"Love Never Dies": An Update

Greetings once again, and Happy Earth Day! Today, I bring you yet another post relating to "Love Never Dies" (the Broadway premiere of which appears to have been pushed back to next spring). I would have posted it a while ago, but didn't for two major reasons: 1) I was super-busy with school, and 2) I wanted to make sure I had as much accurate information as possible before posting. In this case, new info kept coming out pretty much non-stop . . . Such is life. But anyway, here's the post that was several weeks in the making.

Before I get into the meat of this post, though . . . First off, I'd like to make a couple of corrections to my previous post on LND, just so that nobody will think I intentionally got certain plot points wrong in order to make the show look bad (since it does a pretty good job of that on its own). The first is that the Phantom (or "Mr. Y.," as he's called -- ha ha, get it? Mr. Y = Mystery! Sheer genius, I say!) does not rape Christine; she returns to sleep with him the night before she marries Raoul, which puts their characters in a much better light. (For those of you playing along at home, that was sarcasm.)

The other correction I need to make is that the Phantom doesn't follow Christine and Raoul to New York; instead, he sets up his theme park/freak show/thingy on Coney Island ten years after the original (the math doesn't really make sense there as far as dates are concerned, but I guess we're supposed to just go with it), and then he tricks them into coming to work for him at a time when they're desperate for money thanks to Raoul's boozing habit . . . and somehow, Christine has no idea that this mysterious guy who wants her to sing but refuses to give his name or show his face is actually (gasp) the Phantom! Um, sure . . .

Since I'm in a "kernels-of-truth" kind of mood, I have an admission to make as well: I never intended to blog on LND again here. I heard the cast album from a free source a week or so after my last post on the show and found the music and lyrics to be so underwhelming that I thought it unworthy of review on this blog. (Certain melodies sound partially or mostly plagiarized, as well, and not always from ALW's previous work -- listen to "Sally's Song" from Nightmare Before Christmas, then listen to "Beneath a Moonless Sky" from LND and tell me they don't sound the same!)

Anyway, I thought my previous LND post would be my final word on that sorry, Twilight-ified show. Recent revelations about the show and Andrew Lloyd Webber's company the Really Useful Group, however, have made it necessary to bring up LND once again.

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The Facebook page for "Love Should Die," a group formed to protest LND that had nearly 1,000 members (contrary to ALW's claim that Phans opposed to the show were just "a sad culture" of "only 4 or 5 people"), was taken down on Tuesday, March 16th. Many Phans (and even an influential theater news site) thought it might've been due to copyright infringement.

The truth, however, was apparently that the group violated Facebook's Terms of Service because the owner wasn't using his/her real name for his/her profile. The complete BS-ness of this argument is clear; I know lots of people on FB who aren't using their real names, and they've never even been given a warning, let alone been suspended or banned. People probably report the accounts of others all the time, either as a joke or because of some grudge, and there are literal hate groups that are allowed to exist despite thousands of member complaints. Yet Facebook singled out "Love Should Die" for closing, leading many to suspect that big money was a factor in influencing the site's decision. And what organization with big money would want to close a group meant to bring together those who opposed LND? I think you know where this is going.

But wait! The Facebook page for "Love Should Die" was reopened two days later (Thursday, March 18th) after the media got a hold of the story thanks to some dedicated Phans. All the posts that were on the page before seem to be intact, and it looks like all the people who had been members prior to the closing are still listed as members and can post on the page. The list of members has since surpassed 1,200. So . . . problem solved and no harm done, right?

Wrong. The closing of the "Love Should Die" Facebook page is just the latest in a series of apparent attempts by the Really Useful Group to silence dissent. They had also twice attempted to shut down the "Love Should Die" Twitter account because they apparently thought using a font similar (read: not identical) to that of the show's logo constituted a copyright violation. And even before the gears of the LND machine were set in motion, RUG had developed a reputation for being harsh to those who criticized its actions regarding certain productions, notably the 2004 film version of POTO. Some of these occurrences are detailed in links toward the end of my last post about LND. (As those links show, RUG was even harsh to those who had nothing bad to say about their productions and only wanted to use images or logos for their own personal websites, not profiting from them in any way.)

