| re: Herman's LA CAGE Score Tony | |
| Posted by: | Chazwaza 01:05 pm EDT 04/02/14 |
| In reply to: | Herman's LA CAGE Score Tony - Zelgo 12:53 pm EDT 04/02/14 |
|
| |
| I understand, in that moment in time, why La Cage won... a statement about embracing an openly gay show, and about embracing old fashioned musical comedies. And La Cage is a good score, but I don't think it's a great one. As you said, SUNDAY is a shimmering masterpiece... and I do think that it was a mistake not to give it the Tony. It's absolutely one of the best scores ever written for a musical, in my opinion. I think the way La Cage swept and basically shut Sunday out is a true show. If it had gone more like it went in 1988, when Phantom won Best Musical but Into the Woods won score and book, I think it would have been more fair. | |
| reply to this message | | |
| re: Herman's LA CAGE Score Tony | |
| Posted by: | houselightsout 01:46 pm EDT 04/02/14 |
| In reply to: | re: Herman's LA CAGE Score Tony - Chazwaza 01:05 pm EDT 04/02/14 |
|
| |
| Totally, totally, totally agree!!! It sticks in my craw all these years later that Herman's "simple, hummable showtune[s]" (his words) were deemed "better" in comparison to Sondheim's most passionate (my words) score. I know there are many who think awards don't matter - that all they end up showing is the political side of the entertainment business, but I always want to believe they stand for merit and I reject the notion that La Cage is "better" than Sunday. But La Cage does have some terrific songs. | |
| reply to this message | | |
| re: Herman's LA CAGE Score Tony | |
| Posted by: | Indavidzopinion 03:06 pm EDT 04/02/14 |
| In reply to: | re: Herman's LA CAGE Score Tony - houselightsout 01:46 pm EDT 04/02/14 |
|
| |
| Didn't Nancy Regan feature "The Best of Times Is Now" at one of the Regan Presidential Inaugurations? The song became an anthem for that whole part of the National Landscape. (I can just hear fingers tapping keys as people rush to completely argue the opposite of whatever this deliberately ambiguous comment actually means, because that's what happens here at ATC.) | |
| reply to this message | reply to first message | |
| re: Herman's LA CAGE Score Tony | |
| Posted by: | OldTheaterGuy 05:34 pm EDT 04/02/14 |
| In reply to: | re: Herman's LA CAGE Score Tony - Indavidzopinion 03:06 pm EDT 04/02/14 |
|
| |
| There was also the fact that at the time, reflected in both reviews and general comment, that SUNDAY had a brilliant first act, but fell apart in the second. LA CAGE was viewed as a much more balanced show. | |
| reply to this message | reply to first message | |
| re: Herman's LA CAGE Score Tony | |
| Posted by: | Zelgo 10:38 am EDT 04/03/14 |
| In reply to: | re: Herman's LA CAGE Score Tony - OldTheaterGuy 05:34 pm EDT 04/02/14 |
|
| |
| Honestly, most of Sondheim's shows have brilliant first acts and meandering second acts. | |
| reply to this message | reply to first message | |
| re: Herman's LA CAGE Score Tony | |
| Posted by: | AlanScott 05:45 pm EDT 04/02/14 |
| In reply to: | re: Herman's LA CAGE Score Tony - OldTheaterGuy 05:34 pm EDT 04/02/14 |
|
| |
| La Cage has a much worse Act Two than Sunday, and the first act ain't so great neither. ;) | |
| reply to this message | reply to first message | |
| re: Herman's LA CAGE Score Tony | |
| Posted by: | enoch10 06:09 pm EDT 04/02/14 |
| In reply to: | re: Herman's LA CAGE Score Tony - AlanScott 05:45 pm EDT 04/02/14 |
|
| |
| true. but it struck me with the last revival how with time the second act of SUNDAY doesn't feel as jarring as it once did. and it once did. LA CAGE always felt more cohesive to me. in my old age i've begun a real re-evaluation of herman's work. what was so delightful as a kid and then turned so cheesy in adulthood i'm beginning to have a new and third kind of appreciation for. i think history, especially the history written in the future, is going to be kinder to jerry herman than contemporary discussions allow. is SUNDAY the superior work? for me, obviously yes but i'm beginning to think it's less than useful to compare jerry herman and stephen sondheim at all. herman got the tony and sondheim got the pulitzer. i'll call it a win/win, which sums up pretty well where the discussions i have in my head about these guys are. | |
