I wonder how long I can make this one.

Uhh... Phantom's kid, yada yada, more drama, Madame Giry overheard the whole conversation where Christine tells him it's his child. Afters Christine leaves, the Phantom vows that everything he has built will go to Gustave.

Since Giry Sr. overheard this, she's not too happy. She also gets a song that I can't find the lyrics to and don't care enough to YouTube. Basically comes down to, she's ticked off that she and Meg have been with this nutcase for ten years, helped him escape the required angry mob, and everything is gonna go to the kid. She implies that she wants to  kill the boy, but she never does. It's more just pure anger and jealousy at this point. She then goes upstairs to the land of the living.

Btw, I looked up the name "Gustave" because I wanted to know what it meant. It sounded close to "ghost," so I thought that they may have names him something along those lines.

Nah. It means "staff of the gods." Oh well. I gave them too much credit.

NOW ACT TWO.

Opens up with Raoul, and him being the good jerk he is, hanging out in a bar that he has been in all night long. He is supposed to be drunk, but like, if he is he's some kind of Superman because he's just singing and everything. I'd like to know how he's still functioning at this point.

So, at this point Raoul gets a song. I actually may out more than usual in here because believe it or not, it's a character development song. Like, it actually gave me hope for the guy. It makes the audience think "we'll have a turn of events and he'll be not a jerk anymore." It's starts out with him talking to the bartender, then ends with Meg Giry talking to him. The lyrics in this are actually important and could mean something, which is a new direction from the way this dumpster fire has been going.

W: Jeez, you're in a bad way ain't you?/ Worse than most that end up here/ Here's the morning shift, maybe he'll know what to do with you

R:Yes, what to do with me/ That's the question, isn't it?/ That's always been the question/ Ever since the beginning

She looks for sympathy/ I give her sorrow/ She asks for honesty/ I've none to borrow

She needs my tender kiss/ She begs it off me/ I give her ugliness/ Why does she love me?

She yearns for higher things/ Things I can't give her/ The rush that music brings/ I can't deliver

And even when she sings/ And soars above me/ I try to clip her wings/ Why does she love me?

One more drink, sir/ That's what I need/ Don't you think, sir?/ Leave the hurt behind/ Do you hear me?/ Another drink

She wants the man I was/ Husband and father/ At least, she thinks she does/ She needn't bother

Beneath this mask I wear/ There's nothing of me/ Just horror, shame, despair/ Why does she love me?

...
*Giry shows up*

M: Mother said, I'd find you here

R: Miss Giry

M: Do you know where you are?

R: Hell, I imagine

M: Around here they call it suicide hall/ It's where people end up/ When they don't know where else to go/ The hopeless, the desperate/ The good place to step off the side/ Of the pier and quietly vanish

R: You seem to be a regular

M: Me?/ I come here to swim/ This town is coarse and cold and mean/ It's hard to keep your conscience clean

Faceless in the crowd/ Anything's allowed/ And so I come at dawn each day/ Come to wash it all away

Sink into the sea, blue and cool and kind/ Let it set me free, let the past unwind/ Leave the hurt behind

You should never have come to America/ It's not a place for people like you and Christine/ It's too easy to forget who you are and where you belong/ That's why Mother says you must leave here/ Now, take your wife and the boy and go

R: Leave?/ What about tonight?/ The concert, the money?/ Am I to just run away from him?

M: When the sun rises tomorrow/ We can all start again, clean/ Sail across the sea/ Put us out of mind/ Close your eyes and flee/ Let yourself stay blind/ Leave this place behind

That's the song.

That's a good song. Not because of the music aspect, but because that actually tells us about both characters. It's at this point that the audience is like, "what's up Raoul?" You get the sense that he's not happy, that he has all kind of doubts about himself, and this actually builds a character past the buttwipe. This song, if it was followed by the right circumstances, would be the point where the crap they pulled on Raoul to change his character is somewhat forgiven. Here we have regret. Here we have him seeming to actually want to change.

