I’m on a roll with these, but this is another, like A Taste for Love, that isn’t 100% original and not 100% based on existing material. No, this one… well. This is Hamlet 2, of the titular film. I’m not proposing a musical based on the movie, though. I just want to see Hamlet 2 staged in all its light-saber-y, time-traveling Jesus-y, ridiculous crappy glory.
In the film, which I may have just watched this weekend and been inspired to blog about thusly, failed actor and drama teacher Dana Marschz (Steve Coogan) writes a musical sequel to Hamlet. Hamlet comes across a time machine and goes back in time to save everyone from their various tragedies, and in the process he meets Jesus, it’s never entirely clear how. And Jesus then has to cope with a crowd of non-Elizabethan-period teenyboppers? I’ve never quite followed it, but I don’t mind. It’s ridiculous, but it’s supposed to be.
Hamlet saves Gertrude from drinking the poison. Hamlet has… an aerial light-saber battle with Laertes? Again, probably because Mr. M, as the students call him, just decided he wanted to have an aerial light-saber battle, so he loosely constructed a reason to. Hamlet saves Ophelia from drowning, then proposes to her.
Throughout these adventures, we have various musical interludes: Hamlet and Ophelia and a diner waitress and a gay cowboy and a girl in a prom dress and Albert Einstein sing about being raped in the face. Metaphorically, sort of. That crowd of present-day teenyboppers sings about sexy Jesus. A gay men’s chorus sings hits of the 80s in the background of other scenes.
It makes no sense, but that’s why I love it. I want to see what kind of even more nonsensical plot someone would devise around the preexisting ridiculous numbers and scenes. I want to see just what happens in the scene that features “You’re as Gay as the Day is Long.” I want to know why there’s a diner waitress and a gay cowboy and Albert Einstein. I want to know what they need the giant hamburger and French fries for.
And I want more ridiculous tunes. “You’re as Gay as the Day is Long” and “Rock Me Sexy Jesus” and “Raped in the Face” just aren’t enough. I want to see what the hell else is going on. I want emo ballads and light-saber rock songs and Albert Einstein can do a disco number or something. I want it cracked out and absurd.
–your fangirl heroine.
