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| I think after I saw a preview of "Dance a Little Closer" | |
| Last Edit: PlayWiz 02:10 pm EDT 07/01/20 | |
| Posted by: PlayWiz 02:02 pm EDT 07/01/20 | |
| In reply to: re: When was the last time you went 3 months (or a prolonged time) without going to the theater? - NewsGuy 11:10 pm EDT 06/30/20 | |
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| I was so depressed about a show with what seemed like it had everything going for it. A Charles Strouse + Alan Jay Lerner score and book by Lerner, based on Pulitzer Prize winning "Idiot's Delight", starring Len Cariou, fresh off of "Sweeney Todd", Liz Robertson, Lerner's latest wife, who had apparently been excellent in the London "My Fair Lady" and George Rose. Well, aside from what was clearly a lovely title song, and a nice duet for gay lovers on ice skates (one was Brent Barrett), there were lots of problems. Cariou was in bad voice, probably from doing too many 8 times a week performances of Sweeney; it's one of the greatest male performances in a musical I ever saw, but nowadays it's done in opera house maybe no more than 2-3 x week as it's heavy, vocally punishing sing, especially the brilliant way Cariou performed it. Robertson had no stage presence at all and was just kind of ... there, and you know the show was bad when even George Rose came off not that well. It's actually a nice score, but it was buried in an update to the world being on brink of World War 3, and it was just all wrong, plodding and heavy-handed. It opened and closed opening night. It just left a sour memory, so I didn't want to go to the theater for a few months after that. | |
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| re: I think after I saw a preview of "Dance a Little Closer" | |
| Posted by: BroadwayTonyJ 07:16 pm EDT 07/01/20 | |
| In reply to: I think after I saw a preview of "Dance a Little Closer" - PlayWiz 02:02 pm EDT 07/01/20 | |
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| Wow, that is really shocking. I only know Dance a Little Closer from its cast album, which is actually quite good. When I listen to the recording, it's hard to understand why this musical closed after just a single performance. There is way too much talent and good things in it that it doesn't deserve the fate of disasters like Portofino, Café Crown, Buttrio Square, and similar really bad musicals. | |
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| re: I think after I saw a preview of "Dance a Little Closer" | |
| Last Edit: PlayWiz 07:52 pm EDT 07/01/20 | |
| Posted by: PlayWiz 07:51 pm EDT 07/01/20 | |
| In reply to: re: I think after I saw a preview of "Dance a Little Closer" - BroadwayTonyJ 07:16 pm EDT 07/01/20 | |
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| The recording is very nice, and even while watching it, I could hear some lovely songs, but the execution and writing of the show really was deflating to experience in performance. Any show that made George Rose look bad was bad. It was referred to at the time as "Close a Little Faster", btw. | |
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