| 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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| Previous: | The Life...and the Death of Encores - StageStruckLad 04:17 pm EDT 03/19/22 |
| Next: | re: As to Question #2..... - bway1430 09:23 am EDT 03/22/22 |
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