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| Sondheim's Broadway career | |
| Posted by: ablankpage 04:05 pm EDT 04/09/21 | |
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| I've always been under the (I guess incorrect?) impression that Sondheim has had a critically lauded and commercially dismal career on Broadway. But looking at the original runs of his shows (I'm only considering the ones where he was composer and lyricist), many of them fared very well! - A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum ran for 964 performances (his longest run to date). - Anyone Can Whistle definitely flopped at 9 performances. - Company had 705 performances. - Follies had 522 performances. - A Little Night Music had 601 performances. - Pacific Overtures presumably flopped at 193 performances. - Side by Side by Sondheim ran almost a year with 384 performances. - Sweeney Todd had 557 performances. - We all know Merrily We Roll Along flopped with 44 previews (!) and 16 performances. - Sunday in the Park with George had 604 performances. - Into the Woods comes in second place with 765 performances. - And Passion presumably flopped at 280 performances. Considering the economics of Broadway at the time, I would guess the majority of those were commercial successes, no? So a) have I been under the wrong impression this whole time?, or b) is it because only one revival (A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum again!) has been a real smash and the rest have been flops? (The Catherine/Bernadette A Little Night Music and the Jake Sunday in the Park with George both *narrowly* recouped in their final week.) |
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| re: Sondheim's Broadway career | |
| Last Edit: Chazwaza 01:33 am EDT 04/10/21 | |
| Posted by: Chazwaza 01:27 am EDT 04/10/21 | |
| In reply to: Sondheim's Broadway career - ablankpage 04:05 pm EDT 04/09/21 | |
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| It's not just you, it seems to be the common default to not count previews. I gotta say I just don't understand and I disagree. A preview is a performance on broadway, in front of a paying audience who usually paid close to or full price (and it's likely the only time most of those people will see that production - a preview ticket doesn't come with a "come back once we open and see how far we've come!" free ticket), and the producers make money on it just the same as after opening. Opening means after the reviews, but for a long time now shows have been "frozen" at least a week before opening... so if they only do a few weeks (or less) of previews, often the preview is almost the same as post-opening. A performance for a paying audience is just that, and should count as that. To most ticket buyers, i believe, if the show is running - it is open. If they can buy a ticket, it is a valid performance they paid for, and that counts. They don't advertise as "come watch us perform an unfinished show, be a test audience for a new broadway show!" they advertise as "performances start (month) (day)". So I can't resist but add them, even though for most shows it makes only a tiny difference in run length... but for some, bigger. Forum - add 8 ACW - add 12 (21 looks somewhat better than 12) Company - add 7 Follies - add 12 ALNM - add 12 Pacific Overtures - add 13 (making the run 204, which definitely looks better than 193!) Side By Side - add 6 Sweeney Todd - add 19... a notable amount Sunday in the Park - add 35!! (that is a LOT ... bring it to surely those count for the 25-30,000+ people who saw the show in those first 35 performances?) ITW - add 43!! (1 shy of Merrily... why not count it? Bringing the run to 808 which definitely looks better) Passion - add 52!!!!! (Brings the run to 332, which looks better than 280, because it is. And 30-50k ticket buyers surely assume what they saw was a performance of the broadway show Passion) And for what it's worth, also on Broadway: The Frogs: 92 performances + 34 previews = 126 Putting It Together: 101 + 22 = 123 Also, regarding the Jake G. Sunday in the Park revival... let the record show, it didn't "narrowly recoup in the final week", it was planned exactly that way, the run long enough to recoup (which is VERY short for recouping a musical, which means the mix of Jake in a musical and it being this musical was a winner), because he couldn't do a longer run with his schedule. It could have run much longer had Jake been available, or perhaps had the producers thought it was worth the risk/investment to try to replace him. Revival runs must count for something too... don't they count toward the popularity of a show, and don't the original investor still get a share? I could be wrong, I don't actually know how