The five musicals Christopher Walken needs everyone to see: “You’d like it a lot”
Musicals are not exactly the height of cool, are they? Over-the-top and often incredibly irritating, the genre really has the power to divide, and more often than not, there’s a perfect divide in schools between theatre kids and, well, everyone else.
That’s not to say that the average non-musical theatre nerd can’t love a good musical, too. I mean, everyone went nuts over La La Land in 2016, many of us grew up singing all the words to Annie songs, and just look at the obsession with Wicked that has swept the world over the past few years. In fact, from Jacques Demy’s The Umbrellas of Cherbourg to Bob Fosse’s All That Jazz, there are some great movie musicals out there which are a much more sophisticated answer to the question of non-irritating options.
Christopher Walken, who has appeared in an array of musical projects over the long years of his career, from the 2000s reimagining of Hairspray to Peter Pan Live, has his own recommendations, which he is convinced most people will enjoy, having spent much of his teen era immersing himself in the world of theatre.
“I was in a lot of them. When I was a teenager and all these shows were on I was in that business, so I knew a lot of people in the theaters and I saw many of the great shows many times. I would go in and stand in the back, they would let me in, they knew me,” he explained to Interview Magazine.
There were a select few he singled out as favourites, adding, “I saw Fiddler on the Roof, A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum, Gypsy, and Funny Girl many times just standing in the back”. Of course, Fiddler on the Roof is a stone-cold classic, penned by Joseph Stein and first performed in 1964, which follows a Jewish man named Tevye who is adamant on remaining true to his faith, although he finds this challenging when his daughters present some unwelcome suitors.
Everyone knows ‘If I Were a Rich Man’, which was later sampled in ‘Rich Girl’ by Louchie Lou and Michie One, covered more famously by Gwen Stefani in 2004, and moreover, the musical was transformed into a movie in 1971, with Chaim Topol taking on the lead role.
Meanwhile, Walken’s love of Funny Girl is hardly surprising, with its subject matter concerning the Broadway star Fanny Brice. The musical was first performed in 1964, with Barbra Streisand originating the role on Broadway, and a few years after, she was cast in the role for the film adaptation, which won her the Academy Award for ‘Best Actress’.
Walken continued his appreciation for musicals by praising a certain adaptation of Parfumerie, which also inspired the films The Shop Around the Corner and You’ve Got Mail, explaining, “When I was in high school, the original production of She Loves Me opened. I must’ve seen that six times. There’s a new production here on Broadway now that got very good notices. Have you ever seen She Loves Me? I think you’d like it a lot. It’s a wonderful American musical. I still like to go to musicals.”
With music by Jerry Bock, who also composed the music for Fiddler on the Roof, She Loves Me is one of various adaptations of Miklós László’s love story that has captured the hearts of audiences. It’s a classic story of sparring colleagues who, unbeknownst to each other, are one another’s mysterious lonely hearts penpals, and Walken highly recommends it.
