Gil Hates Everything

1949 autobiography, 1956 Austrian movie, 1959 musical, 1965 musical movie, endless revivals since then, and right now, a 40th Anniversary two-CD soundtrack edition with bonus versions of all the songs. Argh.

The plot: an Austrian governess is dispatched from the convent where she was confusing all the nuns to take care of the seven children of the Baron von Trapp. She inspires them to sing, he falls in love with her, then the Nazis arrive and they leg it.

This is a Rodgers & Hammerstein show and so you’d think you could rely on it being moderately competent, but the thing is, underlying the melodicism and no-doubt-intended-as-characterful lyrics, there seems to be a giant void of reality. The problem that needs solving, so to speak, is Maria. She sounds fucking crazy. Who the hell sings “The Hills Are Alive With The Sound Of Music”, “I Have Confidence”, and “My Favourite Things”, other than a nutter? Brown paper packages tied up with string, FFS! And to top it all she teaches the poor kids solfege (the technical name for that do re mi shit). The fact that she can’t think of something for “la” and so it becomes “a note that follows so” is either genius or pathetic.

That’s actually how I feel about this entire show. To my modern ears Maria seems like Mary Poppins – she’s totally bugfuck, why on earth would you let her near your kids? Let alone fall in love with her, you crazy Baron. Were you not listening when she sang “The Lonely Goatherd” to them? This woman does goat impressions. Run away. Now. How do you solve a problem like Maria? An exorcism seems like the most promising approach, given that one of the other nuns rates her as “a demon”.

And into this bonkers mad-nanny movie we then add… the Nazis! Of course! Seriously, it would be impossible to write this story now. We’d be expecting zombies.

The music for the songs is clearly memorable – when you’re eight – as everyone knows these songs and spoofs them all the time, meaning that for many of the tracks I had to stop myself thinking “That’s not how it goes” – “The Lonely Goatherd” was semi-covered by Gwen Stefani, for example. But that doesn’t stop it from being sententiously dreary whenever Maria hasn’t ingested her daily shoveful of el es de: “Climb Every Mountain” is truly, truly awful, and “Something Good” makes me want to shoot pigeons.

Hammerstein must have been having an off-day too: there are some terrible rhyme-forcing moments in “Something Good”, and that’s not how you pronounce “eyelashes”.

For completeness’ sake the soundtrack includes some of the choral music, which for completeness’ sake I shall note isn’t very interesting.

But it’s Maria which really makes this the kind of show I would recommend watching through an alcohol-soaked haze. Pretty much every time she opens her mouth I find myself thinking “Wait, what?” This isn’t a feisty underclass female like Eliza Doolittle; this is a genuine case of disconnection from reality. She’s Delirium from “Sandman”. This makes her either one of the great crazy characters of the modern stage, or a complete misfire. For me, the latter.

Random Panda awards “The Sound Of Music” three out of ten pieces of bamboo for its actual contemporary value, but probably more like eight out of ten for its potential entertainment value if you and a bunch of friends give it the MST3K treatment.

(originally posted 2009)