What happens when you put 33 Beatles songs, a Broadway director and a young and upcoming cast together?
The result is “Across the Universe”, a musical that captures the 60’s era and presents them in a vibrant, unique way.
From Frida director Julie Taymor comes a musical to which you can sing along - and tap your feet – to a wide set of Beatles songs.
A Love Story
Named after the classic Beatles tune, “Across the Universe” is set against the backdrop of the turbulent years of the ‘60s and travels across Britain, America, and Vietnam.
Inspired by Taymor’s childhood observation of the ‘60s, “Across the Universe” is about a pair of young lovers who must find their ways back to each other again, amidst the different movements taking place: the anti-war protest, the struggle for free speech and civil rights, ‘mind exploration’, and of course, rock ‘n’ roll.
Dock worker Jude travels to America in search of his father whom he has never met. He meets a pair of privileged teenagers, Max and his sister Lucy. Love blossoms between Lucy and Jude. However, when Max is sent to fight in Vietnam, things change between the lovers. The circumstances that take place afterwards drive them further apart.
Back in the ‘60s, Taymor was in her early teens.
“Lucy and Max, the brother and sister, are modeled slightly after my own older brother and sister and I’m Julia, the young girl who’s watching. During that time, I was a voyeur to what my parents were going through with the teenagers and then college students who were going through the radical political movement: the draft, the hippies, the drugs. And so I was there – I didn’t get immersed myself, but I watched it,” she said.
About the Songs
What takes centre stage here are the songs – in this case, those by one of the legendary bands in music history, the Beatles. And trust us when we say it’s not an easy job for Taymor to pare down from 200 songs to 33 songs that best represent the story.
And this includes some of the biggest Beatles hits, ‘Hey Jude’, ‘I Want to Hold Your Hand’, ‘All You Need is Love’ and ‘I Am the Walrus’.
“It was really scary having the legacy of the Beatles’ music on your shoulders because it’s the Holy Grail. It’s so important to so many people and the originals were perfect,” said Taymor.
“Everybody knows the Beatles’ music so well, it’s almost like a ghost in the room. All the licks that they played, the specific guitar fills, the drum fills – everybody fills those in when they hear the songs. The songs were done perfectly already by the Beatles – they are definitive performances,” said Elliot Goldenthal, Taymor’s life partner and longtime collaborator.
“So the challenge was try to find an honest way – staying within oneself – of getting to the core of these songs and try to find other ways to support the beautiful words and music,” said Goldenthal. “We knew from the beginning that we did not want to compete with the Beatles’ versions,” said Taymor.
Together the pair worked on the songs and had even applied new meaning to the lyrics.
“The entire concept of this musical is that the lyrics will tell the story. They are the libretto, they are the arias, they are the emotion of the characters,” said Taymor.
For instance, the song ‘I Want to Hold Your Hand’ begins with a young girl singing on the sidelines of the football field. “Partway through, you realise she’s not in love with the quarterback – she’s in love with the blonde cheerleader. All of the sudden the song works in a totally different way, because it’s about repressed love,” she said.
To further enhance the effect, period-appropriate equipments, among them analogue tape and vintage microphones, are also used.
About the Actors
Apart from the songs, there is another challenge – to find a cast that can sing and act equally well. Across the Universe showcases a fresh-faced cast, which includes Evan Rachel Wood, Jim Sturgess, Joe Anderson, Martin Luther McCoy, and Dana Fuchs.
Wood was the only cast member with major film experience, having established herself as a young, talented actress to watch in recent years with a series of films including “Thirteen” (2003), “The Upside of Anger” (2005) and “Running with Scissors” (2006).
However, her latest role proved to be a new challenge for her, when the 20-year-old had to sing.
Wood faced her toughest task in singing ‘If I Fell’, one of the most difficult songs to sing in the musical. “I’ve never had any training in singing and that song goes very, very high. It’s also the most emotional song I sing. So I had to prepare myself emotionally for the character at that moment and also put it into song – while also remembering what my voice had to do.
“As I was learning the song and trying to figure out how to sing it, they brought Sturgess (the leading actor) into the room so I could sing it to him. It was the very best I ever sang it – it took my mind off what I was doing and freed me up.”
With “Across the Universe” came the first big break for British actor Jim Sturgess, who in the past had done some TV, radio and film.
“We did not want musical theatre voices, and we didn’t want pop-y voices. Jim just fit in right away. Jim’s been in a rock band and he’s an actor,” said Taymor.
When he sang, he straightaway blew both Taymor and Goldenthal away. “He just sings with such an incredible ease that you feel that the character is talking just to you. He has a beautiful voice – and there’s no disconnect between his speaking voice and his singing voice. Jim can go right from talking to singing,” said Goldenthal.
Not only is he working with noted filmmakers like Taymor, Sturgess was also awed by the opportunity of sharing the same stage with rock legend Bono.
“One day, I was sitting around, watching Bono sing ‘I Am the Walrus’ – so I was already having a good afternoon – and then he comes over and asks me if I’d like to come to his show at the end of the week. What was I going to say? ‘Sorry, I have other plans?’ No, I stood there and said, ‘I’d love to, thank you... Mr. Bono.’
“Later, the bigger surprise came when Bono told Sturgess that he loved his voice.”
The Stars That Lend Support
It’s not just the Beatles songs that would draw the crowd, but also a couple of A-list cameo appearances by the biggest stars in film in music today.
U2 frontman Bono will weave his magic on the big screen by portraying Dr. Robert. The singer, who was in the midst of a world tour with his band, spent two days on the set.
“We concocted the character together, me and Julie. She wanted him to be true to the time and period, so we made him a west coast, Neal Cassady type.”
Cassady, an iconic figure in the ’60s counterculture, served as the inspiration for Jack Kerouac’s 1951 classic On the Road. He was also an author in his own right and the driver of Furthur, Ken Kesey’s Merry Pranksters bus.
It’s no wonder that Bono was attracted to the role, who is almost rock star-like.
“We studied films of him and the way he worked, and it’s almost like he wanted to be a rock star – he has all these jerky moves, a lot of self-confidence, always plays to the women in the room. For my first acting role, I thought this would be interesting and a little bit special.”
Salma Hayek, who last worked together with Taymor in “Frida” that brought her an Oscar nomination, plays not one – but five sexy nurses dancing to ‘Happiness is a Warm Gun’.
It so happened that the director asked Hayek if she wanted to play a nurse and the latter replied that she wanted to play all five of them!
British stand-up comedian Eddie Izzard took up the role as Mr. Kite, another movement leader alongside Bono’s Dr. Robert, singing to ‘Being For the Benefit of Mr. Kite’! Another rock star joining the fare is Joe Cocker, who did a cover of ‘Come Together’, transforming himself in multiple roles of a bum, a pimp, and a hippie.
About the Dance
With “Across the Universe”, the dance sequences are more than just background to the songs and voices.
Choreographer Danny Ezralow incorporated everyday movements into the dance scenes, and this involved putting his iPod on when he rode the subway to the set, listening to the songs from the film, watching how people move and imagining how it will turn out in the film.
As a result, these scenes turn out more realistic and natural. For instances, people are sliding down banisters, leaping up and falling into couches when ‘With a Little Help from My Friends’ rang in the background. In ‘Come Together’, they walk in unison with briefcases.
“Across the Universe” opens on Nov 29.