Review: The Elaborate Lives of The Pirate Queen (LONG)

[TechEverlasting]

Posted: 10/20/06 at 9:08am

LOTS OF SPOILERS BELOW (I can't discuss the show without going into important plot details.)

I attended one of the first previews of The Pirate Queen, and fifteen days later came back to see what changes had been made.

It's an amazing experience to watch a great musical. The songs, dancing, drama and stagecraft blend together into an exhilarating combination. It's mesmerizing, and I feel like a silly grin has been pasted to my face. There are two 10 minute segments of Pirate Queen that do this for me. The first is in Act I, as the energetic Irish dancing of the wedding segues into Hadley Frasier's outstanding performance of "I'll Be There". The second magical segment is in Act 2, where the christening's dance is interrupted by Marcus Chait's Donal singing the truly creepy "Let A Father Stand By His Son" before British soldiers storm in. Unfortunately in both cases the show then rapidly derails, and we're left with little more than a sense of what a spectacular musical this could have been.

The cast continues to delight. Pirate Queen has made a lifelong Stephanie J. Block and Hadley Frasier fan of me. I look forward to seeing them in the future, undoubtably with better material to work with. The rest of the cast is solid, attractive and energetic, and the choral singing is as strong as I've ever heard in a show. The other design elements (sets, lighting, orchestrations etc.) are all superb. The show's pacing has been improved, and scenes now move quickly from one to another. I noticed no technical glitches. A big chunk of the funeral scene at the end of Act I is now gone. Someone has taken note of the complaints about intelligibility. Linda Balgord's Queen Elizabeth now over enunciates every syllable, and I believe some of her keys are lower. Many of the embarrassingly bad lyrics have been reworked. There are no longer the ridiculous outbursts of too many words squeezed into too few beats. One of Stephanie's solo numbers "Because I Am a Wife" has been transformed into "The Woman That I Was". Unfortunately these new lyrics don't fit smoothly into the old melody, and the audience is still subjected to lines like "Where has it been writ my life should come to sh*t." This is one of several numbers that should be scrapped. There seems to be more spoken dialogue now, and these breaks from the through sung score provide much needed exposition and`are welcome.

The scenes with Queen Elizabeth are fun in a campy sort of way and succeed in moving the story along. I do wish someone would tell the English Lords to stop hamming it up. They look silly enough in those red velvet robes and friar's hats without all the mugging.

There are a few ballads that demonstrate Claude Michel Schonberg's gift for creating sweet melodies. These include "All I Am" (Grace's prelude to "Sail To The Stars"), "If I Said I Loved You" and "Each In Time". These are pretty, but are not in the same league as the classic ballads from Les Mis and Miss Saigon. It is fun watching Stephanie and Hadley together on stage singing "If I Said I Loved You". This is one of several examples of these incredibly talented performers making a second rate song seem much better than it really is.

The rest of the show is like watching one of those old Saturday Night Live "Bad Theater" sketches. The songs sound like some sort of weird 1960s Euro Muzak. This is the sort of bland, unmemorable fluff "Martin Guerre" was chock full of. There's nothing remotely Celtic sounding about the vocal numbers, no matter how often the tin whistle and Irish fiddle chime in. The book makes little sense, especially at the end, and the characterizations make me long for the sophistication and nuance of a Disney cartoon. Smiling good natured pirates, a cheerful benevolent father and a perpetually scowling English villain. All that's missing is a singing tea kettle.

Although the lyrics have benefitted from some fine tuning this is still a weak libretto. One quibble: WOMEN DO NOT HAVE BALLS! We keep hearing that the British are going to crush Grania's "balls". Is this supposed to be clever? I think of many things when I see Stephanie up there performing, but I most certainly do not think of male genitalia. Just imagine a song about Hilary Clinton, Margaret Thatcher or any other powerful contemporary woman describing its subject as having "balls". Like so much of the book this is just silly and vulgar.

