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| One of the great head-scratchers of all time. | |
| Last Edit: ShowGoer 08:05 am EST 01/18/22 | |
| Posted by: ShowGoer 08:02 am EST 01/18/22 | |
| In reply to: FLYING OVER SUNSET - Final performance yesterday - Shutterbug 04:53 pm EST 01/17/22 | |
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| Someone below said, “During these difficult times when theater is so necessary and yet so fragile, this oddball, lovely musical feels like just the right show for the moment.” I’d suggest if that were remotely true, it wouldn’t have closed yesterday. (A better candidate for that assessment in my opinion, which also closed y this weekend, would seem to be Kimberly Akimbo – which rightly got far better reviews and justifiably is almost assured to move to Broadway this year.) But I’m glad so many others got so much out of it. For me, and the dozens I know who’ve seen it, it was definitely one of the greater disappointments in the last decade. (As I’ve says before, each of the writers involved has written at least one or two shows which had more going for them and which better qualify as real heartbreakers, from Muscle in the 1990s to War Paint a few seasons back). There were nice things about it for sure, and this thread has singled out all the highlights. That said, I don’t think there’s a chance in hell this is going to be the next Anyone Can Whistle, Love Life, Merrily We Roll Along, or Chess, that people are lamenting what went wrong and still trying to make work 30 or 40 years from now. It’s simply the first new serious musical for grown-ups (and the only one thus far on Broadway) to open after a pandemic, one that whether you mostly disliked it, or you thought it had moments if genius, or both, everyone can agree we wish had been better than it was. |
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| re: One of the great head-scratchers of all time. | |
| Posted by: keikekaze 04:18 pm EST 01/18/22 | |
| In reply to: One of the great head-scratchers of all time. - ShowGoer 08:02 am EST 01/18/22 | |
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| I don’t think there’s a chance in hell this is going to be the next Anyone Can Whistle, Love Life, Merrily We Roll Along, or Chess, that people are lamenting what went wrong and still trying to make work 30 or 40 years from now. But surely that's exactly what Flying Over Sunset already is. None of those shows you named is any lost masterpiece. They're all examples of shows that don't work, and are very probably never going to work--certainly not in the commercial-Broadway sense--but that a lot of people happen to like anyway. Like Flying Over Sunset. |
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| re: One of the great head-scratchers of all time. | |
| Posted by: ShowGoer 07:00 pm EST 01/18/22 | |
| In reply to: re: One of the great head-scratchers of all time. - keikekaze 04:18 pm EST 01/18/22 | |
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| I can’t believe you just compared Flying Over Sunset to those shows. But either way, Flying Over Sunset literally isn’t a similar example of “surely that's exactly what Flying Over Sunset already is.” Because it hasn’t been around 30 or 40 years like the shows I cited, long enough for anyone to lament what went wrong and mount multiple new productions to try and fix it. So it’s exactly not that. Not at all. I still don’t think that scenario is going to happen, by the way. But I could be wrong. Come find me in 2050 or 2060 and by all means gloat if you called this one correctly. | |
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| re: One of the great head-scratchers of all time. | |
| Posted by: keikekaze 10:11 pm EST 01/18/22 | |
| In reply to: re: One of the great head-scratchers of all time. - ShowGoer 07:00 pm EST 01/18/22 | |
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| I stand by my initial comment. Since I didn't make any predictions, we don't need 30 or 40 years to perceive what is already evident, that all five of the shows previously named (including Flying) are problematic shows that are probably never going to be made to work commercially, but each of which has aspects that appeal to many people. There are, of course, dozens, if not hundreds, of other Broadway musicals that fall into the same category. | |
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| really putting words in our mouths at the end there... | |
| Posted by: Chazwaza 01:01 pm EST 01/18/22 | |
| In reply to: One of the great head-scratchers of all time. - ShowGoer 08:02 am EST 01/18/22 | |
