Surreal Broadway musicals. While checking out the reviews on _Bright Lights Big City_ by Jay McInery on Amazon, I noticed that there is a musical version of it out there and a cast recording. Was this something that was crying to be made? I'm all for blending genres, but like Wicked I don't see how this musical can be made. This is _even_ worse than Wicked as it involves a second person narrator, drugs, (which is not impossible for a musical) and all other things. I think Broadway every year becomes a further parody of itself. Like _The Bell Jar_ or the _Diary of Anne Frank_, or _Crime and Punishment_, or _A Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich_ the musical seems like it should be jokes, but how far are we from them these days? I still think that the musical version of Sweet Bird of Youth from the Meryl Streep and Goldie Hawn movie about youth and actresses is a trip. Or what's to stop them from American Psycho the musical?

I was okay with Bright Lights. I preferred _Rules of Attraction_ more. There was some good stuff in it. I was amused by the fact that the narrator works at a magazine that is clearly a stand-in for the New Yorker.

Then there are the musicals based on films that they needn't have bothered like Footloose and Saturday Night Fever, but that's an entirely another post.