Roposo teamed up with the Miracle Worker's playwright William Gibson on creating a new story for the stage, unlike the film where it was all based on the classic stories, this time it was taken to a much darker direction.
The story of the show is that of Raggedy Ann's owner Marcella is dying from any list of sickness you could think of, and her father who is now an alcoholic is trying to cope and the best father he could be for her. The mother? She ran off with another man who drives a limo. So to keep his daughter happy, the father (or billed as "Poppa") gives Marcella a handmade doll, you guess it! With a candy heart, he tells her a bedtime story of how toys comes to life when the children are asleep to protect them (Stuart Gordon much?), Marcella finds her doll now alive, and telling her how she's dying, now comes the first of the many macabre songs in the show "Diagnosis" in which some really freaky looking doctors singing to the child, and I quote:
"You're sick, sick, sick!
You're ain't getting better
Quick, quick, quick!"
"And we know you're gonna die!"
Raggedy Ann's friends now comes to life to save Marcella from a psycho boogeyman named: General Doom, who is basically not only every child's but every parent's worst nightmare. They fly on a bed to L.A to find the Doll Doctor, but in their journey Marcella's nightmares emerge where she sees her dead bird coming back to life, flesh eating wolves, her Mother trying to kill herself many times, big boob bat dancers, a slaughter house, and a forest of corpses.
When this show opened at the Egg Theatre in New York under the title: Rag Dolly, it did give parents a very sour taste in their mouths, the artistic directors defend the show saying it follows the tradition more of a Brother's Grimm fairy tale, the musical then move to Moscow, Russia where it became a major hit (no surprise.) and it the Pre-Broadway try-out in Washington, now simply called: Raggedy Ann was proven to be promising.
However when Raggedy Ann: The Musical Adventure opened on Broadway at the Nederlander Theatre critics ripped this dolly to shreds and it opened at the time of: Cats, Les Mis, and Starlight were out so like many of the US produced musicals in that era, Raggedy Ann flopped after 5 performance and it's been forgotten ever since.
Why underrated? Cause despite of scary it was, it's something not only kids to watch but the adults to see how important it is not to have a broken home and Roposo's dark score was really wonderful in it's own right! Maybe if this show was introduce to us NOW maybe it could have a better reception cause it's not all cutesy and corny, but the bat scene was ratter campy.
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