Re: ALW's The Phantom of the Opera (20??): the remake

providerofgoods Sun Mar 29, 2015 12:10 pm

LadyCDaae wrote:

However, the reason why I like it where it originally is in the narrative is because it represents the major tonal shift in the story. There's no way anybody can dismiss the "Opera Ghost" business anymore--the Phantom is a very real, very dangerous threat that has everybody running scared and trying to figure a way out before more people get hurt. It ups the stakes in a huge way, and I think that contributes to a lot of the drive in the second act.

~LCD

And that's why I like how you dealt with it. The death of a stagehand that, for all the general public knew, could be simply one of the strangest suicides (outside of an actual opera) in the Garnier is certainly horrifying, but is not, to this reader, a clear enough move toward the tonal shift. The chandelier crash (or explosion, as in the U.S. leg of the current non-replica Mackintosh tour) is bold, highly dramatic, impossible to miss.