There is not much to say about this story. We all know it is a tale of miscarriage of justice, of sexual greed, of alienation and injustice, and of final revenge that turns sour. This is a typical Victorian story in the line of Jack the Ripper and so many other crimes of that type, and I should say multiple killers or serial killers one century before the FBI invented profiling.
This particular production is special since it is a Broadway production of the musical that Tim Burton brought to the silver screen many years later. This particular production was actually brought to TV a long time ago and it is this TV version that they remastered and brought to us in this format. The sound is perfect of course since in the 1980s FM sound also call hi-fi sound was already arrived. The pictures are good though from a TV standard, probably professional, probably Betamax. The remastering was only used to clean up the sound and probably too to densify the resolution. So we can consider we have the best possible rendering of this old production.
The interest is to have a stage production from Broadway and from a period when special effects were not yet the norm on the stage. The stage production was supposed to create emotion in the spectators and they mostly only had human means to do so. They only wrapped up the human means in a stage setting that could increase or decrease the realistic effect. They chose to break up that realistic effect with the systematic use of machinery visible to the audience. Constantly elements, some enormous, are moved on the stage, turned around more or less building up structures that are supposed to render the various locations and the various scenes. It is totally artificial and it works perfectly because of the other dimension which is used in the most genial way imaginable.
This other dimension is the use of actors, singers and "dancers," in one word stage performers. The music is good but we do not see the musicians. The singers are not opera singers but musical singers and they are good not so much because of their voices but because they use their voices as one element of their performing. That performing is physical and the voices are part of this physicalness. The voices, the physical performing on the stage (movements and other physical contact or absence of contact) and the phenomenal body language and facial expressions, it all is extremely effective to create emotion and density. The situations are deep and heavy because of this performing qualities. It is what has slightly been reduced in the most recent period by the use of special effects. In those old days special effects were hardly available and the actors had to work with their bodies, voices and faces to create those emotions. And that was a time that has unluckily mostly disappeared.
In this case we have a real masterpiece because everything is looking artificial and yet the emotions look extremely realistic. That's a stage directing choice that was more or less the only solution at the time if the stage director wanted to produce an emotional and powerful show. This is a real success along that line.
Dr Jacques COULARDEAU
This particular production is special since it is a Broadway production of the musical that Tim Burton brought to the silver screen many years later. This particular production was actually brought to TV a long time ago and it is this TV version that they remastered and brought to us in this format. The sound is perfect of course since in the 1980s FM sound also call hi-fi sound was already arrived. The pictures are good though from a TV standard, probably professional, probably Betamax. The remastering was only used to clean up the sound and probably too to densify the resolution. So we can consider we have the best possible rendering of this old production.
The interest is to have a stage production from Broadway and from a period when special effects were not yet the norm on the stage. The stage production was supposed to create emotion in the spectators and they mostly only had human means to do so. They only wrapped up the human means in a stage setting that could increase or decrease the realistic effect. They chose to break up that realistic effect with the systematic use of machinery visible to the audience. Constantly elements, some enormous, are moved on the stage, turned around more or less building up structures that are supposed to render the various locations and the various scenes. It is totally artificial and it works perfectly because of the other dimension which is used in the most genial way imaginable.
This other dimension is the use of actors, singers and "dancers," in one word stage performers. The music is good but we do not see the musicians. The singers are not opera singers but musical singers and they are good not so much because of their voices but because they use their voices as one element of their performing. That performing is physical and the voices are part of this physicalness. The voices, the physical performing on the stage (movements and other physical contact or absence of contact) and the phenomenal body language and facial expressions, it all is extremely effective to create emotion and density. The situations are deep and heavy because of this performing qualities. It is what has slightly been reduced in the most recent period by the use of special effects. In those old days special effects were hardly available and the actors had to work with their bodies, voices and faces to create those emotions. And that was a time that has unluckily mostly disappeared.
In this case we have a real masterpiece because everything is looking artificial and yet the emotions look extremely realistic. That's a stage directing choice that was more or less the only solution at the time if the stage director wanted to produce an emotional and powerful show. This is a real success along that line.
Dr Jacques COULARDEAU