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Theatre Talk: In Our Own Little Corner

aradia22

By aradia22
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aradia22
aradia22

https://www.nytimes.com/2021/11/26/theater/stephen-sondheim-final-interview.html I am glad he got to see the opening of this revival of Company and seemed to be living his best life 'the the end,

aradia22
aradia22
Bethany
Bethany

Just read an article about how this has "sparked a debate about theatre going etiquette".  My mind is boggling that there even needs to be a debate about this.

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ebk57

ebk57

I watched Act One last night.  It was ... fine.  A pleasant diversion from real life.  I kept getting the feeling I'd seen it (maybe the last time it was broadcast on PBS), but I couldn't remember.  Not sure what that says about the play.

Speaking of PBS, I recorded Ann last night and will watch it at some point.  I'm also pretty sure I've seen it, but can't say for sure. 

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aradia22

aradia22

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I mean this in a good way... it reminds me of Newsies. I think shows that don't rely so much on creating the illusion of a setting fare better when they are filmed for broadcast. Newsies didn't have much of a set either so the vitality of the dancing and the actors' vocals translated fine as a means of telling the story. Obviously, it's a trailer so it's choppy. I'm curious what the editing of the actual show will be like. 

ElectricBoogaloo

ElectricBoogaloo

(edited)
On 6/22/2020 at 10:10 PM, aradia22 said:

I think shows that don't rely so much on creating the illusion of a setting fare better when they are filmed for broadcast.

I agree that shows that don't rely on a lot of razzle dazzle from the sets/special effects translate better to being recorded live because sometimes what seems impressive in the theater can seem flat when seen through the camera.

Hamilton will be largely dependent upon the actual performances which means that a lot of this hinges on LMM. As talented as he is, singing is not his forte. I mean, I don't blame him for taking the lead role. If I worked my ass off on something for years, I would cast myself in the lead too. But his singing really is the weakest in the cast which has a pretty big impact since he's the lead.

But really, if you've listened to the OBC or seen the bootleg of the Broadway cast, it will come as no surprise that the show is still fine even with his singing. I have seen the show with stronger singers in the role of Hamilton and it definitely improves matters. I'm not complaining though. I wish more shows would do recordings like this of the original cast.

Edited by ElectricBoogaloo
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theatremouse

theatremouse

This is a recording of the original cast, intentionally filmed for theatrical release - originally intended to be released 18 months from now. They moved it up to release on Disney+ because of COVID-19.

It was still selling plenty of tickets before, but by the originally intended release date almost certainly would've slowed significantly.

ElectricBoogaloo

ElectricBoogaloo

This weekend's free shows:

2013 live version of The Sound of Music

Lincoln Center/NYCB - three highlights from the 2004 broadcast of the Balanchine 100 Centennial Celebration (the fourth movement of Brahms-Schoenberg Quartet, an excerpt from Concerto Barocco, and “The Man I Love“ pas de deux from Who Cares? featuring a special performance of the Gershwin score by Wynton Marsalis) and Act III from the 1978 broadcast of George Balanchine and Alexandra Danilova’s Coppélia featuring Patricia McBride and Helgi Tomasson in the leading roles

Three pieces from SF Ballet's 2020 season

Pas de Deux from After the Rain by Christopher Wheeldon (Yuan Yuan Tan, Luke Ingham)

Helgi Tomasson's Soirées Musicales (Misa Kuranaga, Angelo Greco)

Helgi Tomasson's Concerto Grosso

 

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SomeTameGazelle

SomeTameGazelle

5 hours ago, Camille said:

I'm glad for that. I never got to see "The Sound Of Music" and after only knowing the movie, I'm intrigued to learn the differences between it and the original Broadway show.

The best parts of this version of The Sound of Music are the songs the Baroness and Max get. Laura Benanti and Christian Borle were great. 

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ElectricBoogaloo

ElectricBoogaloo

6 hours ago, Camille said:

I'm glad for that. I never got to see "The Sound Of Music" and after only knowing the movie, I'm intrigued to learn the differences between it and the original Broadway show.

