Quite a while ago I went to watch Anastasia the Musical with my mom. I knew that the story was a little different and stuff, and I was open and optimistic for the show. I even bought an overpriced t-shirt before the spectacle; a decision I would soon come to regret. The lights dimmed, those first notes from the music box played, and I immediately started to cry. Well, okay, the show went on and on and on and then the break between acts came and the lights were back on and I
thought to myself: S
pongebob Fish: Oh brother, this guy stinks! (peaceful intro song) Hi, hello! I'm Leev and today I'm going
to be pointing out, uh, everything wrong that I can think of in Anastasia the Musical. This will contain spoilers for both the animation and the musical; and real life; I guess. It happened a 100 years ago, catch up. So, you have been warned. Let's start with a very brief recap of this piece of goodness. Anastasia is one of the princesses of Russia. Uh-oh, her family humiliated Rasputin, so
he cursed them! So her whole family dies! Except her and her grandma because this servant, Dmitry, helps them escape. But they get separated and Anastasia loses her memory. Time skip! She's now an adult and her memory isn't back yet but she still has this necklace that says "Together in Paris". That's a clue, at least. Meanwhile, Dmitry (yeah, that one) and Vlad are holding auditions for a fake Anastasia so they can get the Grandma's wanted reward for her granddaughter and be rich! (pitch up) G
randma, it's me, Anastasia~ And then this girl with no memory, no family and who looks eerily similar to Anastasia falls onto their lap. How convenient! But, uh-oh, Rasputin is still around, finds out that she's still alive and he wants his revenge complete! So he keeps trying to kill the trio while they make their way from Russia to Paris. Then they get to Paris, the grandma doesn't want to believe that she's really Anastasia and Anastasia finds out that Dmitry and Vlad are scam artists and eve
rything falls apart! But Dmitry gives this music box to the grandma and begs her to talk to Anastasia. It's the music box she gifted her granddaughter, all those years ago... With that, our heroin's memory comes back, they're reunited, Dmitry's sad because him and Anastasia were kind of falling in love but she's a princess and he's not blah blah blah blah blah. Rasputin tries one last trick but, with the joint forces of Anastasia and Dmitry, he's defeated. And then Anastasia leaves her Grandma a
letter saying that she's going to go on adventures with Dmitry. The end Some things I really love about this and I want to point out are: One: I love Rasputin so much. You know how some people are with Hades from Hercules? That's me with Rasputin. I love 'In the Dark of the Night', he's so charismatic, I love him a lot. Two: I love how they adapted Anastasia's personality. The real Anastasia was killed when she was only 17 and, with the animation being set in 1926, she would have been 25. (Eve
n though in the movie canon she's probably 18 because who's getting kicked of an orphanage at 25?) Every account tells us that she was always up to mischief, holding the record of being being given the most punishments in the family, she was always joking and making faces and I just love how they adapted this personality type to an adult. She is still very much the same person but more mature; I love it. Three: the Anastasia, Dmitry and Vlad dynamic. I love how these three interact! I might be s
aying something a bit controversial here, but making your protagonist go "haha, I'm a strong feminist woman!" is like, not the way. Think of Barbie animations. Barbie is always the main character; the story revolves around her and her actions. She doesn't bend the story to show how badass she is, she simply IS the main character of that story! In Anastasia, she doesn't push Vlad and Dmitry to the side to show how badass she is, it's very clear that they all see other as equals and help each othe
r out in their heist. I love how natural it feels. Something that I think I should mention that isn't really perfect is that, um, there are a bunch of historical errors. Just off the top of my head: Rasputin and the Romanovs were on good terms up until his death; a whole bunch of dates, including when the 300 year anniversary of the the family rule was, Anastasia's age, etc.; the way in which they're all implied to die; the fact that, um, she didn't actually survive. You know. But like, I don't
think anyone's watching this movie for historical accuracy so, who cares. Now, maybe you already knew all this, and what you're actually interested in is: an Anastasia musical?? So let's go over the musical story. Anastasia is one of the princesses of Russia, but then the revolution happens and all her family dies. Dmitry and Vlad are scammers, blah blah blah blah blah you know this particular drill. Then there's a girl called Anya sweeping the streets and like, it's Anastasia, okay? It's a litt
le less obvious here than in the animation but like, you're not fooling anyone here. And then there's this USSR government guy called Gleb who's kind of into her. Then Anya meets the scammers and she sings a song that is- Oh, okay, it's not Journey To The Past and it's not Once Upon a December. It's yet another song saying "uuuuh I have amnesia and I want to find my family!" So, Learn How To Do It, they start teaching her but oh, she already knows some of it! But then some girls that were reject
ed for the role of Anastasia snitch on Anya to the government. But, how convenient, she's brought in to talk to Gleb. He then sings The Neva Flows, which is about how his father helped execute the Romanovs and how he subsequently 'died of shame', but how Gleb himself thinks that his father was just loyal to his duty. And Anya gets off with a slap on the wrist. She runs off to tell Dmitry about it and she's harassed by some thugs on the streets and has her girlboss moment by beating them all up w
