Breakfast At Tiffany's Previews — Page 3

Greenberg has this one and another new play opening at MTC in three weeks. Perhaps the guy overextended himself. Too bad because he can be an excellent writer - certainly more interesting then that silly skit writ wowing (Why?) audiences with his old college pal on 45th Street

The balcony at The Cort is awesome. At least last night you would have had no problem picking any seat you like up there.

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"Because you'd have a hard time convincing anyone with a semblance of a brain in their head that the narration in The Glass Menagerie isn't a) necessary, and b) perfection."

I think there's a big difference between lazy narration and gorgeous soliloquy/monologue. Tom's speeches from Glass Menagerie are definitely the latter.

Yeah, I was gonna pipe in that I'm not sure I'd call Tom's monologues in Glass Menagerie as narration, exactly...

I'm trying to think of cases where narration has worked on stage. Would the bits in Ragtime count? not sure...

I was there last night. Like many here, I found it endless and uninvolving. Emilia Clarke has such a natural, easy presence; I wish she were in a different show.

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Up In One,

The musicals (both versions) are interesting, but very flawed. Have you heard audios of the original or the studio recording with Faith Prince?

Out of town the book was written by Abe Burrows, who was also directing, and the show was called Holly Golightly. The audience wasn't responding well.

Albee was brought in to rewrite the book, but really it was a completely different show. Albee had a City of Angels type thing where "Jeff" was writing a story about Lulamae, but he couldn't get it to work. He decided to change her name to Holly and the story then unfolded as he was writing it. Holly spoke with Jeff and even criticized him when the story didn't go the way she wanted it to. Act One could easily have contained "You're Nothing Without Me," had it been written yet!

I do like "The Home for Wayward Girls," a duet for Holly and Mag, "Who Needs Her?," a lament for Jeff, "You've Never Kissed Her," a beautiful ballad for Doc, and "Same Mistakes," Holly's 11 O'Clock number where she vows she's gonna make the same mistakes all over again. The orchestrations are lush and downright thrilling at times.

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For the actor's sakes, I hope this show does not have the opportunity to be reviewed by critics. (aka it should close in previews to save face)

"macnyc...I actually got the first preview from another similar type of service. Someone told me they wanted to do a sound test with a full house"

Hmmm. That seems kind of pointless. Why not do the sound check with half a house since apparently that will be the way it more commonly plays? And will they change the sound levels at intermission when the house empties out even more?

So now they're hyping the nude scene to get people in the seats

quickest way to get rich, exploit the horniness of men!

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Where have the TDF seats been?

This sounds awful. How disappointing.

"For the actor's sakes, I hope this show does not have the opportunity to be reviewed by critics. (aka it should close in previews to save face) "

Emilia Clarke doesn't have much to worry--she'll be on Game of Thrones till the end (unless something happens to her character within the yet-to-be-written books,) and it can easily be written as a footnote to her young career. Corey Michael Smith might not come off as well, which would be too bad as it's his Broadway debut, but I think, judging from the reaction, the critics won't focus much on the actors when reviewing what doesn't work.

Henrik--great list! I guess this is where my question about whether something counts as narration or rather as commentary. Out of the more modern plays you mention, I'm very familiar with Lemon Sky (one of my favorites) but I wouldn't describe that as narration, the same way I wouldn't describe Tom in Glass Menagerie as narration... But I can see a definite case *for* describing it as such (and certainly with Shaffer's plays.) One thing about those examples is in those cases the audience is aware that the narration is meant to show a very biased point of view. Maybe it's the same with Tiffany's?