Lolita, My Love- Page 2

[Michael Bennett]

Posted: 10/12/06 at 6:54pm

I think in this politically correct age it's highly doubtful, though it should be. The Alan Jay Lerner estate which held out all requests for the material for years finally consented to a studio recording a couple of years ago (it's never come to fruition however) so I suppose it is possible.

[sondheimboy2]

Posted: 10/12/06 at 6:57pm

Maybe if they made Lolita a Senate page....?

[WalkOn]

Posted: 10/12/06 at 7:25pm

Ha! Ha!!

Who was going to produce the recording?

Updated On: 10/12/06 at 07:25 PM

[Michael Bennett]

Posted: 10/12/06 at 7:30pm

I'm pretty sure Robert Sher was going to produce it for Jay Records.

[Mr Roxy]

Posted: 10/12/06 at 7:35pm

I got a cassette of it. I should have bought the CD as well. Ditto for Prettybelle

[WithoutATrace]

Posted: 10/12/06 at 7:36pm

Count me in as another fan of this show. While the subject matter is a bit strange, some of the music is excellent. If there was a one-night staged reading, I would definitely try to get a ticket.

[Michael Bennett]

Posted: 10/12/06 at 7:36pm

Lolita My Love was never put on CD. Just that Blue Pear record and cassette.

[TheEnchantedHunter]

Posted: 10/12/06 at 8:48pm

LOLITA is less about pedophilia than it is about fascism and oppression. Consequently, with Eastern and Western fundalmentalism encroaching upon our lives, it couldn't be more timely.

The stage musical has a number of interesting songs (two of which can be heard on Brent Barrett's Alan Jay Lerner's album) but, ultimately, it simply doesn't work. Though LOLITA has had two stage incarnations (one by Edward Albee) and two screen adaptations, the novel, with its unreliable narrator and razor-sharp tragic-comic tone is an unlikely candidate for successful dramatization. Its doubtful that ANY adaptation could capture the full scope of the novel's brilliant literary ambivalence.


Vivian Darkbloom
Ramsdale, New England

[Michael Bennett]

Posted: 10/12/06 at 8:50pm

Well, I agree with that Enchanted Hunter, but I do think LOLITA MY LOVE should be heard live again.

[WithoutATrace]

Posted: 10/12/06 at 10:20pm

"Sur Les Quais" is a wonderful song and great showcase for Loudon. The opening number, "Going, Going, Gone," is awful though, IMO.

[WOSQ]

Posted: 10/13/06 at 9:47am

Lolita, My Love had a more tortured tryout than most out-of-town closers.

It opened in Philly and played 2 weeks of an announced 5 week tryout. It then closed down for substantial rewrites and some recasting (a new Lolita and I think Lorna Luft was brought in to play a new role) and I think at least a new director but I am not sure. The rewrites were so great that the Powers-That-Be realized they wouldn't have enough time to write them and put them in and also play the show as well and make the opening date in NY.

This was/is very expensive since the cast was making performance salaries and not rehearsal salaries.

(One reason that some big shows do a road break-in and then close for 6 weeks is that Equity rules say that if the show is closed then all Equity contracts are void and the remounted run becomes a new production, and actors can no be rehired for the NY run. Think of Wicked and Robert Morse who played the Wizard in SF and then Joel Grey played it in NY.)

Lolita reopened out of town in Boston and closed there for good after a week.

Lerner stored the scenery for a few years in the unbooked Longacre Theatre hoping to remount it yet again. Didn't happen.

[allofmylife]

Posted: 10/13/06 at 10:07am

It's pretty dumb to think that you can find an audience for such a show. The theatre parties would have been revolted and tourists from many countries would have stayed away.

On a lighter (yet creepy note) as noted before this IS the second show on that subject for Lerner. Maybe he had an agenda we're not aware of? I wonder..... "I've Grown Accustomed to the Face She's Going to Grow Into?" "The Night They Invented Pedophilia" and especially "No, REALLY Say a Prayer for Me."

[Broadway Matt]

Posted: 10/13/06 at 10:39am

It's a shame because it really is a pretty well-done adaptation of the book. It never had a chance on broadway, the subject matter just makes people too uncomfortable to realistically expect the public to want to see it as a big musical. Nabokov himself said that he didn't like the idea of film and stage adaptations of LOLITA, basically saying that the story is really only OK in its written form. The scenes in the story and the romantically-written inner workings of the narrating character are fine when read, processed, and envisioned in someone's imagination. But to take it to the level of having people watch artistic re-enactments of such a taboo personal conflict seems to cross a clear boundary of taste and comfort. It was a horrible idea to try and musicalize it for Broadway. A lot of people think it's a great piece of literature, myself among them, but who really wants to make an enterainment experience out of? Had it been thought of today, I suspect a well-written LOLITA musical like this could have some success as FRINGE or NYMF musicals, maybe running Off-Broadway for a bit. Or it might be done in an over-the-top parody form, like SILENCE! OF THE LAMBS, but it doesn't lend itself as well to gross exagerration for comedic affect.

I got a hold of the cast album a few months ago and there are some very good songs and a few great numbers that can be plucked out of it. As a complete score, it's surprisingly solid with a number of standouts and 1 or 2 major misfires. Dorothy Loudon is fantastic and the audiences loved her in this show. Part of its failure was the fact that the most compelling performer in the cast was dead before the midway point. What followed is mainly a lot of tortured soliloquy and somewhat unsettling duets, many with memorable music and artfully written lyrics. There's an interesting uptempo number with especially clever lyrics in which Humbert defends his perversion in a witty and whimsical light banter with various indignant ensemble characters. Brilliant writing, disturbing song.

