Jason Robert Brown, Taylor Mac, Rob Ashford collaborating on MIDNIGHT IN THE GARDEN OF GOOD AND EVIL musical adaptation - Page 3

[RippedMan]

Posted: 6/26/24 at 11:33pm

That was interesting. As someone with zero prior knowledge of the material, I wasn’t really sure where anything was going. I don’t think we ever got properly set up story wise. The beginning needs to go. We don’t need 10mins of dead time in a show that already feels overstuffed and long. Cut right to the ensemble introducing themselves and getting us accustomed to the storytelling. I actually thought using the audience as the writer was an interesting idea. It did get somewhat dropped but I think they wrapped it up in the end. 
 

There are just two different stories being told. Lady C has zero to do with the murder trail storyline. I normally hate a narrator character but these seems like a natural choice. Maybe have Lady C narrate and comment on the different characters to the “writer.” 
 

I also did not understand the central “love story”. Were Danny and Jim actual lovers? Was it consent? Was it just for the money? I think there was a great opportunity to give us some Danny backstory when they asked “what makes Danny happy?” But then the song was given to Jim. I was waiting for a really pretty ballad giving him some backstory but alas.

The music is all over the place. Savannah is an interesting place because it’s so unique but it also doesn’t have the “flavor” or New Orleans so it’s hard to give it a distinct sound. I noticed a lot of the cast were struggling to keep up with the score and finding notes. That could totally be a previews thing. But the song about her mother’s possessions was a pretty song but did not suite that particular singer. I also don’t know why that song needed to be in the show or why we needed that. 
 

The show is Lady C. Even the most blah numbers are captivating because of their natural charisma. I also did not understand if we were suppose to root for Jim or not? And the way it ends it felt like they wanted the audience to sympathize with Jim?

The opening of Act 2 is so wild yet with Ghee it somehow all works.

I’ll be curious to see what they do and change. To me I’d clip about half of Jim’s songs, shift the focus to Lady C and flesh out the Jim/Danny. 

[Adeliciaboy]

Posted: 6/27/24 at 2:33pm

Yep, Chicago is fast getting a reputation as a try-out town for shows that — to put it mildly — need a whole lot of work.  The “Midnight” musical had great source material, no doubt about it.  But clearly the folks at the helm of this jumbled affair had no intention of even trying to be faithful to the source material.  Under director Rob Ashford and book writer Taylor Mac (an odd and ultimately bad choice for this job) this “Midnight” badly misses the mark of a successful musical.

 The first act begins with some promise. — a very catchy and witty ditty about Savannah being a great place to die. But unfortunately, that’s about the best composer Jason Robert Brown has to offer in this outing.  The rest of the show’s musical numbers just don’t have much pizzazz or emotional impact.

But the real problem for this “Midnight” is the show’s second act, a  helter skelter mess that seems to go on and on and on with no payoff.  A voodoo scene is just plain dull.  The Christmas party segment that follows also has little or no impact and doesn’t really further the plot.  A subplot involving a young black woman called Minerva is completely superfluous and unnecessarily drags out the show’s running time of 2 hours 45 minutes.

Yes, it’s true.  As the show now stands, the central spot light has been totally turned over to J. Harrison Ghee, who is essentially doing their own cabaret act amidst the trappings of a musical based on a. best seller.   The  murder plot that was a key aspect of the book and the subsequent movie gets very little stage time compared to Ghee, who admittedly is doing a great turn as a drag queen cabaret performer.

But the producers and production team need to urgently decide what they want this show to be — an elongated cabaret act or  a story that properly reflects the source material.  Also,  Jason Robert Brown needs to pump up his music.  It doesn’t come anywhere close to matching the power of his best work in “Parade.”  And this “Midnight” needs more of what made “Parade” the composer’s only real masterpiece.

[Menken Fan]

Posted: 6/27/24 at 3:32pm

RippedMan said: "There are just two different stories being told. Lady C has zero to do with the murder trail storyline. I normally hate a narrator character but these seems like a natural choice. Maybe have Lady C narrate and comment on the different characters to the “writer.”"

