#wasn't restaging all of them again

[boin-de-bindery]

The Witch With Sunlight in His Hair - boinin

Burned out on casebinding, I decided to give pamphlet binding a shot! I'd picked up this lovely reflective gold paper, but I only had one copy so it was a no-go for endpaper. Still, it was too pretty to let languish in my paper stash—so I decided to print out one of my own fics that features sunflowers and magic.

This is a short BachIsagi oneshot that gave me the opportunity to figure out how to format AO3 tags and metadata. I decided to omit the author's notes, but retain the summary information and tags. I printed it as four signatures... why, you ask? Because I'm an idiot. That ended up making this (a) two sheets per signature, a trivial amount to fold and sew given the length of this fic and (b) not a pamphlet bind. I sewed the signatures together with a simple stitch and glued on the cover paper with PVA. So this is closer to a perfect binding overall.

It turned out adorable, at least to me. It's just a lil guy! 🐝 I got along much better with the heat transfer vinyl this time around—I really love the bee graphic, which was one of the freebies on Cricut Design Space. I did mess up the signature imposer by leaving fold lines on, which are visible when you open the pamphlet. Not enough of a reason to reprint everything IMO.

It's nice getting to hold something I've written and published ✨ Though tiny next to my other binds, it adds some welcome sparkle to my shelf.

[operafantomet]

I’m curious, what is the reason a production will give a Christine actress a blonde/different colored wig? I know smaller productions often have a blonde Christine (I think at least) but like- London for example, I thought they had a few Christine’s with a blonde wig, I assumed because the actress was a blonde but I swear there were some blonde Christine’s that also had a dark wig as well. Is there any reason for this? Or is it just random?

I the earliest days of POTO there was a will to adapt the 'Degas' wig to whoever played Christine and Meg. Whereas all three original Christines in West End followed the Sarah Brightmanesque look with big brown curls, they did feature Patti Cohenour on Broadway with a much lighter brown wig, to adapt to her colouring. It wasn't blonde, but it was a light auburn / reddish brown:

For the original Toronto production they also changed Susan Cuthberg's wig from brown to blonde during her run, making her the first blonde ALW Christine out there. This too was due to it being closer to her own colouring:

Equally, Janet Devenish started out with a very red Meg wig in West End. Later in her run it was changed to a blonder one. It's the blonde look that's stuck on Meg, but interestingly she was a redhead first!

A final example from early POTO days is that original Australian Meg, Sharon Millerchip, started out as a blonde, but it was decided that a brunette wig looked better on her. Once again to adapt to the actress' natural colourings.

But later in the 1990s the general formula stuck. Christine as a brunette, Meg as a blonde. A handful of Christines in West End was featured with auburn wig to match their own colouring, and one or two Megs got a brown wig, but they were definitely the exception rather than the rule. Especially in the US and the World Tour the Christines has worn a general dark brown wig completely unrelated to what hair colour they have in real life. This is what is generally done for the replica production, as the design indicates brown curls, but with some exceptions here and there.

With the first ever non-replica production, in Hungary 2003, their Christines partly wore their own hair, braided, with extensions in the back. This meant that a variety of colours has been seen there: Vanilla blonde, darker blonde, auburn, brunette. Here's barbara Fonyo (auburn), Renata Krassy (blonde) and Andrea Maho (brunette):

The non-replica productions that followed chose different strategies:

The 2008 Polish production emulated the 2004 movie, with curly brown wigs

The 2013 Restaged Tour did a less curly, general brown wig

The 2014 Estonian production featured their Christines with their actual hair colour (one brunette, one blonde)

The 2014 Czech production stuck fairly close to the original design, with long brown curly wigs,

The 2015 Finnish/Swedish production tried out different shades of red; first strawberry blonde, then flaming red.

The 2015 Romanian production and later Norwegian/Greek/Tour version went blonde. The Romanian production featured the actress' own hair, while the others has done wigs. But there's been different shades of blonde, different lengths and different curls. Gaston Leroux has been mentioned as inspiration.

The 2017 Serbian production also featured their Christine with their respective hair, which gave one blonde and one brunette.

Ditto for the 2019 Bulgarian production, ranging from light brown to black hair.