And the line "beneath this mask I wear there's nothing of me. Just horror, shame, despair-- why does she love me?"

Holy crap.

That's an AMAZING line. It immediately turns your attention to Raoul and reminds you of the Phantom-- more specifically what the viewer sees beneath his mask. We realize that Raoul has the same kind of thing going on, except his is more hidden and the Phantom's is really obvious, and Raoul has the capability to change it or to develop in the other way given in the scene.

Because, when Meg Giry shows up, she immediately calls the place "suicide hall."

With the words Raoul just spat out if his mouth, we can almost believe he's at that point too. Then the fact that Meg is here makes us wonder what's up with her? She says she's a regular there. She likes to swim. She uses the water to wash her sins away. This goes back to the implication that she is selling herself ( forgot to mention, but they call her the Ooh La La Girl). She keeps her conscious clean. "Sink into the sea, blue and cool and kind. Let it set me free, let the past unwind, leave the hurt behind."

So Meg here is a regular at suicide hall too, just in the way that many take the express checkout. This tells us more about her too. She has something she regrets, she has something she hides. She also flirts with death. To go swimming and hiding in the waters many drown in says nothing else but that.

This is literally the best character scene in the entire play. Probably because it's the only one. But, it make us think something besides the bs that's about to happen will happen.

Meg leaves. Raoul stays. Here, we get the next scene and song. I actually recommend pulling this one up on YouTube to watch how two different actors play this character. It's a duet between Raoul and the Phantom that's really stupid, but the London cast with Ramin Karimloo has one huge difference between the Australian cast. London's Phantom is actually terrifying in this scene. It gets it across more than the Australian one. You also get the best unscripted lines in the history of POTO for London. Raoul states that he never wants to see the Phantom's ugly face again, turns around, Ghost boy is standing right behind him, waves, and says hi. That was the only time I legit laughed out loud in this whole thing, and it was with the one that's not the professionally recorded one. Seriously. Go compare the two.

As it is, "Devil Take the Hindmost" really just a toddler fight between two adult men. It's sad. They start out insulting each other.

P: Look at you, deep in debt/ Stinking drunk - pitiful/ Shall we two make a bet?/ Devil take he hindmost

R: Look at you, foul as sin/ Hideous - horrible/ Call the stakes, deal me in/ Devil take the hindmost

It's like you just want to stop them and pull the Megamind thing. "Boys, boys, you're both pretty. Can I go home now?"

Anyway, after some decent counterpoint back and forth, they reach a deal. This deal is:

If Christine sings, she and Gustave stay with the crazy man.

If she doesn't, they all leave, get lots of money, and the crazy man leaves them alone.

Also in the song we realize that Raoul suspects that Gustave isn't his biological son, but again, there's no way to know for 100% certainty until a stupid test is done how many times does need to come up arghelpmepleasethestupidity.

This deal goes completely unknown to Christine.

So. We have a girl who has full intentions to sing a song so both her and the guy she had a one night stand with ten years ago will be over it. Her son has been threatens with kidnapping if she doesn't sing. NOW if she sings, she stays WITH the guy who has threatened to kidnap her kid, actually kidnapped her kid, and proven he isn't the best parent material. Also, correct me if I'm wrong, but didn't he want NOTHING to do with Gustave after he found out the boy was his? SO WHY WHY has he  changed his mind now? What brought this on? It's a sudden flip from what we've had this entire time. It takes the meh. of the Phantom for this play and suddenly decides that he's really going to be the main antagonist.

EXCEPT HE'S NOT. THEY SCREWED THAT UP WITH MADAME GIRY.

And Raoul. What the [redacted] dude? He just had this whole song about "why does my wife love me, I don't deserve this" and hinting that he was either going to take the express lane out of life or change and be good. He had CHARACTER DEVELOPMENT. And this? It's like we just forgot about that whole song before hand. It wasted ten minutes of our time. What was it for? Why the HECK is it there if this is going to be the payoff.

