Is the Great Comet really that confusing - Page 4

[dramamama611]

Posted: 4/27/17 at 5:03am

Good for you, Judy! Your original  experience sounds awful. I hope you feel differently the 2nd time around.  I found the show delightful and cant wait to see it again with Oak.

 

 

[VintageSnarker]

Posted: 4/27/17 at 6:14am

No. I haven't read War and Peace but the part they extracted is every soap opera-y affair/scandal plotline from this era of novels. If you can follow an episode of Gossip Girl or a Jane Austen novel or a paperback historical fiction romance, at least the gist of the plot should really not be a problem. My only guess is that it's confusing because it's lyrically dense or the music is offputting to some people but a lot of the songs are so repetitive, I don't know how you still couldn't catch the salient points. I do understand if people aren't quite sure of the significance of the comet and some of what Pierre is going on about but I think that's at a higher level of criticism than the main plot and you don't need to totally grasp the all the symbolism to understand the basic plot points of a story. 

[haterobics]

Posted: 4/27/17 at 6:22am

Umm, do they think the cast is kidding when they sing "This is all in your program..."??

[haterobics]

Posted: 4/27/17 at 6:23am

For people who have read War and Peace, is this 70 pages standalone, or should you really tackle the whole beast?

[djoko84]

Posted: 4/27/17 at 6:28am

I found the show very confusing. I'd rather not read a synopsis of a show before seeing it. Others here absolutely loved the show, I did not.

[haterobics]

Posted: 4/27/17 at 6:33am

djoko84 said: "I found the show very confusing. I'd rather not read a synopsis of a show before seeing it."

OK, but at some point while being confused, you literally had the Playbill as a reference material, broken down by what is happening and each song called out by name.

The entire cast literally sings to you:

"And this is all in your program you are at the opera
Gonna have to study up a little bit if you wanna keep with the plot
Cuz it’s a complicated Russian novel everyone’s got nine different names
So look it up in your program
We’d appreciate it, thanks a lot" 

[HSky]

Posted: 4/27/17 at 11:57am

newintown said: "As the show is in English, not Russian or French, then the words we hear belong to a translator/adapter, not Tolstoy."

Specifically, the Pevear/Volokhonsky translation. (Which is also the edition of the book used for the War and Peace pages tossed in the air.) I have yet to read the full novel but did go back and read the segment the show is based on, and you can see how certain passages informed the lyrics, much as I felt reading through Ron Chernow's Hamilton.
 

Updated On: 4/27/17 at 11:57 AM

[deltatee]

Posted: 4/27/17 at 12:01pm

No, I do not think it's that confusing.

[Kad]

Posted: 4/27/17 at 12:18pm

Yes, the show is styled, at least superficially, on an opera- the solos are even marked as "arias" in the program.

[wonderfulwizard11]

Posted: 4/27/17 at 12:46pm

For whatever it's worth, when I went back in March with my parents, the synopsis wasn't in the Playbill. I only noticed because I thought they should read it before the show and was surprised to see it missing- that said they were able to follow just fine. 

[Kad]

Posted: 4/27/17 at 12:51pm

The plot really is quite simple. The only element I was ever somewhat puzzled by was what made Natasha's visit to the Bolkonskys so disastrous- I was pleased that this was clarified a great deal in the Broadway production.

[Mediamaven2]

Posted: 4/27/17 at 6:54pm

No, it isn't 'that' confusing. 

[cam5y]

Posted: 4/28/17 at 5:37am

haterobics said: "For people who have read War and Peace, is this 70 pages standalone, or should you really tackle the whole beast?"

For the purposes of seeing Great Comet, the 70 pages are standalone (if, in my opinion, the musical is distorted from the spirit of Tolstoy's creation). I think everyone should tackle the whole beast though, as it's not as difficult as its reputation suggests and it really is a masterpiece.

[Steve C.]

Posted: 4/28/17 at 5:51am

No, No, No! I get so tired of hearing this; it's so not confusing. There is a definite cohesion, story, song...it baffles me that people don't "get" shows at times. The performances all by Broadway (babies-debuts) are incredible. 

There are those people that go to theater for reasons other than we do. Three giggling but mature (20-23) year old women behind us at Sunday/Park/George kept saying, "I don't get it" "What is the old lady doing?'' Why does he just paint" etc...that tells me why they are there...Jake. and that's fine; it's BO gold.

There are people I know that hated Hamilton.

Great Comet is a once every ten years show (or even longer). It deserves an audience; I hope it continues for a long long time. 

(Gotta run; DVR is set; GC is on crappy Today show this morning).

[SporkGoddess]

Posted: 4/28/17 at 7:53am

You can read the 70 pages as standalone but I think you lose a lot of context, especially the relationship between Natasha and Pierre.