that works. The fact that most of his shows have been revived on Broadway at least once, some twice, and that's not counting notable London revivals, and notable off-broadway revivals (like Pacific Overtures twice, Merrily twice, Into the Woods twice, Passion) (let alone things like the Sondheim celebration at the Kennedy center, which I know have to do more with respect and prestige than popularity -- but you don't spend millions on a whole special season of 6 musicals, if you don't think a big paying audience will come for them) But... Forum 98 revival: 715 + 35 Forum 1972 revival: 156 + 3 (but wasn't this a strictly limited run, or did it close early because of Phil Silvers health? I can't recall) ALNM 2009 revival: 425 + 20 Company 1995 revival: 68 + 43 (limited run) Company 2006 revival: 246 + 34 Company 2020 revival: closed for covid, never opened Sweeney Todd 1989 revival: 188 + 47 Sweeney Todd 2006 revival: 349 + 35 Follies 2001 revival: 117 + 31 (limited run) Follies 2011 revival: 152 + 38 Sunday 2008 revival: 149 + 32 Sunday 2017 revival: 61 + 11 (but a sold out run, pre-scheduled as must close limited run) Into the Woods 2002 revival: 279 + 18 Pacific Overtures 2004 revival: 69 + 24 (limited run) Assassins 2004 broadway "revival": 101 + 26 (limited run, closed for several reasons, lack of packed houses not being one) |
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| re: Sondheim's Broadway career | |
| Posted by: ablankpage 08:12 am EDT 04/10/21 | |
| In reply to: re: Sondheim's Broadway career - Chazwaza 01:27 am EDT 04/10/21 | |
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| Yeah, I hear you. I’m never quite sure what to do with previews. When a show closes it’s always noted it played x performances with x previews, so obviously the industry doesn’t count them (nor does IBDB). But to the actors and the audience they’re a performance like any other. One of the great inconsistencies. I didn’t even notice the—even by today’s standards—long preview periods for the Lapine musicals. I know Sunday in the Park only had one act off-Broadway and Passion opened cold on Broadway, but Into The Woods had an out of town. It’s surprising they needed 43 previews to work it out. Also, what I meant by the Jake/Sunday was they were really banking on him not missing any performances, they purposely didn’t invite awards groups, they couldn’t have weathered lagging ticket sales, etc. Those margins were razor-thin and there was no room for error. To me that feels like a narrow recoupment, as opposed to a show that readily recoups well before the run ends. |
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| re: Sondheim's Broadway career | |
| Last Edit: writerkev 10:02 am EDT 04/11/21 | |
| Posted by: writerkev 10:01 am EDT 04/11/21 | |
| In reply to: re: Sondheim's Broadway career - ablankpage 08:12 am EDT 04/10/21 | |
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| To me, it makes sense that the official count is only the number of performances post-opening. Sometimes that number is an indication of the effect of reviews. Many shows have pushed off their preview periods as long as possible to avoid reviews. You have shows like “Nick and Nora” and too many others to cite that have two months of previews, then they close a week after bad reviews. And shows that close on opening night should clearly be known to have had a single “real” performance, not the six weeks of previews. Previews are previews, for whatever reason the production deems them so. The count starts after opening. | |
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| re: Sondheim's Broadway career | |
| Posted by: Chazwaza 10:38 am EDT 04/11/21 | |
| In reply to: re: Sondheim's Broadway career - writerkev 10:01 am EDT 04/11/21 | |
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| I absolutely disagree. If "previews are previews" and don't count, then tickets should be sold at half-price at most. Previews are full price, full performances, and fully count. Reviews also aren't influential the way they were... maybe performances should only count based on how long the show's marketing campaign has been out there and might have had effect... or when word of mouth can start, so say after week 2 of previews? I mean... it's silly. Secret Garden changed the show after opening, does that mean the previews and weeks before new changes went in invalidate those performances and their run doesn't start until the show is actually frozen for the last time? If we are counting how many performances a show had on broadway, it starts at the first performance on broadway, because that is the first performance on broadway. |
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| re: Sondheim's Broadway career | |
