ASPECTS OF LOVE Returning to Broadway!- Page 2

[rosscoe(au)]

Posted: 2/17/10 at 10:02pm

This show works best in a small theatre, less than 600 seats.

[chernjam]

Posted: 2/17/10 at 10:35pm

Aspects is one of my all time favorite ALW musicals - (and I don't care how many people will now dismiss me for saying that) It was the first full-scale musical I saw in High School when I didn't know if I'd even like theatre and I couldnt wait to buy the cassette tapes (man I'm old...) to listen to it, which I did, over and over again till I wore it out and am now on my second copy of the CD's.

So hopefully that gives you an idead of what a huge fan I am of Aspects. That being said - I'd love to see a revival - but not with Trevor Nunn anywhere near it. Seeing Aspects on Tour (Robin Phillips production) brought a whole new depth to the story, music and characters. Couldn't believe how in this very paired down minimalist production that it seemed eons better than the Trevor Nunn version.

[PiraguaGuy2]

Posted: 2/17/10 at 10:46pm

It's a Menier Chocolate Factory version. We already know that they'll reduce the hell out of the orchestrations.

What don't they reduce the hell out of at the Menier? I heard they have a production of [title of show] planned with just TWO chairs and a THIRD of a keyboard.

[frontrowcentre2]

Posted: 2/17/10 at 10:55pm

The music is Lloyd Webber at the top of his form..lush, romantic, passionate. And its wasted with empty lyrics,a book that is flat and boring populated by uninteresting people. The show was a chore to sit through. Frank Rich got it that the show "generates about as much heat as a trip to the bank!

Did anyone notice how like NIGHT MUSIC this piece is with its mis-matched lovers at a country estate.

[mallardo]

Posted: 2/18/10 at 6:01am

The book is not just boring - it's ridiculous. Truly the silliest story ever to be musicalized.

[Schmerg_The_Impaler]

Posted: 2/18/10 at 6:45am

I would love it if Michael Ball played George this time-- it'd be so cool to have the original Alex come back to play the other leading male role.

[devonian.t]

Posted: 2/18/10 at 6:49am

Generally a dull show with a lovely design by Maria Bjornson. However, 'Hand Me the Wine & the Dance' may well be the last song ALW wrote when he was alive- it was a fantastic production number.

[Scripps2]

Posted: 2/21/10 at 4:47pm

"the last song ALW wrote when he was alive"

So, is what we see in the publicity for Crap Never SH*Ts an ALWbot?

[Phantom of London]

Posted: 2/21/10 at 5:23pm

'deliciously sensual piece of music theater.'

Clive Barnes - New York Post

[sondheimboy2]

Posted: 2/21/10 at 8:00pm

I was in a production of it and it is a bad show. If you only know it from the cast album, there has been much pointless re-writing of the songs.

I tried to get the director, who was a friend of mine, to cut out all of the half-assed sung-dialogue and just use the music as underscoring, but he wouldn't do it.

I always thought that it was telling that in the show, they sing about coffee and just ask about lovers.

And it truly is his attempt to write "Little Night Music". There are confused lovers and a wise older person who dies before the show is over.

[PalJoey]

Posted: 2/21/10 at 9:06pm

Oh, there were the usual sphincter-pinching lines of ridiculous recitative that only Lloyd Webber can stomach

Sphincter-pinching? I saw Aspects of Yuck on Broadway and there were so such thrills. I might have enjoyed THAT.

[jo]

Posted: 2/21/10 at 9:07pm

The musical is based on a novella written in 1955 by David Garnett ( who was part of the Bloomsbury Group in London, which included Virginia Woolf). The book and the lyrics of the musical score were faithfully derived from the book itself and in some cases are lifted verbatim.

