‘A Beautiful Woman – The Musical’ arrives in Brazil with a track by Bryan Adams: ‘it’s a love story’

It doesn’t even take the most attuned ear to recognize, in those first drum beats, the classic ‘Oh! Pretty Woman’in Roy Orbison. The 1964 track, a hit since its release, ended up being re-signified in 1990, when it illustrated one of the classic cinema scenes – the ‘transformation’ of Vivian Ward, character from Julia Robertsin A beautiful woman. The soundtrack was so perfect, in fact, that it became synonymous with the plot – and generated an extra challenge for Bryan Adamswhich had to reimagine the plot for a musical theater version of the story.

Now, Pretty Woman – The Musical, opens in Brazil this Friday (1st), with the soundtrack adapted to Portuguese. Written by Adams in partnership with jim vallancethe show features thais pizza in the role of Vivian, and with Jarbas Man of Mello as Edward Lewis, and recreates, on the stage of the Santander Theater, the story of the billionaire who falls in love with a sex worker. And, if the movie version had big names like roxette, David Bowie It is Red Hot Chili Pepperson stage it fell to Adams and Vallance to translate the novel.

“The interesting thing about writing for a musical is that it’s different than an album. You’re not writing, you’re using metaphors. You tell the story so that when people are sitting in the audience, they know exactly what’s going on between those characters,” said Adams in an interview with Rolling Stone Brazil.

The singer’s choice ended up helping the production to dialogue with the eighties and nineties universe that became synonymous with A beautiful woman. But for him, the job came as an unprecedented challenge to produce for the theater, something in which neither he nor his partner Jim Vallance had experience.

“I heard production was going on. Then a friend introduced me to the producer and the director called me. We went to an audition in New York. Jim [Vallance] commented that he didn’t know if that was his world. It’s not my world either, but I thought it could be fun.”

The duo then performed in front of the production and the author of the film, JF Lawton. On the same day, they received the green light to start the trail.

Pretty Woman and Me Too

With the novelty of having to rewrite a classic for the stage, a new platform for the two until then, Adams and Vallance had to deal with something that the film version of A beautiful woman had not foreseen: the change of customs. More than writing a track, the duo would need to translate the story, sometimes problematic, in the mid-2010s, in the light of the movement me too – popular movement that brought to light the systemic sexual harassment suffered by women for decades.

For Adams, the answer came in the way he addressed the subject in the lyrics – instead of focusing on thorny plot points, such as the sex industry, he chose to shed light on the relationship between the protagonists.

“See, the story is about a sex worker who meets a billionaire, so it’s not really about the Me Too movement, you know? And we started writing about the same time as the Me Too movement. All over the press, we read that you can’t talk about certain topics anymore – but that ended up not mattering so much, because it’s a story about two people falling in love”, said the musician.

“It’s a love story. And the setting could be anything. It could be a person meeting a billionaire in a store, maybe. It’s about two people meeting in the magic of the moment. About someone who walks into your life and makes you realize things you didn’t know about yourself.”

Pretty Woman – The Musical premieres this Friday (1) at Teatro Santander. The cast has 25 actors, including Thais Piza and Jarbas Homem de Mello. The show runs in São Paulo until December 17, with sessions from Thursday to Sunday, from 4 pm to 8 pm.

Service:

OneBeautifulWomanThe Musical

Date: From September 1st to December 17th

Local: Santander Theater

Address: Avenida Presidente Juscelino Kubitschek, 2041, São Paulo – SP

Time: At 4pm and 8pm

Tickets: Sympla