Joyride

I love musical theatre that makes me think.

You might assume that means I mainly enjoy composers known for their complex scores and themes – think of, say, Stephen Sondheim or Dave Malloy. And I do enjoy them! But oftentimes, you can find a lot to think about in other kinds of musicals, too.

For example, lately, my mind has been occupied trying to answer the following question:

How on earth did they manage to screw up the Roxette jukebox musical in Malmö Opera?

In the middle with the guitar, Sara Stjernfeldt as Stella
Photo by Jonas Persson

Many musical fans look down on jukebox musicals (= musicals that are created using pre-existing songs instead of newly composed music), and I used to be like that, too – but over the years, I've grown to love them.

Though it was Mamma Mia! in 1999 that started the still ongoing wave of jukebox musicals in the West End and on Broadway, different works of musical theatre have been making use of pre-existing hit songs for literally hundreds of years, so jukeboxes are actually an integral part of the history of musicals as a genre. Besides that, they're also a lot of fun! Mamma Mia!, Moulin Rouge!, Rock of Ages, & Juliet, En del av mitt hjärta... Sometimes, all you need is a bunch of pop songs clumsily inserted into a silly story to cheer you up.

Jukeboxes won me over for good in the last days of 2019, when I went to see the Swedish musical movie En del av mitt hjärta, a romantic comedy told via beloved Swedish pop artist Tomas Ledin's songs. As the movie opened with an absolutely cringeworthy scene where a teenage party turned into a housefire, I felt like I was being presented with a choice: I could either refuse to meet the movie at its own level and have the most miserable two hours ever, or I could embrace the camp, choose joy instead of cringe, and have a blast.

I chose the latter, had the time of my life, saw the movie six or seven more times, and spent the first two years of the pandemic listening to literally nothing but Tomas Ledin.

I'm sharing this experience because it made me understand how essential refusing to take yourself seriously really is when it comes to jukebox musicals. As a genre, all musicals are inherently melodramatic and over-the-top. Bursting into song whenever you feel a big feeling is extra, there is no way around it. And when the song you're bursting into happens to be SOS by ABBA... That's pure camp, and it's best enjoyed when both the people creating the jukebox musical and the people watching it are open to that.

In my opinion, as far as jukebox musical movies go, both Mamma Mias and aforementioned En del av mitt hjärta nail this balance: it's impossible to watch them without understanding that the people who made them had their tongues firmly in cheek the whole time, and that's exactly what makes them so entertaining. Of course these types of musicals aren't going to be the next Les Misérables or Hamilton, and it's fine, because they're not trying to be. They're just doing their own thing, trying to make you feel happy and nostalgic for a while, and it's fine.

So, having enjoyed all these musical romps based on Swedish pop, I was excited to see what kind of a story Malmö Opera's brand-new musical Joyride would tell via Roxette's songs. Surely, it shouldn't be too difficult to create a fun musical, something with plenty of romance and a bit of heartbreak until the inevitable happy ending, based on their hits?

Well.

Photo by Martin Paulsson

Malmö Opera has been marketing Joyride the musical as a feelgood experience. That's exactly the type of jukebox musical I tend to enjoy. So why did I leave the theatre feeling nonplussed instead of, well, good?

Besides Roxette's music, Joyride is also based on the novel Got You Back by Jane Fallon, adapted for the stage by Klas Abrahamsson and Guy Unsworth and directed by Unsworth. I haven't read the original novel, but I assume the gist is identical to the musical: our heroine Stephanie finds out her long-time partner Joe has been cheating on her with another woman called Katie – whom she decides to contact, suggesting that the two women team up to take their revenge on Joe. They start playing all sorts of tricks on him, working their way towards a grande finale where they'll both appear at his birthday party, dressed in matching outfits.

Just based on that short synopsis, I think there are three feelgood ways this story could end:

1) Stephanie and Katie fall in love with each other while planning their revenge, ditch Joe, and become a couple.

2) Stephanie and Katie become best friends, ditch Joe, and start some girlbossing business or other venture together.

3) Stephanie and Katie decide they don't mind sharing Joe after all, and the three live happily ever after in a ménage à trois.

