I certainly hope you can qualify your "lofty" criticism from more theatrical experience than sitting in a booth selling tickets.Well, this just makes me want to call you an ignorant twat, but instead I am going to mildly say:
Ah Whit. I've spent MOST of my adult working life in the theatre. I first went to Stratford when I was 7. I took "theatre arts" for three years in high school and have been involved, onstage or behind the scenes, in numerous productions. No, I'm not an actor - but then, your confession that you were a triple-threat just shores up my belief that actors are often not very good judges of performance. (Oooh. That's for looking down your snotty nose at me for selling tickets.) It's true, in my experience: they let their egos get in the way, they don't want to believe something might not be exactly as wonderful as THEY think it is.
How do you know they were hoping to "enrichen" (the word is "enrich") our lives? how do you know they weren't just hoping to make an indecent amount of money? Just as you shouldn't go getting all high-and-mighty with a ticket seller you've never met, assuming she must be some ignorant slob from Hicksville, you also shouldn't attribute noble motives to people in the entertainment industry whom you've never met, assuming they must be patron saints of the performing arts.
I do HATE it when people prostitute good material for the popular conception of the "bottom line" - money. To me, the bottom line always has been, and always will be, QUALITY. I'm not interested in seeing some supposed creative type rape a perfectly good story. On the other hand, I applaud creative genre-swapping when it's done with integrity and a genuine love for the original material - hence, I thoroughly enjoyed both Bridget Jones's Diary, the novel, and Bridget Jones's Diary, the film. The two differed on a lot of points but each was a delight in its own genre and both conveyed, humorously and in an over-the-top kinda way, what it's like to be a 30-something chick in contemporary society. The truisms in that book and that film ARE truisms for many women in that age category (in case you want my credentials on this one, I'm female and 34 and have a lot of female friends in their early and mid-thirties with whom I have discussed both book and movie. Okay?).
Certainly most of the people you mention were (or are, for the extant ones) talented, some of them even very talented. That doesn't stop me hating what some of them have done with wonderful material.
For you to suggest that I am being "Hitlerian" is positively hyperbolic of you. (But I suspect if you want to do that, you might be better off making his name an adjective by adding "esque," not "ian.") And no, it's not "like" they're selling weapons. But some of them definitely are contributing to the mushifying of the brains of hundreds of thousands of theatre-goers.
Finally, I never think anything "should have never been made." If I feel that way about something, I think it "should never have been made."
edit PS: And I LOVE (assuming you don't object to that word in caps) Jesus Christ Superstar (can't remember who posted about that show). Think the "bottom line" on this thread is: everyone has different favourites, different ideas of what's good and what's bad, and our opinions are strong. I doubt I'll get you to agree with mine - you certainly won't get me to agree with yours. If I want to eschew ever watching Cabaret (the film) again because I felt the stage show was streets better, that's my prerogative. If I want to watch Enchanted April (the film) over and over again because I LOVE how it improved on the book, that too is my prerogative. Now get off my case. I STILL (ooh, caps AGAIN!) say LOTR would be descrated if 'twere made into a musical; and I STILL say I can imagine it as an opera. Stamp it, no erasin', no nuthin'.