The main differences are the ways some of the songs were used. Maria sings "The Lonely Goatherd" to calm the children during the storm in the original musical while she sings "My Favorite Things" for the same scene in the Julie Andrews movie. In the original musical, Maria sings "My Favorite Things" with the Mother Abbess before being sent to the Von Trapps.

Two plot points that are different: (1) in the original Broadway show, it is Brigitta (not Elsa) who tells Maria that she is in love with the Captain and (2) in the original musical, Elsa and the Captain end their engagement because Elsa (like Max) thinks that the Captain should go along with the Germans.

There are two Max/Elsa songs from the original musical that were left out of the movie ("How Will Love Survive" and "No Way to Stop It"). I can understand why these were cut because the movie is almost three hours long and these songs weren't necessary to move the plot forward. "How Will Love Survive" is a fun song about how Georg and Elsa are both rich so there's no obstacle for their relationship, but leaving it out changed nothing. "No Way to Stop It" is about how the Anschluss is inevitable with Max and Elsa trying to convince Georg to let the Nazis think he's on their side and concludes with Elsa and Georg breaking off their engagement. They were able to eliminate the song in the movie and just have the short scene of Elsa ending things instead.

1 hour ago, SomeTameGazelle said:

The best parts of this version of The Sound of Music are the songs the Baroness and Max get. Laura Benanti and Christian Borle were great. 

I agree. Their two songs were the best part of this entire production. It was obvious that they were Broadway pros and that the songs were no big deal for them (which is more than I can say for Carrie Underwood and Stephen Moyer). Their songs were the only ones that were well sung and well acted aka the only ones that looked like they were performed by talented Broadway actors. The rest of the show looked like an amateur production at a high school. Carrie Underwood exuded nothing. She has a pretty face but it was just so blank, and her voice was devoid of emotion when she was reading her lines. I give all the kids a pass because they're kids, but I'm glad that they at least cast kids who could sing.

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ElectricBoogaloo

ElectricBoogaloo

33 minutes ago, Camille said:

Broadway's shutdown has been extended to January 3. 😢

I'd rather they be cautious and wait until it's safe to reopen than rush back. I'm already getting renewal notices for my season subscriptions and just laughing at the idea that any of these theaters think they can open in the next few months. Theater is not something that you can snap your fingers and put together overnight. Even if the theaters get cleared to open, they still need to rehearse existing shows before they can go up again and most theaters have said that existing shows (like Hamilton or Wicked) will need at least six weeks to get up and running once they get the all clear.

But companies that have full seasons first need to cast people, build sets, fit people for costumes, advertise locally, AND rehearse before they can open a new show, all of which require a lot of people to be in pretty close contact, and they can't start most of those processes until they're allowed back into their buildings.

Pushing the shutdown date at least allows people to plan ahead a bit instead of living on the precipice of "maybe we're going back to work next week, but maybe we aren't" (which is the position that Mr. EB is in with his company right now - they've already pushed back their office reopening three times).

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ElectricBoogaloo

ElectricBoogaloo

Bridge Theater - A Midsummer Night's Dream starring Gwendoline Christie

San Francisco Ballet - 2020 opening night gala (includes Stars & Stripes, Foreshadow, Swan Lake pas de deux, Jockey Dance, For Pixie, Le Corsaire pas de deux, Dedicated To, 05:49, Romeo & Juliet pas de deux, Hurry Up We're Dreaming, Bells pas de deux, and Diamonds finale

New York City Ballet - Tribute to Balanchine (1983 - "Vienna Waltzes," "Mozartiana," and "Who Cares?)