| Posted by: writerkev 03:12 pm EDT 04/11/21 | |
| In reply to: re: Sondheim's Broadway career - Chazwaza 10:38 am EDT 04/11/21 | |
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| That’s a fine opinion, but it’s not the way it’s done. | |
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| re: Sondheim's Broadway career | |
| Posted by: Chazwaza 02:50 pm EDT 04/12/21 | |
| In reply to: re: Sondheim's Broadway career - writerkev 03:12 pm EDT 04/11/21 | |
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| Be that as it may, that is confounding and without logic or relevance for the point of the stat in the first place. | |
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| re: Sondheim's Broadway career | |
| Posted by: writerkev 03:31 pm EDT 04/12/21 | |
| In reply to: re: Sondheim's Broadway career - Chazwaza 02:50 pm EDT 04/12/21 | |
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| I tried to offer some logic above. I understand you don't agree with it, but that doesn't mean there is no logic. | |
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| re: Sondheim's Broadway career | |
| Posted by: Chazwaza 05:44 pm EDT 04/12/21 | |
| In reply to: re: Sondheim's Broadway career - writerkev 03:31 pm EDT 04/12/21 | |
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| I grant that, but I don't think the logic is useful or applicable especially for a conversation or documentation of the actual length of a broadway production's run. | |
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| re: Sondheim's Broadway career | |
| Posted by: Billhaven 11:28 am EDT 04/11/21 | |
| In reply to: re: Sondheim's Broadway career - Chazwaza 10:38 am EDT 04/11/21 | |
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| I'm with you. It's not a rehearsal, it's a performance. On Broadway. Most of the audience will only see one performance. They won't know that a song they hear may be dropped in a week. Or that a performer may be replaced. Or that next year a mostly new group of performers will be performing this same show on this stage. | |
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| re: Sondheim's Broadway career | |
| Last Edit: Chazwaza 01:16 pm EDT 04/11/21 | |
| Posted by: Chazwaza 01:14 pm EDT 04/11/21 | |
| In reply to: re: Sondheim's Broadway career - Billhaven 11:28 am EDT 04/11/21 | |
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| Exactly. And you mentioned major changes... the vast majority of shows preview periods don't have changes anywhere near as notable as a dropped or replaced song or a cut role or replaced performer. The show is largely the same... in middle cases, dialogue and lyrics will change, scenes may be moved around or cut, the design elements and cues will change or improv, some staging may change, buttons of songs or scenes might change or come to being... timing of acting and performance depth will change. But most shows, especially in the last 20 years, don't really change THAT notably during previews. Most shows have 3 weeks of previews, if i recall, and 1 whole week of that is after the show is frozen. Certainly some new shows have a lot of growing pains and will make big changes or make changes often during previews... and of course, how previews work in the last 20 years isn't that relevant to how they worked in the decades prior when Sondheim's show premiered. But I still really think especially for his shows in the 80s and 90s, the previews counted 100% as a performance of the musical on Broadway that audiences paid full or near-full prices for, and especially doing 30-55 previews... I mean that's almost half the run of most Roundabout shows! Come on. |
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| re: Sondheim's Broadway career | |
| Posted by: Michael_Portantiere 11:43 am EDT 04/10/21 | |
| In reply to: re: Sondheim's Broadway career - ablankpage 08:12 am EDT 04/10/21 | |
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| "When a show closes it’s always noted it played x performances with x previews, so obviously the industry doesn’t count them (nor does IBDB). But to the actors and the audience they’re a performance like any other. One of the great inconsistencies." Again, this dates from back in the day, when Broadway shows had VERY few previews, AND the ticket prices for preview performances were significantly lower. As the years went by, "preview" periods began to get longer and longer, and the ticket discounts disappeared. As a result, there gradually came to be less and less difference -- some would say, no difference -- between previews and regular performances. That said, the difference in total number of performances, whether or not previews are included, is still relatively small in most cases. But of course, there are major exceptions -- like (shudder!) SPIDER MAN. |