It's worth noting that in this case, RUG came out and posted on the official LND Facebook fan page saying that they had nothing to do with the closing of "Love Should Die." If that's the case, though, then I think it's clear that some supporter(s) of LND took things a bit too far in searching for some technicality to try to get the group closed -- wouldn't their energy have been better-served by trying to take down, say, a group that preached misogyny, racial discrimination, homophobia, or any number of other evils? It certainly couldn't have just been a complete coincidence instigated by someone with no interest in the show; again, who would make that kind of effort for a show they didn't care about?

This brings me to an alarming trend I've noticed in the debate between supporters and detractors of LND: Although the vast majority of Phans have been able to express their differing views in a respectful way, there has unfortunately been a lot of incivility as well. This certainly isn't the first time that fights have broken out in the Phan community; arguments of that sort also cropped up around the 2004 movie and other adaptations, and even around debates over which actors were "better" in the show. To a degree, I understand the intense responses by some Phans for and against each version -- the story itself is very emotional, and a big reason why many Phans love POTO is because they identify deeply with the Phantom or one of the other characters. What is inexcusable, though, is when Phans level personal attacks against each other, especially over matters that are pretty trivial when all is said and done. Some good friends of mine were accosted online by LND supporters who fired off ad hominem attacks (including racial slurs) and labeled them as "not 'true Phans,'" whatever that means, all because my friends dared to criticize LND . . . and they're not alone. On occasion, even the press has taken to mocking Phans as some kind of "lunatic fringe."

This article from the Telegraph makes an interesting set of claims about what Phans are supposedly like. I'm not 100% sure, but my friends in the UK have told me they've never seen the throngs of costumed, weeping Phans "swarming around Haymarket [Street]" that the article mentioned -- maybe it wasn't the right time of night for that mysterious crowd to come out.

The article also mentions a well-known and respected Phan named Josefine in a rather unflattering way. Although the author doesn't insult her outright, his characterization of her as a "Swedish housewife" in addition to his depiction of most Phans as women with "a romantic streak and a tendency towards emotional vulnerability" could cause people to get the wrong idea and think Josefine is just someone who spends all her time sitting around the house obsessing over the Phantom musical when she's not actively traveling the world to see it.

In reality, that couldn't be further from the truth. Josefine is a university-educated journalist -- read: not a housewife! -- who takes her job quite seriously (and, from what I've heard about her work, is very good at getting the facts straight, unlike the writer of that article, who couldn't be bothered to spell her surname correctly). Some Phans have said that the article (as well as other items about LND in the Telegraph) seem extremely slanted in favor of the show, and they speculate that perhaps RUG is leaning on this UK paper (and possibly others) a bit. If that's the case, then, well . . . it's interesting that RUG had a big press event celebrating Josefine's 100th time seeing the show last year, but this year, they decided to characterize her (as well as the thousands of other Phans who've been eagerly offering up their money for the last two decades) as being unhealthily obsessed.

(Add to that some truly bizarre marketing tactics by the Really Useful Group: ALW has apparently tried to promote LND on his new reality show for casting a new production of "The Wizard of Oz," as well as at a horse race and even a funeral. And then there's the misquoting of theater critic Benedict Nightingale, as well as the fact that Lord Lloyd Webber has been fined for painting the Adelphi Theatre black without permission. But I digress . . . )

Now certainly, I won't deny that there are a few fans of POTO who are unhealthily obsessed -- as with any reasonably large fan community, there are some bad apples among the Phans. There have been cases of people stalking Phantom actors; Peter Karrie (one of my personal favorite Phantoms), Simon Bailey (current London Raoul), LND star Ramin Karimloo (who, incidentally, had some interesting things to say about non-fans of the show in an interview he did with co-star Sierra Boggess), and others have had truly scary cases involving stalkers lying in wait for them at the stage door or elsewhere, and that is definitely unacceptable.

But the vast majority of Phans are nothing like the crazies who sometimes give us all a bad name. In my five years now of being a Phan, I've met a wide variety of people who love the story and characters, and I know it's futile to try to categorize them all as being one way or another. Most Phans I've met, though, are kind, thoughtful, intelligent, and artistically talented people. RUG is doing itself no favors by trying to silence or mock all Phans who don't agree with whatever the company does at any given moment. In such a diverse, global community, there's no pleasing everyone. All of us have the right to express our opinion on LND and all other versions of the Phantom's story, but we also need to learn to respect that others have the same right. If someone has a different opinion from you, accept it and move on with your life -- productive debate is certainly engaging and fun, but at some point, you need to agree to disagree. Corporate entities as well as regular people would benefit greatly if they adopted that attitude.


I remain your obedient servant,
I.A.E.