I mean, at this point I'm with him. Why does Christine love him if he's honestly this stupid? He knows, full well, she's gonna sing the song. That's how they get the heck away from ten years ago, is her singing the dang song. And why would you make a deal where singing and not singing changes the entirety of every character's life, but not have the permission from the woman who is the actual singer? She's not even going to choose here. She's just going to sing and let the guys slap fight their way through the play.

...

...

Okay. Ghost Dude leaves and Raoul's like, "that was stupid of me".

No freaking duh.

Then we get a change of scene. There's yet a again, another song that goes on far too long called "bathing beauty." This is Meg's song with the circus people, and it a straight-up burlesque routine with bathing suits. She gets done, goes backstage to her mother. Meg is still eat up with having the Phantom watching her and having his feelings swap from Christine to her.

To which, why would you want that, number one,  number two-- I think her style and his style is a little different. Last I checked, opera and burlesque didn't do the same thing. And number three, could it just happen so it could be done?

But no, doesn't. We find out that the PiningGhost wasn't even watching, because he was with Christine before she sings. Madame Giry is so bitter at this point she says tells Meg that Gustave is C and Ps kid, I guess it's common knowledge now, and that the ten years they've been hanging out with EmoMan has been a waste of time because he's still hung up about Christine. This makes Meg REALLY upset, and she vanishes for a little while.

Cut back to Christine, and she's back stage about to go on. Raoul shows up at her dressing room and begs her not to sing. He doesn't explain himself as to why he wants this so badly, but we get a moment with the two of them that it appears he has totally changed back to the Raoul in POTO and they are going to high-tail it out of there as soon as she's done. There's a ship ready to take the whole family away. She's good with that, but is still going to sing so it can all close for her.

Raoul leaves, Phantom shows up. He gives her a pep talk, and then this necklace that looks like it costs WAY more money than he could have and makes me wonder what store he robbed to get it. Christine wears it on stage, and well as a pair of earrings that Raoul gave her. So, through the jewelry, I guess we're supposed to see that she's really for both of them. She chooses both.

Now, the choosing of both is something I interpret as choosing the Phantom by singing his song, but choosing Raoul because they're going to get out after she finishes.

Before the stage we get a reprise of "Hindmost," where we see Meg take Gustave somewhere at the last line.

Back to the stage, Christine is standing up there, looking like a giant peacock because of the background scenery, and she sings the song the whole play is about.

About this song.

You know how POTO had the huge rock-opera musical number that was really impressive because fire and organ and electric guitar? So, LND spend the budget on that for "Beauty Underneath." This song is not "Beauty Underneath." This song is the title song, so we expect something special.

We get this.

Who knows when love begins/ Who knows what makes it start/ One day it's simply there/ Alive inside your heart

It slips into your thoughts/ It infiltrates your soul/ It takes you by surprise/ Then seizes full control

Try to deny it/ And try to protest/ But love won't let you go/ Once you've been possessed

Love never dies/ Love never falters/ Once it has spoken/ Love is yours

Love never fades/ Love never alters/ Hearts may get broken/ Love endures/ Hearts may get broken/ Love endures

I kid you not, this thing goes for at least those ten years between POTO and LND.

Also, this is supposed to be the Phantom's composition. In the first play, everything he does is dissonant. It has chords, but they're funky chords and spread out pretty weird. That's kind of his staple. Music that shows the crazy of the guy.

This thing is almost something you'd hear on the pop radio, but just way more boring. It's not entertaining. You can tune it out. It's really meh.

At some point in the song, Raoul decides that he is no match for the power of the angst and leaves. Christine sang, like she intended to do this whole time, so that must mean that she doesn't love him anymore, even though it almost looks like she's singing to him.

He leaves her a note in her dressing room, and well as flowers that are like the ones he gave her in POTO. Raoul is gone now, peace out.

Christine and the Other Guy go back to the dressing room after she's done. She flat out snogs AvacadoFace in the room, because yeah, she definitely loves him, the guy who has murdered countless people and manipulated her, and not her husband. Then she sees a notes left by Raoul that says she definitely loves the Phantom and he's gonna leave. Of course now she's sad, and then freaks out when they realize Gustave isn't there. They think Raoul has him and the Phantom says he'll kill Raoul because of it. This also doesn't send off alarm bells on Christine's head, so I guess she agree all of the sudden I dunno.

