Lolita, My Love

[myshikobit]

Posted: 7/24/09 at 8:36pm

I'm in Bway Historian mode and i want to learn more about this show; if anyone can PM me on how and where i can get a recording, script, etc. it would be amazing. Thank you =)

[BrodyFosse123]

Posted: 7/24/09 at 8:51pm

I'd help you... but then I'd have to kill you.

I will provide these old links, though. As you can see, this show is a popular and much discussed topic on this board:

https://forum.broadwayworld.com/readmessage.cfm?boardid=1&boardname=bway&thread=957670#3647593

https://forum.broadwayworld.com/readmessage.cfm?boardid=1&boardname=bway&thread=865059#3579947

https://forum.broadwayworld.com/readmessage.cfm?boardid=1&boardname=bway&thread=962363#3516114

https://forum.broadwayworld.com/readmessage.cfm?boardid=1&boardname=bway&thread=962363#3515717

https://forum.broadwayworld.com/readmessage.cfm?boardid=1&boardname=bway&thread=962296#3515219

https://forum.broadwayworld.com/readmessage.cfm?boardid=1&boardname=bway&thread=961905#3510509

https://forum.broadwayworld.com/readmessage.cfm?boardid=1&boardname=bway&thread=865059#3439979

[myshikobit]

Posted: 7/24/09 at 9:02pm

thank you =)

[TalkinLoud]

Posted: 7/24/09 at 9:03pm

I'd love to hear the music if anyone knows where to download it.

[myshikobit]

Posted: 7/25/09 at 4:34pm

I'd like to give a big thank you to all of my wonderful donors (who i will keep anonymous ). Lolita is truly wonderful. It's really uncanny, actually, how similar some strains of it are to Sondheim. The chorus of "Broken Promiseland" sound like "Happiness" in Passion. Then there was somewhere else that sounded like another Sondheim. I dunno. It's brilliant- and sad how it's inescapable doom rose above it. You know, people go to see "Spring Awakening", which has an equally morbid, sickening plot- maybe with revisions it could work Off- Bway

[darquegk]

Posted: 7/25/09 at 8:53pm

As a fellow historian (and HUGE fan of Nabokov), I'd rather like to second the humble request for script or score. I have the recorded semi-official album that has been mentioned so many other times- I just want to read it for myself, book and music.

[lvpblues]

Posted: 7/25/09 at 9:46pm

Dorothy Loudon's "Sur le Quais" was one of the great showstoppers, a high point of a show that had an excruciating time out of town. Shame she never got to do it in NY. Anyone who's only heard her performance on the Ben Bagley recording doesn't know what he or she is missing.

[myshikobit]

Posted: 7/26/09 at 4:59pm

"Sur Les Quais" made me forgive her for her performance on Celebration of Sondheim that I loathed. She was an absolutely brilliant actress and her voice sounds excellent

[myshikobit]

Posted: 7/26/09 at 9:55pm

My first analysis is wrong... I heard the demo version- "Broken Promise Land", "Going, Going Gone", "How Far Is It..." and "Lolita, first. On it the show had a cleaner vibe to it than the live version, and it seemed the songs were sound in characterization and orchestration. Then i got the live version of the whole show, and at first listened to "Sur Les Quais"- amazing. Upon listening to the whole show, however, it needs more serious cleaning. I see why it failed more clearly.

Some of it is good, but in order for the show to work, every performer needs to be perfect in voice and character. Each character needs to be perfectly understood by the actor and interpreted as a human being, with problems and struggles that the audience can relate and sympathize to, each in a different way; every word heartfelt and in character. The voices need to appeal to the audience as well, and in this case, the orchestrations and voices should have a pop/rock Spring Awakening vibe (music that appeals to the audience and instantly relatable characters) or a Sondheimic vibe (think Sweeney- dark story and undesirable characters made tolerable and endearing through well written script- funny moments and real characters), because it is most effective with the intended audience and it suits the music best, as (almost) seen on the demo.

The actual version needed a lot of work to get to a passable point. "Going, Going Gone" on the demo is voiced by a wistful girl with a strong voice. It is tender and moving. In the show, it is voiced by a really irritating man with a mediocore voice. Not appealing at all.

The guy playing the lead, upon his first words, sounded like a typical creepy sex offender. I expected Lolita to be a front for "To Catch a Predator". It was pathetic. It needs to be either (1) a character that audiences think is cool, normal and relatable, who through the show struggles with himself and his attraction to Lolita. I am now reading that his performance was praised, but I'm not seeing it here. Maybe it's just too hard, but I'd love to try. That's all for now. It really was done brilliantly

[Gloryday225]

Posted: 11/9/09 at 2:04pm

Bumping this thread to request that someone kindly points me in the right direction of the studio/demo recording of this show? I'm doing a big presentation on it in my college seminar (which happens to be Lolita and American Culture) and I would greatly appreciate having this recording. Thank you so much in advance to anyone who helps me out.

[TheEnchantedHunter]

Posted: 11/9/09 at 11:06pm

It is impossible to dramatize Lolita's unreliable narrator for the stage in a way that honors the novel's full intention and meaning (which has nothing to with pedophilia) and does it justice. And, though Alan Jay Lerner was the perfect lyricist for the job, John Barry's music (with the arguble exception of How Far Is It To The Next Town?) is as dull and uninteresting as the great majority of his film scores, which are like treacle poured over everything.

Updated On: 11/10/09 at 11:06 PM