Costume Blog

Phantom 30-Day Challenge: Day 3

3. Your favorite minor character.

I have two answers to this one: a silly one and a serious one.

The silly one goes along with the ALW stage show.  And this character, surprisingly, is not in the Vegas production!  THE RAT CATCHER!  Ever since my first trip to NYC with the Phans in 2011 there’s been a small obsession among us with the rat catcher.  

It took me YEARS to figure out why Madame Giry screetches when going down to the lair - I never even noticed him until a discussion online in 2009 or 2010. I finally noticed him onstage when I saw the show multiple times in 2010 in Dayton, Cleveland, and Pittsburgh during the last months of the tour.  

It’s more of an inside joke and is not going to seem very funny unless you were there.  There was a connection to a phan game we were playing where you had to guess what or who you were.  But anyway, Jeff and Rebecca told me that … either in the stage show… or was it Argento? Or was it the Englund version?  I think it was one of the movie versions - ANYWAY - that the rat catcher goes, “Rats! Rats! Rats! Rats!” in this funny/creepy voice.  So randomly in NYC at completely strange moments someone in the group would just be like, “RATS RATS RATS RATS” when something triggered that thought (like in the NY subway).  I know, stupid, but I laugh every time I see the rat catcher.  And it’s the only costume I’ve never fully gotten a glimpse at or seen a picture of.  He carries a bag of some sort (to collect the rats, I guess) and I think he might have rats hanging from him, or a scarf, or the bag, or something.  But like I said, I don’t think he was in Vegas.  When we were there, we were joking about how the Rat Catcher got jipped.

So how’s that for a MINOR character? LOL! Pretty minor, I’ll say.  Doesn’t even have any lines and you barely see him, and sometimes don’t see him at all!!

That was my silly answer… and I have a more serious one.

I’m going to change over to the Kopit/Yeston version now because it contains a minor character I really like.  Erik’s father, Gérard Carrière, would have to be one of my favorite minor characters.  I haven’t spoken about the Y/K version much but IMO, it has a more “believable” storyline.  Not to say I like it better (I sort of like the PLOTS equal for Y/K and ALW… but love the ALW a *little* more than Y/K)…

But anyhoo, Erik (we have a name! Ding ding ding ding) is a lot more human in this one.  Not only does he have a name!, but we see family members, a little bit of history, and a good “excuse” for the mask (he told Christine he was a famous composer that wanted to teach her, but not be known - good lie!!).  I don’t like this Erik better — the ALW version is my FAVORITE Erik — but it’s a nice change of pace.  And I love the scenes between Erik and his father.  ”You Are My Own” always brings tears to my eyes.  It’s OK that something happy is going on at the end (father and son united) and it doesn’t hurt the tragedy because it’s SO TRAGIC (SPOILER ALERT) … Erik is dying, and finally sees that he has a father and how much they love each other.  So tragic.

I’m not sure why Carriere/Erik’s father popped into my head, but it did, and there we go.  He’s a nice change of pace not really seen in a lot of the other versions.  I have a lot of favorite minor characters, but these are just two of them.

If I had to pick one more, it’d be the monkey music box.  Yep, I count that as a character.

RATS RATS RATS RATS!