Royal Ballet - Woolf Works

Royal Opera House - The Magic Flute

 

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aradia22

aradia22

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First the fingers were pointed: What had to change, under threat of revolution, one young actor stated, was that the non-profit theatre stranglehold on New York, particularly its Broadway offerings, had to be broken. Over and over there were tales of the many bad productions emanating from Manhattan Theatre Club, Roundabout Theatre, Playwrights Horizons, Second Stage, all subsidized by subscriptions, grants, and operating without any tax burdens, and yet the prices of their tickets continued to rise, until now they were as expensive as those offered on Broadway, even as the actors and playwrights were paid the lowest of rates, because “we’re a non-profit, dear,” as Lynne Meadow of MTC loves to reiterate, even as she commands a salary and perks of more than one million dollars a year. “That has to stop,” said another actress, who has worked in non-profits, “because they abuse actors and they do not fulfill their primary mission, supposedly, which is to bring in new audiences, and no one can afford those tickets.”

It's difficult for me to be against the non-profits named. Every so often there's a great Roundabout show and their Hiptix program is the best discount in town (now extended to age 40). They're not consistent, but Playwrights has had some great shows like Bella and A Strange Loop. I haven't tracked if the good shows have been nurtured in house or transferred from elsewhere. LCT is a mix of quality but again, occasionally great new work. The LCT3 shows are comparably affordable to the Hiptix ones. I will say MTC shows are usually garbage. Of course, aside from available discounts, I mainly see shows through papering programs. But almost every MTC show ends up papering... for good reason.

Quote

“If they expect New Yorkers to be the canaries in their coal mines,” said one director, “they are in for a shock. There has been no effort to build audiences, to invite people who live and work here — many precisely because there is theatre here — and everything has been aimed to buses and trains and planes full of yahoos with money and free time to gawk in Times Square and have an ‘event’ and call it theatre. They aren’t coming back for a long time, but they’ll look over at us and ask us sweetly to come in and breathe the bad air. Not going to happen.”

I'd argue that two of the biggest recent shows... Hamilton and Hadestown, have been very much for New Yorkers. They were grown here (Public/NYTW). They appeal to the cool NY theater elite more than tourists. But I do understand that this is probably targeted at the majority of shows which are jukebox musicals, biomusicals, and film adaptations.

Quote

while Jeremy O. Harris’ SLAVE PLAY had the distinction, unique in my three decades in New York, of not only engaging but enraging its audiences, [...] Whatever flaws you might find in what Harris has written, and I read the play and spoke to hundreds of people before I saw the play, it has as its foundation a bold, true idea: Racism has distorted, blunted, aroused, and weaponized white people (audiences) to such a degree that they can no longer recognize their own biases and desires. [...] A new theatre, many told me, would need to include more plays like Harris’, even though SLAVE PLAY also closed at a loss, unable to secure the audiences I felt it deserved.

If you dig around on the internet long enough, you can find contradictory opinions to back up any argument you'd like. But I think it's significant that most of the praise for Slave Play has come from the almost entirely white group of theater critics and a main criticism of the show from black critics is that it's actually not for black audiences but for white audiences. I'm not sure that's the kind of show that's going to bring a different audience to Broadway even if it has something challenging to say to the audience that is already here. 

https://medium.com/@jgrissomnyc/the-theatre-at-the-end-of-the-world-32a966e55c5c

Basically, I don't think this is very well written and this is certainly not the man to be leading the conversation on how Broadway grapples with racism moving forward. But there is some unfiltered ranting from anonymous sources if you're into that. 

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aradia22

aradia22

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https://ny.eater.com/2020/6/24/21301610/times-square-nyc-mcdonalds-shutting-down

I don't know how to feel about this. I've probably been in there less than 5 times over the last 17 years. But even as a big franchised fast food place, it was there so long that it started to feel familiar. Of course, there's still the one near Aladdin if you want a huge, weirdly fancy McDonald's in the middle of the Theater District.

DisneyBoy

DisneyBoy

(edited)

Well fuck.

What a hard way to go. Poor man.

 

...

