The Unsinkable Molly Brown

[Phillypinto]

Posted: 9/26/14 at 10:48am

Has anyone seen The Unsinkable Molly Brown? How is it? Anyone know if this show is broadway bound?

[Mister Matt]

Posted: 9/26/14 at 2:20pm

Are you talking about a specific production? Because it was Broadway bound back in 1960.

[dreaming]

Posted: 9/26/14 at 2:32pm

Philly means the one in Colorado.

[Phillypinto]

Posted: 9/28/14 at 2:06pm

yes the one in Colorado

[RippedMan]

Posted: 9/28/14 at 8:58pm

Could it be a potential Roundabout show?

[dreaming]

Posted: 9/28/14 at 11:31pm

I doubt it's coming this season. I think it's more likely for the 2015-16 season.

[oncemorewithfeeling2]

Posted: 9/29/14 at 4:30pm

Beth Malone is also continuing with Fun Home, not Molly Brown, should it transfer.

[tazber]

Posted: 9/29/14 at 4:34pm

I haven't seen this new production, but the show is such a bore.

Mediocre book and score (at best) and a plum starring role that somehow ends up being less than the sum of its parts.

I'm curious to hear if this revival has found a way to energize the show.

[Wilmingtom]

Posted: 9/29/14 at 4:42pm

The book is 90% new (Dick Scanlon) and the score largely revised, incorporating other Willson songs and revised lyrics by Scanlon throughout.

[tazber]

Posted: 9/29/14 at 4:45pm

^^^

Exciting!

I'm so relieved to hear that Wilmington.

[Auggie27]

Posted: 9/29/14 at 5:54pm

The score is a gem, the book never made a persuasive case that the woman deserved the fame and infamy. Apparently they now open in the lifeboat, immediately post Titanic, a wise framing device (if a hoary one, potentially). We now at least get the title-defining obligatory scene out of the way. But the book's challenge is the old creaky, low stakes second act peopled with cliched supporting players, and a limp trajectory: girl loses guy in Europe, stays in Europe, must come home and get him back. It just doesn't feel like much of a journey, iceberg aside. I hope Scanlon fixed it. I would've preferred someone else with more of an authentic western voice -- it needs all the authenticity it can get -- but craft is nothing to sneeze at. I think they kept 9 songs, not just a handful. But many were repurposed.

Posted: 9/29/14 at 6:22pm

Oh Taz you wound me to the quick! UMB is a gem- with a plum leading role for a woman of character. Molly herself led a life that was all but unbelievable- and maybe that's part of what gives people problems with the show. But the book could toss in a few more real life incidents for my taste.

Part of the issue with the book is we never really understand what brought her & JJ together and what keeps them apart. Molly (called Maggie all of her life) loved JJ and debated marrying a wealthy man before deciding her love for JJ was more important than all the money in the world. Then JJ hit it rich, discovering one of the most profitable silver mines in history. Then of course her survival of the Titanic disaster made her an international star. Such drama!

[GavestonPS]

Posted: 9/30/14 at 7:06am

With respect, Joe, "drama" is wanting something and taking steps to get it. That your husband strikes it rich and the ship you booked sinks are interesting details, but they aren't inherently dramatic.

IIRC, the original had Brown going out to find a silver vein in order to get Molly to marry him. (She wanted that big, brass bed, you know.) There is some drama in that, but after the song most of it takes place off-stage.

Likewise, Molly "rallies" the passengers of her lifeboat to enable them to survive until rescued. THAT is at least an attempt at drama, though one better suited to film.

I don't know the rest of her bio, but a show about her needs more than the above.

[Auggie27]

Posted: 9/30/14 at 7:36am

I must disagree that the lifeboat sequence is better suited to film. Finding a way to musicalize the very deed that earned this woman the infamous title is a challenge, but one that can and should be met. It could be a stunning sequence, and with stagecraft and imagination, visually a wonderful experience. We have King Kong coming; I think we can put some people in a lifeboat and create a memorable theatrical equivalent. Why not? I hope they have tried.

[newintown]

Posted: 9/30/14 at 8:20am

This revisal has been in the pipeline for donkeys years, with names like Sutton Foster and Reba McIntyre tossed about. I believe even little Megan Hilty did a reading/workshop, before she was "famous." The score has been "filled out" with Willson trunk songs, some with new lyrics by the competent Scanlan.

Interest has been light, to say the best. If, somehow, it made it to Broadway (and stranger things have happened many times), I would imagine it going the way of the All New! Improved! versions of Flower Drum Song and On A Clear Day You Can See Forever (both of which I found to be not so new or improved, but more like ghoulish grave-robbing/necrophilia).

Updated On: 9/30/14 at 08:20 AM

[Auggie27]

Posted: 9/30/14 at 8:56am

"Flower Drum" was a noble effort; "On a Clear Day" exactly what you stated: grave-robbing, with grisly results. A truly lovely score crammed into snippy characters that didn't earn them, and performed at least in one case by an actor not remotely up to B'way standards. Truly bizarre, that experience. I'll never forget how unsettling it was to watch the two gifted performers on board tethered to a morass of drek. It was painful, all the more so because no one seemed to notice before they got into the St. James. I can't recall the last time I saw a show that seemed to unready so demonstrably be unveiled. (And the damn thing had been workshopped.) One hopes "Molly Brown" has found more raison d'etre. But without a huge star, it's a dubious prospect, no matter how successful the re-imagining.

Updated On: 9/30/14 at 08:56 AM

[GavestonPS]

Posted: 9/30/14 at 10:38pm

Auggie, for the sake of the show, I hope they have tried, too.

But as I recall the scene, it's basically Molly exhorting the other passengers to "shut up and row". An interesting incident, but not much in the way of drama (particularly since the conflict is resolved by the end of the short scene.)

[Wilmingtom]

Posted: 10/1/14 at 8:15pm

So no reports from anyone who's seen it?