a little lost boys musical analysis, thinking abt michael, the vampires, and kind of the audience's reception of both?
i was watching through ali's tony awards ig takeover from may 18th, and he was asked what he wants audiences to take away from the show. he said that there are two kids of family, the first one is the kind that sayd "we want you, you belong here with us... but only if you conform and change who you are to fit in with what we want." and the other will accept you as you are, flaws and all.
and ali said the vampires are the first kind of family. i think we (or at least i) get so distracted by the charm and allure of the vampires that what they actually do gets a little lost. the past few weeks ive been thinking "oh i would fall for the vampires in a second, i would drink and kill and live forever" despite the tragedy that would inevitably await.
ive been thinking a lot about michael's songs and i think the will of his character is truly the strongest aspect of him. he doesnt give up, he doesnt lose himself, despite how much he wants to. lose yourself and belong to someone have resonated with me so strongly because thats all i've wanted too. the past few weeks, all ive been thinking is how i would love to have someone be my everything / keep me from unraveling.
maybe its because of the exaustion most of us experience with daily life, the way that queerness has been commodified over the past few decades, and the way many of us have been taught to people-please and mask our identities out of fear and security.
david is the ideal because he exhibits a control that we would feel okay with. he seems caring and happy and knows what he wants, michael (/the audience). the vampires stay up all night and sleep all day, they play rock concerts and seem like the queer polycule dream.
but they all had to give up their humanity to have that. even further, they rob the lives of others to fuel their existences. and that is what michael rejects so strongly, the abuse and taking advantage of other people to the point that they fully die.
ali's duality as the actor understanding the character and his performance as the character is so admirable. in all his interviews, he talks about how david is one of the villains of the lost boys. i mean we barely talk about max because, even though he is the kind of mastermind behind everything, he isnt nearly as active as david. but the vampires arent exactly the queer punk rock icons they portray themselves as because they are bound by conformity. they deny themselves introspection because to do so would mean facing what theyve done and probably regretting it.
a lot of this train of thought was inspired by someone close to me saying theyre upset with how ive been viewing myself as someone who would just be tied to someone instead of as my own person, and i think thats why michael's choice at the end of the musical is so important. "my blood is in your veins" "so is mine" is michael reclaiming his individuality, and its something we should embrace more.
even in the final song: "if we make it through the night / i will learn to love / all of the broken and beautiful pieces that we are made of"
david, max, marko, dwayne, and paul have pushed parts of themselves so far down that they *only* have each other. the way ali talks about david is that he has a lot of parts he doesnt acknowledge, he doesnt recognize himself and he's always running from himself to other people. i wish we got more from lj about his perspective of michael, but i think his performance speaks volumes.
anyways. idk if any of that made sense or if everyone already knew that or what. i have more lost boys thoughts so if ppl want more analysis of this musical i guess let me know? i have so many thoughts on them and i could do full essays if i wanted lol
heyhey!! I saw the lost boys a few days ago and to find a bootleg, its all for buy or trade. Why is that? (this is a genuine question 💔)
If your question is about The Lost Boys in specific, it's not for trade. Anyone offering you to trade for a The Lost Boys bootleg, is a scammer. The only way to get TLB bootlegs currently in a legit way (as far as bootlegs can be legitimate) is buying them directly from the video master.
This is a way to compensate for the ticket prices and the risk attached to filming in a theater. There can be legal actions taken against the video masters (and there have been in the past) so it's also way to keep control over who has the bootlegs and it doesn't immediately gets spread widely. It's why we're incredibly frustrated with the leaking of The Lost Boys bootlegs. Every single leak makes it easier for the security and production at The Palace to crack down on potential future footage. Why do you think there's so little footage of Jack Wolfe in Hadestown? It's very easily to figure out where a video master was sitting during a recording. So extra security and video masters just won't film the show anymore at the risk of being caught (and it's just not worth it anymore then). It's also why I'm very hard on people taking screencaptures or gifs and posting them on instagram and twitter (and tagging people involved in the production). You're literally bringing attention to the fact that we have been filming the show.
These gifs get posted on tumblr by myself and others who have explicit permission from the video masters or the video masters themselves. Yes, I even asked permission from the video master who owns most of the leaked the lost boys recordings. Tumblr is for generic media still a place they don't monitor for the most part, it's such a subculture of fandom things. Posting things here doesn't hurt as much as long as everyone uses their brain and isn't chasing some clout by taking a gif and posting it on twitter, or worse making it a comment under the official TLB musical instagram account. It's why I also have stated before that I don't give permission to anyone to use my gifs for other posts.
Being able to draw older people as attractive without reducing or erasing the visual signs of aging, and in fact showing that they're attractive because of those signs, is an artistic skill that should be valued so much more. Honestly, it should earn you an immediate fortune because holy fuck is it a rare commodity. There are so many artists who seem to think attractiveness and aging exist in opposition to each other, so they smooth every wrinkle, erase every crease, and de-age the character until they're basically thirty with silver hair. But when an artist can look at crow's feet, smile lines, weathered skin, deep-set wrinkles, and all the little traces of a life well lived and say, "No, that's what makes them beautiful," that's a level of artistic observation and care I wish we celebrated more often.
for the record im not technially 100% anti-AI, in the sense that its a broad category of tech being lumped under one umbrella term so it feels over-zealous to say i hate all of it all the time forever. but i also think trying to discuss what it actually IS good for is difficult right now when i cant take one step without something trying to convince me to use chatgpt to summarize my life and speed up my hobbies and turn my friends into chatbots and optimize my life into oblivion. i am certain there is nuance to the topic but can we stop cramming the square peg into the round hole before you start trying to sell me on the legitimate benefits of the square peg. please.
here's my super-quick, easy-to-digest summary that i use when i can't spend more than like 15 seconds on it but need someone to know the basic distinctions:
generative AI - bad evil AI. chatbots, LLMs, image generators, etc. this the one that steals shit.
analytical AI - helpful medical AI. this the one that helps detect cancer early.
game "AI" - fake AI. 100% human created and dictated. this the one that determines game mob behavior n stuff.
'theatre is dying' okay but everyone is flocking to see a beautiful hit musical now that it's been released in the cinema, something more affordable and accessible to most people, and ticket sales in the west end in particular have spiked
'cinema is dying' okay but everyone is flocking to their local cinema to see a beautiful hit musical, and so many have shown up this weekend that licensers decided to extend its theatrical release for another week, a massive rarity in the current climate
maybe the answer to saving art is... seeing art?? and making art accessible??
"the Hadestown proshot exceeds box office expectations"
truly, who could have predicted fans going repeated times, to see the musical whose entire concept is about the musical repeating
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