Once the christening scene is over the story lapses into incoherency. Grace is imprisoned after years of pursuit. Queen Elizabeth is then so moved by Tiernan's devotion that she agrees to a prisoner swap. (Huh?) Grace goes home and we're then subjected to "On the Sea of Life", yet another monotonous ballad. Why not just have the ushers hand out sleeping pills and blankets? The show desperately needs some energy at this point, not another long syrupy ballad. Grace sails back to England, at which point Lord Bingham says something along the lines of "At last, the Irish sow on English soil"! Um, excuse me sir, you guys just released her 10 minutes ago!

Grace and Elizabeth then have a talk and settle something. We're given no information as to what it is they settle (other than Tiernan's release), or why the Queen of England would feel motivated to negotiate with her long time nemesis, who apparently has nothing whatsoever to bargain with. No, these two women just go behind a screen, and the Lords and Ladies sing little phrases like "the children" and "as men do" while the shadows move and elevator music plays. Queen Elizabeth turns out to be an old softy, and in two hours these ladies settle everything, which I suppose explains the 400 years of peace and love between England and Ireland that followed these events. I can't find the words to describe how mediocre this scene is. It would be better writing if Grace's silhouette just poured a bucket of water on Queen Elizabeth and melted her.

The show ends with Grace and Tiernan reprising the generic Act I ballad "Here On This Night". If a musical is going to finish up by reprising a ballad, it had better be something a lot more compelling than this. At least there is some more of that splendid Irish dancing during the bows.

For those all too brief moments when this show works it is clear that Grace O'Malley's story could be turned into a truly great musical, and a big hit. The score and book are so fundamentally flawed that I strongly doubt that rewrites and fixes from the same creative team who brought us this mess will fix it anytime soon. This show needs a lot more than rewriting some lines and trimming a few scenes to avoid being a monumental flop on Broadway.

This all reminds me of "Elaborate Lives, The Legend of Aida", a show Disney mounted in Atlanta in 1998. The Elaborate Lives score was basically the same set of songs that was later used for the Chicago and Broadway productions of Aida. The staging of Elaborate Lives was built around a mechanical pyramid that automatically moved around the stage and changed into different sets. The pyramid was said to be a technological marvel, and it cost millions. It also malfunctioned constantly, at which point the show became a concert performance because there were literally no sets. The pyramid broke on press night and it broke on opening night. Disney had a great story and a strong, useable score but a totally worthless set, book and staging. At the time the buzz was that the show didn't work but had a lot of "potential". (Does that sound familiar?) Rather than bravely bringing the thing to certain disaster on Broadway that year, Disney wisely shelved it, and fired everyone but the music department and some of the cast. When Aida came to Chicago a year later with a new director, book and scenic design Disney was able to fashion a show that while not brilliant ran for several years and spawned numerous tours and overseas companies. I think that The Pirate Queen is in a similar bind as Elaborate Lives was. PQ has a great story, cast and outstanding design elements joined to a book and a large chunk of score that are of no more use than that pyramid was.

There is a hit musical ready to be born here, but this will require the producers to have the "balls" to go back to the drawing board and find a book writer and either an additional song writer or an entirely new composer who can do justice to this promising material. (I've heard that there are some talented writers in Ireland.) The alternative is to run PQ a few months on Broadway, lose countless millions of dollars and have people posting on boards like this in a few years "What ever happened to that Pirate Queen show?"

[EponineAmneris]

Posted: 10/20/06 at 9:15am

Thank you for this thorough review

"It would be better writing if Grace's silhouette just poured a bucket of water on Queen Elizabeth and melted her." --- This made me giggle

[SorryGrateful]

Posted: 10/20/06 at 9:39am

What a great review! You're spot on about pretty much everything. I saw the show last Saturday and agree with your points, the praise and the negative criticism.

[queenbee2]

Posted: 10/20/06 at 1:06pm

careful if you don't want to know much about the show:

Tech-

I applaud you for a thorough and humorous review. Your comment about throwing water on the queen and melting her had me laughing.