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| so the three options of an experience with this show, as you understand it, are "you mostly disliked it, or you thought it had moments if genius, or both, everyone can agree we wish had been better than it was." After reading Shutterbug's generally glowing review, which reads to me as *clearly* in the "liked it more than just a few moments", you've decided everyone either mostly disliked it or, at best, saw it as having moments of genius... How about this... I really liked it and I thought it had moments of genius and I also wish it had been better in some respects. I suspect Shutterbug would say the same. As would many who've posted about liking it, and many who haven't. The narrative that everyone hates this show, even if they can see a few promising flares in it, is ridiculous. And in a time when nothing is selling the way it would, when a new covid surge is impacting everyone's choices about where to sit indoors with strangers, to assume that a show with no stars and no famous title, opening with bad word-of-mouth, in a pandemic surge, isn't going to sell... and if not then it means no one wanted to see it or liked it... is silly. We'll never know. I know I, and shutterbug (not to mention the people I saw it with and many others I know), liked it more than most, I'm not blind to how many people did not like it at all. I know we're still in the minority. But I don't think you can claim its closing as just pure factual results of it being bad or disliked. |
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| re: really putting words in our mouths at the end there... | |
| Posted by: ShowGoer 01:33 pm EST 01/18/22 | |
| In reply to: really putting words in our mouths at the end there... - Chazwaza 01:01 pm EST 01/18/22 | |
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| Possibly being slightly over-reductive, but I really don't think I'm putting words in anyone's mouths in saying people generally seem to agree they think it could've been better; Shutterbug's post was beautifully written, I agree with a lot of what he said, and it was generally positive overall - but any 'review' that includes phrases like "Not sure what the point was or why this set up should resonate with audiences, but it was beautifully presented", "Some shows are more than the sum of their parts. This one may be less..." and "There was A LOT of talent on that stage" – would hardly be classified as a glowing rave. Nor did I imply that even the people who saw its promise secretly hate it, or whatever words you seemed to have put in my mouth by suggesting I was perpetuating a false narrative about the show being "hated". But it's a simple fact that if the fans of the show weren't solidly in the minority, it wouldn't have ended its run early. It's great to love something, and everyone who loved it should cherish it. (I've had my own pet shows that were disappointments at the box office in the past 10 years or so, things that I'll never understand why they couldn't achieve more than middling word-of-mouth and short runs – but while like you, I accept the fact that I was in the minority, I also understand it isn't a "false narrative" that the general critical and popular response played a significant role in its closing.) True, there are many things we'll never know, about this show and about this season in general. But despite the pandemic, at a time when shows like "Six" and "The Music Man" are sold out or close to selling out, off-Broadway shows like "Assassins", "Morning Sun" and "Kimberly Akimbo" were extended multiple times and sold out their entire runs, and Broadway shows produced by other resident theaters, whether they seem to have done fairly well at the box office ("Lackawanna Blues" and "Caroline or Change") or struggled somewhat ("Trouble in Mind" and "Skeleton Crew") have all at least been playing to the end of their scheduled runs – in my opinion, to say that a show at another non-profit closing a month earlier than planned isn't a reflection on whether it was generally, for the most part, not all that well-liked... is silly. |
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| re: One of the great head-scratchers of all time. | |
| Posted by: ianx73 12:22 pm EST 01/18/22 | |
| In reply to: One of the great head-scratchers of all time. - ShowGoer 08:02 am EST 01/18/22 | |
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| The shows you mentioned are perfect examples of musicals initially derided that developed the over used "cult following' It will be interesting to see what happens to Sunset after the cast recording. I remember how many people initially hated Sunday in the Park and Sweeney Todd when they first opened (I'm not comparing Sunset to either of those in quality ) Frank Rich a man whose opinions I greatly value said: Don't be a theatergoer who two years, or ten, from now "wished" they'd been there. @FlyingSunsetBwy is a brilliant culmination of James Lapine's work in "Twelve Dreams," "Sunday in the Park" and "Into the Woods." |
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