Anyone with any degree of respect or appreciation of the Man In Black and his catalogue of work may want to look away now … and never look back.
Ring Of Fire, a Broadway-bound musical that ‘will include around 40 Cash tunes‘ is now officially at the casting stage.
That’s right. No-one has stopped it. Not one person stepped in and said ‘Hold on a second. Wouldn’t a musical – the lowest form of art on the planet, no less – about Cash be ever so slightly tacky and detrimental to both the man and the myth alike?’
Oh, no. Sorry, folks … looks like Mr Sanity skipped a meeting.
So we’re left with the awful truth: the producers of Ring Of Fire (could they not have thought of a more predictable title?) are looking for ‘three men and three women to play the late Johnny and June Carter Cash’.
Three men and three women? Two possibilities spring to mind – either the show is going to take the form of some science-fiction opus in which parallel-universe Johnny and Junes battle each other to death – something hecklerspray would actually consider paying money to see – or the more likely second option.
Yes … this is all going to be some Ray-alike ‘inspirational’ life-story, a series of vignettes no doubt accompanied by horrifically mangled versions of Cash classics. It beckons on a cold sweat just thinking about it: A Boy Named Sue with a gospel backing? Jackson with pyrotechnics? San Quentin with a group of prison-uniformed can-can dancers?
And what about Cash’s cover versions – the ones he made his own (Personal Jesus, Hurt, I Hung My Head)? How are these going to be handled? Isn’t this whole thing going to be a badly-executed, confused, artistically-jumbled mess?
The answer – it galls us to tell you – would appear to be: yes. A big old stormtrooping yes.
Not that little things like quality and intregity matter, however. The fact remains – what with stupidity being second only to hydrogen as the most adundant element in the cosmos – that a hell of a lot of people are going to go and see Ring Of Fire (presently scheduled for ‘a US tour in the autumn before opening in New York City next year’).
And so the show travels to England, and so the know-nothing middle classes park their bums on their seats and inevitably claim Cash as their own’. ‘Gosh, darling, that show was wonderful. Shall we check the motorway services on the way back home, see if they’re selling a ‘Best-Of’ CD?’
Only one ray of sunshine remains. Joquain Phoenix and his starring turn in upcoming Cash biopic Walk The Line (still a predictable title, true, but we’ll forgive them that).
Come on, Joquain. Do yer best. Old Johnny’s reputation might just be counting on it …