The three stooges tell C and P that Raoul never took the kids, but they saw Meg with him. So, logically, Madame Giry shows up, realizes "oh crap, those things I said about the kid Meg took seriously," has her life threatened, and they all magically know where Meg and Gustave are.

They wind up at the docks. I don't know where on the docks, but it must be pretty far away from everything else, since no one else sees this exchange. Meg is holding going to drown Gustave. This goes back to the sing between her and Raoul that I thought was the one thing in this to be good. She plans on getting rid of her troubles by killing the boy and herself by drowning. Gustave really doesn't like this plan, and then Christine and Co -minus Raoul show up. They convince Meg to hand over Gustave because she really doesn't want to add murder to insanity, and then she pulls out a gun and threatens to shoot herself. I don't remember the Australian version ever showing us a gun or telling us where it could come from. The London version actually introduces the gun right before "Beauty Underneath," when it's laying on the top of the piano the paternal test of music happens with, so at least the audience gets a hint at what'll happen. Since Meg knows that location, it's easy to assume she got it from there.

The Phantom decided to do the one good thing he has done in this, which is try to get Meg to not kill herself. She comes back at him, and tells him that she came to Coney Island because of him and has done everything she has done for him, which includes the line "in their beds." Now we know that Meg has gone from Paris Opera ballerina to stripper/prostitute in New York.

This is the exchange, copy pasted. I think I'll just do most of the whole thing because it actually gives a script-type of reading I guess.

--

Meg: Not another word!
(singing, a hint of madness to her voice) Always wondered how to make you watch, well, watch me NOW!
I took a little trip to Coney Island. I took a little trip because of you. (addressing the Phantom)
I did as Mother said, and followed where you lead/ And tried to do what little I could do...
Well, here's the way it works on Coney Island. They make you pay for every little crumb! I gave what they would take! I gave it for YOUR sake!
Now, look at me, and see what I've become!

Bathing beauty, on the beach/ Bathing beauty in her dressing room/ Bathing beauty, in the dark!/ On their laps!/ In their arms! IN THEIR BEDS!

Madame Giry:
(speaking) Meg, my little Meg...

Phantom:
(speaking, slightly unsure) What are you saying?

Meg:
Who helped you raise the money? Who helped the permits come through? Who greased the wheels of your high-flying deals? Bought you time when the bills came due? Who swayed the local bosses? Curried favor with the press? No, not HER. And who kept singing? Desperate for your favor? Who kept dancing, hoping you would save her?
(practically shout-singing) Who kept dying?! And THIS is what you gave her!

(suddenly quiet and eerily calm) Now that I've got you're attention at last...
(loud again) Here's the big finish and then you can go!

----

I've got to hand it to them, the dialogue in this is good when it needs to be.

Meg points the gun at herself now, and then the Phantom talks back to her. This whole sequence, while I think the dialogue to a point is okay, doesn't fit the characters. It's easy to understand, from the story standpoint, why Meg has lost her mind. That makes sense and can work with the story. It's this sequence here when the Phantom, of all people, tries to convince her to not that feels wrong. It's forced. The whole show, he's been an antagonist, and then at the end it main antagonist part swaps to Meg. Due to this, the writers apparently wants the audience to forget that this guy is insane and gave him dialogue that doesn't feel like his character at all. We have no development in the play between him and Meg. There's no time he directly speaks to her in either POTO or LND, so this is the first we've heard an interaction between the two. While yes they've been together for ten years, we got nothing about that until this point.

---

Phantom:
"Give me the gun, Meg. Give me the hurt and the pain and the gun, Meg. Give me the blame for not seeing the things that you've done, Meg. Give me the gun, Meg. Give me the chance to see you clear at last. "

---
She doesn't at first, but starts to be convinced.

