Zidler tells her not to do the play. In the movie, Zidler knows all along that she’s dying and doesn’t tell her so that their play can get made and he can continue to use Satine to pull in money for the Moulin Rouge. Very different.
Kelli: Yeah, definitely. I see what you’re saying about the denial and I accept your hypothesis. I guess maybe in the play she was so adamant to keep going because she knew Christian wanted HER to be the one because a lot of his material is about her? But also, if he knew she was sick he would not want her performing either. So yeah, IDK.
Emily: I just want to make sure I go on the record as saying that making changes from the original for the adaptation is not inherently a bad idea. In fact, it’s an excellent opportunity to strengthen and complicate a story that we all know and love. But for the most part, that’s not what’s happening here. They’ve taken a storyline that’s already fairly simple and simplified it to the point where there’s barely a lick of character development. And the character actions that do happen (like with Christian and Zidler) do not make sense at all. Overall, this play just didn’t seem concerned with plot. This was all about the costumes, the music, the dancing, and the set designs. And it’s not really ashamed of that.
Kelli: Yeah, I would agree with that. I will say that I think this movie is harder to adapt than one might think it would be, especially the beginning parts — Luhrmann has a really frenetic filmmaking style and all of the information we are presented at the beginning about who Christian is, what he’s doing in France, who Tolouse and Santiago are, all that stuff happens really really fast in a way that would be impossible to do on stage without, you know, crazy editing. During intermission you were like, ‘they really have’t gotten very far into the story at all,’ and I think that’s one of the problems with the play overall as an adaptation. Most of the first act is exposition, plus extra songs. Again, this is what makes the romance so much less believable than it is in the movie; it doesn’t get as much time and attention because there’s too much to explain, despite the fact that the story is simple. I don’t know what they could have done to fix this — probably have less songs, but also maybe a longer production, to be honest. And I’m not usually a person who says “that should have been longer,” but I think this could have benefited from an extra 15 minutes. Maybe they could have told the story the right way then.
Emly: I do see what you’re saying. I think they made a smart decision in the beginning to start in the Moulin Rouge with the big number and then have Christian enter. In the movie, we start slow and sad and then work our way to the Moulin Rouge. This was much more theatrical and got us into the action right away. There is actually a lot of exposition at the very beginning of the movie, but it happens quickly, because, like you said, the beginning of this movie is very frenetic. And I do feel like that is on purpose. We get the sense that Christian is sad and lost without Satine, because he has a beard (lol). And before he met Satine, he was a little overwhelmed with the world and had a lot to learn, so everything seems fast and like… too much. When their romance starts, things begin to go at a more normal pace. I think this helps the audience connect with Christian emotionally in the movie, whether they’re realizing that’s happening or not. How do you replicate that in a play? I’m not sure.
Kelli: That’s a good point. I agree that I liked the way this show opened, and I liked the way Christian was introduced. There is a moment where he steps out and the whole Moulin Rouge freezes and the spotlight goes to him, which lets the audience know like, hey, this ya boi. I think that despite the misstep with the gun, overall Christian is still a strong character in the play, and since we’re following him that’s obviously really important. I cared about him, whereas I didn’t really care that much about Satine.
Emily: I agree. Which is a damn shame because Karen Olivo was really talented, and, let’s be real, has a WAY BETTER voice than Nicole Kidman. And yet for how much she’s onstage, she never feels like a fully realized character. A lot of that I think has to do with the way they changed (and removed) her character’s motivations. I do want to talk about what we liked about this play a little bit more. Because I did enjoy a lot about it. The sets were BEAUTIFUL, and I loved the costumes, even though Satine’s costumes in the movie are still like, ugh, the best, some of those costumes would not have been very practical for the stage version because they looked intricate and would not work with fast costume changes. Also the choreography in this play, by Sonya Tayeh, was great.
Kelli: YES, the costumes. Also, it was pretty cool that when we took our seats at the beginning, for probably 15 minutes leading up to the performance there were actually actors already on stage doing some sexy pole dancing in their costumes, and it was really cool. I don’t think I’ve ever been to a show where the performers come out and do things before the show even starts. I’m sure it’s been done plenty, but I thought it was unique and interesting. (And hot.)
Emily: Yes. I cannot stress this enough. This play was fucking sexy.
Hotties, right?
Kelli: Speaking of hot, I do want to reiterate how good Aaron Tveit was. Like, first of all, he’s a fucking cutie pie. You have a lot to live up to when you’re filling the shoes of world’s cutiest pie Ewan McGregor, but I thought Tveit was really believable and brought this version of the character to life. Also, his voice is SO good. He sings his first couple of lines and it’s like, shit. This guy.
Emily: Yes, Aaron Tveit was actually a big selling point for me going into this play because I thought he was so good in Les Miserables. And Les Miserables is my favorite musical of all time and I was not pleased with the movie over all, so the fact that I LIKED him in that movie says a lot, to me anyway. I know no one else cares lol.
Kelli: I notice that in a lot of musicals I’ve gone to, the male lead is rarely as strong as the female lead vocally (because, as in all things, women have to be better at things in order to get the same opportunities that men get for being mediocre), but this was not the case here. Which is not to say anything bad about Karen Olivo — her voice was great too — but they were actually a match for each other talent-wise.
Emily: Yes, across the board, the talent in this show was A+. I loved what these two leads did with the roles. My only gripe with them, which I mentioned earlier, was the lack of chemistry. It’s weird because they’re both so fucking sexy. But I think it’s just the play’s fault for not giving us time to love them as characters and see them fall in love. They did a killer job with what they were given, and considering how much I love Ewan McGregor and Nicole Kidman, my expectations were high and were exceeded. Like I said, Karen Olivo was probably BETTER than Nicole Kidman. Sorrryyyyyy….
Kelli: Yeah, Nicole Kidman’s acting performance was good, but the singing left… something to be desired. Like, range, for example.
Emily: Which is fine for a movie musical. But yeah, we needed amazing vocals for Satine live on stage. She is, after all, a performer. And just to mention another song that worked really well in the show, her “Diamonds” medley was great.
Kelli: Overall, I still enjoyed the experience of watching the play, even though it had some real flaws. Going to a musical is always fun, though. I would recommend it to people for the quality of the production and the performances. But I would also recommend that you watch the movie right afterwards, like I did.
Emily: And then watch it every year for the rest of your life, like I do. Because it is, for real, SO good. Don’t @ me.
Moulin Rouge: The Musical is now playing on Broadway. Moulin Rouge, the movie, is available to rent, or you can stream it on HBO: Now. Or you can come over to Emily’s house and watch it with her any time.