So, which one is it? Spoilers: none of these. Instead, it ends with Stephanie agreeing to marry Joe, then cheating on him, then leaving him at the altar, then the couple's teenage daughter (rightfully!) yelling at her parents for not thinking about her best, and finally, Stephanie and Katie reflecting the way Stephanie's behaviour has sabotaged their budding relationship. The revenge at the birthday party is never enacted. There's no happily ever after for anyone either, no undying love or friendship. Just a broken family, difficult conversations, and a vague hope that maybe one day Stephanie and Katie can manage to become friends again. And then the show ends with a huge megamix encore that, after all that has happened, feels quite out of place.

To use an academic term: the vibes are off.

Alexander Lycke as Joe with Marsha Songcome as Katie
Photo by Martin Paulsson

To get to the heart of the problem with Joyride, let's take a look at the character of Joe, and his dreams. 

At the beginning of the musical, we learn that Joe has two passions in life: cheating on his partner, and cows. He's a veterinarian who likes working with cows so much, he claims he'd rather die than switch them for pampered city poodles. We're shown that his work days entail sticking his hands inside cows until he's got blood up to his elbows, and apparently, that's exactly how he likes it.

In the second act, Joe then makes the choice to abandon his beloved cows for the benefit of his upcoming marriage and starts working with tiny little dogs at a city clinic instead. This depresses him, and he sings a ballad while mournfully staring at plastic dog props. It's delivered earnestly, which actually makes it pretty funny. It's a silly juxtaposition, the motivation for this big musical number essentially being that the character feels sad about not getting to give C-sections to cows anymore – a noble ambition, to be sure, but also an absurd one.

That's, however, not the end of that, and this is where it gets confusing. A bit after the plastic dog scene, there's a completely serious, not-a-trace-of-irony-to-be-found-anywhere bit of dialogue where Stephanie tells Joe she liked him better before, when he still worked in the countryside chasing his dreams.

What dreams? The dreams of putting his hands inside cows? Wait – am I supposed to be taking this seriously?

Sitting down to watch this musical, I was so ready to embrace all the camp and silliness it was going to throw my way. But trying to mentally undo that attitude and start taking it all seriously instead... I can't say I was prepared for that.

It's like the musical has an identity crisis. It starts out as a straightforward farce where two gorgeous women mess with their cheating cow doctor of a man. The characters are caricatures and we get to enjoy their antics. Then, in the second act, the musical morphs into a messy drama where everyone has to grapple with the consequences of their silly actions and where the characters have real, hard conversations about their farcical lives. It's a mashup of two different genres of theatre that have nothing to do with each other, and the combo left me feeling puzzled. Does this musical even know how it wants its audience to feel?

I'm not saying feelgood jukebox musicals can't have their serious moments. Of course they can, just think of The Winner Takes It All in Mamma Mia!. But Mamma Mia! still ends with a wedding and a happily ever after. It knows how to balance the sincere with the lighthearted, and it makes sure that in the end, the happy feelings override everything else. Joyride doesn't.

As I mentioned earlier, Joyride's story is based on a novel. Maybe it was a bit overambitious of the creative team to try and include both pre-existing music and a pre-existing story in the same musical – and who knows, maybe they would have preferred a cheerier ending but were contractually obligated to stick to what's written in the book, if they wanted to use it at all?

If that's the case, to be honest, I think they should have ditched the book as a basis altogether and come up with another story. This is not called Got You Back the Musical after all, this is Joyride the Roxette musical, and I'm not so sure the story they chose serves the purpose of giving Roxette fans and musical enthusiasts the best possible night at the theatre. All the hits are there, sure, and they're performed beautifully. That may well be enough for many people. But wouldn't everybody feel even more satisfied if those hits were used to tell a real feelgood story?

And then, to make the matters worse, there's the relentless queerbaiting.

It must have been love..?
Marsha Songcome as Katie and Jessica Marberger as Stephanie
Photo by Jonas Persson

Here's how Dictionary.com defines queerbaiting:

"The term queerbaiting refers to the practice of implying non-heterosexual relationships or attraction (in a TV show, for example) to engage or attract an LGBTQ audience or otherwise generate interest without ever actually depicting such relationships or sexual interactions."

The way BBC's Sherlock depicts the relationship between Sherlock and Watson is an especially egrecious example of this – but I feel like what Joyride does with Stephanie and Katie could also be included next to that definition as a textbook example.