----

He continues:

"You feel ugly, you feel used/ You feel broken, you feel bruised/ Ah, but me, I can see all the beauty underneath."
You' ve been robbed of love and pride/ Been ignored and pushed aside/ Even so, I still know, there is beauty underneath."

----

Then he does the single. stupidest. thing he could have done.

---

"Diamonds never sparkle bright/ If they aren't set just right/ Beauty sometimes goes unseen/ We can't all be like Christine."

---

Excuse me while I ram my head into a wall.

I know that he's not really the most social rabbit or anything, but common sense tells you that when the girl who is holding a gun is jealous of the girl she is being compared to, it may not be the best idea to mention her name.

So yeah. We get that exchange that feels really out of place because the two have never had a conversation before that the audience has seen, he says the single worst thing he could have at that moment in time, and Meg freaks out. She winds up firing the gun, and surprise surprise, shoots Christine.

So, Meg and Madame Giry to "get help" and the rest of the dramatics unfold. Christine tells Gustave that the Phantom is his father and Gustave is like, NOPE, and runs away. So, then there's yet another song that's so long they could probably have gotten all of New York to help Christine so she wouldn't die, her and the Phantom kiss, and she dies.

Raoul shows up with Gustave after she's dead, and the Phantom goes over to the edge of the water. At first, it looks like he's going to throw himself in, which honestly would have made sense from his character standpoint, but he doesn't. Gustave then comes over and unmasks him and hugs him.

I'll just remind you that every reaction this child has had to this guy is RUN AWAY.

Anyway, that's how the play ends. No one knows if the Phantom takes Gustave or of Raoul does, or if they both do. We have no clue what happens to Meg and Madame Giry. That's just it.

To ignore the story for a second and focus on only the characters, there were times that the decisions made to recon a personality for the sake of story could have been fixed. The scene with Raoul and Meg could have been acted on for Raoul's character to not be an idiot. He could have been redeemed from that moment on. Had he not made the deal with the Phantom, had he gone back to Christine, we see that he wants to change. It would have swapped around the entire ending. We still could have gotten crazy Meg, since that made a bit of sense from the story standpoint and had the pier showdown, but either have no one idea or just go one and kill off the Phantom.

Mentioning him-- for most of the play he is the exact same character he is in POTO.  He's the villain. The writers tried to make the audience root for a villain with no redeeming qualities by screwing up another character. In order to make the Phantom NOT an antagonist would be to give him some kind of redemption arc that is set in motion from the beginning. He can't be pining after Christine still. When she shows up, fine if they want to make him slightly crazy again, but in order to make him "good," they would have to do some serious reworking of the story. There's really no way to do it and have him still be the same as he was in POTO.

I don't have too much of an issue with the direction the Giry's were taken in this. It's hinted at in the first play that Meg is fascinated with him, and we know that Madame Giry knows a lot about him. In order for her to out up with his crap over POTOs storyline, it kind of makes sense for her to take him and Meg to the USA. Meg going crazy somewhat works, although I think that her line would really have been improved if there was at least one conversation between her and the Phantom present in this play. Hint at her going insane before the insanity happens. Show that she and the Phantom actually interact with each other.

Christine was basically retconned. Everything that happened to her in POTO is thrown out the window and burned by the time "Moonless Sky" come up. It just doesn't work. She doesn't every choose between the two either. To be perfect honest, I'd rather her grab Gustave and leave BOTH Raoul and the Phantom to their stupidity. It would have been much better.

The story screws up the characters original plot points. Besides the whole "Moonless Sky" issue, leaving what happens to Christine up to a deal that she doesn't even know about is dumb. It gives her absolutely no say in the matter and is only used to get the pairing the writer wanted but couldn't get in the first play.

As I said, it's a bad fanfiction. At least some of the fanfictions actually try to redeem some characters and make others more than a brick in order to achieve the same result.

This was a mess of things that felt like it had the potential to go somewhere, but only turned around to slap the audience in the face.

*bows*

Tearing into musicals is fun. Wonder what I can do next.