| reply to this message | reply to first message | |
| re: Herman's LA CAGE Score Tony | |
| Posted by: | Chazwaza 05:24 am EDT 04/03/14 |
| In reply to: | re: Herman's LA CAGE Score Tony - enoch10 06:09 pm EDT 04/02/14 |
|
| |
| I can't comment on how it did feel... I wasn't an adult to see it in 1988. But when I did see the production on video for the first time ever seeing or hearing it, it didn't feel imbalanced or jarring at all, and the first act was only made more brilliant by how the second act commented and paid off the first, not in comparison to it. But if it did feel that way then, that's why giving La Cage Best Musical would have been "fair"... but even if it's in a less traditionally structurally balanced (which I think it part of why it's so good), the score that is in it is undeniably brilliant (personally I'd actually use the word "genius" about the score and the concept) and at least undeniably better and more award worthy than La Cage. I think it would have been plenty to give La Cage Best Musical. But Best Score AND Best Book? Why, because it had some jokes? It's one of the most unique and original original book musicals ever written (perhaps even the most original), I think Lapine deserved a Tony for his work much much more than Fierstein did. But yes, at this point it's useless to compare... and Sondheim and Lapine getting the Pulitzer does make up for it. However it would be nice if Sunday, one of the best musicals ever written, were given even ONE Tony Award besides for it's physical design elements... whether we like it or not, what did or didn't win Tonys is and will stand as a record to the populace for what was seemingly the best stuff in any given year. | |
| reply to this message | reply to first message | |
| of course I meant 1984 (nm) | |
| Posted by: | Chazwaza 04:37 pm EDT 04/03/14 |
| In reply to: | re: Herman's LA CAGE Score Tony - Chazwaza 05:24 am EDT 04/03/14 |
|
| |
| nm | |
| reply to this message | reply to first message | |
| re: Herman's LA CAGE Score Tony | |
| Posted by: | AlanScott 06:30 pm EDT 04/02/14 |
| In reply to: | re: Herman's LA CAGE Score Tony - enoch10 06:09 pm EDT 04/02/14 |
|
| |
| Well, I've said it before and I'll say it again: The problem with Herman's work (for me) is not lack of talent or skill on Herman's part. The problem is the material he chose to work on and the collaborators with whom he worked. As for Sunday not feeling as cohesive when it was new, and the second act being jarring, well, that's a given. It's in the nature of the piece, it's part of its ambitions, although I will say that with replacements Harry Groener and Maryann Plunkett, the work seemed completely unified. Because of the way they played it, it felt unfinished at the end of act one, and the second act truly topped the first. But, yeah, I don't really care much that La Cage won the Tony that year. Sunday not only won the Pulitzer, it also easily won the Drama Critics Circle Award on the first ballot, with 10 votes, compared to four for La Cage and three for Oedipus at Colonus (and two abstentions). But in the end even if La Cage had won the Drama Critics Award, the Tony, and the Pulitzer, and even if Jerry Herman and Harvey Fierstein had been given a special Nobel Prize for their work, the shows would still be what they are. Awards brevis, ars longa. | |
| reply to this message | reply to first message | |
| re: Herman's LA CAGE Score Tony | |
| Posted by: | enoch10 07:04 pm EDT 04/02/14 |
| In reply to: | re: Herman's LA CAGE Score Tony - AlanScott 06:30 pm EDT 04/02/14 |
|
| |