While I disagree with your thoughts regarding the score, I certainly think you hit the nail on the head in your analysis of the moments in the show that are magical, and those that are not. For me, the show really didn't build up any steam until Boys Will Be Boys and then kicked into high gear in The Wedding and through I'll Be There (clearly one of B & S's best songs to date). Then things slow down for a bit, although I was taken by the Funeral (which I hear has greatly benefitted by some major cuts). Then in the second act, things really get interesting in the Christening, into Father Stand By A Son through the English break in. But then for the rest of the show nothing very exciting happens. Everything seems to get wrapped up so easily, that I found myself and everyone around me losing interest. This is why in an earlier post I suggested they try to move the Christening/Donal's death later in the show so as to keep that tension through to the end. I can only hope/assume that the creators of the show clearly feel when the audience is with them and excited, and when we fall out, and that those issues are being addressed in preparing the show for changes before New York. Because dramatically, I feel with a bit of restructuring and changes in focus, this could be a magical evening of theater THROUGHOUT, not just in pieces.

I do feel I need to defend the score. As I said, I'll Be There could be one of the best tunes this team has written. The opening number needs some help (I think it's close, but doesn't quite hit home), and then Grace and Tiernan's love duet is gorgeous. A Day Beyond Belclaire and Sail to the Stars showcase incredible ensemble singing and harmony, I Dismiss You is intense and dramatic, The Christening is very pretty, Father Stand By A Son is haunting and powerful, and the duet at the end between Grace and Queen Elizabeth is gorgeous. I agree that there could be more of the powerful hooks we've come to expect from B & S, but to dismiss the score as unworthy for a Broadway production is a bit harsh. I think this might be one of those shows that grows on you the more you listen (I actually felt the same way about Les Miz). Upon hearing it a second time I felt it was one of B & S's most interesting and beautiful scores to date.

But then again, we live in an age when millions of hip hop albums are sold by people with names like Ice Tray and Biggie Smalls, so what do I know?

Thanks for the review though, Tech. Great stuff.

-QB

[RentBoy86]

Posted: 10/20/06 at 2:38pm

I've not seen the show but I hope they're not using the word "balls." This reminds me of Jekyll & Hyde. I don't think people in this time period are going to be walking around saying "you have to have a lot of balls." That just doesn't work and shows how amateur it is.

[TechEverlasting]

Posted: 10/20/06 at 3:28pm

>>I've not seen the show but I hope they're not using the word "balls."

I'm sorry to tell you that there are at least three instances of Stephanie's character being referred to as having "balls", or getting her "balls crushed" in this show. (There are also at least two scenes where male characters get kicked in the groin. This is not an easy show for a man to sit through.) I think there might also be a line about all of the Irish pirates and their balls. At both performances I attended I cringed every time I heard this, but I was doing lots of criinging anyway.

"That just doesn't work and shows how amateur it is."

The rest of the book is about at this level, unfortunately. The score is debatable, but the Pirate Queen book isn't fit for a third rate cruise ship dinner theater, let alone a Broadway stage.

[uncageg]

Posted: 10/20/06 at 3:54pm

It's Ice Cube not Ice Tray. But that mistake was priceless and did make me laugh!

[SorryGrateful]

Posted: 10/20/06 at 4:10pm

Tech-- I'm interested to know your thoughts on the giving-birth-then-immediately-going-off-to-swordfight scene.

[TechEverlasting]

Posted: 10/20/06 at 4:36pm

"Tech-- I'm interested to know your thoughts on the giving-birth-then-immediately-going-off-to-swordfight scene."

Well, I think a woman would have to have a lot of balls to do that. Someone ought to crush them!

Seriously, that whole scene is absurd. If Wonder Woman had just given birth I doubt even she would be able to do much fencing. In the "Grania She King of the Seas" novel Grace struggles to use a pistol against Turkish Pirates who invade her ship after she gives birth. It would be far more believable to have Grace just grab a pistol and shoot at the Brits.

This is hardly the biggest problem with the show's book though.

[SorryGrateful]

Posted: 10/20/06 at 4:39pm

Thank you! I, and most of the people I could hear and see in the audience, were either laughing or rolling their eyes at this part. On a different thread, a different poster (I forget who) said that this actually happened in Grace's life. But I don't think that that's good enough justification for it's being in there. That scene hurt me a little inside.

[bardolator]

Posted: 10/20/06 at 4:40pm

"Tech-- I'm interested to know your thoughts on the giving-birth-then-immediately-going-off-to-swordfight scene."

