By: Joelle Charbonneau
My husband is a huge fan of the Phantom of the Opera. Me…eh…I like it just fine, but if you got
into a musical theater debate with me, I’d probably come up with all sorts of
reasons why I think the show needs a bit more tweaking. Which is probably a bit audacious of me, but
hey, I’m allowed my opinion, right?
Anyway, because my husband is a fan, he has been following
the launch and reworking of the sequel to Phantom, Love Never Dies, with great
interest. While Phantom of the Opera was
a huge hit, the sequel hasn’t set the world on fire. In fact, a lot of die hard Phantom fans (my
husband not included) have had huge complaints about the new show. Because of that, Sir Andrew Lloyd Webber and team
have reworked the music and tinkered with the story. But no matter the changes, the musical still
has yet to connect with the existing fan base.
Why?
The writer in me has a theory. It is because the characters have
changed. The story opens almost a decade
after the original ended. Of course the
characters have changed. They gotten
married, had children, led lives. It only stands to reason that things will be
different. But, to me, the problem isn’t
that the characters’ lives have changed—that which makes them what they are has
changed. The heroine is no longer
heroic. The musical opens with her
having committed betrayals that at the core change who she is and how the
audience connects with her. The Phantom—the
villain or anti-hero of the first musical—is now the hero. Characters we liked have become warped and
filled with jealousy and hate. While the
characters are still familiar by name, they are not familiar by nature which automatically
disconnects the audience and disrupts the story before it ever has a chance to
begin.
Crime fiction is filled with continuing characters and long
running mystery and thriller series.
Time passes in between the last page of one book and the first page of
the next. Weeks, months and years go by
between one case and another. Readers
are willing to accept that their favorite characters’ lives have
continued. But despite those changes when
they open the next book, the reader expect to “know” them. They expect that the choices that the
characters have made between one book and the next will reflect the character’s
core values and beliefs that are demonstrated on the page. Those core values can change, but not out of
the sight of the reader. A reader wants
to see those changes. To live them
alongside the character. To feel the
emotional tug-of-war and experience the path the character takes to come out
the other side. To change the core of a
character out of sight of the reader is akin to pulling a bait and switch. Which isn’t fun for anyone.
I’ve stopped reading a number of series because the
characters felt distant and unfamiliar at the start of the next book. Have you ever had that problem? Have you ever felt cheated because a
character had a major experience that you didn’t get to be a part of or changed
them in a way that made the character unappealing? And if you’re a writer, how do you deal with
the time gaps that inevitably occur in between books? Do you worry about what hasn’t been shown on
the page? And hey – who knows—maybe the
folks in charge of Love Never Dies will read your comments and figure out how
to make it the next blockbuster musical.
My husband would be grateful if they did!