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| re: Sondheim's Broadway career | |
| Posted by: AlanScott 05:25 pm EDT 04/09/21 | |
| In reply to: Sondheim's Broadway career - ablankpage 04:05 pm EDT 04/09/21 | |
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| The shows that recouped during their Broadway runs were Forum, Company, A Little Night Music and Side by Side by Sondheim. Into the Woods recouped around eight months after closing thanks to additional revenue from the national tour. Sweeney eventually paid off but it took a very long time, around 12 years or so. Had it closed without putting in replacement leads or had it closed two or three weeks after they went into it, it would not have taken so long. I seem to think that Sunday in the Park may have eventually paid off, but if so, it took a comparably long time. I used to know but cannot remember at the moment. | |
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| re: Sondheim's Broadway career | |
| Posted by: ablankpage 10:57 pm EDT 04/09/21 | |
| In reply to: re: Sondheim's Broadway career - AlanScott 05:25 pm EDT 04/09/21 | |
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| Could you expand a little more on your Sweeney theory? How did putting in new leads prevent it from recouping and how would closing earlier have helped? Also, what was the road block with Into The Woods? The cast isn’t that large for a musical. Was the set especially expensive at the time? |
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| re: Sondheim's Broadway career | |
| Posted by: AlanScott 05:20 pm EDT 04/10/21 | |
| In reply to: re: Sondheim's Broadway career - ablankpage 10:57 pm EDT 04/09/21 | |
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| What happened with Sweeney is not that unusual. It has to do with the fact that profits are often (perhaps usually) not distributed immediately to the investors. They are held for a bit, often at least in part as insurance against possible money-losing periods in the future. If a show goes through a money-losing period after it has partly returned its investment (and, for that matter, also after returning its investment), the undistributed funds may end being used to make up the losses during slow periods in the hope that the box office will go back up again. I have no way of being sure exactly how much money Sweeney lost between the time the replacement leads took over and the closing, but based on what Variety reported in as the weekly nut (along with variables such as rent and royalties) and the grosses, I think it had to have lost at least $100K and perhaps as much as $300K from the time the replacement leads took over till the closing. The show was not helped by an 11-day transit strike in April 1980, but it was already not doing very well. The loss of (again, just my guess) $100-300K may not sound like that much by todays standards, but it had been capitalized at $1.2 million, although it ended up costing $1.525 million to open. If it did lose something like $300K during that time, that’s 20 percent. Also not helping the investors is that the people who put up the additional money above the capitalization get paid first. I will amend what I wrote earlier to say that they probably should have run it two months with the new leads. Reviews did not appear till two weeks after they took over. They were mostly quite favorable, and it’s only fair to allow time for the effect of the reviews and word-of-mouth to kick in. And then there was the transit strike, and you wouldn’t want to close during that. When the closing was announced in June, it did well for the last two weeks. It’s easy to say this now, of course, but closing at the end of April rather than the end of June would have held down the losses. As for Into the Woods, I have no particular insights. It simply didn’t do well enough to recoup during the Broadway run, despite having relatively low running costs and a relatively low capitalization compared to Phantom. I’m not feeling like doing two or three hours of research to make sure that I’m remembering things correctly and to check on figures, as I did last night with Sweeney. |
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| re: Sondheim's Broadway career | |
| Posted by: ablankpage 06:20 pm EDT 04/10/21 | |
| In reply to: re: Sondheim's Broadway career - AlanScott 05:20 pm EDT 04/10/21 | |
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| No problem! I really appreciate that insight on Sweeney though. Thank you, as always, for your encyclopedia brain. | |
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| re: Sondheim's Broadway career | |
| Posted by: AlanScott 07:07 pm EDT 04/10/21 | |