Again--THIS REALLY HAPPENED. How do you take something that, while true, is so unlikely, and put it onstage? It's one of the incredible things about Grania's life, along with the handkerchief incident (haven't heard any more about this, so I don't know whether it's been cut or not). Too bad people aren't buying it, apparently.

EDIT: Just read your latest comment--actually, she struggled to use the gun because (I think?) she'd never shot that one before. She did have a sword in her other hand when she came on deck, didn't she? And, yep, I'm the one who posted it elsewhere. Wish there were a way to present it believably....

Updated On: 10/20/06 at 04:40 PM

[SorryGrateful]

Posted: 10/20/06 at 4:44pm

Ahhh, thank you for remind me it was you, bard. I hate not giving credit to people's povs on the boards.

I think that if the musical established more of a myth factor earlier in the show, it would be easier to swallow this part. However, to have her swordfight a dozen Brits and win after giving birth is laughable whether it happened or not.

Updated On: 10/20/06 at 04:44 PM

[BreakingTheCircle07]

Posted: 10/20/06 at 4:48pm

The fighting-after-birthing WAS silly. I couldn't believe they'd put that on stage on AND expect a comical reaction. Does anyone else agree that the fight choreography was not only sloppy, but amateurish?

[StephanietheStar]

Posted: 10/20/06 at 4:59pm

HOLD UP..I stopped reading when I read that you think "because I am a wife/the woman that I was" should be scrapped....

that's probably my favorite number....it's AMAZING!!

I like "because I am a wife" better personally...

[SorryGrateful]

Posted: 10/20/06 at 5:02pm

I do agree with you on the one, Stephanie. "Because I Am a Wife" was my favorite as well. I actually thought it was too short and could have had at least one more verse.

[Popular]

Posted: 10/20/06 at 5:06pm

The fighting-after-birthing WAS silly. I couldn't believe they'd put that on stage on AND expect a comical reaction. Does anyone else agree that the fight choreography was not only sloppy, but amateurish?

Can't comment on the fighting/birth scene since I haven't seen the show except to reiterate what Bardolator said. It's tricky to take somthing absurd that ACTUALLY HAPPENED in real life and put it on stage to be taken seriously. I'm sure it's not perfect and I'm even more sure that they are probably working on it.

I can also tell you that the fight scenes and battles are still changing and being added according to Paul, who is in charge of the aerial stunts and "flying".

[StephanietheStar]

Posted: 10/20/06 at 5:12pm

I didn't think the fighting after birthing was absurd....I think Stephanie pulls it off extremely well. I know both times I saw it, she looked like she was in pain, and even grabbed her "area" (the nicest way to put that in a post!) a bunch. I didn't think it was funny.


the second time I saw it, I really enjoyed the changes made, and more importantly when scenes or songs started I found myself saying to myself "OOOh I love this song/part"...which to me is a sign of a pretty good musical.

[TechEverlasting]

Posted: 10/20/06 at 5:21pm

>> It's tricky to take somthing absurd that ACTUALLY HAPPENED in real life and put >>it on stage to be taken seriously.

I thought this show was supposed to be based on "Grania She King of the Irish Seas". The "fighting after birth" scene in that novel is completely believable and really gripping. It involves Grace barely being able to stand and somehow managing to shoot a pistol.

I find the story of Grace O'Malley compelling (I still hope these producers manage to make a good musical of it someday) and would be interested to know what the historical documentation of her post partum sword fight is. What are the good historical books about O'Malley? I love the Grania novel. The characters are gritty, passionate and complex, and there's lots of nice detail about Grace's piracy.

[SorryGrateful]

Posted: 10/23/06 at 9:23am

I am definitely going to have to read that book, Tech! It sounds so interesting and I would like to hear her "real" story.

[TechEverlasting]

Posted: 10/23/06 at 10:08am

"Grania, She King of the Irish Seas" by Morgan Llywelyn Crown Publishers NY

I got it at my library. Put on a video of "Riverdance", a CD of "Les Mis" and read this book. You'll save $85.00 and have a much more entertaining evening.

I'm just about to finish it. There is so much incredible material here, and it is so ripe for being turned into a musical. The book frequently describes the clan harpers, bohdrun players and pipists who were an important part of clan life. While a musical should never try to force every detail from a book up on stage (a la Ragtime) there is so much juicy detail here that I am dumbfounded at the tired cliched characterizations that The Pirate Queen ended up with.