This is exactly what I've been thinking since seeing it a couple days ago. Use the amazing asset you have in J. Harrison Ghee, and add them throughout the rest of the show.  I think there are already enough performance numbers and anthems for Ghee, but their part could be expanded by having them introduce characters, comment on the action, and explain what's happening, especially in the sections where it's unclear. This narration could easily be explained as them speaking to the unseen writer. The audience clearly wants more Chablis, and this way, it could help clarify some of the current muddiness and lack of focus.

[The Distinctive Baritone]

Posted: 6/27/24 at 6:08pm

I’m disappointed to hear these mixed early reports. Why are they focusing the show on Lady Chablis? This makes no sense to me. Maybe that’s why Steven Pasquale dropped out - he thought he was playing the lead, and they turned the lead into a supporting role. The book has a lot of characters, but it’s mostly about Jim Williams.

[RippedMan]

Posted: 6/27/24 at 6:18pm

See, Pasquale might have made this work, actually. Because Tom Hewitt - one I don't think his voice suits the score, two he's older so the dynamic between him and the younger "eye candy" is confusing. Is it like love? Is it a power thing? Where as I think with Pasquale it might have been less of an issue? I'm not sure how it's handled in the book/movie.

Ghee was incredible, but all that to say there's just too much stuff going on. They have this really pretty ballad at the end of act 2 that just doesn't quite go anywhere staging wise or song wise. It never really rises to "anthem" status, but it's a pretty song. And then we have a whole long sequence song after that between Tom and the "eye Candy" and then after that we have another uplifting anthem about being a Butterfly.

I personally would cut out all the voodoo stuff. It just drags the show down and there is no pay off to any of it. We don't need the character.

I think there's some clever stuff going on with the book by letting us meet these random characters. We have one character who comes on to talk to us about bugs but gets cut off by another character. And that's all we ever see of them. I think that's kind of a clever idea and I honestly wouldn't mind every character having a chance to speak directly to the audience so we can get some more insight into the relationships in this town.

[Cape Twirl of Doom]

Posted: 6/27/24 at 7:44pm

RippedMan said: "See, Pasquale might have made this work, actually. Because Tom Hewitt - one I don't think his voice suits the score, two he's older so the dynamic between him and the younger "eye candy" is confusing. Is it like love? Is it a power thing? Where as I think with Pasquale it might have been less of an issue? I'm not sure how it's handled in the book/movie.

"

Well, Jim Williams was much older than Danny in real life, and I think much of that uncertainty about their relationship is true to how it was described in both the book and film. We don’t know if it was actually love or just for money.

[RippedMan]

Posted: 6/27/24 at 7:53pm

Okay, then that's fair. I just think Pasquale and Hewitt are two totally different vibes, to me. The music did not seem to fit Hewitt's voice as naturally as Pasquale.

I still think Danny needs a song in Act 2 talking about the things that make him happy as opposed to Jim telling us. It felt like an "Another Life" moment from Bridges. And that's what I wanted.

[The Distinctive Baritone]

Posted: 6/27/24 at 8:29pm

FWIW, Jim Williams was in his fifties during the events of the book. Tom Hewitt is about a decade too old for the role - although Pasquale would have read as too young I think. But yeah, Williams was around thirty years older than Danny. 

[RippedMan]

Posted: 6/27/24 at 9:28pm

And maybe I need to reference the source material because I didn’t quite understand the “why” to to it all?  I know there’s true crime. There is dying as the opening suggests, but I just didn’t care for anyone. So what was the point of the story?

[BalconyClub]

Posted: 6/28/24 at 1:19am

"I am so confused, and it's wonderful," a nearby balcony guest boasted at one of the intermissions this week. After 3 nights, the production still feels like it's throwing spaghetti at its southern walls to see what sticks. Things are fixable, but will the egos work together to strengthen the story.

When the pre-show announcement finishes with "the performance will begin shortly," the quiet cemetery scene starts.  At the first performance, the house lights remained half-lit for several minutes, but now the house darkens from the get go.

On Thursday night, the role of Minerva was played by understudy Daryn Whitney Harrell.

Jim Williams, played by Tom Hewitt, asks an unsuspecting audience member what they would like to drink. One night, the response was Diet Coke. Tonight, whiskey.