To make this easier to understand, let's imagine a musical or a movie where a man and a woman – let's call them Jack and Rose – find themselves in the following situations:

• Jack and Rose are at a bar discussing an important matter. It's Valentine's Day and the bartender thinks they're on a date, so he comes to serenade them with his guitar.
• Rose tells Jack that she's into astrology and she can see their zodiac signs are a perfect match for each other.
• Jack's daughter remarks that she's never seen Jack laugh like he does with Rose. Rose and the daughter start trusting each other and enjoying each other's company. 
• Jack's daughter tells Rose that since Rose can't have children of her own, she should consider marrying someone who already has a child.
  
• Jack tells Rose that though being cheated on has been the worst time of his life, it has also given him something valuable: Rose.
• Rose sings a sad breakup song after Jack abandons their plans and decides to go back to his former spouse.

Now, after all that, do you think the scriptwriters are trying to hint at something? Might Jack and Rose be falling in love with each other? Do you think they're going to become a couple at the end of the story?

What if Jack and Rose are called Stephanie and Katie instead? Should the scenes on that list suddenly be interpreted differently when they're about two women instead of a man and a woman?

Sometimes, what looks like queerbaiting may be done for other reasons. For example, a story being written or set in a time or a place where homosexual relationships are illegal might explain why a queer romance is only hinted at. But Joyride doesn't take place in any such era. Instead, it's got no less than three queer side characters, one of whom even gives Stephanie relationship advice, using her own failed lesbian romance as a cautionary tale – though I think it's worth noting that apart from one throwaway joke, none of these side characters are actually shown to engage in romantic relationships, either.

It feels distasteful to me that Joyride spends so much time hinting at a romantic relationship between the leading ladies but doesn't deliver anything. And try as I might, I do not understand why they are doing this. Surely everyone agrees by now that queerbaiting is bad and doesn't work as a marketing tactic? Certainly, if they're intent on telling a heterosexual story here, not hinting at a lesbian romance at all would upset both LGBTQIA+ people and their allies and homophobes less than putting all these little winks in the show but not committing to it.

Compared to queer men, queer women are underrepresented in musical theatre. Having the leading ladies confess their love for each other would have been a genuinely nice and refreshing way to end this story. I'll admit it, I took the bait! I thought there was no way that in 2024, they would include all those hints but not even have them kiss on the cheek in the end.

Not a very feelgood thing to do, in my opinion.

Are we feeling good yet!?
Photo by Jonas Persson

So, why exactly am I so upset about the plot of this jukebox musical that I've written this many words about it, and I'm still not done?

Because I'm frustrated. Because as a musical fan, it's much more annoying to see something like this than it would be to see a show that's a complete trainwreck from start to finish.

The thing is, Joyride is very close to being a good jukebox musical. Everything but the script is just fine: the cast, the orchestra, the visuals, the choreography... Even the first act of the story is mostly all right, it's only in the second act where it starts taking itself all too seriously and thus goes off the rails. In short, you have all the ingredients of a fun musical here, it's just the recipe that is wrong.

(Or everything is almost fine, I should say. I've two things to criticise that don't have to do with the script. One: the song arrangements and sound mixing could've used a bit more variety, more calm moments to contrast with all the big and bombastic show numbers – though I'm sure everything sounding a bit same-y was exacerbated by the acoustics of the house and me sitting too close to the speakers; I remember feeling the same way about the music when I saw Så som i himmelen in the same theatre. Two: you simply cannot cast Partik Martinsson and not give him anything to sing in the performances where he is not stepping in as the male lead. Seriously. What were they thinking!!)

And the most frustrating thing, I think, is that this would've been relatively easy to fix. Just let it be a full-blown farce from start to finish. Let the characters remain caricatures all the way through and let there be no real-world consequences for their dumb actions. Maybe add a couple of doors for people to barge in and out of at inopportune moments. Have a little heartbreak and a little angst along the way, but forget the serious arguments. Do not queerbait. And give us a happy ending!

Oh well. I said I love musical theatre that makes me think, and here I am, four days later, still thinking about why and how this show failed to make me happy. Not the exact experience I thought I was going to get with a Roxette jukebox musical, but I guess I'll take what I can get.