Threaded Order Chronological Order
| re: Questions about the new MERRILY | |
| Posted by: bmc 10:16 am EST 01/03/19 | |
| In reply to: re: Questions about the new MERRILY - lordofspeech 04:01 am EST 01/03/19 | |
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| I went to the first preview and Beth sang "Not a Day Goes By", I preferred her singing the song. We also got the school anthem < " Behold the Hills of Tomorrow, which was on the cast album but in a shortened version. | |
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| re: Questions about the new MERRILY | |
| Posted by: Michael_Portantiere 05:06 pm EST 01/03/19 | |
| In reply to: re: Questions about the new MERRILY - bmc 10:16 am EST 01/03/19 | |
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| "We also got the school anthem < " Behold the Hills of Tomorrow, which was on the cast album but in a shortened version." Are you sure the album version is shortened? I can't imagine that song was any longer in the actual show, and if it was, it seems to me that would have been a mistake. |
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| re: Questions about the new MERRILY | |
| Posted by: BroadwayTonyJ 09:00 am EST 01/04/19 | |
| In reply to: re: Questions about the new MERRILY - Michael_Portantiere 05:06 pm EST 01/03/19 | |
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| I saw a production in May, '97 at DePaul University in Chicago. There were no bookending graduation scenes but "The Hills of Tomorrow" was performed at the show's end sort of like an epilogue. | |
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| re: Questions about the new MERRILY | |
| Posted by: bicoastal 04:16 pm EST 01/04/19 | |
| In reply to: re: Questions about the new MERRILY - BroadwayTonyJ 09:00 am EST 01/04/19 | |
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| Personally, I love the bookends on the OBC album. The framing device works. I was once able to ask Sondheim about that, and he was very dismissive of it. He said it was something that would be on a concept album but should never have been in the show. I pushed back a little on that but he was not hearing it. Hey, it's his show, so he has a right to his opinion! I did not see the original Bway production, but I did see the first L.A. production, then La Jolla and then many more (including the York, Kennedy Center, Encores, London, etc) and every time the book was meddled with, it got worse. The show became loaded with cliched melodrama and the characters became increasingly hard to care about. Isn't the point of the show to see how Frank's self-involvement impacted others? Not necessarily to make everyone horrible people? The book is problematic because the structure is so problematic. It's not like the original was a cherished hit--it flopped--but I understand the lure of the structure, particularly to Sondheim. In general, I think the best Sondheim shows have two things going for them: solid source material (Romeo and Juliet, an autiobiography, an existing film) and/or an amazing writer (Arthur Laurents, Larry Gelbart, etc). I do not think George Furth or even James Lapine are great writers and sometimes I don't think Sondheim "gets" the book problems. Lord knows his scores soar way above and beyond even the weakest books of his shows. One final note--I saw the Michael Arden production and really did not care for it, although I do agree with the post about the final scene and its effectiveness. But the staging, the dancing, all that was a mess IMHO. |
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| One of the first scenes (Spoiler) | |
| Posted by: Indavidzopinion 03:40 pm EST 01/03/19 | |
| In reply to: re: Questions about the new MERRILY - bmc 10:16 am EST 01/03/19 | |
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| Will Gussie hurl iodine into a starlet's eye? This detail is "justified" because it was in the original, non-musical stage play, but potentially blinding someone out of malice or pique casts a pall over the rest of the play. | |
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| re: One of the first scenes (Spoiler) | |
| Posted by: Chazwaza 04:06 pm EST 01/03/19 | |
| In reply to: One of the first scenes (Spoiler) - Indavidzopinion 03:40 pm EST 01/03/19 | |
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| one of the many additions to the book that makes the show play more like a soap opera than it ever did originally, and it really hurts the show to me, irreparably when you loose the impact that is lost when you cut the bookending scenes at the graduation. | |
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