Dallas as a play

[B.J. Ewing]

I just fantasized about Dallas as a play. Starring Linda and Patrick, maybe even with Charlene and Steve. The stage should be the Southfork living room. The play would be one long dialogue between Linda and Patrick. Sue Ellen and Bobby would meet each other in the living room and talk about the old days. Lots of characters of the past could come by in their conversation. We’d finally learn what happened to all those family members, from whom we didn’t hear anything about in the TNT version.

We - as audience - would feel we were in the Southfork living room ourselves.

Would it work?

 

[Ray_Krebbs]

I love that idea!

 

[Barbara Fan]

Yes I could buy that so long as original Lorimar people were involved and remained true to the script of 78-91

I always liked the original idea of Dallas the early years being a conversation between BBG / VP as Miss Ellie and Pam
But BBG wasnt well and VP had her back problem so it didnt happen

 

[James from London]

Just to be boringly pedantic, you’d probably need some sort of conflict happening in the present for it to work as a play, i.e., a piece of drama.

 

[Willie Oleson]

The reading of Christopher's will?

 

[James from London]

Yeah you could have characters congregate for Christopher’s will and then have some arguing that the will shouldn’t be read because we never saw Christopher die on screen and then maybe different Christophers from different eras of the show appear with different points of view and the whole piece becomes an exploration of identity and memory and continuity and fan ownership and what we choose to believe did or didn’t happen and who did or didn’t exist (and then Carmen appears with snacks and people start arguing that she shouldn’t be there because she’s never existed and where the hell’s Teresa?) and living in the past versus the present and why it all matters so much - but you use the fictional characters to argue these different points in the same way that they used to argue about Ewing Oil . I mean, you could still discuss what did or didn’t happen to the characters after 1991, but in a less linear format than “this happened then, that happened.”

 

[Snarky Oracle!]

I just fantasized about Dallas as a play. Starring Linda and Patrick, maybe even with Charlene and Steve. The stage should be the Southfork living room. The play would be one long dialogue between Linda and Patrick. Sue Ellen and Bobby would meet each other in the living room and talk about the old days. Lots of characters of the past could come by in their conversation. We’d finally learn what happened to all those family members, from whom we didn’t hear anything about in the TNT version.

We - as audience - would feel we were in the Southfork living room ourselves.

Would it work?

It could be an uproarious celebration of the fans with so much emotional investment in the TNT version working that they channel their own clandestine disappointment into a wild and rapturous denial of that disappointment, resulting in their gushingly praising periods of the original show -- even the dream season -- they'd previously detested, so their support of the new show would make sense retroactively somehow, even taking to self-consciously developing a new appreciation for other shows they'd once disliked for solid reasons in order to make it all work in the end, their entire being neurotically devoted to this cause. Before dying and happily dancing into hell for all eternity for the sole, perverse reason of knowing they shouldn't, because doing so makes them feel autonomous.

Obviously, it would have to be a musical -- perhaps entitled NARCISSOUTHFORK.

 

[Jabari Lamar]

Would it work?

If you mean as some type of special performance at a Dallas convention/celebration, that remaining cast members performed for the diehard fans, then yes. I'm sure a decent-sized audience would pay to go to such an event.

If you mean as an ongoing play, like performed on Broadway, then no. I don't think there's enough of an audience for that. At least not that version. Someone probably could write a decent play based on Dallas, which, after all, was at least partially inspired by the famous play Cat On A Hot Tin Roof, but it would have to be it's own story, with new actors playing the various characters, not something deliberately tying into the continuity of the show, to be successful. I could even see it as a musical.

 

[James from London]

it would have to be it's own story, with new actors playing the various characters, not something deliberately tying into the continuity of the show, to be successful.

Yeah, that makes sense.

I could even see it as a musical.

Oh wow, I don't know if I could cope with that!

 

[Jabari Lamar]

Oh wow, I don't know if I could cope with that!

That seems to be a bit of a trend, reviving old TV shows or movies on stage as musicals. Shows like Happy Days, The Brady Bunch, Gilligan's Island, Beverly Hills 90210, and others, as well as movies like Heathers and Mean Girls, have been adapted into musical stage plays.

 

[James from London]

movies like Heathers and Mean Girls, have been adapted into musical stage plays.

Even Brief Encounter! They'll turn anything that isn't nailed down into a musical -- and people seem to love it.

 

[Jabari Lamar]

I can imagine DALLAS: THE MUSICAL

I'd probably use the Who Shot J.R.? storyline as the plot. While he's in the operating room have a sequence with all the other character singing a song about how rotten he was, and what he did to them that would make them want to shoot him. Maybe take the Dr. Seuss Grinch song and rewrite it as "You're A Mean One, Mr. Ewing.."

 

[James from London]

You could have JR sitting up mid-surgery to sing 'Bang Bang (My Baby Shot Me Down)'.

 

[Jabari Lamar]

J.R. and Bobby fighting over who should run Ewing Oil, singing an adaptation of Anything You Can Do I Can Do Better...

 

[James from London]

Sue Ellen could close Act I with 'Poor Poor Pitiful Me'.

The Dallas Gold-Diggers -- Kristin, Afton, Garnet, April, Michelle, Alan Beam, Casey Denault and Tommy Sutter -- could open Act 2 with 'Who Wants to Be a Millionaire'.

 

[Willie Oleson]

For Cliff's hypocritical anti-Ewing campaign:

And then he gets some and it's all great.

 

[xab]

Well... isn't a soap opera an opera first... ?

 

[Luke_Krebbs_Ewing]

The reading of Christopher's will?

What!

He's not dead. He's my brother & I love him.

 

[Luke_Krebbs_Ewing]

Yeah you could have characters congregate for Christopher’s will and then have some arguing that the will shouldn’t be read because we never saw Christopher die on screen and then maybe different Christophers from different eras of the show appear with different points of view and the whole piece becomes an exploration of identity and memory and continuity and fan ownership and what we choose to believe did or didn’t happen and who did or didn’t exist (and then Carmen appears with snacks and people start arguing that she shouldn’t be there because she’s never existed and where the hell’s Teresa?) and living in the past versus the present and why it all matters so much - but you use the fictional characters to argue these different points in the same way that they used to argue about Ewing Oil . I mean, you could still discuss what did or didn’t happen to the characters after 1991, but in a less linear format than “this happened then, that happened.”

Chris says he'd love to see that as a play, he think's it would be great seeing how he survived as a play.

I'm not so sure though its a bit fantastical for my liking but it could be interesting.

Getting loads of different actors in to play Christopher would be cool. Let us know when & where the play opens so we can get the popcorn in. We both wana see the scene where a drunken John Ross tries to force his attentions on to Christopher when he sees him in the shower! Although maybe that scenes a bit risque for a play with guys bottoms bobbling about on the stage! Pity it's not getting televised it might get the ratings up, as a new series of Phallus would be well cool!

I can just see the tagline: Dallas, The Musical it ends with a bang!

 

[Rove]

Would it work?

If it was played straight. Most of us were bitterly disappointed when the sports department at TNT cancelled Dallas, leaving us with an almighty ending that many fans want answers to. If the powers that be gave the approval (creative licence) along with all that associated nonsense and someone with serious writing skills attuned to the history of Dallas then I'd attend a play which gives fans some closure to the mess that was left behind.

I'm thinking the play would centre around a death in the family. The play begins as Sue Ellen and Bobby thank the last guests to leave a memorial service. They return to the living room and begin their conversation about friends and family, past and present.

It offers closure but a way forward if Dallas was ever given the green light for a continuation on the small screen.