‘Newsies: The Broadway Musical’ // Disney+
‘Newsies: The Broadway Musical’ was sensational.
In 1899, New York City was hit with a financial crisis during the Spanish-American War. Newspapers weren’t selling and the young boys who sold them were struggling with the increase in paper prices, leading them to strike against News moguls Joseph Pulitzer and William Randolph Hearst. 117 years later (2017), the hit musical ‘Newsies’ was filmed on stage at the Pantages Theatre in Los Angeles, and released for digital download.
The stage musical, based both on the real-life news boys strike and the 1992 film of the same name, was written by Harvey Fierstein, with music by Alan Menken and lyrics by Jack Feldman. The musical itself starred Jeremy Jordan as Jack Kelly, the leader of the newsies; Ben Fankhauser as Davey, a new newsie temporarily forced to sell papers while their father is out of work; Kara Lindsay as an strong, independent young reporter Katherine Plumber, and Jack Kelly’s love interest; Steve Blanchard as news titan Joseph Pulitzer; Andrew Keenan-Bolger as crippled go-getter Crutchie; Ethan Steiner as Les, Davey’s younger brother; and Aisha De Haas as Medda Larkin, a performer.
While relatively accurate, the musical does present differences to both the real life event and the 1992 film; the addition of Katherine Plumber was a combination of Joseph Pulitzer’s real-life daughter Katherine, ho died at the age of 2, and the characters of Sarah Jacobs and Bryan Denton from the original film. Furthermore, the musical saw the replacement of the film’s songs “My Lovey Dovey Baby” and “High Times Hard Times”, for “That’s Rich”, as well as saw the addition of Crutchie’s solo, “Letter From The Refuge”.
As the musical opens, viewers are immediately transported to the News Boys Lodging House, depicted on a screen. As the instrumental version of ‘Seize The Day’ plays, the screen rises and, being filmed, the camera zooms in as the stage turns into the rooftops of New York City, where we are introduced to the first characters, Crutchie and Jack Kelly, who are shown to have a brotherly friendship. The first number is a duet between Crutchie and Jack Kelly of ‘Santa Fe’, which was a beautiful combination of both actors’ voices. As the show progresses, audiences are introduced to the rest of the newsies, highlighting the familial relationship between all the boys, as they band together to unionise against Joseph Pulitzer.
The show includes fantastic show-stopping musical numbers, including ‘Carrying The Banner’, ‘The World Will Know’, ‘Carrying The Banner’, and Jack’s solo, a reprise of ‘Santa Fe’. Furthermore, the dancers of ‘Newsies’ showcase their incredible skills in tap dancing, acrobatics, ballet and street dance, elevating the already fantastic songs to new heights. Most notably, Ben Cook, who plays Race, is seen constantly backflipping and leaping with a cigar in his mouth, a truly amazing thing to watch.
The costumes further depict the class system and time period in which ‘Newsies’ takes place; the newsies wear torn, unwashed, patched up clothes, while characters such as Katherine, Davey and Les wear neat and clean clothes. However, the costumes, while meant to appear worn out, still hold a vibrancy of colour to make the characters stand out, utilising blues, greens and, in Katherine’s case, purples and oranges, to stand out against the dreary backdrop of dirty New York.
While it is quite strange to see adult men, most specifically Jeremy Jordan, depict a 17 year old, the chemistry between Jack Kelly and Katherine Plumber was extremely palpable, a testament to the phenomenal acting skills of Jordan and Lindsay. While ‘Newsies is a story about the strike against news titans, there is also the secondary romance story between Jack and Katherine, a relationship you quickly find yourself rooting for. As such, the talent and emotion of the actors makes up for the obvious age differences between the actors and their characters.
Being a filmed musical performance, there are many instances where the camera shows different angels of the characters faces, and of the stage. Unlike in real-time, this offers different views of what is happening, and puts you right in the moment, as if you are on stage with the characters themselves. Most notably, during the fight between the newsies and the police, the closeups of the camera on the different newsies running and getting thrown around proffers more chaos to an already chaotic scene, and also implicates more danger. Especially so, in the close-up on Crutchie’s face as he is beaten with his own crutch, there is an added feeling of hopelessness at being close enough to see the pain, but not enough to help, a testament to how well shot the musical was. Furthermore, the fades between scenes was a nice substitute and shortcut for the scene changes, preventing viewers from having to watch as the settings changed outside of the songs.
While this immersion into the world of ‘Newsies’ is exciting and well done through the use of camera angels, there is one downfall to the filmed version of the stage musical. That is the panning to the audience at the end of show stopping numbers. Watching other people clap takes away from feeling as if you are IN the moment.
With that being said, overall the pro-shot of the ‘Newsies’ musical was an absolute joy to watch. With the liveliness of a stage show being filmed, it did not retract any feeling of being in the moment. An excellently cast show, ‘Newsies’ is a fantastic performance and a testament to the 1899 news boys strike that hit New York City.
‘Newsies: The Broadway Musical’ is now available to stream on Disney+.