ith a stick. And then he sings a song about how St Petersburg is a rough place to grow up in but that it's still his home. (Misao theme song) Then she tells him that "hey, I actually have this diamond that was stitched up to the inside of my clothes when I got to the hospital with amnesia. You can use it to get our documents and leave the country!" Which, believe it or not, is somewhat historically accurate. Then we get, um, literally the best song in the show by far; Stay I Pray You. No, it doe
sn't have anything to do with the fact that it's the melody of In the Dark of the Night, what are you talking about?? But, for real, it's so beautiful. It's a song about saying goodbye for good to something you love and have known your whole life. Then they're traveling in the train. But the USSR is after them, so the trio jumps from the train and continues their journey. And, guess what? Gleb is after them with orders to either bring Anastasia back to Russia or kill her; both to make an example
out of her. Well, no problem, they get to Paris and now we get... Journey to the Past? Like, weird placement. Doesn't tell us anything new... But okay. Now Vlad is off to rekindle the flames of his old romance with the empress's lady-in-waiting, Lily. But he's so smitten by her that he drops the tickets to the Russian ballet they're going to. Geez, dude... And Gleb picks them up. By the way, the grandma doesn't want any more Anastasia impersonators. Meanwhile, Anastasia remembers a parade and s
eeing Dmitry in the crowd back when she was still a princess and stuff. Her memory's coming back! And they sing a song about "oh, we're in love, but you're a princess and I'm not blah blah blah". Okay, moving on, we're at the ballet and there's another amazing song called, fittingly, Quartet at the Ballet. Gleb, the empress, Anastasia and Dmitry sing about their fears and hopes. Oh, by the way, Gleb is in love with Anastasia like, for real for real. Anyways, the empress doesn't want to talk to A
nastasia and Dmitry roasts her to her face and then she's like "oh, you know what? I'm going to go talk to her." And then they have an extremely confusing conversation. I'll go into more depth about it later but like, Anastasia kind of says that she still doesn't know who she is and the grandma says that she has to believe who she is before she can convince anyone. Um... Yeah, moving on. Then there's going to be a press conference because the Lost Princess was found!!! But then Gleb is holding A
nastasia at gunpoint but like, does anyone believe for a second that he's going to shoot her? He goes scurrying back to the USSR, Anastasia goes off after Dmitry who's at the train station and kisses him and they're together now and I suppose they're going on adventures. Then... that's not the end. There's an empress / Gleb monologue? Duologue? It's a monologue but they're divided between the two. Anyways. The empress tells the press to never mention Anastasia ever again, (yeah, that's going to
work) she's not coming back, she never existed and all the money for the Anastasia reward is going to charity, and Gleb is saying that Anastasia also never existed and she was just a dream and that the new order has no need for fairy tales. The end. Now let's talk about why this stage adaptation does not work. In more general terms, this is trying to do way too much. Let's compare it to the animation. The animation was trying to: tell Anastasia's story with her as a protagonist and heroine. The
musical, on the other hand, is trying to: tell Anastasia story with her as a protagonist and heroine; have a sympathetic villain who's the complete political opposite of what Anastasia represents; all the while trying to have political discussions without picking any sides; and have philosophical discussions about identity. Even if the whole show was focused on that, it would be way too much. And it's not, we have songs about lots of other topics. Fine, let's start getting specific here. Problem
one: Gleb. Yeah, yeah, I love Rasputin a lot, we get it. But I had already listened to The Neva Flows and knew that my dearly beloved wouldn't be in the musical, so I was ready for that. What I was not ready for was how boring Gleb is. I think that if they had made him not be love with Anastasia and his dilemma be a purely moral one of being loyal to the USSR versus killing an innocent person, he would have been more interesting and more threatening. Wouldn't make him charismatic at all but lik
e, would be something. Also his song makes it really difficult to understand like, what's going on with him? The Neva Flows happens here. Here, in the break between acts, I was discussing with my mom what exactly his backstory was. I just felt that it wasn't really clear and I had heard it before! And, think about this: the only people going to watch this spectacle are either people who grew up watching and love the animation or children who love the animation. If neither me or my mom were able
to fully glas- (laugh) glasp...- were able to fully grasp what Gleb was about like, what chance do kids have? Problem two: the conflict between Anastasia the protagonist and the government she represents. Listen, everyone knows that the Romanovs kind of dropped the ball with Russia. When I was younger, I used to read a lot about the last of the Romanovs and have come to the conclusion that Nicholas was just a guy not cut out to rule. Like, AT ALL. But still, that's not an excuse, they messed up.