When Williams wonders aloud "how about a change of scenery?" the scene shifts from Bonaventure Cemetery to Mercer House. The melodies of Mercer House are at least 3 different tunes.

Latecomers find their seats around the moment that Williams talks about fresh paint.

J Harrison Ghee is delivering a Master Sass in the role of The Lady Chablis. Regal, with many costume changes, The Lady Chablis is commanding, welcoming, inclusive, and kills as a entertainer.

The lengthy FINALE ACT 1 contains many short numbers. 

The throwback vaudeville TRUE CRIME that begins Act 2 is great theatre, with a call and response section led by The Lady Chablis for all us "musical theatre motherf---kers". Who's YOUR pretty princess?

I like the sound of the sugar cubes in SAD HOUSE as Sierra Boggess drops the sweets into her teacups, playing Emma Dawes.

Hewitt's voice had been a bit wobbly on the final three notes of WHAT A RIDE, but he smoothly eased into the notes tonight. From the balcony, my mind sometimes wanders. Hewitt becomes Christopher Plummer singing on the stone back porch of his Austria estate in The Sound of Music.

A full stage red drape has been added as background at the tail end of Act 2's Williams/Chablis duet.

In the Goodman lobbies, it feels like the Savannah Chamber of Commerce is a sponsor of the show. There are two giant, beautiful, back-lit scenes of Savannah, both upstairs. There are Tybee Island brochures. There's a contest to win a statue of the Bird Girl. If they'd add a Boiled Peanut stand and Fort Pulaski, you wouldn't need to leave the theatre at all to visit Georgia.

 

 

[The Distinctive Baritone]

Posted: 6/28/24 at 12:42pm

Reading Chris Jones' publicity piece on the show in the Chicago Tribune is pretty enlightening. Taylor Mac explains how Lady Chablis is the most interesting character in the book to them, and they were compelled to give her the focus. This seems to me like the Christopher Sergel version of To Kill a Mockingbird, where Mrs. Dubois - a minor character from the book - is the onstage narrator and has these long direct address monologues, and it's like, "Why does this random old lady keep talking to us?" I believe it has since been revised to make an adult Scout the narrator instead.

I understand why Mac might have personal reasons for finding Lady Chablis the most compelling character, and that given the our current political climate, Mac feels compelled to shine a spotlight on a trans character, but based on these reports it does not sound like this personal agenda was a good match for this material.

[Menken Fan]

Posted: 6/28/24 at 1:12pm

In that Chris Jones piece, it says "In the book, Lady Chablis...is one of many colorful Savannah characters whose personas inhabit Berendt’s vividly drawn chapters, almost all centered on compelling people. In the musical, though, she will be the narrator of the entire story; a replacement, really, for Berendt’s own authorial voice."

But, I didn't get the impression that she was the narrator of the entire story, and as I mentioned, I think the structure would be stronger if she were.  For instance, the article also quotes Ghee as saying “I am so obsessed with Savannah. “Nobody can leave. Even the dead can’t get to the sky. They get stuck in the moss.” If Chablis would actually say something like that in the show, it would add some context and meaning to the currently confusing, silent and dull graveyard scenes.

[RippedMan]

Posted: 6/28/24 at 1:21pm

I think they need to nix the graveyard thing. It just doesn't read. Open with the fun number introducing everyone and the tone of the piece. To me the show came off more "camp" than I was expecting. But I think the audience ate it up so why not lean into that. Don't try to make a "message." And I did not get Lady C as a narrator at all. A commentator? Sure. But there was no narration. 

[The Distinctive Baritone]

Posted: 6/28/24 at 1:32pm

Ah. So she is functioning kind of like the Emcee in Cabaret? Interesting. Wish I still lived in Chicago and could see it.

[RippedMan]

Posted: 6/28/24 at 1:56pm

Sort of? But she has her own storyline. Basically she’s a cabaret singer. The owners say she needs to tone down her act so she quits and goes on the road. It gets resolved and she sings a pretty ballad that doesn’t really go anywhere. Then we go back the murder plot and resolve that. Then there’s a song about being a butterfly. Then bows. Her story and the main story don’t cross paths at all. 

