Secondary Characters: Moulin Rouge, the Musical (Part 2)

Why Story Spine Is Important, or Moulin Rouge the Musical, a Cautionary Tale, Part 2: On Secondary Characters

This is part 2 of a 3 part rant about how much the Moulin Rouge musical got wrong when they revamped the story from the movie, based not just on my gut opinions but on the basic tenets of story structure. Part 1 addressed the importance of having a main character with a conflicting want and need, which the movie did brilliantly and the play…didn’t.

Part 2 will stick with character arc, want, and need, but this time it will look at the secondary characters, who also need arcs and wants and needs. But theirs ultimately serve a very different purpose from those of the main character: the main character’s want/need conflict drives the story; secondary characters’ wants/needs serve the story. (Anne Hawley has a good piece on this on the Pages and Platforms blog.)

***SPOILERS AHEAD SPOILERS FOR BOTH MOVIE AND BROADWAY SHOW SPOILERS LAST WARNING***

In the Movie: limited characters, uncomplicated agency

I will say that the movie doesn’t nail this as well as it could. You have your main characters Satine and Christian; you have your primary antagonist the Duke, and then you have Zidler, owner of the Moulin Rouge. You have your sort of fey mentor character Toulouse-Lautrec, who sits in a sort of in-between zone alternately being comic relief and dispensing deep wisdom; he’s the court jester figure of the thing (with a hefty dose of sort of problematic ableism tossed in). There are slight intimations of character and personality between the Argentinian and Nini (who is never called by name in the movie, in an utter Bechdal Test fail…but at least she has a name), but they are left very loose and unresolved; we never get to know why Nini is such a bitch and, risking her and all of their jobs, clues the Duke into the fact that the musical itself is flipping him the bird. (The movie’s “Roxanne,” sung by the Argentinian and danced with Nini, is one of the most powerful moments in the film, and I’ll hit that in a post about subplots, which the musical also kinda misses the boat on.)

But the thing is, even so, each of these 4 characters-with-agency in the movie has some element of arc, of choice and motivation, usually at odds with someone else’s. This is good, this is what story needs. Satine wants to be a star, needs to be loved for herself and not for being a hot prize on someone’s arm. Christian wants to be a writer, but needs this beautiful fragile woman who needs him. Zidler needs the Duke’s money to keep the Moulin Rouge open, and he needs Satine his Shining Diamond in order to make that happen, to the extent where he doesn’t tell her or anyone that she’s dying and keeps pushing her onstage. The Duke—well, he’s pure id and hubris, and he wants whatever is Best and Shiniest, and that’s Satine, and he doesn’t like being told no. This is enough to drive the story. The fact that the movie essentially only gives actual motivation to the main 4 characters is more a strength than a weakness in the way it’s put together; it allows real focus on the people it does shine light on.

The Musical: more characters, but vague agency: who wants what, and why?

Back to the musical. 

It does get some things right, especially where it gives actual character and motivation to more characters. La Chocolat, one of the Moulin Rouge Trio, is a sweet young trans woman who fears going back to the brothels if the club closes. Nini is, we are told, jealous of Satine and wants to be the star, but practical enough to be her ally. Santiago and Toulouse-Lautrec become Christian’s drinking buddies; T-L writes and directs the play-within-a-play, now set in contemporary times and not a nineteenth-century mystical faux-Bollywood event. He’s a more serious and well-rounded character here, not just a comic one. He has backstory with Satine and loves her—sort of the Sebastian the Crab of this undersea of Broadway character interactions. (Don’t get me wrong; it’s a really sweet relationship and I love it.)