Well, I mean, he messed up, because his kids were like. Not involved in it, but whatever. (Ciao Carina) The USSR also messed up, but they brought about the change that Russia needed. The animation works because no one's trying to have a
discussion about which government was better, it's a story about a girl wanting to find her family. The stage adaptation, though... Why would you even TRY to have this discussion in Anastasia?!? Like, you can't say that the people who kept Russia in a perpetual
Middle Ages up until they were dethroned were the good guys, but you also can't say that the communists were the good guys because like, this is ANASTASIA the musical. She's the heroine, she's the main character, we're supposed to root for her, so why would you even bring that up??? (thunder) As a result, this aspect of the show feels pointless because both sides accuse the other of being bad and the show itself never picks a side. And, I'm sorry, but with all of this going on, you simply can't
make something ambiguous. Problem three: the discussion with the grandma in the end. I told you we were going to come back to this. So, this is the payoff moment. Anastasia is finally in Paris speaking to Grandma. This is the moment when she gets all her memories back and they hug and it's all fine and beautiful. And then they have this long ass discussion about Anastasia still not being sure of who she is and if she is Anastasia even though she has regained a ton of her memories already! And t
he Grandma's like "ooohh, you have to believe in yourself before you can convince anybody else of who you are". I'm sorry, are you trying to teach her how to be a scam artist?? This isn't a matter of believing; she either is or isn't Anastasia. (thunder) Who thought it was a good idea to include this?? It completely ruins the climax of the story, you know? Like, the BIG payoff. Well, I feel like these are the three major problems with this musical, but I'd like to have a quick rapid fire section
about some nitpicks of mine. They spend way too long in St Petersburg and make the spectacle feel stagnant; there are a lot of historically accurate details that are there to show off someone's history degree, they serve no purpose; the trio feels extremely disconnected for some reason; Anastasia's girlboss moment; Anastasia's final dress would be the ugliest thing you've ever set your eyes upon if it looked even 1% cheaper; the type of voice they decided to cast for Anastasia is a little bit a
nnoying; Anastasia's personality kind of gets lost in the sauce; I have no idea if Dmitry feels bittersweet about leaving St Petersburg or if he can't get to Paris soon enough; and, um, I think that's it. To close things off, I will to say that this isn't the worst thing I've ever seen. The stage and costumes were beautiful, everyone in the cast was super talented and knew how to hold their own in such a huge stage. I know that praising an actor in a musical for knowing how to sing and dance and
act sounds weird; like, isn't that the bare minimum? But, trust and believe me, as someone who's seen a lot of terrible plays, not everyone has that basic standard of quality. But yeah, I wouldn't really go watch it again. Especially with how expensive it is. Honestly, I don't even know if I'd go for free. Maybe, if I didn't have anything better to do. Thank you so much for watching! (kiss noises) Like, comment, subscribe, blah blah blah blah blah and I'll make more videos if an anvil doesn't f
all on my head. Bye... (Misao theme song) (outro song)
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