The Disappearing Face of Melodrama
source: http://www.denverpost.com/entertainmentlastold/ci_15321056?source=rss
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"After centuries of swashbuckling ribaldry, the art of melodrama is facing the possibility of a very unmelodramatic finale: tied to the railroad tracks like a damsel in distress, waiting for a hero who might not arrive in time to save the day.
As endings go: Boo.
"If the good guy does not triumph, and evil is not put down at the end, then it is not, by definition, a melodrama," said Vicki Kelly, one of three longtime owners of the Iron Springs Chateau, a historic dinner theater nestled above this tiny mountain town west of Colorado Springs.
It's a modern-day tragedy.
This timeless yet increasingly out-of-step piece of old-fashioned Americana is up against a villain far more insidious than a rotund, bellicose man who twirls his mustache. The clear and present evils in melodrama's long and colorful history are a down-spiraling economy. Changing tastes. Home entertainment. 3-D movies. Audience gentrification."
As endings go: Boo.
"If the good guy does not triumph, and evil is not put down at the end, then it is not, by definition, a melodrama," said Vicki Kelly, one of three longtime owners of the Iron Springs Chateau, a historic dinner theater nestled above this tiny mountain town west of Colorado Springs.
It's a modern-day tragedy.
This timeless yet increasingly out-of-step piece of old-fashioned Americana is up against a villain far more insidious than a rotund, bellicose man who twirls his mustache. The clear and present evils in melodrama's long and colorful history are a down-spiraling economy. Changing tastes. Home entertainment. 3-D movies. Audience gentrification."
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