Xana-doooooooo!!!!!!!

After standing for 2.5 gruelling hours in the chilling New York cold, when I finally reached the ticket counter, I got to know that there were only partial view tickets available for "Chicago" and all tickets for "The Chorus Line" were sold off. In the split second that I had to make a decision, my mind stopped working, and I asked for tickets to 'Xanadu'. I hadn't heard much about the show, had not read any reviews, and didn't even know what the mysterious sounding title meant.

I did some research on the odd-ball sounding title of the musical, before the show began. What does Xanadu mean?

I learnt that Xanadu was the name of a real ancient Mongolian city, known for its splendor. Xanadu, also Zanadu, Shangdu was the summer capital of Kublai Khan's Mongol Empire, which covered much of Asia and also encroached upon eastern Europe. The city was located in what is now called Inner Mongolia, 275 km north of Beijing.

The reported splendour of Xanadu later inspired Samuel Taylor Coleridge to write his great poem Kubla Khan and caused Xanadu to become a metaphor for opulence. Xanadu is remembered today largely thanks to this poem, which contains the following often quoted lines:

In Xanadu did Kubla Khan
A stately pleasure-dome decree:
Where Alph, the sacred river, ran
Through caverns measureless to man
Down to a sunless sea.
So twice five miles of fertile ground
With walls and towers were girdled round:
And there were gardens bright with sinuous rills,
Where blossomed many an incense-bearing tree;
And here were forests ancient as the hills,
Enfolding sunny spots of greenery.

In popular and modern culture too Xanadu is referenced many times in numerous works

1) Xanadu is home to the comic strip character Mandrake the Magician, created by Lee Falk.
2) Canadian rock band Rush has a song called "Xanadu" on the album 'A Farewell to Kings' which incorporates lines of Coleridge's poem.
3) The 1980 musical film Xanadu is considered a cult film. It featured music by Electric Light Orchestra and John Farrar who wrote most of Olivia Newton-John's hits from the film. The film's title track, "Xanadu", was a major hit for the Australian pop singer Olivia Newton-John, along with the songs "Suddenly" (John Farrar) and "Magic" (John Farrar). However the movie was a major dud.
4) It is the name of Charles Foster Kane's Mansion in the Classic Movie Citizen Kane (1941).
5) Episode 70 of the Pokemon anime series features a greenhouse called Xanadu Nursery.
6) The Xanadu Project is a planned shopping, sport, and entertainment complex in East Rutherford, New Jersey. Begun in 2006, when completed, it will be the world's largest mall, consisting of over 4.8 million square feet of construction.
7) Uncle Scrooge and his nephews visit Xanadu in a story written and drawn by Don Rosa.
8) Xanadu is the name of a very reflective region on the surface of Saturn's largest moon, Titan.

As I began reading more and more, I realized that the Broadway show 'Xanadu' was derived from the 1980s movie by the same name. The 1980s movie was reviewed to be neither beautiful, luxurious, nor a hit, contrary to what the name suggests. Interesting! I was surprised why any producer would be willing to be bet their many millions of dollars at the cheesy film to have a second life on stage. One of the reviews for the movie that I read started with the title screaming 'Xana-don't. It is regarded as one of the single worst films of all times - ever in history. So I was amazed as to what had come upon the makers of the Broadway show to pick up a work this wretched. I am just surprised what kind of person sets out to make a stage version of this bad movie. Definitely someone who has the courage of his conviction and isn't afraid of the numerous questions that might be asked. Whatever the thought process behind picking up this story, after seeing the stage version, I can confidently say it actually works. I did not think that it was brilliant or a masterpiece (it pales in critical comparison to my last broadway show 'Spring Awakening' - I hope to write more about that later). It is actually 90 minutes of pure, unadulterated, intelligent fun. The play keeps the basic plot from the movie. A muse descends from heaven and inspires an artist to build an ultimate artist studio - a disco where everyone roller skates. To get that to somehow work on stage, the producers brought in a Tony nominated playwright whose job it was to make the cheesy movie seem tasteful for the stage. And of course even before they started working on the stage version, they did have one big thing rooting for them in their favor - the music from the movie.

I read some more on the success of the songs of this movie after getting back from the show and I could definitely see that Olivia had several breakout hits including the title song 'Xanadu' and 'Suddenly'. As horrendous as the film was (you can actually watch some clippings of it online, thanks to Youtube), the sound track was quite popular. Actress Kerry Butler (beautiful and oh-so-graceful) now gets to sing Olivia's songs from the movie. And yes, Kerry was quite good, and in fact much more than good with the Australian accent and the roller skating dance sequences. And that's also in part what works in favor of Xanadu-the stage version, it makes fun of the movie (My hugely critical friend scritic says this is an often employed ploy by producers to make fun of the very source from which they have derived their work since it insulates their work from the very same criticisms that the source was subjected to - but what the heck, it still is funny!), it makes fun of the 80's, it makes fun of Broadway and its huge successes (Lord Lloyd Webber does get a humorous mention and so does the world's largest running musical - Les Miserables), and it also makes fun of itself (Note the pot shot the script makes as the casting-double stinginess of the producers). And the audience loved all of it. Most definitely the audience comprised largely of out of city tourists who did not come expecting Shakespeare, they just wanted to have fun...And fun Xanadu is. So even if it isn't Shakespeare, maybe the stage production can just put the 'do' back in Xanadu.

Reference: Some information for this post is referenced from Wikipedia.