For the Love of Coraline

by Teresa Jusino

I love Coraline. She’s the kind of kid who, were I babysitting her, I’d tame with sarcasm then smile at helplessly when her back was turned, even as she pouted and harumphed.  This is, of course, the Coraline of the Neil Gaiman novel.  The Coraline of the novel craved more attention from her parents and could be a little obnoxious when she didn’t get it, but there was sweetness underneath, and a universal childishness that made the obnoxiousness palatable and relatable.

The Coraline of the recent film is a bit different.  She starts the film by being extremely mean to a new friend, and it takes a while before she stops being completely self-centered.  But all children are self-centered, you say.  It’s true.  Children, because of their limited world-view, tend to be more about me and less about us until they are taught otherwise.  Yet the Coraline of the book is tempered with imagination, cleverness, and wonder.  She seems warmer.  The Coraline of the film, in brat mode for most of it, seems more like an example of What’s Wrong With Kids Today.  While I enjoyed the film and thought it an interesting and imaginative adaptation of the book, as well as beautiful to look at, I was a bit disappointed with its take on the title character.  Maybe it was just Fanning’s voice… (Sorry, Dakota.)

So, when I heard that Manhattan Class Company in New York City was developing a Coraline musical, I was a bit skeptical.  I started hearing phrases like “non-traditional casting” – more specifically “actress in her fifties playing Coraline” – and my heart nearly stopped.

Oh no, I thought.  They’re going to f@#k it up.

I heard that MCC was doing a preview discussion about the new Coraline musical, and I had to go.  I had to see what they were going to do to one of my favorite girls.  It was held at the Lucille Lortel Theater, where Coraline is scheduled to open May 7th.  Bill Goldstein of the New York Times moderated, and participating were Leigh Silverman (director), Stephin Merritt (composer), David Greenspan (librettist AND The Other Mother), and Jayne Houdyshell (Coraline).  The show was born when Merritt was doing the music for the Coraline audio book.   He wrote one song, called “You Are Not My Mother and I Want to Go Home”, then put it away.  He couldn’t, however, put away his interest in the project, and so when the theatrical rights became available he snatched them up and set to work.

As Goldstein began asking questions of the creators about their process and vision for the show, I went from geek skepticism to squeeing, girlish excitement about the show as they emphasized two key points.  First, they made it a point to tell us that Greenspan’s book is completely “true to the novel.”  No plot points have been changed, and the only edits made were in the interest of time and theatricality.  Second, they highlighted that the musical would, as the novel did, end with Coraline leaving the Other World and begin to recognize the wonder and magic in the real world.  The sky had never seemed so sky.  The world had never seemed so world. I was thrilled to hear this, as I don’t think the film addressed this particular theme at all.

Stuffy things like plot and theme aside, this show sounds like it’s going to be a hell of a lot of fun!  Musically, it’s going to be interesting.  Now, berate me if you must, but I had no idea who Stephin Merritt was, nor had I ever heard of The Magnetic Fields, before now.***  A music geek, I am not.  But listening to him describe the way he wrote the music for this show really intrigued me, making me want to seek out his non-theater stuff.  The stage will be covered in 25 pianos – toy pianos, standard Grand pianos (including an antique piano from the World’s Fair!), and pianos prepared with blocks, playing cards, bells, etc.  According to Merritt, these pianos will sound “like 88 tiny people playing individual percussion instruments….into a piano.”

I DON’T EVEN KNOW WHAT THAT COULD POSSIBLY BE LIKE, BUT IT SOUNDS AWESOME!

The pianos on stage will all be played by one virtuoso pianist who will essentially act as a one-woman band, sometimes playing several pianos simultaneously with another instrument under her arm while whistling! Merritt’s songs are usually known for their clever lyrics, and this show won’t be any different.  Goldstein mentioned a song he’d heard previewed about Miss Spink and Miss Forcible, and that “they’ve never been married so they’re not divorcible.”  Merritt even gave us a preview of a complete song from the musical, which he played on a UKELELE.  (As a friend of mine confirmed, a ukelele is never, ever wrong. Ever.)  The song, which takes place toward the end of the show as Coraline is between dreaming and waking, is sung by the Mouse Chorus and is the most adorable thing I’ve ever heard.

In addition to the experimental approach to the music, the design and direction of the show is, as Silverman put it, “old and strange, but in a good way!”  You will likely hear the word steampunk a lot in reference to Coraline, as the design seems to take as much from the 19th Century as it does from the modern world.  Time is elastic in this show, and it’s all to let the audience inside Coraline’s psyche, allowing them to experience things the way she experiences them.  Half dreaming, half awake, in reality, in an alternate reality…

The non-traditional casting is the other part of the equation.  Before coming to this event, the casting of Coraline was what worried me most.  However, once I saw Houdyshell’s face, I knew she would be perfect.  There’s definitely a little girl in there, and she has features that could be all wide-eyed enthusiasm one minute and childish suspicion the next.  I could immediately imagine this woman looking askance at The Other Mother, and I have full confidence in her.  Silverman said that their non-traditional approach was more in the spirit of the novel than doing it traditionally would have been.  After all, isn’t childhood all about dress-up and make believe?  So, slap a wig on a man and make him The Other Mother!  Put mops on the heads of actors to make terriers out of them!  And have a talented older actress forget her adulthood for a while and remember what it was like to be nine.

Honestly, I think that a stage adaptation of the Coraline novel makes even more sense than a filmed one for that reason.  Theater requires imagination and resourcefulness in making a lot out of very little.  It’s also capable of capturing the narrative of the book in ways that a film can’t, and finding an even deeper meaning in it than what might have been intended.  When discussing scenes that they’d considered cutting from the book, they talked about the scene where Coraline, upon coming back to the real world and discovering that her parents are missing, calls the police and is condescended to.  They decided that they needed that step in Coraline’s journey, her trying to do something about her parents before going back to the Other World.  However they realized something entirely different when staging it.   The actor playing the policeman also plays the Other Father.  So, when the policeman tells Coraline over the phone that she should have her mother make her a hot chocolate, then the Other Father offers her a hot chocolate when she goes back later, there is circularity, and we get a visual impression of the ways the Other Mother is reaching out and encroaching on Coraline’s real world.   And of course, there is the music.  Emotional moments that are mere sentences in the novel are expanded in song.

MCC’s Coraline opens May 7th, and I will be there.  If you can be in New York, and love Coraline as much as I do, you should be, too!  The love that this creative team has for the original book is palpable.  I know that Coraline is in good hands.

***As I was working on this article, my housemate came home and asked me what I was working on.  I told her where I’d been tonight, asked her if she’d heard of The Magnetic Fields, and after she screamed about my never having heard of them, told her that Stephin Merritt was there.  Also that I’d never heard of him before.  She now hates me.  But in a good way.

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TERESA JUSINO was born on the same day that Skylab fell. Coincidence? She doesn’t think so.  As a writer, her work has appeared in Elmont Life newspaper, and on the sadly defunct website, CentralBooking.com. She has recently become a comic reviewer for PopMatters.com, and is currently at work on several fiction projects, including a collection of short stories and a comic. As a geek, Teresa loves Star Trek, Lost, comics, and anything Joss Whedon ever touched. She has a tendency to develop fangirl *squee-ing* crushes on writers, and is also an aspiring fangbanger.  Get Twitterpated with Teresa, or visit her in The Red Room.

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