BRIGADOON new adaptation at Regent's Park Open Air Theatre

[Fan123]

Posted: 2/1/25 at 6:35pm

I'm curious as to how this will turn out. The adaptation is by Scottish playwright Rona Munro; in this version, Tommy and Jeff will be World War 2 fighter pilots who crash land in Scotland.

https://openairtheatre.com/production/brigadoon

 

[ErmengardeStopSniveling]

Posted: 2/1/25 at 7:11pm

I love that score and the general idea of the show but the book is awful. Interested to hear how this is.

I liked the Wheeldon production at City Cwnter a great deal. 

[darquegk]

Posted: 2/1/25 at 9:16pm

I feel like there's exactly one really good, really clever moment in the Brigadoon book, and it's so stylistically out of place it plays as a jarring bit of humor. The bar scene at the end, where the survivors keep hearing snatches of conversation that trigger instant short-form reprises of songs from the score, is like a Mel Brooks comedy bit. It's just... in a show that can't sustain that kind of humor at all.

[Fan123]

Posted: 2/1/25 at 9:40pm

^^ In that vein, I did see a production in Australia in which the below exchange got a good laugh, because of its self-awareness about the plot-serving mechanics of the 'miracle':

Tommy: Just for argument's sake, suppose a stranger like... well... me came to Brigadoon and wanted to stay. Could he?

Mr Lundie: Yes, he could. Mr Forsythe provided for that. [audience laugh]

Jeff: He didn't miss a trick, did he? [audience laugh]

(Interestingly, that production also inserted a line about how the miracle was requested to save the town not from witches, but from the English. I'm not sure how common that change is in modern productions.)

Updated On: 2/1/25 at 09:40 PM

[ErmengardeStopSniveling]

Posted: 2/1/25 at 10:09pm

One of the problems of the stage production is Harry Beaton dies of Convenience: he falls on a rock and smashes his head. In the movie Jeff absentmindedly shoots him...which might not be much better than the stage production but is at least a little more interesting. Didn't the City Center production adopt that moment from the film as well?

The other Harry Problem is he has the potential to be the most interesting character, in a Jud Fry sort of way. But he's so thinly written and instead Charlie (a relatively meaningless character) gets two big numbers.

I found an old thread talking about John Guare's revision of BRIGADOON that Rob Ashford was to direct around 2009/2010, but then it fell apart. https://forum.broadwayworld.com/thread/John-Guare-Brigadoon

Updated On: 2/1/25 at 10:09 PM

[ggersten]

Posted: 2/2/25 at 2:49pm

We saw the Brian Hill updated version in 2014 at Goodman Theatre, directed by the late Rachel Rockwell. I just remember being entranced by the whole thing - the soaring vocals, the simple but amazing set and the dances (especially the sword dance) and didn't really pay too much attention to the book. I do recall that the town disappeared to be saved from an English attack in that version. 

[joevitus]

Posted: 2/2/25 at 5:07pm

Making Tommy and Jeff WWII fighter pilots if blindingly stupid. Brigadoon doesn't have a great script, but let it be what it is. It works just fine.

[inlovewithjerryherman]

Posted: 2/2/25 at 5:26pm

ggersten said: "We saw the Brian Hill updated version in 2014 at Goodman Theatre, directed by the late Rachel Rockwell. I just remember being entranced by the whole thing - the soaring vocals, the simple but amazing set and the dances (especially the sword dance) and didn't really pay too much attention to the book. I do recall that the town disappeared to be saved from an English attack in that version."

OMG! This production was INCREDIBLE, I'll never forget it! Jennie Sophia's Fiona was RAPTUROUS; it's stayed with me for all these years 

[Fan123]

Posted: 2/2/25 at 8:23pm

joevitus said: "Making Tommy and Jeff WWII fighter pilots if blindingly stupid."

I don't know; personally the more I think about this idea, the more I think that it could make for an interesting take. Two, presumably at least somewhat traumatised, fighter pilots who crash land and then find themselves in a strangely idyllic town from centuries ago? They would likely suspect, even more strongly than in the original, that they might both be dead or outright insane. Maybe Jeff would never buy into the reality of the situation at all, which might cast some of his actions in a different light; for example, if this version does have him be the one who kills Harry. And it might make a little more sense for Tommy to want to stay in Brigadoon, lack of technology and modern conveniences at all, after what he had presumably just been through in the 'present day'. I mean, it could all go either way. But I am intrigued.