Susan Stroman's HAPPINESS
Susan Stroman's HAPPINESS
willrogers2008
Featured Actor Joined: 12/9/08
#1Susan Stroman's HAPPINESS
Posted: 2/16/13 at 1:12pm
Any information about this Stroman show? It will be very helpful.
Thanks in advance.
emilyfaye48
Broadway Star Joined: 3/19/09
#2Susan Stroman's HAPPINESS
Posted: 2/16/13 at 2:47pmWhat kind of information? I saw the show and I really liked it.
Without bread we'd just be hungry
but without theatre we'd be dead
WiCkEDrOcKS
Broadway Legend Joined: 6/13/04
#2Susan Stroman's HAPPINESS
Posted: 2/16/13 at 3:26pm
I was not a fan. At all.
Neither were the critics, generally speaking. Not sure what kind of info you're looking for, but you can find a bunch of stuff if you google.
#3Susan Stroman's HAPPINESS
Posted: 2/16/13 at 3:50pm
Here's the plot. Spoilers for people who care about that thing, although since this show has been closed nearly four years and didn't yield a cast recording, it's really beside the point:
A disparate group of New Yorkers find themselves on a stalled subway train. A conductor (Hunter Foster) appears and informs them all that they have died, and that they must now choose one moment--the happiest moment in their lives--in which to spend eternity. One by one, each person stands and sings a song recounting said moment. After each song, the subway doors open and that person walks off into eternity. One person (Jenny Powers) tries to pass a fake moment off as real, but it doesn't work, and it is revealed that her whole life was an elaborate fantasy that she'd convinced herself was real. The conductor tells her that if she doesn't choose a moment, she will end up with the same fate as him: sheparding other, happier people into their perfect afterlives. Finally, she chooses a moment and the doors open. The musical (which was a 90 minute one act) ends with Foster preparing to welcome the next crowd of "passengers" onto the train.
The show itself was a crushing bore full of dull songs you forgot the moment you left the theatre. Lots of talent wasted on weak material. The Jenny Powers storyline was the best and most well-developed, but it was a long ninety minutes.
"You travel alone because other people are only there to remind you how much that hook hurts that we all bit down on. Wait for that one day we can bite free and get back out there in space where we belong, sail back over water, over skies, into space, the hook finally out of our mouths and we wander back out there in space spawning to other planets never to return hurrah to earth and we'll look back and can't even see these lives here anymore. Only the taste of blood to remind us we ever existed. The earth is small. We're gone. We're dead. We're safe."
-John Guare, Landscape of the Body
#4Susan Stroman's HAPPINESS
Posted: 2/17/13 at 7:50pmI have to agree with AC. I love Susan Stroman but this was a total miss.
PennybankBill
Stand-by Joined: 11/1/10
#5Susan Stroman's HAPPINESS
Posted: 2/17/13 at 7:59pmDamn, I was expecting this to be an adaptation of Todd Solondz's film.
#6Susan Stroman's HAPPINESS
Posted: 2/17/13 at 8:03pm
I liked the show a lot more than most people did, but it became a little repetitive with the successive stories. I wonder if Hands on a Hardbody will have the same issue.
I'm also not sure I would call it "Susan Stroman's Happiness" rather than "Scott Frankel, Michael Korie, and John Weidman's Happiness." I don't think of Stroman having placed a particularly distinctive stamp on the show.
"What was the name of that cheese that I like?"
"you can't run away forever...but there's nothing wrong with getting a good head start"
"well I hope and I pray, that maybe someday, you'll walk in the room with my heart"
WiCkEDrOcKS
Broadway Legend Joined: 6/13/04
#7Susan Stroman's HAPPINESS
Posted: 2/17/13 at 9:11pmWOW, I actually forgot it was 90 minutes. It definitely felt way, way longer.
#8Susan Stroman's HAPPINESS
Posted: 2/17/13 at 10:52pmI don't remember it being 90 minutes. The NY Times review says it was 1 hr, 50 minutes, which sounds about right. I actually think it would have been better as a shorter show. I think they should have axed the Joanna Gleason character completely, but they couldn't do that because the character was being played by Joanna Gleason. But the character was both an unpleasant person and had a kind of silly story.
"What was the name of that cheese that I like?"
"you can't run away forever...but there's nothing wrong with getting a good head start"
"well I hope and I pray, that maybe someday, you'll walk in the room with my heart"
#9Susan Stroman's HAPPINESS
Posted: 2/20/13 at 2:05amTodd Solonz;s film Happiness was Terrific. Susan Stroman's Happiness had nothing to do with the Solonz film.
#10Susan Stroman's HAPPINESS
Posted: 2/20/13 at 3:06amTodd Solonz's Happiness was one very disturbing brilliant film, what an amazing night of theatre ( musical or otherwise ) that would be.
Well I didn't want to get into it, but he's a Satanist.
Every full moon he sacrifices 4 puppies to the Dark Lord and smears their blood on his paino.
This should help you understand the score for Wicked a little bit more.
Tazber's: Reply to
Is Stephen Schwartz a Practicing Christian