So I watched through a bootleg of Beetlejuice tonight. Do any of you know anything about the development process of this show? Because I don't understand the score they opted to write. It was incredible generic and I really felt like the tone of the piece was some kind of throw in the towel move on the part of the creative team. Did they have higher aspirations than this originally? I would like to think so. I know the show was actually doing pretty well before the lockdown started, to the point where fans were hoping it would move to a new theatre, but I'm kind of struggling right now to understand how this show had fans that passionate. Virtually every song felt like a weak version of a better song I'd heard in another, better show. The storyline wasn't terrible but it definitely didn't make the most of the opportunities presented by the film. And I had no real enthusiasm for the portrayal of the lead character, which just seemed like the biggest missed opportunity of them all.

The house was great though. I can see this being nominated for set design whenever we do get the Tony Awards again.

The bootleg I watched featured a girl other than the girl who I think was in the commercials for the show. I know that one of the girls playing Lydia, perhaps the original, left very abruptly to the surprise of many. Did we ever find out why that was? This understudy in the bootleg, or alternate, whichever, really didn't capture anything close to the moody appeal of Winona Ryder's character in the film. She felt much more like a young girl auditioning to play Annie and giving it all she's got. Her body language was just really weird considering the character she was playing. Was she the one who filled in once the lead walked away?

 

Edit: EB thanks for posting that Raise You Up vid. Needed that after the news about Nick.

Edited by DisneyBoy
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Babalu

Babalu

Not me. I kind of went to the stage version unspoiled because the cast album hadn’t been released yet, so I’d only heard snippets of a couple of songs. I knew the general history but had only got through about half of Ron Chernow’s book so didn’t know that 

Spoiler

Philip Hamilton was killed in a duel. Also didn’t know about the Reynolds affair.

Also, Chris Jackson and Anthony Ramos were out the night I went, so seeing them in the movie has been a revelation.

Since then, I’ve listened to the cast recording dozens, if not hundreds of time, read the lyrics and some background on the Genius site, and seen interviews with Lin and others. I still don’t know all the lyrics, though, and probably never will. I have to read the words of Guns and Ships; otherwise, Daveed Diggs just sounds like a lawnmower to me, he’s so fast.

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ElectricBoogaloo

ElectricBoogaloo

9 hours ago, Babalu said:

Daveed Diggs just sounds like a lawnmower to me, he’s so fast.

Ha, this made me laugh!

Sometimes I like going to a show without knowing anything about it, but with Hamilton I bought tickets so far in advance that I was like nope, I'm not going to wait until next year to listen to the OBC! Mr. EB, on the other hand, decided to go into it completely blind (aside from his historical knowledge). We both loved it in different ways. Everything was new to Mr. EB so it was like a bomb got dropped on him. I knew all the songs which I think helped a little bit with this show because there are times when there are so many words coming at you that it can be a bit much if you aren't prepared for it. But I don't think there's any wrong way to see a show.

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ElectricBoogaloo

ElectricBoogaloo

Upcoming musicals and plays to be broadcast on PBS

7/24 - She Loves Me (2016) with Laura Benanti, Gavin Creel, Jane Krakowski and Zachary Levi
7/31 - Present Laughter (2017) with Kevin Kline, Burton, Kristine Nielsen and Cobie Smulders
8/7 - In the Heights: Chasing Broadway Dreams
8/14 - Much Ado About Nothing (2019 Shakespeare in the Park) with Danielle Brooks and Grantham Coleman
8/21 - The King and I (2018) with Kelli O'Hara, Ruthie Ann Miles, and Ken Watanabe

Currently available to stream:
Macbeth (2010) with Patrick Stewart and Kate Fleetwood
Twilight: Los Angeles (1992) with Anna Deavere Smith (about the LA riots)
Ann (2013) with Holland Taylor (about Ann Richards)
Gloria: A Life (2018) with Christine Lahti (about Gloria Steinem)

ElectricBoogaloo

ElectricBoogaloo

(edited)

I don't know if any of you watched Over the Rainbow, the reality competition show where ALW chose a new Dorothy to star in the West End production of The Wizard of Oz, but they did this zoom reunion singing Over the Rainbow (I really loved that brief period when they did these reality shows to cast the leads in new shows - it's how Laura Osnes got her first big break!):

 

Edited by ElectricBoogaloo
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aradia22

aradia22

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https://www.thewrap.com/alan-menken-animated-musical-spellbound-fall-2022-paramount-skydance/

I don't know how to feel about this. 