[Michael Bennett]

Posted: 10/13/06 at 11:09am

The sets for LOLITA by Ming Cho Lee were brilliant. The Lincoln Center Library still has all the blue prints.

[ray-andallthatjazz86]

Posted: 4/10/07 at 1:18pm

Felt like this thread needed a bump.
Just listened to the whole score and was surprised at how marvelous it is! Dorothy Loudon's brilliance never fails to surprise me, her turn in this show was terrific--judging from the recording. Unfortunately, she is gone by the end of Act I as many people have mentioned on this thread.
I still think this show should get a concert and a subsequent cast recording. Who would be part of the cast though?
Definitely a brilliant piece that successfully musicalizes Nabokov's masterful novel. A pity it never made it to Broadway, it's much better than TWO GENTLEMEN OF VERONA (the Tony-winner that season).

[sweetestsiren]

Posted: 4/10/07 at 1:25pm

The score is remarkably good, and as noted here, it's a really great overall adaptation of Nabakov's novel. It would be really interesting to see a concert version done simply because the music is so good, but I think that Lolita probably falls under that category of "material that was never meant to be musicalized." I can't see it ever getting the reception it would need to play on Broadway, or even off.

[Michael Bennett]

Posted: 4/10/07 at 1:38pm

Record producer Robert Sher was at one time working on recording the score (this was about four years ago) so I think its entirely possible that a group like Musicals in Mufti could perhaps do a concert revival of it. Obviously a full blown production is probably unrealistic.

And to address a long time ago comment by Without a Trace. I disagree re: "Going Going Gone" - I think if you understand the context of the song in the original script - its a great number.

[ray-andallthatjazz86]

Posted: 4/10/07 at 1:51pm

Is it me or "All You Have to Do is Wait" from CITY OF ANGELS sounds a lot like "Going, Going, Gone"? I actually like that opening number as a song, not sure how it works in the context of the show though.
I think Denise Nickerson acting in the recording sounds a lot like I'd imagine Lolita to sound like, especially during "Saturday" (one of my favorite songs in the show). I also enjoy how "The Same Old Song" starts in Act I and then becomes a different kind of complaint in Act II, quite fascinating. Whatever happened to Nickerson, by the way, I see on ibdb.com that her last Broadway credit is from 1969.

[Piercemn]

Posted: 4/10/07 at 1:54pm

Three Words: Not Since Carrie

[BrodyFosse123]

Posted: 4/10/07 at 1:58pm

CD Track listing

1. Overture - Orchestra
2. Going, Going, Gone - Leonard Frey, Lance Westergard
3. The Same Old Song - Dorothy Loudon, Denise Nickerson
4. Saturday - Denise Nickerson
5. In The Broken Promise Land Of Fifteen - John Neville
6. The Same Old Song (Reprise) - Dorothy Loudon, Denise Nickerson, John Neville
7. Dante, Petrarch And Poe - John Neville and Guests
8. Sur Les Quais - Dorothy Loudon
9. Charlotte's Letter - John Neville, Dorothy Loudon and Choir
10. Farewell, Little Dream - John Neville
11. At The Bed-D-By Motel - John Witham, Leonard Frey and Conventioneers
12. Tell Me, Tell Me - John Neville
13. Buckin' For Beardsley / Beardsley School For Girls - Students
14. March Out Of My Life - Leonard Frey
15. The Same Old Song (Reprise) - Denise Nickerson, John Neville
16. All You Can Do Is Tell Me You Love Me - Denise Nickerson
17. How Far Is It To The Next Town - John Neville
18. How Far Is It To The Next Town (Reprise) - John Neville, Denise Nickerson and Chorus
19. Lolita - John Neville
20. Finale - Chorus

[SorryGrateful]

Posted: 4/10/07 at 2:05pm

I saw this thread and I was like, "Ooooh, this sounds interesting." And then I saw who started and I felt stupid.

[Danielm]

Posted: 4/10/07 at 5:20pm

My friend Rick actually saw this. He said that it was very dull and the only thing that kept it interesting was Loudon, once she was gone there was nothing to keep the audience's interest. I always take what he says with a grain of salt because he has very traditional tastes. I think compared with the book both the play and the movie suffer. The book can be read on so many different levels while the movie(s) and play are just about a pedophile. Humbert, in the book, is the fascist, the self-decieveing morally reprehensible bully who dominates the girl and tries to strip away her humanity all the while denigrating her.

[sondheimboy2]

Posted: 4/10/07 at 5:21pm

Maybe I'm just basically a perverse person, but I love how the loveliest melody "Tell Me, Tell Me" is sung by Humbert, basically trying to buy Lolita's affections.

I've thought, maybe end the first act with the wedding of Lolita's mother and Humbert and save her death for the beginning of the second act. Then, at least you don't have the audience entering the second act disappointed that they won't see their favorite character.

And set the show back in the time when the book was written. Lerner "updated" the story and had it set in the 1970's, which explains the reference to the "Tape machine made for the car."

[BigFatBlonde]

Posted: 4/10/07 at 5:51pm

Tell Me, Tell Me

is a brilliantly creepy lullaby that at once entices and repulses. It is filled with longing, pain and quivering anticipation.

Lerner was a genius.

Updated On: 4/10/07 at 05:51 PM

Posted: 4/11/07 at 6:33pm

I'vemanaged to read the script but never get the score (I hwas tracking it down but kinda forgot about it till now...) Apparantly it's by far John Barry's best theatre score (he uis one of my fave film composers of course)

But I agree the script is surprisingly *great*--at least on paper. It's *miles* better than the embarassment of the Albee play

E