| In reply to: re: Sondheim's Broadway career - ablankpage 06:20 pm EDT 04/10/21 | |
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| You're welcome. One further thing I realized after posting. If it did lose something 300K during the last four months, that would have been 25 percent, not 20 percent, as the people who had provided the additional money above the initial capitalization had been paid in full. So 300K would have been 25 percent of the $1.2 million that was then being paid off. Of course, perhaps it was less than $300K, but whatever it lost, it was not a help to paying off. |
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| Having over half recoup on initial run | |
| Last Edit: dramedy 08:10 pm EDT 04/09/21 | |
| Posted by: dramedy 08:09 pm EDT 04/09/21 | |
| In reply to: re: Sondheim's Broadway career - AlanScott 05:25 pm EDT 04/09/21 | |
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| Is pretty impressive for any composer. And I think we have to add Gypsy and west side story to list since he was the Lyricist on those hugely successful shows. I do hope he finishes probably his final work. Road show took about ten years and so seems buneul. |
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| Bunuel | |
| Posted by: stevemr 11:07 pm EDT 04/09/21 | |
| In reply to: Having over half recoup on initial run - dramedy 08:09 pm EDT 04/09/21 | |
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| I believe it was reported over a year ago that the project had been abandoned. | |
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| re: Sondheim's Broadway career | |
| Posted by: peter3053 05:34 pm EDT 04/09/21 | |
| In reply to: re: Sondheim's Broadway career - AlanScott 05:25 pm EDT 04/09/21 | |
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| The wild triumph of Sondheim and those associated with him has been a willingness to risk unsettling material in a pleasure-zone like Broadway - again and again! What might be interesting to calculate is which of his shows has been revived the most often across the globe, even after having done poorly in an original run. I suspect that, of the commercial "failures", Merrily might be the most successful of his career? Certainly it rates as a towering work of art, a questing after the deepest values of human existence. |
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| re: Sondheim's Broadway career | |
| Posted by: ablankpage 11:07 pm EDT 04/09/21 | |
| In reply to: re: Sondheim's Broadway career - peter3053 05:34 pm EDT 04/09/21 | |
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| Agreed. He takes huge swings and, even when they don’t immediately land with audiences, they’ve always pushed the art form forward. Recent commercial successes like Fun Home and The Band’s Visit arguably wouldn’t have existed without him. | |
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| re: Sondheim's Broadway career | |
| Posted by: Singapore/Fling 10:46 pm EDT 04/09/21 | |
| In reply to: re: Sondheim's Broadway career - peter3053 05:34 pm EDT 04/09/21 | |
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| If we're looking at major productions - Broadway, West End, and the like - then I think "Follies" is giving "Merrily" a run for its money, and "Pacific Overtures" isn't really a slouch either. "Merrily" is a tricky show to track partly because so many productions have been attempts to solve the show and prove that it can work; I don't know how we rank those against productions of the other shows that were more straightforward. | |
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| re: Sondheim's Broadway career | |
| Posted by: peter3053 11:19 pm EDT 04/09/21 | |
| In reply to: re: Sondheim's Broadway career - Singapore/Fling 10:46 pm EDT 04/09/21 | |
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| Often when Merrily is revived, the same doubts get expressed - "it never really works", "the lead isn't likeable" - but then audiences see it and come out pondering their life choices. It works at the deepest level. The authorial skill on hand is the reason. It may be the one Sondheim musical that is still performed two hundred years from now, because the struggle between idealism and compromise is inherent in our human species. And I speak as someone who loves Pacific Overtures, Sweeney Todd, and so many others with a passion. And even Passion. |
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| re: Sondheim's Broadway career | |
| Posted by: Singapore/Fling 12:28 am EDT 04/10/21 | |
| In reply to: re: Sondheim's Broadway career - peter3053 11:19 pm EDT 04/09/21 | |
