| re: My Company rant in general - not targeted to you, kidmanboy - with staging spoilers | |
| Last Edit: Chazwaza 02:44 pm EST 12/31/21 | |
| Posted by: Chazwaza 02:41 pm EST 12/31/21 | |
| In reply to: re: My Company rant in general - not targeted to you, kidmanboy - with staging spoilers - Delvino 01:30 pm EST 12/31/21 | |
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| "Without the score, the show wouldn't be ... well, what it is." You could say that about absolutely every good musical. I guess we'll never know how introspective and quietly emotional and dark or dazzling Furth's play might have been without the songs because he let Sondheim take all the opportunity for that for his score and built a book that works with that score. In a musical, especially a musical like this, I'm not sure there is many better ways to do it. This is meant to be a funny and emotional journey of a single man opening up to being vulnerable and connected with a partner via a building series of scenes he scenes from the lives of his married friends and scenes with the women he's dating... I think the script does a pretty fantastic job of being that show. And if it wasn't meant to be this, don't we think Sondheim and Furth would have taken the opportunity to make changes? Like they did with Merrily (I wish they hadn't, but that's another story). I'm not sure why you need justification for why anyone in a group of friends is providing dating and sexual advise to another friend... especially a man to a man (or a woman to a woman, which isn't the case in this new revival). I know they aren't a cohesive "group", rather a group of Bobby's coupled friends... but people do have friends, and one of the main things adult friends talk about is dating and sex. This was never an issue to me or anything needing to be justified by assuming Bobby works with the men and assumed shared professional experiences. I would ask, was the good ol' boy camaraderie ever baked in? The opening song, as well as the scenes, makes clear Bobby is someone these people care about and enjoy a lot, they are IN each other's lives, and/or want to be... I think that tells us what we need to move forward with understanding why they are hanging out and why they are talking about or giving advice (or wanting juicy details) on love, dating and sex. I think what's harder to understand about this new version is that the gender switching didn't go far enough. It doesn't make sense in the script as it is that female Bobbie would mainly be friends with the husbands, and it also Someone Is Waiting with these men as the subject doesn't make sense either, especially with this version of Bobbie. And perhaps it felt "sitcomy" and not fresh to you at 19 because it was not written with the ear, conversation, and comedic sensibility, of someone under 21 in mind. The show is made up of scenes from marriages... situations... and they're funny... they're going to be like a situation comedy to some extent. But they're also actually good and actually funny. |
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