If you find a copy of the book by Kurt Ganzl on The Complete Aspects of Love, there is a rich source of how the musical finally came about. It mentions that the Garnett book was first brought to the attention of ALWebber and Tim Rice as early as 1979 and that the then-composing team had explored the possibility of transforming it into a stage musical, even basing themselves in the South of France for inspiration. But it took a series of potential writing partners and different episodes in ALW's musical writing career ( Tell Me on a Sunday, Starlight Express, and Phantom of the Opera) before the final version of the musical score became ready for the stage. It is interesting to note that some songs originally intended for other productions became part of ASPECTS OF LOVE and vice-versa. One melody written for STARLIGHT EXPRESS became the signature song of ASPECTS called LOVE CHANGES EVERYTHING. A song originally intended for ASPECTS was rewritten and became a signature song for PHANTOM called MUSIC OF THE NIGHT! It is amusing to note that one song, a very poignant one from the score, was based on the very first melody that Webber himself composed when he was only 9 nine years old. It was appropriately called CHANSON D'ENFANCE! But as it turned out, it was a song of romantic yearning and worked well as one of the signature themes of the musical.

It seems that ASPECTS OF LOVE was much more a product that was inspired by David Garnett's account of bohemian life in the mid-20th century than from anything else. Again, going back to the Ganzl book, he also provides the background of the literary group in which Garnett was a part of, as well as that part of the countryside ( Pau et al) in southern France which became a defacto British holiday colony. It is interesting to note from his biography that Garnett himself married the young daughter of his best friends - so was the romantic link between Alex and the young Jenny derived from some personal experiences? The book also explores that possibility but Ganzl discounts that.

ASPECTS OF LOVE is a very fascinating subject, as to its inspiration and how the musical score, arguably ALWebber's best, came into being.






Updated On: 2/21/10 at 09:07 PM

[Kad]

Posted: 2/21/10 at 9:24pm

"It's a Menier Chocolate Factory version. We already know that they'll reduce the hell out of the orchestrations."

Of course they reduce the orchestrations, the theatre has 180 seats! It's not like there's an evil miser sitting in the office with a red pen and a stack of musical scores, gleefully swiping and slashing with it and cackling maniacally.

[chewy5000]

Posted: 2/22/10 at 2:10am

Webber and Rice both read that book early on in their partnership and agreed it would make a good musical, however with each re-reading Rice began to doubt the idea more an more.

[BroadwayBenny]

Posted: 2/22/10 at 3:32am

Brilliance...
Forbidden Broadway - Aspects of Love

[mallardo]

Posted: 2/22/10 at 4:49am

LOL!! Thanks so much for posting that link. It's so brilliant because it's so true.

[Feathah]

Posted: 2/22/10 at 10:35am

The subject header totally got me! Aspects is one of my favorite shows ever, total guilty pleasure and I don't care what anyone else thinks. I would be thrilled beyond belief if it returned to Bway. It won't but I can dream.

[Mister Matt]

Posted: 2/22/10 at 12:20pm

My favorite Lloyd Webber show! I'd be thrilled at the opportunity to see it again.

[twinbelters]

Posted: 2/22/10 at 3:32pm

There are many more interesting bad British musicals, though. I want to go home and listen to Blondel now.

[B3TA07]

Posted: 2/22/10 at 5:21pm

I'd be much more excited about Shirley Valentine.

[PitPro2004]

Posted: 2/22/10 at 7:40pm

Saw Sarah B. in this show three times, Ann Crumb twice and Ann's understudy Elinor O'Connell once. All three brought something different to the table so it was enjoyable on all accounts.

It's not a bad little show, but it's not a masterpiece either. Sad to say despite how much I had hoped to catch Michael Ball (who was either sick or out for some reason) I tried to get excited over Marcus Lovett but he just killed it for me. Every single time he finished Act I, he cracked the high note. tsk tsk tsk.

[Dantes]

Posted: 2/22/10 at 8:42pm

Watched the recent UK tour 4 nights in a row because i was working at the theatre it was playing and i have to say i wanted to shoot myself.

David Essexwas in the show which led it to having high slaes but out of all the shows i sat through at that venue that one had the biggest amount of interval walk outs. People seemed bored out of their minds.

[goober1632]

Posted: 2/23/10 at 12:48am

YES! One of my favorite ALW scores! Bring back Ruthie Henshall for Rose!