First off, I am not one of those people that abhor remakes. If the creative talent behind it are doing it for the right reasons, like they are going back to the source material or have a unique hook to do so, then I am all for revisiting classics. My philosophy is that no matter what the remake accomplishes, no one is taking away from me the original song, television show, or movie. I can still go back and revisit my preferred one. Of course, Broadway is another animal, which rarely has video records of classic productions, but for me, that gives Broadway an air of exclusivity, that is a motivator for me to see live theater.
The cool thing about Broadway productions is that revivals are celebrated. From The Iceman Cometh and Death of a Salesman to Cabaret and, yes, The Sound of Music, all of these shows have seen multiple revivals and re-interpretations, and for the most part, the stage community does not bat an eye. The general public however can get stuck on the "classics," and I knew right away that many people would not be able to to separate the stage production of "The Sound of Music" from the classic movie adaptation. The fact is that the movie is indeed an adaptation with songs moved around and in different locations, and no matter how much NBC and the producers bloviated, there were always going to be people that would compare Carrie Underwood to Julie Andrews -- unfairly, I might add.
However, a friend of mine on Facebook, who happens to be a classically trained vocalist, posted , "when someone asks me to perform hip hop, I will respectfully say no. So, when a half-ass, country singer is asked to do a great classic musical, she should respectfully say no as well." It made me think. Snarky comment about Ms. Underwood aside, what would motivate someone, who has negligible acting experience, to tackle one of the classic roles in musical theater? Putting aside the trite idea of broadening oneself, Underwood really has nothing to prove. We all know she can sing, but it was clearly obvious to me from the way she woodenly speaks in interviews that acting was not going to be her forte. It is actually OK for her to just be a multiplatinum, multimillionaire pop country artist. No shame in that game at all.
Ultimately, I do not blame Carrie Underwood, but the fault falls squarely on the producers, Neil Meron and Craig Zadan, who should really know better. They cut their television musical teeth on Gypsy with Bette Midler, Cinderella with Brandy and Whitney Houston, and Annie with Kathy Bates and Victor Garber. What do all these have in common? Veteran stage actors and/or actors with singing ability. I get that they were trying to attract "Joe Six-Pack" to watch, but to self-consciously make the stunt casting of someone with the vocal chops but zero acting ability and then to surround her with multiple Tony award winners like Audra McDonald, Laura Benati, and Christian Borle, it just did a disservice to their overall production.
I do believe it is a good thing to bring musical theater to the masses again. So, the fact that we are even discussing it makes this a net positive. However, if Meron and Zadan decide to do something like this again, I hope they have the guts to make the choice of someone with stage or, at least, acting ability to be the crux of their production. I understand that in the current media landscape you have to have a hook, but I wager that ratings would have been high merely on the strength of it being The Sound of Music. They did not need to make cynical stunt casting and throw Carrie Underwood under the bus just to get higher ratings.