One interesting tidbit. On page 305 of the hardcover Bingham does indeed say that Grania has a man's balls and someone should crush them. (With all the wonderful turns of phrase in this book this is not the first thing I would have used...)

There's also a passage later on where Grania ponders "the woman that she was". These two items make me think that someone involved in the creation of this show might have actually read this book. There isn't anything else on that stage (other than some character names) that implies this however.

Other interesting details: (Plot points from the book, not necessarily historical facts.) Grania's father was unable to have a legitimate male heir, although he had at least one bastard son. In the book he resents Grania for not being more like her mother, and ends up letting her take over his fleet because he has no other choice.

Bingham was furious that he was shut out of a voyage to the New World, and he committed many atrocities against Irish civilians in a sort of retaliation.

England chopped down almost all of the trees in Ireland to prevent Irish soldiers from hiding and ambushing them.

England wanted Ireland's resources, but also wanted to convert the Irish from Catholicism to Protestantism. Spain tried to invade England, partly to support their coreligionists in Ireland. England was terrified that Ireland and Spain would unite against them, which is one of the reasons Grania was able to sweet talk the British into letting her have some independence while other Cheiftans were forced into submission. Grania actually forged mini alliances with the British crown just to keep her clansmen free. Her lust for piracy kept getting her back into trouble though.

When Grania was first imprisoned she was held near Dublin, which would explain Bingham's line in the play "At last, the Irish Sow on English soil". (If only the show would let us know that.)

Just imagine what Stephen Flaherty and Lynn Ahrens could have done with all this.

[SorryGrateful]

Posted: 10/23/06 at 10:20am

How fascinating! I'm off to amazon.com!

[VIETgrlTerifa]

Posted: 10/23/06 at 10:12pm

That fight scene after giving birth sounds like a hoot and a half. Maybe it would be better if she used her baby as a weapon.

[bella cantato]

Posted: 10/24/06 at 1:07am

"Although the lyrics have benefitted from some fine tuning this is still a weak libretto. One quibble: WOMEN DO NOT HAVE BALLS! We keep hearing that the British are going to crush Grania's "balls". Is this supposed to be clever? I think of many things when I see Stephanie up there performing, but I most certainly do not think of male genitalia. Just imagine a song about Hilary Clinton, Margaret Thatcher or any other powerful contemporary woman describing its subject as having "balls". Like so much of the book this is just silly and vulgar."


SERIOUSLY... I could not agree with you more on this point. I remember hearing the line throughout the show and going "What? Maybe I heard that wrong." It is ridiculous and out of place. Funny the first time, but then it just becomes a cheap joke that is way overused and not at all funny. They need to scrap it every other time... I think the first time they use it to describe Donal, and that's fine, but after that it really needs to go!

As for everything else you said... I also don't agree that the score is lacking in every other place except those two moments, but I do think there needs to be some re-writing. My grandfather despised the scene b/w Elizabeth & Grace when they negotiate... and I agree that something there needs to be changed. We need to learn more, to avoid it becoming the cliche that it currently is.

Updated On: 10/24/06 at 01:07 AM

[fxy2003cmu]

Posted: 10/24/06 at 1:41am

I just saw the show on Saturday night and I was actually impressed overall. After all the vague reviews I read (because I didn't want to spoil anything) I was expecting the music and plot to be horrible, but to my suprise I really liked it. The cast was wonderful (as everyone else has said) and though I think parts of the plot need some clarification, it wasn't as bad as everyone made it out to be. I actually loved the music except for maybe one song, the dancing was fabulous, and the lighting and effects were amazing, especially the curtain thing at the beginning.

As to the sword fight after giving birth thing, I liked that part. To me, I think the sword fights could look more realistic, and less dancy, but the fact that Grace does that really did a lot in terms of developing her character for me. I was in awe that she would get up and do that right after giving birth and showed exactly how strong of a woman she is. Could it be done slightly better? Yes. Should it be taken out of the show? I don't think so.

[BroadwayBound062]

Posted: 10/24/06 at 1:58am

I SEE THIS TOMORROW!!!!!!!!!!!