| do you mean GOSPEL AT COLONUS? man, i had forgotten about that. i don't even remember it being up against those two. talk about being lost in the shuffle. i loved, loved, loved GOSPEL AT COLONUS so it's a pretty safe bet you hated it. i loved it so much i don't even want it revived. that was just a perfect little production. it was one of the most exhilarating (and exhausting) nights i've ever had in a theater. it was released on vhs and i had a copy. if it's available on dvd i'm going to order one today. now that you've brought it up i can't wait to see it again. how the hell did i end up in a conversation with you where i'm defending herman against sondheim??? but since we're there ... why do you have a problem with the source material for DOLLY or MAME or even LA CAGE? you think he's not the right fit? i can't imagine you have a problem with the source material themselves. if i'm reading "part of it's ambitions" right and you think the jarring of the second act of SUNDAY was intentional i think you're giving him too much of the benefit of the doubt. i can see distinct. i can even see jarring but again, while it's evened out over time the two acts felt weighted differently to me. not like a contrast and certainly not like a completion (though i don't think that was what he was going for) more like two one acts linked tenuously by subject. i felt that less with the last revival than ever before. and on another note - i bought tickets for AMERICA'S SWEETHEART. they weren't expensive but there were surprisingly few left if the seating chart accurately reflects whats been actually been sold. it doesn't matter since the theater is so small but if you're going you might not want to dawdle. | |
| reply to this message | reply to first message | |
| re: Herman's LA CAGE Score Tony | |
| Posted by: | AlanScott 07:28 pm EDT 04/02/14 |
| In reply to: | re: Herman's LA CAGE Score Tony - enoch10 07:04 pm EDT 04/02/14 |
|
| |
| Yes, The Gospel at Colonus, my bad. It was when it was at BAM that it was in competition with Sunday and La Cage. And I did like it at BAM. Never saw it at the Lunt-Fontanne. It's not so much that I have a problem with the source material for most of Herman's shows, but still they are not ambitious in the way that Sondheim's choices were. (Of course, it's understood that many of the ideas for those shows did not originate with Sondheim.) In fact, at one Sondheim almost worked on a musical version of The Madwoman of Chaillot that Bob Fosse was to direct, with a book by S. N. Behrman, and the Lunts starring as the Countess and the Ragpicker. Musicalizing Auntie Mame in particular seems an unambitious idea, and the execution, however successful at the time, seems to mostly water down the source material. The Matchmaker Is a good piece of source material, but it's also an obvious one, which cannot be said of any of the shows on which Sondheim worked. More important, Herman's collaborators do not seem to have stimulated him in the way that Sondheim's collaborators stimulated him. So even when Herman was inspired enough on his own to produce his best work for Mack and Mabel, his collaborators seem to have been lost. I don't think that the second act of Sunday is exactly meant to be jarring but when you jump ahead 100 years and bring in a completely new group of characters for Act Two, the writers must know it's going to jar people, even if they also try to make it feel inevitable. I do think that the second act is meant to be a completion. Personally, I felt that much more when the original production had Groener and Plunkett as the leads, and at the Kennedy Center (even if there were things that I didn't much care for in the production), than at the Roundabout production, although I did see that's what they were going for. I completely forgot about America's Sweetheart. Thank you for the reminder. | |
| reply to this message | reply to first message | |
All That Chat is intended for the discussion of
theatre news and opinion
subject to the terms and conditions of the Terms of Service. (Please take all off-topic discussion to private email.)
Please direct technical questions/comments to webmaster@talkinbroadway.com and policy questions to TBAdmin@talkinbroadway.com.
[ Home | On the Rialto | The Siegel Column | Cabaret | Tony Awards | Book Reviews | Great White Wayback Machine ]
[ Broadway Reviews | Barbara and Scott: The Two of Clubs | Sound Advice | Restaurant Revue | Off Broadway | Funding Talkin' Broadway ]
[ Broadway 101 | Spotlight On | Talkin' Broadway | On the Boards | Regional | Talk to Us! | Search Talkin' Broadway ]
Terms of Service
[ © 1997 - 2014 www.TalkinBroadway.com, Inc. ]
Time to render: 0.620967 seconds.