[BWAYLeaks]

Posted: 4/28/17 at 10:27am

Saw this two nights ago. Count me in as one of the many who will admit - I was confused. Not only was I confused by the plot (which is all over the place), but I was confused by the entire 2.5 hour experience. I sat there for 2.5 hours not feeling anything, and not learning anything. The visual / audio experience was very cool - and I certainly applaud many aspects of the execution (especially from this winning cast of fully committed actors - though the quality of the singing was questionable at times, imo, from many of the principle performers). But, there's no show there for me to follow, and no dramatic reason for me to follow it. No amount of egg shakers and free peirogies is gonna help me with being emotionally invested in these characters. At no point did I feel invested, and I even found myself dozing off at times. I think this is the reason many audience members (including myself) are confused. If a show lacks the ability to get me to invest emotionally, I am not sitting at the edge of my seat, waiting for the next bit of story that will forward the plot and tell me more about these characters. Instead, when the story line is lacking, I am being distracted by musicians  / singers behind me and egg shakers being tossed at me. I know this show has many fans, and I wish I saw what they saw in this, Just not my cup of tea. 

[BobbyD3]

Posted: 4/28/17 at 10:43am

It is confusing....and unnecessarily so.  The concept is brilliant, the staging is fun, the set and lights are dynamic - but the book sucks.  If you need a cliff notes in your playbill you overreached.  

It was like the musical version of Medieval Times - a slew of interestingly dressed people with a ton of energy yelling at me to be have fun.  

[BWAYLeaks]

Posted: 4/28/17 at 10:47am

BobbyD3 said: "It is confusing....and unnecessarily so.  The concept is brilliant, the staging is fun, the set and lights are dynamic - but the book sucks.  If you need a cliff notes in your playbill you overreached.  

It was like the musical version of Medieval Times - a slew of interestingly dressed people with a ton of energy yelling at me to be have fun.  

 

"

I kept thinking to myself after the show: the technical, spacial, visual and musical execution of this is brilliant. If the show also had a tight, clear libretto, it would be revolutionary theater. What the team did with the space and the "how" of the story-telling is to be commended. But, they missed the mark on the most important aspect of theater - the story.

[PaulWom]

Posted: 4/28/17 at 10:48am

I'm so tired of this "it's just a spectacle" ridiculousness. The musical has a lot to say about depression, love, forgiveness, and humanity. If you can't figure that out... Maybe you're not listening? To be fair, this is a musical that rewards being seen more than once- the first time is very much a sensory overloading experience, but when you come back you REALLY   start to see the nuances of the book and score. 

 

By the way, the last visit I was there, they had removed the plot synopsis from the Playbill- and everyone around me (many of whom were in tears by the end) said they could follow the plot perfectly when I asked.

[PaulWom]

Posted: 4/28/17 at 11:16am

Also, do people know Sondheim himself awarded Comet the Richard Rodgers Award? I don't think he does that just for the sets...

[froote]

Posted: 4/28/17 at 11:23am

I've said it before, I think it's one of the simplest stories being told on Broadway right now. I mean really if you want to put it very basically it's about a young, naive girl who has an affair and ruins her reputation. It's based on only 70 pages of a novel. How complex of a plot can there be in 70 pages? Even before seeing it I understood perfectly just from listening to the cast recording. 

And not to sound pretentious but if you thought it was just spectacle, then it's likely you didn't understand or at least couldn't appreciate what the creative team were going for.

[Kad]

Posted: 4/28/17 at 11:39am

I don't think "I wasn't emotionally invested in the characters/story" is a valid critique of the objective value of something. I was emotionally invested in Great Comet. Not so much Dear Evan Hansen. I don't think that's a success on the part of the former or a failure from the latter, but rather just my own preferences.

[MrsSallyAdams]

Posted: 4/28/17 at 11:41am

Engaged woman has an affair. Her family gets upset. Done.

[hork]

Posted: 4/28/17 at 12:12pm

Seriously. I'd be less surprised if someone said they found Rent confusing.

[BWAYLeaks]

Posted: 4/28/17 at 12:50pm

Kad said: "I don't think "I wasn't emotionally invested in the characters/story" is a valid critique of the objective value of something. I was emotionally invested in Great Comet. Not so much Dear Evan Hansen. I don't think that's a success on the part of the former or a failure from the latter, but rather just my own preferences.

 

"

 

Absolutely agree. Whether one is emotionally engaged is completely subjective - and is a matter of preference and taste. That being said: I would argue that part of why I wasn't emotionally engaged was because of the clarity. Was it the quality of the singers (tone? diction?) The scansion of the lyrics and how it fits in the melody? The dramaturgical purpose of a particular song? Maybe some or all of the above. In some ways, I think making sure that there is clarity in story-telling (without sacrificing the ground-breaking and unique way they were telling the story) would have actually helped my engagement. I never quite got on board emotionally because there's many times it was a muddy mess and I didn't know what was said or what was going on or where to look. 

You're never gonna please everyone. That's art. But, if there is a good amount of people sitting in the audience (and on this chat board) confused, I find that troubling - and a fair objective critique of the piece.