A Few Coraline Musical Links

NY1 has a little feature with some bits from the show here.

My theater companion, Betsy Bird, has a very thorough review here.    It was a lot of fun seeing it with her!

And one more positive review is here.

Coraline Musical: Impressions

Eerie, elegant, and witty,  Neil Gaiman’s Coraline is one of my favorite contemporary children’s books, one that I love reading aloud to my fourth graders.  My response to adaptations of it have been mixed. I wasn’t wild about the graphic novel as I thought Coraline looked too old in it.  As for the movie, I thought it was visually gorgeous, but have to admit that I was a bit disappointed in Coraline’s character — too petulant — and the altered ending.

And now we have Stephen Merrit and David Greenspan’s musical version.  The first thing to know is that it is NOT FOR YOUNG CHILDREN and that is just fine.  Merritt has made this very clear, but there were still children under the age of eight in the audience at the performance I attended yesterday, one of whom was sitting near me and began sobbing midway through. His parents attempted unsuccessfully to console him and finally took him out.

Okay, is that out of the way?  For it is quite a theatrical experience for the rest — the  staging is both magical and creepy, the performances engaging,  Gaiman’s book is intact, and the whole thing is quite mesmerizing.Most of the music is done by piano — conventional (I think), prepared, and toy.  Occasionally other instruments are used — say balloons.  The set is delightful; the lighting gorgeous.  The acting, singing, dancing, and movement is also quite splendid in its way.

For someone who knows the story, there is a delight in seeing how it is represented here.  The mouse circus, the two aging vaudeville stars, the cat, the parents (original and Other), the souls, are all imaginatively conceived. Most of all, Coraline IS Coraline as I knew her in the book — crafty, clever, and brave.I’d read about the casting of a middle-aged woman, Jayne Houdyshell, as Coraline, and had admittedly wondered how that would go, but I gotta say that in the context of this production, it totally worked. She was terrific.

How it will fare with those who don’t know the story will be interesting to see. The plot is complex and often Coraline has to tell us that she is now somewhere else.  We in the known are amused, but those not?  I’ll be interested to see how it works for them.

An extremely eccentric, odd, fascinating, beautiful, and very satisfying piece of avant-garde theater.

This Coraline is… well…not..er…um…read for yourself

MCC, which is producing the piece, recommends it for children aged eight and up, but Merritt hopes the crowd will skew older: “I had a fantasy of doing Coraline entirely naked, so there would be no children in the audience.” At present, the actors are clothed, and Merritt has excised the American curse words he originally added (a nod to kiddie sensibilities). Yet removing them so annoyed him that “I put British swear words in where they’re totally gratuitous: ‘Bugger all.’ ‘Sod off.’ ” And Merritt, who acquired the theatrical rights some years ago, chose some distinctly adult collaborators. He hired cult playwright David Greenspan to write the book and Leigh Silverman, whose résumé includes nary a children’s show, to direct. Together, they selected the 55-year-old Jayne Houdyshell to play little Coraline. Greenspan, no stranger to drag roles, is slotted in as Coraline’s Other Mother, a demon entity in an apron. (From this Village Voice article.)

I’m going to see a Sunday matinee performance (where, I’m guessing,  a few kids  will be in attendence, some perhaps younger than eight, as parents don’t necessarily pay attention to recommended age ranges) with Ms. Bird and will let you know what I think.

Neil Gaiman and Roger Sutton Together At Last

RS: Which is what I felt about SLJ’s report—“Surprise! The Newbery Goes to a Popular Book.”

NG: I thought SLJ had made this up, that people were saying, “Gaiman is a foul-mouthed yahoo!” I had just written a lengthy and well-considered blog entry, which, actually, was probably the only thing that kept me sane during the 40 minutes between getting the news I had won and being able to tell anybody. [Laughter] The Twitter just sort of went, “Waaaaaaaaaaaah! My God, I did it!”

RS: I thought that SLJ report was…

NG: I thought it was stupid. I’ve been reading the whole thing about what kind of book should win the Newbery with an interest that was not personal. I did not consider that The Graveyard Book would be in the running, or at least I figured that if it was, it would probably be in the top 30, if there was a top 30. It had not occurred to me that it was actually likely to be anything other than—if the gods smiled and the world was right—possibly a Newbery Honor Book.