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| I think you're talking for a lot of people when you say "the audience". This audience member finally saw the show at the Menier in 2013, and he went in expecting to see the naysayers proved wrong... and left realizing that the naysayers were right all along and that the show simply does not work. The book is shallow, the characters unlikable, and the dramatic stakes ultimately pretty slight: a rather mediocre composer decides to pursue popular success rather than the artistic success that his two friends who overestimate his talent mistakenly think him capable of. Meh. Yes, the score is gorgeous, but a score does not make a musical succeed, and in this case I don't think it can (and so far hasn't). Whether or not the show will be performed in two hundred years is beyond our knowledge, but what we do know is that it's one of the few Sondheim shows not to get a Broadway revival ("Saturday Night", "Anyone Can Whistle", "Passion", and "Road Show" being the others), and it's not for lack of trying. If I had to pick the one show of his that would still be done in 200 years, I think "Into the Woods", "Sweeney Todd", and "Forum" are the best candidates; they are based on or inspired by stories that have stood the test of time, and they work very solidly as pieces of entertainment. |
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| re: Sondheim's Broadway career | |
| Posted by: peter3053 04:15 am EDT 04/10/21 | |
| In reply to: re: Sondheim's Broadway career - Singapore/Fling 12:28 am EDT 04/10/21 | |
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| In Merrily, a young man is inspired to transform the world for the better, using his gift, music, to do so; he intends to write shows which will illuminate ( "tell 'em things they don't know") the human condition, to sustain idealism and forge social progress ("Me and you/ Me and you / Me and you / Me and you!"). However, through a weakness for personal comfort over commitment (a weakness many of us share), he chooses the path of expedient rewards - fame, glamor, the use of women for personal ambition and sexual pleasure (not an abiding love), and riches. His work ceases to be an expression of his art, and becomes merely a populist means to a self-indulgent end. Thus he moves from the chance to be genuinely productive in this world, for the greater good of all, to a form of despair which is mere selfish comfort - despair at its root meaning means to be de-spirited, usually by too much attachment to the rewards of materialism. He moves from "me and you" to being a card-carrying member of the "Me" generation. (The "Us" of "Who's Like us?" is progressively ghosted as he vanishes inside "Franklin Shephard Inc.") At the same time, ironically, his thirst for public success co-incides with the loss of his own privacy and public exposure by a gossip-thirsty media mob; his human distinctiveness becomes swallowed by the fashionable, integrity-less blob, and he is rendered artistically and therefore, for him, morally impotent and expressively infertile. He loses his greater humanity. This is a profound tale, told in an alarming way - that is, told in a way that alarms us the most the more beautiful his character becomes, at the beginning which is the end. There are many great works of art that incorporate flaws - flaws which become mysteries over time (Does Gertrude know her new husband murdered Hamlet's father? How many children hath Lady Macbeth? Why didn't Emilia protest about the handkerchief in time before Othello killed Desdemona?). There are many great works which include dislikeable characters; as Sondheim and Weidman themselves said in Road Show, sometimes the worst example is the best. For ambition, for insight, for artistry which cries out for the value of love over selfihsness, Merrily ranks among the greats. |
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| re: Sondheim's Broadway career | |
| Posted by: Michael_Portantiere 11:57 am EDT 04/10/21 | |
| In reply to: re: Sondheim's Broadway career - peter3053 04:15 am EDT 04/10/21 | |
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| I loved your analysis. I would only argue that a major flaw of the book of MERRILY, and maybe even some of the score (at least one song of it, anyway), is that Charley's constant wheedling and condemnation of Frank for "selling out" is laid on way too thick and is sometimes presented in a way that makes Charley seem irrational-- as in that weird moment when he freaks out after hearing that Frank has worked out a deal for a film version of a musical that Charley and Frank wrote together. This sends Charley off the deep end, because work on that film will prevent work on the other, passion-project musical that the team has been planning to complete for years. Yes, I would say it makes some sense for Charley to be upset about the film for that reason, at least to a certain degree, but.....come on! He's still going to get a MOVIE VERSION of a musical that he co-wrote. So I would say his reaction is a bit much, to put it mildly. | |
