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| And yet... | |
| Posted by: showtunetrivia 09:31 pm EST 03/04/19 | |
| In reply to: re: No - ryhog 05:17 pm EST 03/04/19 | |
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| I would have been more interested in this than the two one-man comedies, the FOURTH visit of BOOK OF MORMON, and the second Bourne ballet in as many years that we will be getting at the Ahmanson. Or was this production that bad? I confess I wasn't keeping up with comments. Laura |
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| re: And yet... | |
| Posted by: ryhog 10:56 pm EST 03/04/19 | |
| In reply to: And yet... - showtunetrivia 09:31 pm EST 03/04/19 | |
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| A lot of us liked it a lot (as always, not everyone) and the critics liked it as well. There have been various theories for its failure including that it had a good run off-B that reached its supposed target audience, that we were over-saturated with gay plays, and that there were too many star-driven plays on the boards at the time (in a world in which Urie and Ruehl were not stars) to compete. They lost the investment and presumably decided not to throw good money after bad. And obviously it goes without saying that someone would have to spend pretty big money and that's not the Ahmanson. | |
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| re: And yet... | |
| Posted by: Michael_Portantiere 11:32 pm EST 03/04/19 | |
| In reply to: re: And yet... - ryhog 10:56 pm EST 03/04/19 | |
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| "A lot of us liked it a lot (as always, not everyone) and the critics liked it as well." Right, not all of "us" liked it. But also, not ALL of the critics liked it. (There is some overlap among those two groups.) And my impression was that much of the word of mouth on the show was deservedly very bad, despite what the majority of the critics said. My opinion: Michael Urie is one of the great comedic actors of our generation, but he was hopelessly miscast as Arnold Beckoff. In fact, almost every role in this production was miscast in one way or another, and Moises Kaufman's direction (as well as his casting) was completely inept, as usual. |
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| re: And yet...my two cents | |
| Posted by: Showtunegal 03:12 pm EST 03/06/19 | |
| In reply to: re: And yet... - Michael_Portantiere 11:32 pm EST 03/04/19 | |
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| I'm a local New Yorker with a lot of houseguests throughout the year, and I saw this production off Broadway, and the original version on Broadway. When I saw the recent production, I remembered what a well-written play it was, but I agree with Michael, in the post above, that Urie was wrong for the role. He couldn't come off as unattractive or insecure, and he feels so MODERN. You need to understand, or at least get a sense of, an earlier New York and gay scene for the play to resonate, and Arnold needs to be genuinely vulnerable. But at the same time, when I saw it, the audience was engaged,and the play was enjoyable. To my point about my house guests,last year they were, for the most part, straight, theater-loving friends who were going to see Angels, and were seeing or considering The Boys in the Band...but nobody was interested in Torch Song. Nothing about it held appeal for them, really. I agree with the poster above--it didn't have the event status or stars of the other two plays I mentioned, and how many plays on gay themes do straight theater goers want to see on one visit to NYC? I say all this to say that my many guests are always my litmus test of what's working or not. I could have told you: this play will never run. | |
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| re: And yet... | |
| Posted by: ryhog 11:58 pm EST 03/04/19 | |
| In reply to: re: And yet... - Michael_Portantiere 11:32 pm EST 03/04/19 | |
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| You are a reasonable person. You know how to differentiate between your opinion (to which you are absolutely entitled) and an objective assessment. You know how to guard against clouding objectivity with personal opinion. I invite you to do so. Your impression of the WOM seems at odds with the non-critic score on show-score (88 across a sample size of 395), which is a metric I think most people would be inclined to believe. But yeah I also know haters gonna hate. | |
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| re: And yet... | |
| Posted by: Michael_Portantiere 01:39 pm EST 03/05/19 | |
| In reply to: re: And yet... - ryhog 11:58 pm EST 03/04/19 | |
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| "Your impression of the WOM seems at odds with the non-critic score on show-score (88 across a sample size of 395), which is a metric I think most people would be inclined to believe." I don't doubt you about the Show Score numbers, but I haven't looked at those. When I first saw this production of TORCH SONG Off-Broadway and disliked almost everything about it, I thought and acknowledged that my opinion seemed to be in the vast minority, based on the largely rave reviews. But, at that time, I knew relatively few people who had seen the show yet, so I could get no real idea of word of mouth through actual word of mouth. Later, after the show opened on Broadway and lots more people (though obviously not enough!) had a chance to see it, that's when I began to hear many very negative comments about the performances, the direction, and the production in my direct conversations with friends, acquaintances, and colleagues. So my assessment that there was ultimately quite a lot of bad word of mouth on the show is based on that, and I'm sticking with it. Of course, I do recognize that it depends on who you talk to :-) But, in my perception, bad worth of mouth was a significant factor in the show closing so quickly that it didn't even play out its scheduled limited engagement. |
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| Ooooops | |
| Posted by: showbuzz 11:44 pm EST 03/04/19 | |
| In reply to: re: And yet... - Michael_Portantiere 11:32 pm EST 03/04/19 | |
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| Arnold: "Did you say Ooops? Oooops is when you fall down an elevator shaft Ooooops is when you skinny dip in a school of piranha OOOOppps is when you accidentally douche with Drano No this was not an Ooooops This was a .....(strangled scream)" Ooooops,Michael,Ooooops! |
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