Quote:
Originally Posted by letsgotoofar
But then, TWG, you tried to avoid all that and were limited in how much of it you could mitigate. Isn't that right?
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Yep.
Not my sandbox, not my name above the marquee sign.
As for Barrie, Disney, Wendy and Pan -- all of that source served as an initial catalyst for what Jim wanted to do (and I'm talking way back in the 80s here when Jim first started writing a treatment for a BAT musical), but those conversations about those characters and those archetypes were long gone (though acknowledged in the rear view mirror) by the time that I was asked to work on the book. The themes remained, in a broad sense, but Jim made it clear that he wasn't looking to reinvent Peter Pan.
What he wanted was a rock n roll tale of eternal youth (thematically) VS modern day domestic suburbia (albeit in a pseudo urban setting), and the inevitable power struggle that comes with the burden of every teen whereupon he comes of age and realizes that he has become his own father (okay, that last clause was mine -- it was never used and there was no interest in taking that strand any further).
Jim didn't want a jukebox musical.
He was dead set against it.
He used We Will Rock You by name ... as an example of what he DIDN'T want.
Jim got sicker (9 strokes, lost the power to compose, lost the power of speech 3 times over, lost motor function).
Producers cast the whole musical behind his back, locked him out, and changed everything.
Jim's words to me, afterwards, were "sickened, badly shaken, and shocked".
Make of it what you will.
I have the receipts.
