When Stephin Merritt takes my call, he doesn't say hello; he coughs into the phone. After setting the mood, the owner of pop music's deepest singing voice — you may know him from The Magnetic Fields, or the Lemony Snicket-inspired kids' album The Tragic Treasury — continues in his famously maudlin tone: he tells us that his favorite childhood author was Edgar Allen Poe, and that the first song he wrote for his musical adaptation of the book Coraline was entitled "You Are Not My Mother and I Want to Go Home." But he bristles at the suggestion that his off-Broadway show, being promoted by MCC Theater for ages eight and up, might actually be seen by children. Below, that portion of the conversation. (When re-reading it, we like to picture Stephin Merritt as Oscar the Grouch.) Coraline will play in New York through June 20th, and we're looking forward to seeing it — even if we have to leave the little ones at home. — Gwynne Watkins
How was it writing a show for children?
It's definitely not a musical for children. In fact, we use swear words twice. But they're British swear words that no American would recognize as swear words. I say "bugger all" for one, and " s---e," although I think we just cut the " s---e" actually. I wish I could just put it in somewhere else, though.
So when you were creating this and you were talking to Neil Gaiman about it, sinceCoraline was written as a children's book, did you talk about having the adaptation being for adults?
I haven't actually talked to him about whether he thinks of it as a children's book. I know he dedicates it to his daughters. He started it for Holly and finished it for Maddy. So on some level he was thinking of it as a children's book. But he also says that he thought Coraline was fourteen. And I said, "Neil Gaiman, you are insane. She can't possibly be fourteen. If she were, she would be on the phone all the time, she'd be trolling around on the Internet."
I definitely pictured her younger than that."[Children are] cesspools of disease."
We have her being nine. Even that may be a little outdated by now. Nine-year-olds are probably famous on their Twitter accounts. Realistically, I'm really worried that there's going to be lots of children and teenagers in the audience who are going to say, "That girl is so '90s. What does she have to do with my life?"
In the book, she's living in a really rural place in England.
Right, but it's become unrealistic that she herself has no computer or cell phone.
Then again, this is a show with singing mice, right?
Yes. We have that suspension of disbelief. But maybe it's actually the '80s. I guess in the '80s they wouldn't be telecommuting. I remember reading about telecommuting as a possibility of things that people would do in the future in 1987: "Ooooh! And there will be flying cars!"
Did you see that Tiger Lilies show, Shockheaded Peter, a couple years ago?
I did. I loved that.
That was a very dark scary show, but for kids —
I don't think it was especially for kids.
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