How do you solve a problem like “Maria”?

Last updated on: December 7, 2013 at 9:29 pm by Jane the Actuary

How do you solve a problem like “Maria”? 2013-12-07T21:29:00-06:00 Jane the Actuary

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Everybody’s getting snarky about the NBC “Sound of Music” production.

Here are the obvious observations (every article or post about SoM seems to be in list form, so I’ll follow suit):

1) NBC always said they were producing the original Broadway production, not the Julie Andrews movie. Anyone who gripes that this didn’t follow the script properly and, for instance, had moved My Favorite Things and The Lonely Goatherd around shouldn’t even be commenting.

2) It’s not Julie Andrews. Get over it.

3) Yes, Carrie was more reciting memorized lines than acting, and it would have been lovely to have a highly talented Broadway cast, accustomed to singing, acting, and dancing — but NBC needed (or had good reason to believe they needed) an A-list performer to bring in the ratings.
Fundamentally, if you’re the sort of person that was bothered by Carrie’s (lack of) acting experience and got all snarky about the movie, and didn’t like the Wal-Mart commercials with the (Mormon? Quiverfull?) family, this wasn’t for you. Just go away, change the channel, but leave this for the rest of us — I thought it was nice, and appreciated the differences (** click below for more on these differences, after the break in case you haven’t seen it yet), while still being nostalgic for the childhood memories of the annually televised SoM.

Here’s what I really liked about the production: it really gave you the feel of being at the theater. Yes, it was an odd hybrid, with what must have been a massive soundstage, to have the different sets adjoining each other, and they had some interesting transitions from one scene to another, but it was still a quite different feel than watching a movie. Now, with three children, it’s no easy feat to find a family-friendly production (and to pay the cost of five tickets), or to find a babysitter for my husband and I to go into the city — and yet, we’re certainly more able to than most American families where finances are tighter. For us, it was a bit of a motivator to say, “let’s experience the real thing again — it’s been too long.” For other families, it was quite likely as close to a theatrical performance as they might experience.

And this was for families — and my boys (yes, my boys) have been singing half-remembered lines since then. So little on TV is family-friendly — what’s so wrong with giving us a few crumbs, something I can allow my kids to watch rather than chasing them to bed before yet another kid-inappropriate crime show? I was glad to read that the ratings were high, and I hope that NBC tries this again.

Oh, and some more observations on the “it’s not Julie Andrews” attitude: yes, of course it’s not Julie Andrews. Adults in good mental health can cope with changes and differences, you know. Consider the Les Miserables movie — it wasn’t the musical. It took shortcuts and cut out songs or shrunk them drastically. Watching it (on DVD) was a lovely experience, and I pulled out the Les Miz soundtrack the next day, and remembered when my friends and I had tickets in college. But I’m mature enough to recognize that the movie and the musical were two different productions.

I have fond memories of the Julie Andrews musical. I remember falling asleep to it when it was aired on Thanksgiving or Easter (it always rotated with The Wizard of Oz, didn’t it?). And when we were in Salzberg, travelling, we picked up a souvenir brochure at the train station and visited some of the sites. I may even watch it again, say, with the kids, when they’re off school at Christmas. But the musical is largely about the music, not about Julie Andrews herself.

(Click below for “spoilers” and a picture.)

The most interesting differences were the ways that Nazis factored in:
— Max and Frau Schrader promoted cooperation with the Nazis, in a song that got cut from the movie.
— Georg and Frau Schrader broke up because he couldn’t go along and told Ilsa he’d resist.
— After the family performs, Max warns them that the Nazis are going to scoop up Georg from the festival itself, so that the family flees, and Max is taken by the Nazis for his efforts.
— Rolf is with the Nazis at the abbey, but does not betray the family.

The other interesting difference is that, as far as I can tell, the family NOT is identified as being from Salzberg, but the name of the abbey, Nonnberg, becomes the name of the town, and the music festival is not the Salzberg Festival. I’m not entirely sure, and I’m not going to watch the show again to figure it out, but if I’m right, then I imagine this was to address one of the continuing snarky criticisms of the movie: the fact that if the family did, indeed, cross the mountains from Salzberg, they’d end up in Germany. (In fact, in the movie, they talk about the borders being closed, and having to cross the border by foot — after having driven through Austria to the Swiss border — and, if I remember the book correctly, that does reflect reality, though they don’t actually show the road trip part, of course. And, actually, to be specific, though Germany borders Austria at Salzberg, it’s a river, not a mountain, that forms the border.)

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