The Great White Way has a knack for turning films of the past into contemporary musical showstoppers. But as of late, more and more of these crossovers have sounded more flat than resonant with audiences.
Yet with pure emotional force, the folksy love story that is “Once” has transcended the screen and established itself on the stage.
Following in the footsteps of other Off-Broadway-turned-mainstage productions such as “RENT” and “Spring Awakening,” the drastic importance of the music (and the emotions it houses) is what makes a show like “Once” stand out. Each of these three productions rely heavily on the cacophony of emotional representation that the music brings to life. Whether it be sadness or joy, hope or despair, every possible feeling has a tune or a beat, and it permeates every inch of the score.
However, while the former two now mega-popular Broadway shows created movies (and subsequent stars) of their own, “Once” is taking a backwards approach, using an already-beloved indie film as its inspiration to enlighten audiences.
The heart-tugging love story between an Irish song man and a Czech immigrant woman was first seen on screen in 2007 under the direction of John Carney. Spanning the course of a week in the streets of Dublin, the plot centers on the duo writing and rehearsing songs that tell their love story. With music by the film’s stars, Glen Hansard and Marketa Irglova, the film won an Academy Award for Best Original Song (“Falling Slowly”) in 2008. Gaining notoriety in the Oscar aftermath, Broadway director John Tiffany came on board to bring “Once” to the stage and the transformation from stage to screen set off from there.
With the original trio of Carney, Hansard and Irglova’s work intact, the cast of the staged version shows individuals with just as much musical heart as that which made the film so powerful to begin with. Stepping in Hansard and Irglova’s roles as “Guy” and “Girl” are Steve Kazee and Cristin Milioti, accenting the dual roles with just as much soulful emotion as the original pair.
Backed by a cast of acting musicians, the entire stage experience is described as a sort of “concert” on stage, the actors playing their own instruments and engaging the audience in all that the music encompasses. Even before the show starts, the feel of the Irish pub in the story transcends fiction and comes to life in the pre-show atmosphere, with patrons able to purchase drinks from the “bar” and listen to the band on stage play for them.
The soundtrack, a purely dynamic representation of unabridged soul, mixes upbeat folk with the gut-wrenching vocal sobs of heartache, loss and confusion. Released after the show’s late February opening night, the music follows a path of emotional turmoil, encompassing happiness and sadness. Bits of songs, particularly the starring track, “Falling Slowly,” are scattered throughout the score, permeating the performances with trickles of adoration and loss. There is even an a capella number, “Gold,” that features the cast in a harmonized lament of love. Continually setting the show apart from its indie, Off-Broadway contemporaries, the final song, a reprise of the signature track, is longer than its original. It features the entire cast joined in a rising tribute to the show as a whole; it is an anomaly apart from the usual abbreviated reprises, making the uniqueness of the show stand out even more. It is this quasi-“indie” feel that brings the creative spirit of a film festival-circuited movie to the generally all-encompassing world of Broadway.
All of these factors, the originality and creativity that makes the European-tinged folklore so prominent, is what sets “Once” apart from the successes and failures, the ones that make it and the ones that don’t, in the big, wide world of Broadway. Continually, many shows (both on and Off-Broadway) that are based on films have not yet been able to make the big leap to box office success. For example, the critically acclaimed “Silence! The Musical” (based on “The Silence of the Lambs”) has yet to transition to a Broadway theatre, despite vacant spaces left by early closings of heavily advertised musicals like “Catch Me If You Can” (based on the 2002 movie of the same title). Already a hit with critics and audiences, “Once” and its emotionally realistic story is poised to break the barrier between Off-Broadway ingenue and mainstage darling.
