Yes, the SoCal Forbidden Broadways have all been--well, I won't say "dumbed down,"--made less-Broadway specific. As a theatre nerd, I find this disappointing, but, alas, necessary.
SPAMILTON played here, including pretty much everything on the cast album. I seem to recall some kind of more accessible change in a lyric, but can't recall. I have no way of knowing if everyone in the house the night I saw it had seen HAMILTON or not, but as long as you know the score (and they did), the HAMILTON specifc jokes will land.
I note with regret that while my daughter and I howled with laughter at every Sondheim reference--and there are a lot!--many of them did not land with the audience.
Funny thing is, we were just discussing shows that play better with theatrical literacy at dinner last night: EQUIVOCATION (which my kid saw with a highly literate audience at OSF, and we saw with a very confused audience at the Geffern); THE FURTHER ADVENTURES OF HEDDA GABLER (which tanked with a dead house at the Morgan-Wixman in Santa Monica--well, we were laughing, but no one else was); BUNBURY and THE GLASS MENDACITY (which luckily had savvy audiences who knew their Wilde/Albee/Williams, but I expect would land with a thud with an ingnorant house).
Laura, musing |
