It's extremely rare, or rather, extremely never (until this very post), that we discuss anything related to a musical, play, or otherwise. It's something broads juice-up over and ultimately drag us to. Not exactly the headline to a Saturday night out with the boys. As plays or musicals go, however, there are two brands for a man's brain: the tolerable and the miserable. Tolerable is maybe something like "Jersey Boys" or "Book of Mormon," whereas the miserable is something along the lines of just about everything else. With a few exceptions, I suppose.
News coming out of Broadway is that "Rocky" has been given the green light to be turned into a musical by 2013. My initial thought was that I just had my proof God doesn't exist. But "Rocky" was an Academy Award–winning movie, and has a soundtrack that most guys love, so I think it might fall under the tolerable listing. Now if Stallone were bringing himself to the stage, I'd scratch the tolerable tag entirely and make it a must-see. Sadly, he is not. I guess people think he's too old to play a 20-something boxer, so he is just acting as an artistic advisor.
The story arch will follow that of the original "Rocky," although I can't help but hope there will be a scene where Ivan Drago pops out and starts singing "I must break you" while Adrian chimes in, "You can't win!" It may not fit anywhere, but I really think that would put this entire production over the top.
The producer behind the play is Thomas Meehan and Barbara Darwall have a good track record ("The Producers," "Chicago") so this might not actually suck. Meehan had this to say about the musical:
At first I thought, all the world needs is a ‘Rocky’ musical. But then I looked at the film. I thought it had beautiful construction and such high emotion, and it was a natural musical: There is a David and Goliath story, a Cinderella story, a love story between two outcasts. It’s less about boxing than about finding self-respect and finding your soul mate.
For one, I think seeing anyone else as Rocky Balboa will cheapen the entire experience, and for that matter, so will watching Rocky Balboa and Apollo Creed sing songs. But, if I was forced to see either this or virtually anything else (unless promised that something terrible would happen at "Spiderman") I'd still have to choose this. I just hope there are no immediate plans for Judge Dredd the Musical.