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| re: Sondheim's Broadway career | |
| Posted by: peter3053 05:30 pm EDT 04/10/21 | |
| In reply to: re: Sondheim's Broadway career - Michael_Portantiere 11:57 am EDT 04/10/21 | |
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| I see your point, but I wonder if it is not more of a case of the straw that broke the camel's back - a build up of disappointments and broken promises from Frank. Often in relationships, little things become a catalyst and cause a blow-up which may seem out of proportion to the passerby, but really indicate a subterranean pressure in the friendship that has built over a long time before the eruption? And Mary is always trying to paper over the cracks, because she likens their togetherness to the ideal world she envisioned way back on the rooftop - and of course, Charley , being more naturally compassionate than Frank, withdraws his anger too often, for her sake. The complications of long-term relationship festering? So I wonder if the issue is not the movie deal itself, but that as a sign to Charley of a whole pattern he has resented for years? One other interesting thing, for me, is that, in youth, Frank has the magnetism of an idealist, but not the integrity of the authentic idealist. Charley and Mary lack the surface charm, but each in their own way have more authenticity about what they hold to be important. Charley's anger helps him survive and remain true to his beliefs; Mary can't be angry without condemning her own illusion of Frank, and so sinks into alcoholism. |
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| re: Sondheim's Broadway career | |
| Last Edit: Singapore/Fling 10:41 am EDT 04/10/21 | |
| Posted by: Singapore/Fling 10:40 am EDT 04/10/21 | |
| In reply to: re: Sondheim's Broadway career - peter3053 04:15 am EDT 04/10/21 | |
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| That's a great take on "Merrily", but I think it only really works if you listen to a few of the songs and ignore the actual book of the show and the characters as written - which people have tried to do for 40 years without cracking the code. Your take also presumes that the kind of things young 20 year olds say - "we're brilliant, unique, and going to change the world!" - have any real weight. My biggest disappointment in finally seeing Merrily was discovering that it *wasn't* the story you describe, and which I expected, because none of the characters rise to that level of greatness for even a moment - but that greatness is generally an illusion (or delusion) of youth to begin with. Instead, we have three people with high hopes who discover that in the act of living and making choices, they disappoint themselves and each other. And most of all, your version of the story is told forwards, but the show is told backwards. And that backwards telling really mucks things up without having a strong enough pay-off. The show only seems to work as an album, where we can dig into the arcana of the songs once we already know the story - or have the freedom to fill in the blanks and tell our own. |
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| re: Sondheim's Broadway career | |
| Posted by: peter3053 05:46 pm EDT 04/10/21 | |
| In reply to: re: Sondheim's Broadway career - Singapore/Fling 10:40 am EDT 04/10/21 | |
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| Fair points, but I think youthful idealism is a beautiful thing, and the tragedy of life - captured powerfully because of Merrily's reverse structure - is that the world, which is "us" and all our weaknesses we bring - plays havoc with our best intentions. The truly bold, who shed the shackles of human compromise, are usually arrested, removed, or lionised much later as saints. I recall the line from Anyone Can Whistle in which Hapgood says he is not only an idealist, but a "practising" one. They're very rare, which is the tragedy of the human condition. I think Merrily, told backwards, makes us especially aware of the tragedy. Personally, I don't mind sitting in a theatre studying unlikeable people when there is a moral purpose to it; I'm not all that fond of Oedipus, that arrogant sod; or that hormone-crazed Romeo, the fool; or Henry-bloody-Higgins, that egotistical power-hungry creep; and as for that narrow-minded Nellie Forbush, who grows more dislikeable as the show goes on, rather than the reverse (until the end....) - mind you, as for that overbearing lover she's got ........ or that Cable character .... or - or - Bloody Mary, a mother who does that !!! Sorry, where was I? As I say, better to study the unlikeable in a purposeful, artificial space - it's slightly better than having to put up with them in real life! |