Zidler’s character in the stage musical is fairly solid, but he doesn’t have a lot of internal conflict to help drive things: he cares about his theater, on the verge of bankrupcy. In the movie we got to see that he loved Satine, and probably carried a lot of guilt for the way he had treated her, and in the end he risked everything for her. Broadway Zidler…doesn’t seem to care much, and Toulouse-Lautrec takes the “tender father figure” role in this version. The Duke? Wow, the Duke…they tried to humanize him, but they just made him inconsistent instead. In the middle of Act 2 when Satine is already giving him everything he wants (i.e. sex and beauty on his arm and at least the pretense of exclusivity), he decides he wants her heart too. Why? Why would he care? Why does he care now? The movie was straightforward: The Duke wanted the shining diamond, Christian wanted the vulnerable real woman, who would she choose to be? But in the musical he starts moving goalposts and asking something of her she is unable to give, which also sucks out story tension—it's one thing if he’s asking for something she has but doesn’t want to give, but quite another if it’s something she doesn’t have and cannot possibly give under any circumstances. Where’s the tension there?

Then there’s the whole “Toulouse wants a serious play but the Duke wants a fun entertainment” bit—which maybe should go with Subplots but since it’s about character want/need I’ll let it drop in here…first of all, since it doesn’t serve the actual story (of Satine and Christian) at all, it’s time wasted on a conflict that isn’t relevant to the spine of the real story. Though it’s not surprising they didn’t notice that, since by Act 2 the theoretical spine is all over the place, as though they’re just throwing stuff at the stage to see what sticks. (Plus, let’s face it—the actual audience would rather see the Duke’s flashy popular entertainment too. Toulouse’s play is boring. Surely we could manage something closer to the Spectacular Spectacular from the movie without the icky cultural appropriation bit.) In the movie, the play was exactly the story of Christian and Satine; in the musical we’re not quite as sure somehow, and thus everything about the play matters less. 

A Bad Romance: make it sizzle, not fizzle

Nini and Santiago have a backstage romance. We don’t care much, because there’s no want or need attached, neither of them have anything to do with the other’s story arc, there are no stakes, no tension, it’s just an excuse for a pas de deux. To be clear: it’s a fabulous pas de deux and almost worth its existence for that alone. But I bet they could do better. Make the pas de deux and their dealings later actually attach to the broader structure of the story, and it’ll all be better. That could have been one of the most interesting relationships in the play, but they missed out on it. (And to point out again—the actors were phenomenal in these roles. They could have done so much with meatier and subtler character things to do.)

In the movie, Nini blew up Satine’s hope for happiness by narcing to the Duke. She sucks, but it created tension, as in what the hell are you doing lady how can you possibly hate her so much that you’d endanger all of us and yourself too? In the play, Nini basically says somewhere in Act 1, “I am jealous of you and I used to hate you, but now I’m over it.” Um…that’s nice? Character stakes usually work much better before, not after, your characters have gotten their therapy. No tension, no stakes, Nini has nothing to gain or lose with regard to anything Satine does or doesn’t do, except for the survival of the Moulin Rouge and her job.  Imagine if all the way through the play, on top of the problems Satine already has, Nini were bitching at her, hiding her headdresses, coming on to Christian, coming onto the Duke, even outright telling Satine “I should have your role, I’m better and hotter and you’re getting old and you can’t sustain your long notes any more” (with maybe an actual beat when, at some moment, Nini sees the blood on the handkerchief Satine coughs into and realizes she’s sick, and suddenly feels both guilty and relieved/hopeful). Then when Nini draws the Duke’s attention to the fact that the play is basically making him look like an idiot and Satine and Christian are screwing each other backstage every chance they get, there are consequences and stakes, because they tie back to the real story, which is Satine’s impossible choice. Then imagine if Santiago was furious with Nini for coming onto whoever she comes onto, and/or for her practically blowing up the whole production because of her own pointless jealousy, and threatened to let Zidler in on what she was up to, and threatening to take away her shot at stardom through blackmail or something. (I personally think Santiago and Chocolat should get together and live happily ever after; they are both sweet people and would be very happy, but damn, that would piss Nini off!)

Nini is just one secondary character—but teasing a few little things out, and giving her a piece of story that matters, would help up the bigger story and make it stronger. Not only would it make each character matter more, but it would also make the story matter more.

Main character arcs drive the story. Every single other character arc needs to support and serve the story, otherwise they just add unnecessary weight and throw it out of balance.

And speaking of balance: Part III, Subplots