[Alex Kulak2]

Posted: 6/28/24 at 4:09pm

The Chris Jones piece says that there was an earlier incarnation of this show that had a book by "the late Alfred Uhry".

The late? Did I miss something?

[BalconyClub]

Posted: 6/28/24 at 11:40pm

The BUTTERFLIES scene that ends Act 2 was changed Friday night.

 

Click Here To Toggle Spoiler Content

In the cemetery, The Lady Chablis picked up a Playbill, opened the program to the cast list, and beamed when they read that J Harrison Ghee was playing them in the story.

Following the number, The Lady Chablis asked everyone in the audience to tear out the last few pages of their Playbills - she apologized to the sponsors - then the audience turned itself into an 850-person confetti cannon - releasing more butterflies.

Ensemble and Individual bows were also launched Friday night.

At the top of the performance, there was no pre-show announcement, and when a lucky audience member ordered a drink, the wine was served.

Updated On: 6/29/24 at 11:40 PM

[MrsSallyAdams]

Posted: 6/29/24 at 11:47pm

A messy deconstruction of the book. It doesn’t offer much help to those who hadn’t read it. If I hadn’t seen the film I’d have missed key plot points that get skimmed over here.

It’s now a story where everyone starts out hating each other. And the rich want to “restore” the town. Then the Lady Chablis brings the misfits together to build something new. That’s valid.

But not enough changes in the songs. Chablis and Emma keep singing variations on the same “I want” song from start to finish. You could easily cut a few of those. The adaptors state outright they aren’t interested in Jim and Danny’s story. But they’re the only ones who change. 

[MrsSallyAdams]

Posted: 6/30/24 at 12:13am

The best song, imo, was Reasonable Doubt. A late group number that lays bare the hypocrisy of the town.

i wish they’d kept the scene from the film where Lady Chablis testifies at the trial. (I don’t know if it’s in the book.) It could have connected the story lines and given Ghee a “When Velma Takes the Stand” style moment.

[BalconyClub]

Posted: 6/30/24 at 7:32am

Several minor edits have popped up:

Act One

• in the opening cemetery scene, Minerva is no longer sitting on the downstage left bench. Instead, she is sitting on the steps of the center stage memorial
• at the end of the cemetery scene, The Lady Chablis had offered Savannah's Rule #2 downstage right. They are now center stage, coupled with Jim Williams, as The Lady offers Rule #2.
• a painfully small, revolving disco ball has been added to THE SHED SHACK
• late in the number, the Jack The One-Eyed Jill character adds tambourine accompaniment
• The Lady Chablis thanks her back up dancers.
• the staging of the short Weevil anecdote has been moved from downstage left to downstage right
• at the top of the WHEN MY MAMA DIED scene, the 6 wooden packing crates had all rolled in from stage left. Now, 3 roll in from either side.
• the "mime" lyric has been removed from DANNY AND JIM

Act Two

• when DANNY initially appears, a faint, haunting wind is heard
• The Lady Chablis sings several of the opening stanzas of MORE ROOM center stage instead of at the downstage right cabaret table
• the Preservation League Lady prone to scandal hooks up with a sailor during her exit
• a brassy musical passage has been added when Jim Williams and Danny share their final scene, strolling to Mercer House. The music overpowers the 12 tolls of midnight, but in a good way. The midnight beats are also heard during the WHAT A RIDE scene
• When individual bows were added Friday, The Lady Chablis had been tucked behind a tall, upstage center statue until her bow. On Saturday, she was in front of the smaller, upstage Bird Girl statue, sharing joy as the company of players took turns with their bows.

Updated On: 6/30/24 at 07:32 AM

[ChorusKitty]

Posted: 6/30/24 at 12:18pm

I caught the third performance (on June 27th) of "Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil" at the Goodman.  I believe anyone who was captured by the John Berendt love letter to Savannah, as I was, is going to come away from this new musical completely mystified.  "Misinterpretation of the Garden of Good and Evil" would honestly be a more apt title of this desecration of a book which captured America's imagination enough to stay on the New York Times bestseller list for more than four years.

