I just look at how that show transferred, and I see all of these tiny mistakes or acts of poor judgment that just built to the collapse.
I'm not saying that maintaining "Natasha Lost" and severely truncating the entire sequence involving the Bolkonskys would have won them the Tony, but I do think it would have made the show more palatable to a larger audience. The show doesn't really get going until Act 2 (Natasha at the Opera), and the Bolkonsky scenes feature the most alienating music and stagecraft in the show... including the sitting amongst the audience which was so charming in the tent but perhaps doesn't work as well in the larger theater.
That weird, long opening delays my engagement with the show as an audience member, and it also brings Pierre back into the story quite late. I think part of why the Kagans couldn't sell the show as a Josh Groban vehicle is that after his first big solo, Pierre basically disappears until The Duel. I can see cutting "Natasha Lost" as a way of getting to Pierre faster, but it would have been better to get Natasha into Moscow and singing in the snow as quickly as possible. The two Bolkonsky songs are 9 minutes (plus the time it takes to do the stool business), and you could easily do that story beat in 3.5. |
