You know this movie isn't about ethnicity, right?

Leslye Headland wrote it, that's reason enough for me to see it. Bachelorette was brilliant, IMO.

In the words of Little Sally, "But the music sounds so happy!"

LOL, now I want to hear the Lerner and Lowe version of Rent.

I guess it's not that bad. I just read a detailed synopsis and think I might be imagining rape where there's no rape. This robber steals a girl's clothes while she's bathing, so she has to run home naked. The next day she goes back out into the woods to find him and they have sex. After that, she follows him home and…

Ok, let's compare Larson to another musical theatre composer who died young (he lived three years longer than Larson): George Gershwin.

Robber Bridegroom is such a better show than Seven Brides for Seven Brothers, to be fair. It's a great show!

Anyone Can Whistle - 9 performances
Rent - 5,123 performances

Don't quibble, Sybil! ;)

"Most musicals don't even attempt the kind of complexity of 'Christmas
Bells' because it requires too much talent and discipline of the cast" - huh? That kind of ensemble number goes back to the 50s - it's reminiscent of the "Birthday Song" in Fanny and "The Fox Hunt" in Mame. And honestly, it just hearkens back to…

The movie version is 15 minutes shorter than this: http://en.wikipedia.org/wik…. Much of that time is cut because so many lyrics are spoken verbatim as dialogue, and dialogue is always shorter than a song. Very little of what you call filler is cut from the movie.

As Noel Coward once wrote, "Strange how potent cheap music is."

Which got me thinking…is The Robber Bridegroom too problematic to enjoy these days? Because it's so overtly comedic, Jamie is never really called to account for his actions, unlike how Hammerstein clearly abhors Billy's behavior in Carousel.

sharculese, I love you for the Robber Bridegroom reference (I'm going to go listen to that album right now), but technically speaking there's no wife abuse in that show. Jamie and Rosamund don't get married until the end, right?

To be fair, the movie version is terrible even to people who absolutely loved it on stage. It's just a really really bad movie.

You blame Rent for that? I bet half the hipsters in Williamsburg have never seen Rent. The idea of poverty being romantic was around a long time before Rent ever existed.

I would rather see 1,000 good musicals than any of the ones you named. Why can't that be an option?

By the time I started listening to Sweeney Todd, I was well past loving Rent. I'm kind of surprised she loved them both at the same time.

Marah, I was right there with you. I was in every show in high school, and we listened to the Rent CD constantly in the dressing room. My moment of clarity came in junior year, when I actually saw Rent. I remember sitting there and thinking, "Wow, this isn't very good."

I don't know (gave up my physical subscription), but if they do have the BD, it's more than likely the non-Criterion edition without the extended cut.