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| re: The Life...and the Death of Encores | |
| Posted by: NeoAdamite 10:03 pm EDT 03/20/22 | |
| In reply to: The Life...and the Death of Encores - StageStruckLad 04:17 pm EDT 03/19/22 | |
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| This long thread conflates two different questions. Question #1: Was this production good/bad/worth doing? This is a well-understood question, I hope. Personally I was bored, but that's just one person's opinion. I'm glad it brought some people joy. (And of course the estates gave Porter carte blanche, as they had nothing to lose - the show as published is essentially unrevivable.) Question #2: Should Encores! have done it? This seems to have generated a lot of confusion, so I'll offer my thoughts (which may add more, or not): Every producer in town salivates at the thought of salable revisals of well-known properties; meanwhile, the entire point of Encores - not necessarily its "mission," but why it's still around after all these years - is that it doesn't do the very well-known or the classic. It's the very opposite of the Shakespeare/Opera case, where "We do it to Shakespeare" is constantly used as an excuse for productions driven by self-indulgence, dramaturgical ignorance, and delusions of importance. Porter stated that he felt THE LIFE was a "classic," and thus eligible for the creative mangle. I think that 80% of the audience cheering at the talkback had no exposure whatsoever to the original show, and so I disagree. There are plenty of times Encores! has had to nip and tuck some nasty bits in a given show. I assume if Viertel & Co had looked into a musical that was fundamentally problematic (as some say about THE LIFE) they would simply have skipped it rather than commissioning a new book. tl;dr: It appears that this season Encores! is acting like a commercial producer looking for hits, whereas its core supporters have looked to it for years as an elegant time-travel service. And since there are plenty of producers, but only one Encores!, taking the former path looks to this observer like a dead end. |
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| re: As to Question #2..... | |
| Posted by: bway1430 09:23 am EDT 03/22/22 | |
| In reply to: re: The Life...and the Death of Encores - NeoAdamite 10:03 pm EDT 03/20/22 | |
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| I wholeheartedly believe Encores! was right in choosing THE LIFE. But they were wrong in going for huge rehaul that rendered the show nearly unrecognizable. There would have been nothing wrong with a semi-staged version that allowed the show to highlight its strongest suit, the score. I am of the minority that finds Coleman's score a pretty good one. Sadly, the OBC does not do it justice. A fair amount of music is missing including Harold Wheeler's excellent dance orchestrations for "Hooker's Ball" as well as the dance interlude and conclusion to "My Body" that led straight into "Why Don't They Leave Us Alone". Why the score was not recorded intact I will never know. Yes, the subject matter hasn't aged well through the lense of today but THE LIFE is hardly alone in that. It could and should have been addressed in another way that didn't vandalise what was salvagable from the original material. Just my .02. |
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