| re: The last great musical to open on Broadway | |
| Posted by: | JayBee 11:45 am EDT 03/13/14 |
| In reply to: | re: The last great musical to open on Broadway - Michael_Portantiere 10:39 am EDT 03/13/14 |
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| Did not forget Sweeney Todd, which is terrific, but its original production was swallowed up in the wrong theater and by an unnecessarily busy bloated design. | |
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| re: The last great musical to open on Broadway | |
| Posted by: | Chazwaza 11:46 am EDT 03/14/14 |
| In reply to: | re: The last great musical to open on Broadway - JayBee 11:45 am EDT 03/13/14 |
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| I'm glad you consider Sweeney Todd to be "terrific", but MANY people (myself included, very much so) would disagree with you about the original production (to be totally fair I wasn't alive to see it live but I got permission to view a legally recorded (and not distributed) video of the original production at the Library of the Performing Arts in NYC, the video of the tour with Lansbury and Hearn, which is available commercials and legally, about a hundred times, i've seen productions which recreated the original staging and sets (ex: NY Opera with Elaine Paige directed by Hal Prince based on his original production), and I've read extensively about the production). But as Michael said, if you're talking about the last great musical, a musical lives beyond it's original production as a piece of material. The Music Man is a show that very few people alive who are younger than 65 saw in it's original production and remember it, and yet it remembered by all as a great musical, which is evident in the writing. As is the case with Sweeney, no matter how you felt about the original production. It's lucky for you that you were alive and in nyc to see all the potential shows that could be the last great musical (I'd be curious to know if you actually saw most of the shows you dismiss for the last 39 years in their original nyc productions)... but not everyone was, so that cannot be the way the lasting quality or "greatness" of a show is judged. | |
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| re: The last great musical to open on Broadway | |
| Posted by: | AlanScott 05:42 pm EDT 03/13/14 |
| In reply to: | re: The last great musical to open on Broadway - JayBee 11:45 am EDT 03/13/14 |
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| Even if you feel the original production was misguided, if you think the piece is terrific, might it not count as a great musical? I'm among those who completely disagree with your assessment of the production. Loved the design, the direction and the performances, particularly those of Cariou, Lansbury, Jennings and Louise, all of whom remain unequaled in my experience of many subsequent performers in those roles. Would I have liked it to have played in a somewhat smaller theatre? Perhaps, but I loved the overpowering design and the way the size of the set dwarfed the characters. That could not have been achieved in a smaller theatre, and I think the tradeoff was worth it for what was one of the most emotionally shattering productions I've ever seen. | |
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| re: The last great musical to open on Broadway | |
| Posted by: | JohnPopa 03:53 pm EDT 03/14/14 |
| In reply to: | re: The last great musical to open on Broadway - AlanScott 05:42 pm EDT 03/13/14 |
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| Obviously, I'm probably misremembering but I always thought you liked Loudon more than Lansbury - or was it just that you specifically enjoyed Loudon as well? | |
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| re: The last great musical to open on Broadway | |
| Posted by: | AlanScott 06:41 pm EDT 03/14/14 |
| In reply to: | re: The last great musical to open on Broadway - JohnPopa 03:53 pm EDT 03/14/14 |
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| If Loudon's entire performance had been as good as the best parts of her performance, she would have been magnificent. As it was, she was sort of all over the place: brilliant in some scenes, interestingly different from Lansbury in others, and actually not good in some places. Probably in some past pots I've emphasized the positive. Still, there have been lots of excellent Mrs. Lovetts. For me, as I've said so many times here that I'm sure people are tired of reading it, no one has approached Carioiu's excellence. Or Merle Louise's, for that matter. | |
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| re: The last great musical to open on Broadway | |
| Posted by: | Chazwaza 06:19 pm EDT 03/13/14 |
| In reply to: | re: The last great musical to open on Broadway - AlanScott 05:42 pm EDT 03/13/14 |
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| I think Sweeney Todd is one of those shows that is NOT, by it's nature, intimate, but still somehow manages to be intimate within a large scale or overwhelming set. The show is written big, with big emotions and music, and broad characters. But then it still becomes personal and intimate. However sacrificing one to beef up the other is not, to me, the right idea. I think it works well either way, and of course works well in a smaller theater/set/staging concept... but I think the optimal version of it doesn't short change either side of the show. (and from what I've seen and can tell, I think Prince's production achieved that) | |
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| re: The last great musical to open on Broadway | |
| Posted by: | Billhaven 04:41 pm EDT 03/13/14 |