Alan Menken... YAY!

Lots of women on the creative team... WOO!

Female protagonist... YAY!

People from Shrek... Err, okay?

Linda Woolverton... YAY!

Glenn Slater... EW! God, no. Vomit. Kill me now.

aradia22

aradia22

  • Author
(edited)

Well, we're months into quarantine and there's no live theater so I finally broke and watched a bootleg of Moulin Rouge. Thoughts in spoilers because they don't count for anything because it's a bootleg.

Spoiler

I don't know if it's because of the practical concerns of turning the set over but the storytelling at the beginning is so clumsy. Too many framing devices and restarts and monologuing. Like, has no one seen a play before? Just because it isn't a movie, it doesn't mean you have to work this hard. The beginning of the show is more concert than musical. But the whole show is like that. Why are there so many exposition dumps? Has John Logan ever written a good book for a musical? The book doesn't trust the audience for a second. Everything is spoonfed. Everything is told vs. shown.

The use of pop songs is just garish. It's not that I hate all the new songs. Some of them are actually good choices. The problem is there's no discernment. There's no selectivity. Instead of deciding which song best fits the moment, they just shoved in all the possible song choices. It's the worst part of a jukebox musical where you have to put in songs whether or not the lyrics are a good fit except in this case it was completely unnecessary. Excess without discernment isn't opulence, it's just garish. It's tacky and classless and that's how this comes across. Like a theme park show desperately trying to hold onto your attention by engaging you with familiar Top 40.

It's not that I object to inclusiveness or leftist politics. But everything is so underlined in the terrible book that it just comes across awkward and forced. 

Karen Olivo is the best part. Tam Mutu is good too but they give him the most ridiculous songs.

The best scenes were Satine's Diamonds Are Forever intro performance (until it got derailed with too many songs about diamonds), the first meeting with Your Song, the Love medley when Christian tries to convince Satine to have an affair, etc. Basically, any moment that was quieter or where the show could actually breathe for a second. Though even the Love medley that managed to mimic the movie's ability to use pop songs smartly pushed it and went on for too long. This show is simply incapable of restraint. It takes anything simple and good and pours so much extra stuff on it that it becomes sickly and unpalatable.

It makes sense in the movie why Nicole Kidman prefers Ewan McGregor to Richard Roxburgh. It does not make sense in this show why Karen Olivo prefers Aaron Tveit to Tam Mutu when they're both attractive and Tveit has the advantage of knowing her maybe 15 minutes longer. There needed to be something in the book to sell why they were a more compelling relationship and make the instalove believable. That or cheat and change the story so they do know each other for longer. They didn't talk about anything meaningful. She's right when she sends him away the first time. He doesn't know her. It's infatuation and attraction. He's not in love with her. So why would I root for them as a couple? The duke's cardinal sin is that he's possessive and thinks he can buy Satine. Which, sure, is not great by modern standards. But it doesn't seem unreasonable for him to think he can buy her exclusivity and be jealous about her having sex with another man if she's his mistress. These Manon Lescaut/La Dames aux Camelias stories work when you feel like the characters are genuinely in love or self-sacrificing. Satine and Christian in this show just come across like characters from RENT. Uncompromising and idealistic and, in this case, weirdly anachronistic to the setting that they're in. The book amplifies the problems that were better disguised in the movie. Yes, the Duke wants her to stop performing. But she never had a great love of performing. She says earlier that she's well aware that she has a shelf life as a dancer and singer and wants to stop selling her body on stage. Probably the worst thing about the Duke is that he wants her to give up all her friends. For God's sake, just put one conversation in the script so we know that Christian knows something about her as a person and doesn't just think she's pretty.