Somehow the creatives here have missed essential themes of the book, most notably that Savannah the city (and its citizens included) thrive as characters due to their pride in isolating themselves away from the rest of the world; they cling to traditions rooted in the past: sometimes thriving because of this  and sometimes rotting with age.  "Society" is still a thing and discussed in the local newspapers, debutante balls still take place, and attitudes toward money and race have evolved little over many, many decades.  

Here the show ends with a "huzzah" to a tuneless song called "Butterflies" extolling diversity and inclusivity.  Jim Williams, the home and antiques restorer, central to the book, who delighted in his "in and out" list for his most exclusive of Christmas parties, is obviously rolling in his grave at such delusional thought.

Characters from Berendt's novel who would seemingly scream out for inclusion in a musical version of this musical, like piano player/lawyer/con-artist Joe Odom, or Emma Kelly the "Lady of Six Thousand Songs," are MIA.  Instead characters are often mashed together such as Sierra Boggess taking on the role of "Emma Dawes" a combination of the real life Lee and Emma Adler, neighbors and political and social rivals of Jim Williams, whom detested each other. But the part of "Emma Dawes" is basically used here as minor comic villain who is never a true thorn in William's side  Or they creatives make up a character out of whole cloth, such as "Jack the One Eyed Jill," for no discernible reason other than perhaps the writers felt they needed a foil to play opposite the largely expanded character of The Lady Chablis.

And while Chablis is a stand out minor character in the book, here she is turned into the emcee.  Not an emcee, "Cabaret" style, peeling back the curtain to cunningly shine a spotlight on the darkness the source material screams out for, but alas as the "life of the party" stereotypical "I Will Survive" drag diva lifted from an era of "Ru Paul's Drag Race" rather than from the darker days of the Deep South in the 1980's when AIDS was a death sentence and deadly gay bashings in Savannah (as detailed in the book) led to criminal acquittal.

The death of Danny Hansford, the multiple trials, and the characters pertaining to Jim Williams defense are given short shrift.  Berendt's tale found a deep fascination in the Jim William's character (good and evil indeed). And his victim, Danny, is described in the book as a "human tornado," and drawn as a deeply disturbed, extremely violent young man, lost in a world of drugs, alcohol and hustling after dropping out of school at age 14.  No such complexities are found in the musical's script.  Indeed the closest the show comes to actually capturing these flavors of the book is in the "Rotten to the Core" number Jason Robert Brown puts near the show's finale, however too late.

The performers do the best they can with what they are given.  J. Harrison Ghee gives a solid turn and delivers the drag camp with aplomb.  My caveat being the Chablis, as written here, is just a caricature, and not a human: dispensing "Mama Ru" advice and tolerance doesn't make her a compelling character worthy of trying to carry the show.  Boggess brings the most to her comedic villain she can and has the most thrilling voice of the company.  Austin Colby brings the smolder needed for Danny Hansford, and hopefully the role will be developed to the point where the deep dark side of the character is more fully realized.  Jim Hewitt brilliantly captures the vanity of Jim William's character to life, but vocally he is struggling with the score.  (In both acts, I felt like his songs were more in the wheelhouse range of someone like a Howard McGillin).  And lastly, props to Daryn Whitney Harrell, who, despite it being only the third show of the run, able stepped in to play Minerva the voodoo priestess.

Christopher Oram's sets along with Neil Austin and Jamie Platt's lighting are exemplary.  Toni Leslie Jame's costumes make me wonder if she has ever attended a drag show in her life.  To paraphrase Miranda Priestly, "Sequins? Revolutionary!"  The Chablis costumes are another of this show's huge misses.  Tonya Birl-Torres choreography is mostly generic, but a few of the African dance flares in the voodoo sequences are effective.

No one is going to be leaving the theater humming the score, or even remembering anything about it, even the "anthem" numbers Chablis gets.  The script lands a few good one liners which aren't lifted from the novel, but (again) I question who read this source material and said it screamed "MUSICAL COMEDY GOLD?!?!?!?"  

Needless to say, I find director Rob Ashford most at fault for losing the thread.  The defiantly isolated Savannah and it's genteel, quirky and often dark characters who inhabit  Berendt's "Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil" are nowhere to be found on stage at the Goodman Theatre.  If you're craving an absurdist version of "La Cage Aux Folles" however, maybe this is the musical you've been waiting for.