The 2020 Swedish production first went red for Christine. I have read they thought it was never done before and that's why they wanted to try it out (but as seen above, the Finnish/Swedish production beat them to it). When a new principal Christine was cast they gave her a blonde wig, to better match her colouring.

The 2022 Sydney Harbour production did fairly classic brown curly wigs.

The 2023 new Romanian production also feature Christine with her own hair - like the original Romanian production, and incidentally the same actress. But it looks like there's a bit of extensions going on as well.

Last, but not least, the 2023 Mediterranean production premiering in Italy did somewhere between honey blonde and auburn.

So in large, a non-brown Christine wig seems to be a way of adapting the hair to the actress - whether a wig is in use or not. In some cases it's also a way of actively differentiate the look from Maria Bjørnson's original design (as well as the iconic Mary Philbin look).

In replica production the 'wildest' things they did in the 1990s and early 2000s was auburn Christine wigs, and primarily in West End. But in the later 2000s more variations started to appear. The very light brown wigs of Janine Kitzen in Stuttgart and Robyn North in West End comes to mind, and Anne Görner's fairly redhead wig. Then Harriet Jones' first auburn red wig in West End, and them going all blonde on Emmi Christensson. Again the overall strategy seems to be to match the actress' own colours and the wig. Left: Anne Görner in Essen, and right: Emmi Christensson in West End.

In recent years there's also been a will to adapt the texture of the curls. From recent West End examples there is Lucy St Louis, Beatrice Penny-Touré, Paige Blankson and Chumisa Dornford-May with afro-textured hair. Ditto for Emilie Kouatchou on Broadway. Here's Lucy St Louis with Killian Donnelly:

And then the recent wig change for Eve Shanu-Wilson in West End, which is meant to closer reflect on her heritage. Though the Phantom historian in me also thinks it brilliantly reflects on the 1990s West End wigs, so I'm doubly happy...

So yeah. Usually the variations in wig colour and curls is due to a will to reflect on who the actress is and how she looks in real life. But the wig is of course also a tool to create a certain look for a certain role. Which means that every wig is an interpretation, and a negotiation between wanted look and the many possibilities for adaption.

[marleneoftheopera]

Maybe it's just me reading way too much into this, but the Cameron restaged version feels a bit misogynist. Not sure if that was his plan, but the way the Phantom behaves in this version just doesn't seem like he cares at all for her. MOTN especially with the blindfold. It's all painful to watch. Disappointing too when you go from the masterpiece that is the original staging to now this watered down version.

I can absolutely see that. Or maybe a male superiority complex, as I once saw someone else say.

I don't know how people feel about labeling the Phantom as a character as a misogynist, but I think the direction and perspective of the restaged version comes across that way as a whole. Which is interesting because I have heard a few times that it is actually supposed to be more from Christine's POV. But then again, Christine's POV is trying to be brought out by a mainly male creative team.

Besides the blindfold, I think the biggest example is him throwing her on the bed and restraining her in the Final Lair. I know that even in the original version the Final Lair's have gotten more violent/aggressive, but the direct implication of doing that on a bed is just a big no-no for me. And I think it extends to more than just the Phantom. While Raoul never restrains her on a bed or lures her into a lair and blindfolds her, he is very aggressive and angry in this version as well. In the original, we see that Raoul doesn't necessarily believe Christine in the first act and that he uses her as bait in the Don Juan. But I don't think he ever wanted to intentionally hurt her. In this version, I don't think he does either but I don't see him caring that much about her or what she wants to do. And a lot of that has to do with the staging. There is such limited contact between the Phantom/Raoul and Christine. And when there is, it feels forced or that the male is directing the conversation.

For example, Raoul is so much more gentle in AIAOY in the original. He doesn't understand why, but he knows she's scared and tries to be comforting. In the tour, he's very pushy, he's grabbing her, almost yelling/berating her at points. Like Christine is crazy. And the kiss. Raoul just runs and kisses her without there seeming to be any kind of mutual consent or attraction, some of that being due to the fact that she spends half the song moving away from Raoul. You don't see that in the original.

I think what is so good about the original is that there are many boundaries that get pushed but don't really get crossed. You see both the Phantom and Raoul do things that aren't really green flags, but you don't see them throwing her on beds and throwing kisses onto her that she wasn't ready for.