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| re: Sondheim's Broadway career | |
| Posted by: dbdbdb 01:55 pm EDT 04/10/21 | |
| In reply to: re: Sondheim's Broadway career - Singapore/Fling 10:40 am EDT 04/10/21 | |
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| This is exactly right. One of the show's biggest problems is that you're seeing the divorce before you know anything about the marriage, and you have no idea why you should care. Michael Porttantiere also alludes to the other big problem in his comments about Charley's hysterical overreaction to Frank's choices: The show seems to suggest that writing Broadway musicals is a beautiful, noble pure calling while making films is morally ruinous. Well, I guess that's true. Sometimes. Maybe. Under certain circumstances... | |
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| re: Sondheim's Broadway career | |
| Posted by: Michael_Portantiere 03:12 pm EDT 04/10/21 | |
| In reply to: re: Sondheim's Broadway career - dbdbdb 01:55 pm EDT 04/10/21 | |
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| "The show seems to suggest that writing Broadway musicals is a beautiful, noble pure calling while making films is morally ruinous. Well, I guess that's true. Sometimes. Maybe. Under certain circumstances..." Ha! Exactly. But also, seriously: How believable is it that Charley would become enraged at the information that Frank has worked a deal so that the musical that Frank and Charley wrote TOGETHER will be made into a Hollywood film -- so enraged that he then utterly humiliates his longtime friend and writing partner during an interview on live television? I mean, I know that musical is not his passion project, but........seriously?? I was sad when I very belatedly realized some years ago that, while "Franklin Shepard, Inc." is a brilliant song and a tour-de-force in and of itself, it actually does great damage to the show as a whole and to the character of Charley in particular, because it portrays him as emotionally reckless and childish in his big moment, and I don't THINK that's how the authors wanted us to view him. |
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| re: Sondheim's Broadway career | |
| Last Edit: Quicheo 11:00 am EDT 04/10/21 | |
| Posted by: Quicheo 10:59 am EDT 04/10/21 | |
| In reply to: re: Sondheim's Broadway career - Singapore/Fling 10:40 am EDT 04/10/21 | |
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| I can speak only having seen the Kennedy Center production, which worked for me because in each scene, it showed the results of a choice made in the recent past, leading one step closer to the characters' eventual unhappiness and disappointment. I wondered, how could they be so foolish to have made that choice? Then we go back in time a bit and see exactly why, and even understand exactly why. And each time, the lead character makes a choice we know isn't good, he is influenced by a different set of people often with good intentions. There is no one set of people who would have guided him right, only small choices against his internal sense that chipped another piece off his integrity and moved him one more step off course. I have no idea if he is as talented as his friends think he is. I do know, he was happier when he made time to indulge that talent. I think, like Follies, it captures the regret of the late middle aged people of its time, in this case, wealthy 80s people, and allows them to wonder how they ended up so unhappy. |
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| re: Sondheim's Broadway career | |
| Posted by: seenenuf 07:04 pm EDT 04/09/21 | |
| In reply to: re: Sondheim's Broadway career - peter3053 05:34 pm EDT 04/09/21 | |
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| "Certainly it rates as a towering work of art..." Really? Would you please name 3 other towering works so I have a point of reference? |
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| re: Sondheim's Broadway career | |
| Posted by: DistantDrumming 06:30 pm EDT 04/09/21 | |
| In reply to: re: Sondheim's Broadway career - peter3053 05:34 pm EDT 04/09/21 | |
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| It would also be interesting (though, I imagine, impossible) to know how much revenue each of those shows has generated from publishing, subsequent professional and amateur productions and adaptations into other media. I imagine for some, like Into the Woods, it's very impressive. | |
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