Favorite Rodgers/Hammerstein Show?- Page 2

[kdogg36]

Posted: 2/25/17 at 8:40am

It's Carousel for me, for the sublime score and the vivid characters. As others have said, the show obviously doesn't condone abuse, but I do think that Julie's famous line inevitably makes an unhelpful impression on audiences today. But that's going to be the case for a lot of properties from years past. I Love Lucy has a scene where Ricky spanks Lucy, and there are many other references in the series to what we'd have to consider domestic abuse today, yet somehow we can still enjoy it.

[JennH]

Posted: 2/25/17 at 8:49am

Ado Annie D'Ysquith said: "This person who thinks Carousel "condones spousal abuse" does not get the show at all. Thumbs down!

 

"

For serious?? Oi...it's like saying B and the B condones the same thing because Belle has Stockholm Symdrome. I hear that argument one more time, I'm gonna scream.

Now for the topic...my favorite is probably a damn close toss up between King and I and Sound of Music. I guess it's because those are issues that move me the most but also are still relevant as hell today. 

[BakerWilliams]

Posted: 2/25/17 at 12:04pm

For those unaware, Cinderella was produced as a stage show by the New York City Opera in the 1990s, as well as a revival in 2004 (with Eartha Kitt).

To answer the question, The King and I is undoubtably their most dramatically complete musical, but I have a soft spot for the carefree optimism and simple emotions of Oklahoma!

[OlBlueEyes]

Posted: 2/27/17 at 1:35am

I still regret missing the Encores! production of "Pipe Dream" a couple of years back.  As imperfect as it is, I don't think I'll be able to see a professional production of it anytime soon."

They didn't make a studio recording of the Encores! production, but they recorded the sound from one of the live shows and released it as an album. Laura Osnes, Will Chase, Leslie Uggams.

Listening to the score for the first time was rather like finding a trunk in the attic with all these forgotten songs in it. Which, if any, deserved to be labeled a "standard." How could there be four or five songs emerging from South Pacific and The King and I worthy of being standards, but not one from the seven month "flop" Pipe Dream? Ben Brantley's review referred to the major love song, "All at Once You Love Her" as a "gorgeous song" that had him "swooning with pleasure." I did hear a recording of the song by Perry Como, once, on the Sinatra channel of Sirius XM. But how could a "gorgeous" love song by R&H be so completely ignored?

Truthfully, I didn't love the song as much as Ben. But I honestly thought that the song "Sweet Thursday," sung by Uggams and played with gusto by the orchestra in the Overture, had to be near the top of the list for songs with an infectious melody. Write new lyrics or use it as just an instrumental theme and it could not miss.

Although many critics like to blame the failure of the show on the prudery of R&H in not embracing the facts that Suzie was a genuine whore, albeit a short-lived one, and that the house run by Fauna was not a bed and breakfast, I tend to agree with Ben's other criticism: that too much time and too many songs were allotted to the lovable bums of Cannery Row, at the expense of more time spent with the principals.

They got it right in South Pacific, with just enough of the Seabees.

[Wilmingtom]

Posted: 2/27/17 at 4:41am

I'm on board with Carousel, but I also adore Cinderella, in the adaptation Eartha Kitt starred in at MSG with Jamie-Lynn Sigler.  The Broadway adaptation by Beane went off the rails for me.

[justoldbill]

Posted: 3/3/17 at 12:41am

On stage - OKLAHOMA!

On film - FLOWER DRUM SONG

I also have a warm spot in my heart for PIPE DREAM.  In addition to the terrific production at ENCORES!, I saw an equally terrific production at Castleton State College in Vermont in 1982.  Complete- no cuts.  They attempted to visually recreate the original production, much like John Mauceri's attempt to visually recreate the 1942 production of OKLAHOMA! in North Carolina a few years ago.

[OlBlueEyes]

Posted: 3/3/17 at 2:59am

To go completely off-topic again, I think my favorite take on the Steinbeck Cannery Row and Sweet Thursday sequel was the barely noticed and quickly forgotten 1982 film Cannery Row which starred Debra Winger and Nick Nolte before they were major stars. Audra Lindley was Fauna, John Huston provided the wryest of wry narrations and Dr. John chipped in with a memorable score.

 

[The Other One]

Posted: 3/3/17 at 5:38am

Ol'BlueEyes writes "Although many critics like to blame the failure of the show on the prudery of R&H in not embracing the facts that Suzie was a genuine whore, albeit a short-lived one, and that the house run by Fauna was not a bed and breakfast..."

They certainly could have made it more obvious that Suzie is a whore, but I don't think the show leaves much if any doubt as to what is going on at Fauna's house.  "The Happiest House on the Block" humorously makes it pretty clear.

[justoldbill]

Posted: 3/3/17 at 8:55am

Yes, indeed.  If one reads the script for PIPE DREAM (if one can find it), Hammerstein doesn't drive home the purpose of the Bear Flag Café, he simply tries to breezily take it for granted as do the denizens of Cannery Row.

[CoolDogeGuy]

Posted: 3/3/17 at 10:57pm

WHAT ABOUT THE SOUND OF MUSIC GUYS?!?!

I LOVE The Sound of Music! It's my FAVORITE R+H musical! My second favorite is Cinderella!

[jsg03jd]

Posted: 3/4/17 at 3:18am

Hands down it's CAROUSEL.  The R&H canon is phenomenal and CAROUSEL is its finest representation. 

[BwayDreamer00]

Posted: 3/4/17 at 8:24pm

MY FAVORITES

Cinderella

King And I

Sound Of Music

My least favorites of their shows would HAVE to be Oklahoma, I found the music quite pretty but the show itself was just so so so long? And what I love about Rodger Hammerstien shows is how cool the characters are and how fun the stories are, Oklahoma though? A romance story in the Southern US? 

[AEA AGMA SM]

Posted: 3/4/17 at 8:49pm

BakerWilliams said: "For those unaware, Cinderella was produced as a stage show by the New York City Opera in the 1990s, as well as a revival in 2004 (with Eartha Kitt)"

 

Their 2004 revival had such a great cast. Along with Eartha Kitt reprising her role from the tour as the Fairy Godmother you also had Lea DeLaria and Ana Gasteyer as the Stepsisters, John Epperson (aka Lypsinka) as the Stepmother, and Dick Van Patten as the King, with Baayork Lee at the helm as director.

[poisonivy2]

Posted: 3/4/17 at 11:17pm

There's Carousel, and then there's all the rest. 

[Dollypop]

Posted: 3/5/17 at 7:10am

BakerWilliams said: "If you've only seen the film, you might say that Carousel does, in fact, condone spousal abuse, but of course the musical does not in any way (and Molnar did so evunderst

You are forgetting that neither Billy nor Julie know what love is. Their duet is "IF I Loved You". The spousal abuse stems from not having been loved in the past and ultimately brings both characters to an understanding of what love really is.

 

"

 

[OlBlueEyes]

Posted: 3/5/17 at 10:22am

You are forgetting that neither Billy nor Julie know what love is. Their duet is "IF I Loved You". The spousal abuse stems from not having been loved in the past and ultimately brings both characters to an understanding of what love really is.

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Much good insight.
 

 

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