Capitalizing on the success of Hairspray, Broadway may have another winner with Cry-Baby, the latest musical adaptation of a John Waters film. Recent headlines indicate that the quirky 1950s musical will take residence at the Marriott Marquis, recent home to The Drowsy Chaperone, which sadly closed before I was able to honor the tickets I had in hand for February.
Photos of newcomer James Snyder are included in both of the articles that I read but this photo in particular caught my eye:
While James is a newcomer to Broadway, my introduction to him was via the definitive recording for bare: the musical. When I saw the above photo, I thought: “WOW! Those eyes are really blue!” I didn’t recall his eyes being that blue when I watched the DVD that accompanied the recording.
I then recalled a post I read from an online friend of mine about a lyric change in “You and I” in the bare recording. The lyric that several of us have become familiar from the sample CD is: “feel the beat of my racing heart and you’ll understand”. However, in the studio recording, this lyric has been changed to “take a look in these big blue eyes and you’ll understand”. So I thought, maybe James Snyder has really blue eyes and that’s why the lyric was changed.
But guess what!?!
So I’m befuddled. And I agree with my friend, the “racing heart” lyric says so much more. But I will save those observations for my very overdue review of bare.
Regardless of the color of the eyes doing the crying, I am very pleased to see that Cry-Baby has had good out-of-town notices and I will definitely make a point of seeing James in his Broadway debut. I was an early Johnny Depp fan thanks to 21 Jump Street so I have recollections of seeing this film on the big screen. Depp’s recent award-winning turn in the title role of Sweeney Todd has several people referencing his early days in a rock band. Similar references were made when Cry-Baby was released in 1990, since he did his own vocals as the Elvis-influenced bad boy of Baltimore. His vocals and the musical numbers must’ve been all right because somewhere I have the soundtrack on cassette. And since I have the soundtrack to Xanadu on vinyl, that could be a good omen for Cry-Baby…