| In reply to: | re: The last great musical to open on Broadway - JayBee 11:45 am EDT 03/13/14 |
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| My experience of the original Sweeney Todd was quite a different one. It was stunning and thrilling. All those magnificent performances and a one of a kind stage design that filled that theater like nothing had before. Maybe you had lousy seats. | |
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| SWEENEY TODD | |
| Posted by: | Michael_Portantiere 05:03 pm EDT 03/13/14 |
| In reply to: | re: The last great musical to open on Broadway - Billhaven 04:41 pm EDT 03/13/14 |
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| By now, SWEENEY TODD has proven time and again that it can be done in all different sizes of production and still work beautifully. A mark of true greatness. That said, I never felt that the show in any way suffered from the scale of the original production. And any production that's large enough to use a full orchestra playing those incredibly beautiful and powerful original orchestrations by Tunick is, in my opinion, better in that respect than one that isn't and doesn't. | |
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| good seats | |
| Posted by: | Chazwaza 04:57 pm EDT 03/13/14 |
| In reply to: | re: The last great musical to open on Broadway - Billhaven 04:41 pm EDT 03/13/14 |
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| Good seats vs bad seats can have such an enormous, unfortunate impact on how a show plays and comes off. I hated Next to Normal because I had a horrible seat (I liked it a lot more now). I loved Ragtime and I had perfect seats each time. I loved Billy Elliot with a great seat, and had a more difficult time than I might have with Matilda sitting in the mid-Mezz. I sat in the rear mezz for Venus in Fur and found myself removed from it and analyzing everything. I had an absolutely perfect close-up seat for Journey's End and it became one of the most effecting theater experiences of my life... other friends had further back seats and they found it boring and poorly lit. Some shows require you to be up close, some benefit from seeing everything at once, some need something in between. Most shows and their productions are best viewed from the front of the center orchestra in the center... a little distance to take it all in, but still quite close. Or from the very front of the Mezz, center. If you're not there for any given show, your experience can be quite different depending on what seat you have. | |
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| re: good seats | |
| Posted by: | EvFoDr 05:01 pm EDT 03/13/14 |
| In reply to: | good seats - Chazwaza 04:57 pm EDT 03/13/14 |
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| I'm glad you brought that up. I was thinking we are all talking as if we've had the same experience--even if we've seen the same cast of the same incarnation of a show, we really haven't if some have crappy seats. Also, some seats are in acoustic dead zones and might have worse sound. | |
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| re: good seats | |
| Posted by: | Chazwaza 06:15 pm EDT 03/13/14 |
| In reply to: | re: good seats - EvFoDr 05:01 pm EDT 03/13/14 |
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| Not to mention what we bought with us to our seats on those days. I saw The Weir expecting to love it... I was exhausted that day, and not the most fast-paced show, it put me to sleep in 30-45 minutes. Or maybe I should say it help facilitate a nap, or it did not keep me awake. Is it that play, which is slow by the nature of what kind of play it is, have the responsibility to keep a tired audience member awake, or the blame for putting them to sleep? I know many other viewers had a much better experience than me. It's not fair to say the play put me to sleep, even though I know if I'd been seeing Hairspray that day I would have not fallen asleep. For the recent Twelfth Night... I was seated in an incredible lower level on stage seat. I couldn't have had a better experience if I'd forced myself because I paid $140 (I paid $27). Then I saw Richard III for the same price, but standing at the back of the orchestra (which I've done many times, even for Long Days Journey). Even though I know Twelfth Night is unanimously agreed was the better and more enjoyable play and performance of the two, I can help but assume had I had the same seat as Twlefth Night I'd have had a better experience at Richard III than I did (I still liked it quite a lot). And that brings up another point, which is I honestly think that some people (less so on this board I assume), are much more receptive to any show being good if they paid a lot of money for it... I always say people today with give a standing ovation to a janitor sweeping the floor if they paid $150 to see it. And on the flip side of that, some people are much harsher critics, expecting that it "better be f*cking brilliant for this much money". | |
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| re: The last great musical to open on Broadway | |
| Posted by: | Michael_Portantiere 12:01 pm EDT 03/13/14 |
| In reply to: | re: The last great musical to open on Broadway - JayBee 11:45 am EDT 03/13/14 |
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| Even if that's true -- and I completely disagree -- I thought we were discussing the quality of the writing of the shows themselves, not necessarily the quality of the original productions in terms of direction, casting, etc. Sorry if I misunderstood. | |
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