RELIGIOUS WHAT VERSION OF PHANTOM?
//Ok so there’s this Christian group in North Carolina that writes original musicals and they’re called Spiritual Twist Productions and they wrote a Phantom musical that’s this really awkward, heavy-handed religious allegory in which Erik symbolizes Satan, Raoul symbolizes Jesus, and Christine symbolizes humanity, torn between the two. Near as we can figure, that makes Philippe God. Everyone else’s roles are a little less clear, but we’re guessing the Persian is, idk, a pastor or something, and Madame Giry might be a Satanist? This is also the only version I know of with La Sorelli in it, though they made her the ballet mistress instead of being in the corps de ballet, and I think she’s maybe an atheist or something. It’s hard to say, exactly. Her scenes with Philippe are weird.Anyway, the whole thing is just mesmerizing but not necessarily in a good way? I don’t want to say too much more because so much of it just needs to be seen to be believed. And, as luck (or something) would have it, Spiritual Twist sells DVDs of their shows! They also sell digital downloads, but you can bet your bottom dollar that I wanted a hard copy of this gem.
I’ve actually been considering holding a livestream of this production. It was originally staged in 2011, and they recently performed it again, so I kind of want to see what the 2015 production is like first. Based on the trailer they made, it looks like at the very least it was shot with a higher quality camera.
But, yeah, that’s all I can think of to say on the subject without giving away some of the most baffling, hilarious, and head-scratching moments in the show.
