After witnessing The Phantom of The Opera live an in person, I decided that I needed to see the sequel since you know who likes a
So the show starts out 10 years after the original with the Phantom alone on stage singing a song about how Christine ruined him for forever, and that no song he ever writes will ever be the same again, unless she sings it. Alright, alright, calm down Phantom your music is too complex and no one understands it, and I doubt the beautiful singing of Christine can salvage it. We soon learn that the Phantom is loaded, like dolla dolla bills y'all loaded. He owns a vaudeville freak show in Coney Island (yes there is a little person in the cast, who is more or less used as a human prop), and guess who the star of his show is! You'll never guess, okay I'll tell you, Meg Giriy! Remember her? The girl who holds up the mask at the end of the first one? Well she grew up, and aged 20 years (or 30), and she's a singer now, hoping for her big break, will she get it? Who knows!
After Meg does her weird dance/song thing, we learn that Christine and Raoul are coming to America (oh PS Christine is a mega star now! Like huge, everyone knows her), to sing at the opening of a new opera in NYC, but wait! The Phantom tricks her into performing at his vaudeville show instead. Oh and guess what? Christine now has a German son named Gustav, and guess what, he's musically gifted! Could it be? Could it? Is it The Phantom's son?! Anyway, Raoul lost all his money and Christine is all like "don't worry baby, with my skills I'll take care of you!"
Then came one of the most head scratching moments of all, a weird love duet between the Phantom and Christine. My impression in the first show, is that Christine was mesmerized by the Phantom, she was not in love with him, he used his power over her to manipulate her, and eventually raping her, he raped her remember? Do you, cos he did. Anyway, in this new show, Christine is actually madly in love with the Phantom and willing copulated with him. Uh alright, that's fine throw out major plot points, and make it a new story, okay.
So after the Phantom and Christine are all over each other, Raoul is like "I'm going to make a bet with the Phantom, about who Christine loves more." Yadda, yadda, yadda, long story short, Meg doesn't get her big break, Christine sings a weird song dressed as a peacock, and then bam someone gets shot. The end, I would describe more, but it's time to get to the critique.
Okay ALW, I get that you have some of the most successful musicals of all time, and you know what, it's okay to stop writing musicals, it really is. I promise. You've lost touch with reality, your ego has gotten so large that you think you can do no wrong, but you have, oh you have.
The score sounds like all the throw-away songs from other musicals, the overproduced scores that you are known for, it's a mess. And Glenn Slater, your lyrics are lazy, like you weren't even trying, you gave everyone expected rhymes and cheesy lyrics. I cannot fault the performers since they went above and beyond the material and elevated it to something (albeit a bad something, in less capable hands, the show would have been an even bigger mess).
Your characters, all your characters did a 180 from the original production, Phantom is still crazy yes, but Raoul turned into a mean drunk, whereas before he was a loving person who fought viciously to protect his soon to be bride from a rapist and murderer. Christine turned into an idiot, in the original production she was sort of strong and stood up for herself, and was like "Uh Phantom you raped me but I forgive you, you are a victim of circumstance, but you're still bad, so no we're not bf/gf." Meg turned from innocent dancer into a weird crazy bitch who was jealous of everyone and ends up killing someone! What?!
I don't recommend seeing this sequel. If you're a die hard Phantom fan you will probably be disappointed since the music and plot do not live up to the original.
The production probably will not come to NYC, so if you want to see it, you'll have to fly to Australia.
1 star out of 4
