Hello Again

[Larstrup]

 

The film, based on Michael John LaChiusa’s 1994 musical (itself inspired by Arthur Schnitzler’s 1897 play La Ronde), follows a series of ten love affairs and flings throughout various eras in New York City history.

 

McDonald takes on the role of Sally on the big screen; joining her in the cast are Martha Plimpton, T.R. Knight, Rumer Willis, Cheyenne Jackson, Jenna Ushkowitz, Tyler Blackburn, Sam Underwood, Nolan Gerard Funk, and Al Calderon.

 

Hello Again is directed by Tom Gustafson and features a script by Cory Krueckeberg. It made its world premiere at the Inside Out Toronto LGBT Film Festival June 4; subsequent screenings are set to take place throughout the summer in New York, Los Angeles, San Francisco, London, and beyond.

[bostonman]

I'll be very interested in seeing how this turns out. The new song seems a strange fit, even with a score that deliberately spans decades of musical styles. (Previously, the most "contemporary" sound in the show was for the scene between the writer and the "young thing" - part of that song is in the trailer clip.) The one truly "breakout hit" (if one can call it that, lol) in the original show is called "Tom," which is the other song we hear sung in the trailer.

 

And it seems that the new song/scene replaces the one in the stage show that was originally done as a silent movie pastiche - one of the odder scenes in the show, but yet, it might have been fun to see that done in an actual film context. Hopefully it will work just fine.

 

I've done the show - for many of us theatre folk, it was our introduction to the eclectic and complex music and mind of Michael John LaChiusa. (I've also done a production of his show See What I Wanna See, which in part is an adaptation of Rashomon, and a very intricate, complex, wonderful, and odd show, with a score that is incredibly tough but ultimately very moving.) Hello Again, even onstage, calls for a good deal of graphic (but simulated, of course) sexual play (the script even gives stage directions as to when characters have their orgasms lol) - it's also in some ways an incredibly depressing show, as none of the characters in their various rendezvous ever wind up really getting what they want - and what strikes me is that it's in some ways a very unrelenting look at a lot of lonely and dissatisfied people, reaching and wishing for that one lover or experience they can't ever really have. Which can be tough going in scene after scene. But there's also a lot of humor in the show, and it's a very clever score with musical themes that intersect and play off of each other, across the random sequence of decades in which the show takes place.

 

One major casting change in this version is that the Senator (now called "The Politician") will be played by Martha Plimpton - in the stage musical it's a male role. Though there were two gay male scenes in the stage version, there was no lesbian scene - so now there is. (And in fact as I recall, the Senator was one of the very few characters in the original to reveal themselves as bisexual.) The other major change is that the very first character, "The Whore," was originally a female role (Donna Murphy), and will now be played by a man (Sam Underwood).

 

LaChiusa is not a composer much known outside of avid musical theatre fans - I would assume that his most popular show continues to be The Wild Party - a Broadway show which competed in the same season with a high-profile off-Broadway musical based on the same source, by Andrew Lippa. Seems to me that Lippa's version has stood the test of time a bit better, though LaChiusa's score is no less compelling

 

No doubt the Hello Again film is going to be drastically different than the show. But I'll be eager to see what they do. And, though the score is still surely going to be a tricky one for new listeners, it would be nice to see LaChiusa get some more recognition, in the same way that Pasek And Paul got a nice name for themselves for the songs in La La Land, on their way to their Tony awards for Dear Evan Hansen.

[actor61]

I'll be very interested in seeing how this turns out. The new song seems a strange fit, even with a score that deliberately spans decades of musical styles. (Previously, the most "contemporary" sound in the show was for the scene between the writer and the "young thing" - part of that song is in the trailer clip.) The one truly "breakout hit" (if one can call it that, lol) in the original show is called "Tom," which is the other song we hear sung in the trailer.

 

And it seems that the new song/scene replaces the one in the stage show that was originally done as a silent movie pastiche - one of the odder scenes in the show, but yet, it might have been fun to see that done in an actual film context. Hopefully it will work just fine.

 

I've done the show - for many of us theatre folk, it was our introduction to the eclectic and complex music and mind of Michael John LaChiusa. (I've also done a production of his show See What I Wanna See, which in part is an adaptation of Rashomon, and a very intricate, complex, wonderful, and odd show, with a score that is incredibly tough but ultimately very moving.) Hello Again, even onstage, calls for a good deal of graphic (but simulated, of course) sexual play (the script even gives stage directions as to when characters have their orgasms lol) - it's also in some ways an incredibly depressing show, as none of the characters in their various rendezvous ever wind up really getting what they want - and what strikes me is that it's in some ways a very unrelenting look at a lot of lonely and dissatisfied people, reaching and wishing for that one lover or experience they can't ever really have. Which can be tough going in scene after scene. But there's also a lot of humor in the show, and it's a very clever score with musical themes that intersect and play off of each other, across the random sequence of decades in which the show takes place.

 

One major casting change in this version is that the Senator (now called "The Politician") will be played by Martha Plimpton - in the stage musical it's a male role. Though there were two gay male scenes in the stage version, there was no lesbian scene - so now there is. (And in fact as I recall, the Senator was one of the very few characters in the original to reveal themselves as bisexual.) The other major change is that the very first character, "The Whore," was originally a female role (Donna Murphy), and will now be played by a man (Sam Underwood).

 

LaChiusa is not a composer much known outside of avid musical theatre fans - I would assume that his most popular show continues to be The Wild Party - a Broadway show which competed in the same season with a high-profile off-Broadway musical based on the same source, by Andrew Lippa. Seems to me that Lippa's version has stood the test of time a bit better, though LaChiusa's score is no less compelling

 

No doubt the Hello Again film is going to be drastically different than the show. But I'll be eager to see what they do. And, though the score is still surely going to be a tricky one for new listeners, it would be nice to see LaChiusa get some more recognition, in the same way that Pasek And Paul got a nice name for themselves for the songs in La La Land, on their way to their Tony awards for Dear Evan Hansen.

If it has Martha Plimpton, I'm in !