My favorite comment honestly was the one from the Guardian, where somebody in the U.K. just wrote an essay that said, “Well, you know, they’ve been arguing about whether the Newbery winner should be popular or whether it should be excellent, and they’ve got The Graveyard Book, which effectively demolishes the entire argument, because it’s both. So there.”

Roger Sutton interviews Neil Gaiman at School Library Journal.

The Other Coraline

“Coraline” the movie opened on Friday; “Coraline” the musical is in the works. MCC Theater has just announced a bit of unconventional casting news for its stage adaptation of the graphic novel by Neil Gaiman. Jayne Houdyshell, 55, who was nominated for a Tony award for her performance in “Well,” will play the 9-year-old Coraline, who wishes for a better a life and finds a parallel universe that holds great promise (until she gets to know her new parents). David Greenspan wrote the book and will also play the creepy Other Mother. The music and lyrics are by Stephin Merritt, of the Magnetic Fields, and Leigh Silverman is the director. Previews begin May 7 at the Lucille Lortel Theater (mcctheater.org). Another ‘Coraline’ Waits in the Wings

Neil Gaiman On Ambiguity, Musicals, and Other Stuff

Those following Neil Gaiman on twitter will know that he is doing interviews 24/7.   Posting from his bath, he writes  that “The biggest problem with being over-interviewed, and exhausted, and testy, and very, very tired, is you get much too honest.”  Well, I’ll take his honesty any day!  I found the following two interviews particularly insightful.

One is John Constantine’s over at The Daily Beast. Some wonderful extremely non-PG moments, say the answer he gives to this question (and you will have to go to the interview to read it):

Both The Graveyard Book and Coraline are both very dark but nowhere near as sinister as your early fiction was.

And no doubt better fans than I knew this already:

What’s the one medium where you haven’t told a story yet?

I’d like to write an original musical. If you get them right, they plug straight into the emotions in a way that reminds me a lot of comics. The musical isn’t a gutter medium. Stephen Sondheim’s been working in it for 50 years.

Then there’s Jeffery Brown’s interview at Art Beat.  One small point toward the end gave me a bit of a giggle; it will be rectified soon (and was initiated pre-Newbery).

And here’s a bit of coolness — Neil blogs about my good friend Judith Ridge’s blog, misrule!  Way to go, Judith!

Judith at Misrule.com.au tried to keep track of the various interviews and failed, but has a really good list of useful and important stuff anyway. (The whole blog has excellent thoughts of children’s fiction, particularly from an Australian perspective, where the Australian press sometimes has a strange habit of always being about 15 years behind everyone else when it comes to realising that things like children’s books, graphic novels or genre fiction might actually have some validity or even readers.)

Now THIS is the sort of celebrity-written kid book I go for!

There’s been so much discontent in our small little corner of the literary scene about celebrities (say actors or singers or politician’s children) dashing off children’s books.  Well, I just want to point out that Neil Gaiman is one BIG celebrity and I’m not seeing any carping about that, thank goodness!

In fact, the Newbery is getting media mention in places heretofore I would suspect the word has never been used.  MTV, anyone?

Neil Gaiman, the prolific multimedia scribe who we’ve been mentioning quite a bit lately in reference to the upcoming 3D animated adaptation of his novel “Coraline,” has been awarded the John Newbery Medal — one of the most prestiguous awards for children literature — by the American Library Association. Gaiman received the award for his recently published story “The Graveyard Book,” about a boy raised by ghosts.

Koumpounophobia

Gaiman on Fear of Buttons here.

Creepy

Thanks to Neil Gaiman for letting me know I can select my very own button eyes for me and my gal (aka Lucy).  At the coraline site, go to the Other Mother Workshop (but not if you are already unnerved by the photo below or the book in general).

Useful Information

From Peter via Neil Gaiman is the handy dandy factoid that OTHERWORLD is the key to easily accessing the various videos at the coraline website.

PS On the same blog post, Neil responds sensibly to a rather impassioned request regarding fan fiction.