Musical of Kiwi classics
Some of the country’s most-loved anthems form the soundtrack to a bittersweet love story that’s about to hit the big screen. James Croot reports.
There is something magical about the lightning strike that is the birth of a great song, according to Rochelle Bright the playwright-turned-screenwriter whose critically acclaimed play Daffodils is about to burst on to Kiwi cinema.
Starring iZombie’s Rose McIver, Home & Away’s George Mason and Grammy Award-winning singer-songwriter Kimbra, the David Stubbsdirected tale is having its world premiere at Wellington’s Embassy Theatre on Valentine’s Day before being released in cinemas nationwide on March 21.
It’s a bittersweet love story inspired by Bright’s parents’ relationship, as well as a love letter to the emotional power of songs and some much-loved New Zealand tunes in particular.
Both feature ‘‘reimaginings’’ of tunes such as The Swingers’ Counting the Beat, Bic Runga’s Drive, The Dudes’ Bliss, Dave Dobbyn’s Language and Crowded House’s Fall At Your Feet – threeminute emotional journeys that mean far more to certain generations of Kiwis than our national anthem or God Save the Queen.
In the liner notes for Daffodils’ official soundtrack, Bright says an essential question she asked herself (especially after Jordan Luck told her that I Say Goodbye (Even Though I’m Blue)’s melody was inspired by a mission to get a samosa) was what have we left to echo who we are.
‘‘In 2001, APRA [the Australasian Performing Right Association] released their Top 100 New Zealand songs of all time. Voted by APRA members, the list contains many songs that have helped shape our musical identity.
‘‘In the list are songs that we’ve heard on the radio a million times, or that IRD have left us on hold to, or that we’ve drunkenly sung out overpowering covers bands at New Year’s celebrations.
‘‘These are the songs we’re born knowing. Songs that defined our teenage years [mine was Bic Runga’s Drive] or that represent the zeitgeist of our parents’ age [There Is No Depression In New Zealand].
‘‘These are the songs the world has come to know us by [Fall at Your Feet] and that other countries have tried to steal [Counting the Beat]. Songs that marked for some a summer out of uni [Crazy? Yes! Dumb? No!] and that – for so many various reasons were carefully selected to give a familiar voice to the emotional heart and story of Rose and Eric – the echo left behind of my parents.
‘‘In New Zealand, we Kiwis have heard these songs so many times it’s easy to take them for granted. We sing along, but I wonder sometimes if we’ve stopped listening?
‘‘It’s easy to forget how critically acclaimed all these songs are [Anchor Me won the 1994 Silver Scroll] and that in the writing them, these artists opened up to us their personal lives [Chris Knox’s family in Not Given Lightly].
‘‘In Daffodils, the aim was to combine a personal journey with these iconic songs so that in a new context you can experience them anew.’’
Added to the line-up for the movie mix are a reimagining of The Clean’s Tally Ho and two original songs – What the Hell and Silent Treatment – by former Silver Scroll winners Lips (aka Stephanie Brown and Fen Ikner), who have served as the music directors on both the ‘‘play with songs’’ and the film.
The pair, who also appear as the backing band for Kimbra’s narrator character Maisie in the movie musical, admit this latest step in their multimedia collaboration with Bright was daunting.
‘‘The play was very stage-craft oriented with the songs basically used to narrate their lives,’’ says Ikner, ‘‘Our challenge was to do that in a visually snappy way.’’
A big fan of movie musicals, which currently seem to be having another moment in Hollywood if the success of The Greatest Showman, Bohemian Rhapsody, A Star is Born and Mary Poppins Returns are anything to go by, Brown thinks
something sort of magical happens when you combine music and drama in a way that drama alone can’t do.
Ikner agrees, adding that he believes that ‘‘it’s a primal thing – just above the lizard brain’’.
‘‘Being able to ingest that into your drama connects people on levels that maybe straight-up words can’t.’’
However, Brown says that Daffodils is a musical with a difference.
‘‘The songs represent the characters’ innerthoughts and emotions, but instead of having the drama pause while we launch into song, Rochelle has written the songs so that they interweave with the dialogue and it feels natural, almost like in real life when you’re saying one thing aloud and thinking another thing in your head.
‘‘I felt sure that this format would also work on film. Our challenge was to make sure that we matched this musically. One of the ways we did that was to make sure the score did not have too different of a sonic palette to the songs, so that we could go seamlessly back and forth between score and song without you noticing where the song begins and ends.’’
The pair are at pains to point out that, rather than a big showstopping Greatest Showman kind of thing, Daffodils has more in common with the endearing Irish romantic musical Once.
‘‘We were trying to keep this very human and grounded,’’ says Ikner, who cites a scene involving Aimee Mann’s Wise Up in Paul Thomas Anderson’s 1999 ensemble drama Magnolia as a touchstone.
Ikner says conceptually all the music in the movie version is supposed to be coming from Kimbra’s character and her band (played onscreen by himself and Brown).
‘‘Fen came up with this concept that the band is a kind of gauge,’’ continues Brown. ‘‘As you go more into the world of Kimbra’s character’s parents Rose and Eric, it shifts to more cinematic elements, but there’s always this little kernel of the band somewhere in that pot pourri because Kimbra is telling the story somewhere.’’
When it came to reimagining this selection of iconic Kiwi songs, Brown says they were given two directions to follow.
‘‘They were to be [done] in a contemporary way – so they didn’t need to match the period of the drama happening on screen – but they did need to match the scene in terms of feelings.
‘‘For example, with Drive, Rose is falling asleep while, on some nascent level, she is also falling in love with Eric. So that already gave us the direction to make something dreamy, floaty, romantic – the drums are muted as though from far away.’’
But did they feel any responsibility not to meddle with the classics too much?
‘‘I don’t know that we even needed to think about that,’’ says Ikner. ‘‘We had this dramatic framework to work from and that was kind of our imperative.’’
The Lips duo have had a small amount of feedback from the songs’ original authors.
‘‘I know Jordan [Luck] has seen the stage show a bunch,’’ confirms Brown. ‘‘I was nervous a bit with that one [I’ll Say Goodbye] because we wrote a little bit of new material into the song, but he was so positive and enthusiastic and he’s such a lovely guy. I don’t know if he would have said if he hated it.’’
‘‘Dobbyn was nice too when we met him,’’ offers Ikner. ‘‘He just said, ‘I’m proud of you guys’.’’
These are songs that we’ve heard on the radio a million times, or that IRD have left us on hold to, or that we’ve drunkenly sung out at New Year’s celebrations.