Bad Romance is awful. It barely makes sense lyrically and worse, it doesn't work well performed in a musical theater/stripped back style. It needs the pop song production. There's a bit of Tainted Love mixed in. That would have been a better choice than Bad Romance. Though, honestly, I have no idea why this show has both the Bad Romance number AND Roxanne when it's almost over. Just do Roxanne properly instead of giving the song to Christian.

Toulouse could have easily been a better character. Instead of just existing for exposition dumps in a terrible French accent. A character who apparently knew Satine since she was young and who has been nursing an unrequited love is much more likely to be protective of her and warn off Christian than to shame Satine for toying with Christian's (the guy he just met) feelings.

It's like the book completely forgets that Satine is supposed to be dying of tuberculosis until it remembers late in act 2.

I did like the set. I thought it did a nice job of blending elements from the movie and being its own thing.

I feel like the decision to make Christian turn the gun on himself was to make him less of an angry young man. But um, abusers do that all the time. "I'll kill myself if you leave me." Earl even says similar things in Waitress.

If it reopens, I do think I'll try to see the show but I won't pay for an expensive ticket now that I know how sloppy the adaptation is. Bad book. Bloated song list. It's a spectacle, not a story. And I'll only go to see it if Karen and Tam are in. For all of Baz Luhrman's style and flash, his best movies prioritizes the characters and their emotions. This has none of that grounding.

Spoiler

If this show had any courage, it would have made Toulouse the narrator and given him the responsibility for the framing devices. It fits with the added backstory. Christian just stumbles into this. It makes more sense for Toulouse to be the one telling the story the whole time and the one who tells the love story of Christian and Satine. Then we don't get a fridged woman inspiring a creative man. We get a friend who rose up from similar circumstances using his new influence to make sure that her life mattered and means something to people after her death.

Also, admit that Christian didn't love Satine either. And emphasize that Satine chooses her family at the theater over making a decision between two possible love interests. It's so close but it never does it and instead, it just short changes the love story to make the story even more about Christian. I hate that. 

Ooh, and maybe if you're going to cast Tam Mutu, make the Duke more dastardly not by having him shout but by making him push Satine in ways that worsen her consumption. Of course the complication there is that all of our "good" characters also want her to be in this show that is probably also negatively impacting her health and shortening her life span. If anything, the Duke wanting to make her a lady and stop her performing would have probably helped her live longer if it had happened sooner.

Tell a good love story or tell a better story. This was just a worse version of the movie. 

 

Edited by aradia22
aradia22

aradia22

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Quote

“One Day I’ll Fly Away” actually taught us something about Satine in Luhrmann’s film: She dreams of escaping her life at the Moulin Rouge to become “a real actress.” 

Quote

Timbers and Logan have reimagined the Duke, in the person of Mutu, as confident, powerful, and straight-up sexy — hardly different in age and type from Tveit’s Christian (he just … has a beard and wears a lot of black). But part of the effectiveness of the original character was his freaky, mustache-twitching awkwardness, the cringey, sweaty, ill-concealed lust, and the sense that something feral was about to leap out of Richard Roxburgh’s pants. 

Quote

Olivo is given too many old tropes to play to make anything specific out of Satine. Tellingly, the musical makes a half-hearted attempt to reposition her as the hero — “This is a story about a woman named Satine,” Christian tells us — but we still end up with four men onstage, mourning her and talking about how she showed them “all that truly matters in life.” That’s fine, that’s the story — spare me the surface-level 2019 rebranding.

Sara Holdren nails it. The show pretends to care about women but it really doesn't. Karen Olivo's incredible voice aside, Satine is less of a presence in the show because the men who adapted it do not care about her character.

https://www.vulture.com/2019/07/theater-review-moulin-rouge-is-nycs-biggest-karaoke-night.html

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